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Performer & composer, viewed sideways
By Nicholas | October 25, 2008
Since my last post I gave a performance in France of the pieces from “Hamlet”, and have developed a new chapter in my teaching to coincide with our move to the brand new building of the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, in Benfica. I am now researching the question of interior listening in the context of 3 different classes - those of improvisation, aural training for singers, and score reading. At the same time I am beginning a new group experiment in improvisation for instrumentalists.
Here, after a long pause, are the two other texts from 1999 of which I spoke in my last post.
2. NOT THE SAME PIECE
When a musician sits and plays a piece of Schubert
it is not the same piece which Schubert wrote.
When he wrote it, it was not an object but a process,
through which he gave feeling to the world;
but with the passage of time it became an object,
the object of manipulation.
Feeling is universal - it belongs to us all.
Schubert speaks for us all,
and if we attribute certain feelings to Schubert
it is because we are afraid to own them ourselves,
preferring to handle them through the filter of history.
Is it possible for a player to play without manipulation?
That depends on his motivation.
His sincerity must match Schubert’s sincerity,
and then maybe Schubert can help him to express himself.
3. ART THE DICTATOR
Art is the dictator when the dead artist rules.
When the dead artist rules, there can be no question.
There can be no question so one must obey.
The reward of obedience is beauty.
Beauty without obedience is false.
Beauty belongs to the dead artist.
Beauty belongs to the past.
The present is ugly because we are ugly.
The present is ugly because it is the present.
The past was beautiful.
We do not deserve the past.
That is why we are living now.
The living artist seeks self-worth.
He knows the dead artist rules.
So naturally he must rule too.
He rules through his art.
So his art is dead before it is born.
Anything else would be questionable.
Beauty is questionable.
Questions are dangerous.
Answers are dangerous.
Answers imply understanding.
To be understood is to be vulnerable.
It is better to die first.
© 1999 Devil’s Advocate
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