Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.


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Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Bad Performances

Re the 12-tone thing, to paraphrase Cage: I have nothing to say, and I’m not saying it, and that is poetry.

To answer one of Judith’s questions from last Thursday: I agree with Beth’s reply from Friday: I have a hard time justifying the cancellation of a performance after hearing the dress rehearsal. I’ve heard bad dress rehearsals lead to good performances, and vice versa.

I suppose we would all have to count ourselves lucky to get as many bad performances as Beethoven has on a daily basis.

I had a performance a few years back by a New York ensemble, for which I wasn’t able to meet with the musicians before the dress rehearsal. When I arrived, I was stunned to discover that they were playing the piece exactly half as fast as the indicated tempo. Despite the slow speed, they were still playing a lot of wrong notes.

It was a potent lesson, for which there is an unassailable axiom: At half tempo, every wrong note lasts twice as long.

I didn’t cancel the performance, but I left the hall and spent the evening in a nearby bar.

But Judith, what are your answers to your questions?

 



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