Monday, October 15, 2007

Sobering thought for the day


"A wrong note is a lie."
Hugo Kauder (1888-1972)
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3 comments:

Peter (the other) said...

Hmmm, might that fellows wig be on a bit too tight? In the studio, I used to joke, "once is a mistake, twice is a style." But... can he improvise? To me, there is something in the experience of both making, and listening to music that involves a quality that some might label spiritual. This state is something that transcends "wrong" notes. A monkey can play the black dots perfectly, and all too much it seems I hear those kind of performances. The other kind is god given, and god don't play no stinkin' wrong notes, no matter what the composer might think ("stinking copyist harumph") ;-)

16/10/07 2:00 AM
Elaine Fine said...

Ah, but Kauder was a fantastic composer who wrote counterpoint like Bach--really (there is a recording that just came out of his first four string quartets on Centaur, but he has 300 or so other pieces that have never been professionally recorded). I imagine that Kauder could improvise four-part fugues, and I imagine that what came out of of his head on the spot was as beautiful and moving as what he put on paper.

16/10/07 7:05 AM
Peter (the other) said...

I guess I find the word "lie" too harsh, as it has moral implications, in my book anyway. I have found that sometimes there is little connection between great music and great humans. Maybe it is just the recovery from my protestant-jewish background, I recoil from the judgmental, unless I am tempted to excercise my own (but I am not opinionated... no... I swear... :-)

16/10/07 8:05 PM

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