Snow White & Mahler

[Flosshilde]

A successful ballet is one in which a really good score marries succeessfully with equally good costumes, lighting, sets and - er - oh, yes, dancing as to make the whole work convincingly as a piece conmprising all of those things.

Absolutely agreed, except that the score doesn't neccessarily have to be good - a successful ballet can be made to a not very good score. That aside, I don't understand how you can say the above, & then contradict it by saying

Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde most certainly does not ... require all of those things which would necessarily be "additional" - in the sense of unnecessarily and inappropriately superadded - to any performance of it.

In your first statement you say clearly that a successful ballet marries all those various elements & then say that in 'Das lied von der Erde', which has been widely acclaimed & is clearly a successful ballet, they are additional. Your comments are contradictory.

[ahinton]

Absolutely agreed, except that the score doesn't neccessarily have to be good - a successful ballet can be made to a not very good score. That aside, I don't understand how you can say the above, & then contradict it by saying



In your first statement you say clearly that a successful ballet marries all those various elements & then say that in 'Das lied von der Erde', which has been widely acclaimed & is clearly a successful ballet, they are additional. Your comments are contradictory.

To you, perhaps -and maybe you're right that a good ballet doesn't necessarily have to have a particularly good score, although it helps (just as a bad one can be rescued by a good score as has often been said about the Olivier Henry V movie being rescued by Walton's score)- but that Mahler work already gives more than enough of itself to last a lifetime, so why...

[Serial_Apologist]

To you, perhaps -and maybe you're right that a good ballet doesn't necessarily have to have a particularly good score, although it helps (just as a bad one can be rescued by a good score as has often been said about the Olivier Henry V movie being rescued by Wlaton's score)- but that Mahler work already gives more than enough of itself to last a lifetime, so why...

For some people nothing in its own right suffices...

[ahinton]

For some people nothing in its own right suffices...

For some, it would inded seem, that is indeed true; this is part if not all of the problem that we are encountering here.

[Flosshilde]

What 'problem' are you encountering here?

[ahinton]

What 'problem' are you encountering here?

I'm not encountering it personally and, in any case, it has already been identified very clearly but, for your apparent benefit, I will repeat that we're referring to the problems that can arise when works of art that are self-sufficient then have other ones added to them in order to end up with a result that is in certain particulars different - sometimes quite substantially so - to that which the originator intended.

[Flosshilde]

the originator intended.

Ah - you've discussed it with Mahler, have you?

[ahinton]

Ah - you've discussed it with Mahler, have you?

Do you honestly believe that I would really have had to do so in order to get a pretty reasonable idea of what Mahler intended in his works? And no, for the record, I've not done that - even I'm not old enough to have had such an opportunity but then, had I been, what we're now talking about wouldn't have happened so I'd not have been able to discuss it with him anyway!

Never mind - let's be positive about all of this; Mahler will survive it all comfortably, I'm sure!

[Flosshilde]

What puzzles & interests me is the idea that you believe that a work of art can be so 'sacred' that there can be no interpretations of it, or attempts to understand it or express an idea of its meaning through other means. As far as music is concerned, every performance is a re-creation & interpretation. Each conductor, singer, orchestra, is interpreting it according to their understanding of it. Even someone reading a score - creating the sound in their mind - is creating it anew.

What is also interesting is that you are so arrogant that you can be certain - with no evidence - of what the composer would have wanted.

[MrGongGong]

I'm not encountering it personally and, in any case, it has already been identified very clearly but, for your apparent benefit, I will repeat that we're referring to the problems that can arise when works of art that are self-sufficient then have other ones added to them in order to end up with a result that is in certain particulars different - sometimes quite substantially so - to that which the originator intended.

When one puts a work of art in the world one lets go of it. Some music is "fragile" (Alvin Lucier's for example) and is easily destroyed by "bad" performances other music (Bach's etc ) is much more robust. In putting ones work in the public domain one has to let go of the idea of ones own intentions OR (as in the case of La Monte Young) one is personally involved in the execution of the work. I have had the experience of other people taking parts of things I have composed and doing things with them which I would never do, rather than getting angry or litigious about it I found it more useful to think of it as a compliment EVEN when I really didn't like what was done to my work. Someone might come along in the future and do something utterly brilliant with a piece I have composed , something that I could never conceive of. Why rule this out ?

[ahinton]

What puzzles & interests me is the idea that you believe that a work of art can be so 'sacred' that there can be no interpretations of it, or attempts to understand it or express an idea of its meaning through other means. As far as music is concerned, every performance is a re-creation & interpretation. Each conductor, singer, orchestra, is interpreting it according to their understanding of it. Even someone reading a score - creating the sound in their mind - is creating it anew.

What is also interesting is that you are so arrogant that you can be certain - with no evidence - of what the composer would have wanted.

I don't actually believe what you seek to credit me as believing, I understand as well as anyone about different interpretations of a composer's score and I do not claim to be certain without evidence - even though no such evidence could ever have been forthcoming in ths present case, given the timings of events - about a particular composer's intentions, but I do know for a fact that something which was only thought about and came to pass many decades after those composer's intentions were first realised and long after the composer's death can hardly be said to be "what he/she intended" or even in accordance therewith. I'm not even saying that such things can in principle never work or deserve any value to be attached thereto - merely that the assumption (and this really IS arrogant) that anyone can append what they want to certain works by Mahler - a very particular composer when his intentions were concerned - and expect the results to be accepted without question. Whilst I cannot and do not purport to speak for anyone else, I will say (however flawed the comparative analogy might seem) that anyone who'd sought to create, for example (however bad an example it might be) a dance performance out of my string quintet that had nothing whatsoever to do with what its music's supposed to convey would have done it against - or in disregard of - the composer's intentions and quite why it is that you seem either unwilling or unable or both to see that such activity can create gravely misleading impressions of both the original and the appendage is beyond me.

[ahinton]

When one puts a work of art in the world one lets go of it. Some music is "fragile" (Alvin Lucier's for example) and is easily destroyed by "bad" performances other music (Bach's etc ) is much more robust. In putting ones work in the public domain one has to let go of the idea of ones own intentions OR (as in the case of La Monte Young) one is personally involved in the execution of the work. I have had the experience of other people taking parts of things I have composed and doing things with them which I would never do, rather than getting angry or litigious about it I found it more useful to think of it as a compliment EVEN when I really didn't like what was done to my work. Someone might come along in the future and do something utterly brilliant with a piece I have composed , something that I could never conceive of. Why rule this out ?

Indeed - and I wouldn't in principle - but that fact does not, cannot and indeed should not blind anyone to the fact that such efforts might well mislead and end up detracting not only from the original music but also from what is appended thereto, as though whoever decided to try to do it has fallen foul of the risk of creating a mutually incompatible product to the ultimate disavantage of both the original and the appendage.

[doversoul1]

Balanchine's Jewels or Sinfonietta (Re: Il Grande Inquisitor #29) are expression of the dancer’s response to the music but the ballet in question is not an interpretation of Mahler’s music but it’s about the story of Snow White and Mahler’s music is used almost for the convenience. I have not seen the ballet so I cannot comment on the performance but I find that a lot of interpretations of fairy tales in any forms are far too, well, over-interpreted to the point of indulgence.

[ed. I have edited out the first and the last part from my original post as I now have read ahinton’s latest post]

[MrGongGong]

Mr GG
I think those who are objecting to this performance are doing so not because they believe Mahler may have objected (thay may as well) but it is because the music they have taken to heart, so to speak, is being messed about.

There is a simple solution to this
don't go
don't listen


I personally find "theatrical" performances of 4:33" cringeworthy so would avoid going to hear them
some other music that I would hold as very precious I would think carefully about going to hear, who wants to hear a youth orchestra performing Atmospheres ?

[doversoul1]

There is a simple solution to this
don't go
don't listen


I personally find "theatrical" performances of 4:33" cringeworthy so would avoid going to hear them
some other music that I would hold as very precious I would think carefully about going to hear, who wants to hear a youth orchestra performing Atmospheres ?

Mr GG
You were too quick (or I was too slow)
A sound advice but I suppose there are things that make your blood boil just to think about it.