I've been thinking about interpretation on and off since this previous post on the subject, and Allan Kozinn's New York Times essay, in which he compares Schoenberg performances by Boulez and Barenboim, has provided more food for thought.
But what was particularly striking was that the two conductors took interpretive approaches to Schoenberg that were poles apart: Mr. Boulez’s readings prized delicacy and transparency; Mr. Barenboim’s, raw power and heft. Both were highly personalized approaches, though you could argue that Mr. Boulez, by clarifying Schoenberg’s scoring details and structure, was offering something close to a literalist view, and that Mr. Barenboim, by magnifying the vigor he found in the music, was bending the music more overtly to his will.
This reminded me of a quote from Serge Koussevitzky, who felt that even performances that attempted to follow the score to the letter were influenced by the personality of the interpreter, sort of like the same beam of light passing through prisms of different shapes and sizes.
Nowadays we can often hear "authorities" exclaim, in reviewing a performance: "Let the music speak for itself!" The danger of this maxim lies in its paving the way for mediocrities who simply play a piece off accurately and them maintain that they "let the music speak for itself." Such a statement is not right, in any event, because a talented artist renders a work as he conceives it, according to his own temperament and insight, no matter how painstakingly he follows the score markings. And the deeper the interpreter's insight, the greater and more vital the performance.
He continues, articulating the two disparate approaches of Boulez and Barenboim.
A perfect rendition of a work can have two different aspects which are equally faithful to the score. One part can be called mechanically perfect, the other organically perfect. The first gives the listener the beauty of mathematical balance, symmetry and clarity, the second the complete, vital, pulsing elan vital of the composition.
Perhaps a bit too cut-and-dry, but I think he has a point: there is no such thing as objectivity in musical interpretations.
Comments