George Malcolm on Authenticity
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    Was browsing through the Internet Archive when I came across the following lecture by George Malcolm, a man whose talents and merits are much too neglected in circles of our nowadays, I feel.

    To sum up: The idea of being totally faithful to some abstract idea of "what the composer had in mind" is only a relatively modern concept, and something that authors of their respective time periods had no intention of holding to the artists. If you ask me, Malcolm seems as much an opponent of 'antiquarianism' as Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei. Perhaps Pio Duodecimo had more than just the liturgy in mind when he wrote that encyclical?

    Well, listen for yourself. Malcolm expresses much more succinctly and eloquently what I'm trying to get at. And you gotta love his self-censorship at points!

    Thanked by 6MichaelDickson eft94530 noel jones, aago francis Incardination CGM
  • MichaelDickson
    Posts: 419
    A similarly-minded lecture:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idqqnG3Q5xo

    (Christopher Hogwood -- "The Past is a Foreign Country")
    Thanked by 6M. Jackson Osborn eft94530 StimsonInRehab noel jones, aago francis Incardination
  • francis
    Posts: 10,827
    As a composer, I would just add that you, the performer, will bring to life the black and white scribbles that I have put on paper. You are the other half of the creative process. Don't EVER think that my interpretation (as the composer) is the only one, and that you are to be the robot that reproduces exactly what "I" have intended. Because, what I have intended is to perform my own interpretation of what was given to me by the muse, however, the scribbles may contain much more than I am able to give to you.

    This is true with THE chant just as much as Phillip Glass.

    Explore, decide, develop and REcreate what is in front of you.

    This is why I say any music can be played on any instrument (if it is truly excellent music). Bach can be performed on ANY organ with beautiful results, IF you are an artist who is capable of making that transposition possible.

    Never lock yourself into the mentality that there is the 'best' way to perform a work, or a more enlightened path to its purity. It is foolish to think so.

    JMTC
    Thanked by 4MichaelDickson Incardination StimsonInRehab kenstb
  • MichaelDickson
    Posts: 419
    This is why I say any music can be played on any instrument

    Sure you want to stand by that claim? (purple)
  • francis
    Posts: 10,827
    you may not like it, and it may be cheesy and unartisitc, but it works.

    One of the comments after my own sentiment:

    Lord Vivec
    2 years ago
    Bach works on any instrument.

  • JonathanLCJonathanLC
    Posts: 75
    I prefer Bach on Floppy Drive, myself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_BeGDkNRtA&t=0s&list=PL44C2614808EB920E&index=41
  • francis
    Posts: 10,827
    This is amazing

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XKRj-T4l-e8
    Thanked by 1Drake
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