While awaiting further public response, I thought I would make some general observations on the topic of "interpretation".
My wife and I had a friend who taught children piano. She invited us to a recital, and we went. It was an excruciating experience, not because they could not play the notes, or keep the meter, or follow the simple rhythm, but because they knew nothing of phrasing, or syncopation, or stress (as opposed to length) in rhythm, or tonal modulation, or even tempo. All of the children, from beginners to her moderately advanced students, leeched all of the music out of the pieces they were playing. I realized, to a degree I never had before, how little of what is needed to make a piece work is written on the sheet, how much is interpretation.
That reminded me of something I had experienced in classes at St. John's: people who could more or less read the words and understand them, but had no ability to "hear them", to catch rhythm or tone, to know where the emphasis was, or when the author was being wry, or when there was a meaningful hesitation indicating that something was being put forth advisedly. People who had no appreciation of context, and did not know the difference between a play and an essay. People who had no idea of connotation, and therefore could not grasp overtones and secondary meanings. One is supposed to stick close to the text, but mere literalism leeches out too much meaning....... |
