DMB
28 Mar 2009, 11:04 PM
I guess this will be of interest only to classical music fans.
I was driving to go shopping this afternoon and as usual my radio was tuned to France Musique. They were broadcasting a series of masterclasses and one I heard part of was about a violin sonata of Mozart. The master (I never heard who it was) was stopping the student for every phrase and looking at it in minute detail. I am not technically proficient in any instrument, so I didn't understand all the detail, though on the whole it did seem as though the interpretation improved as a result of his input.
But then I started wondering. How far back does this tradition of master classes go?
Particularly in pre-recording times, how effective would it be in passing on a style of playing down the generations?
Should such a thing even be attempted? I think of the parallel example of the D'oyley Carte company, who performed the original Gilbert and Sullivan operettas under the direction of W.S. Gilbert and who then preserved Gilbert's stage directions and business with great fidelity until the copyright finally expired, and whose performances grew more and more fossilised.
And thinking back to Mozart's day, would anyone ever have given such detailed attention the work when it was first performed? We know that Mozart dashed off a lot of his works in a hurry, so I doubt that there would often have been much time for such leisurely consideration of each phrase.
I was driving to go shopping this afternoon and as usual my radio was tuned to France Musique. They were broadcasting a series of masterclasses and one I heard part of was about a violin sonata of Mozart. The master (I never heard who it was) was stopping the student for every phrase and looking at it in minute detail. I am not technically proficient in any instrument, so I didn't understand all the detail, though on the whole it did seem as though the interpretation improved as a result of his input.
But then I started wondering. How far back does this tradition of master classes go?
Particularly in pre-recording times, how effective would it be in passing on a style of playing down the generations?
Should such a thing even be attempted? I think of the parallel example of the D'oyley Carte company, who performed the original Gilbert and Sullivan operettas under the direction of W.S. Gilbert and who then preserved Gilbert's stage directions and business with great fidelity until the copyright finally expired, and whose performances grew more and more fossilised.
And thinking back to Mozart's day, would anyone ever have given such detailed attention the work when it was first performed? We know that Mozart dashed off a lot of his works in a hurry, so I doubt that there would often have been much time for such leisurely consideration of each phrase.