Eastman School of Music - Score Yearbook (Rochester, NY)

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S 3 x i f----, E HY Consciousness lfbidz he tabulates l The performance err the most mun- ith the inevitabili- theri boring, asl l's eling Mr. Hend 'nd slip' felt my mi rational tl1oughlS htlie g out tlrroug anesthesia. l WJS ll-loved friendil ice, in whiCl1llme Melissa 50l'l

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t rn Ar S ' - i - or Q fgaex ' i iii. L ct'-ti Nj' A L aww: 'X ' X fxk, f fy-Qx'ilQl m yi fx'-fi--H - . W I' -W , ,W W... ,, i mtv in iz ruin.-: Cleorig Iiricdricli Ilandcl ylht 1.a:.il'.i:i Xiiriji .-,,.r. 1... ,it lean Rix XML ilfit I iiilt' X Nltxlu x ICT .tl ,k,.. My i' y.-xl. lolianncs NI WVU Xdaygzo , . .. X. I c not Urns I: Brahms IX .. YC. . UNMC .ii-. Before a maior performance, a musician often experiences an extraordinary.consc1ousneSS of himself and of the passage of time.The fascination with time is almost morbid: he tabulates weeks and minutes as if he were budgetting his final moments before death. The performanCf3 lurks behind every thought, creating a self-consciousness which makes even the most mun- dane daily affairs seem strange. In the days before my concerto, time slowed greatly, I became obsessed with the inevitabili- ties of its approach. My relentless self-consciousness became exasperating, then boring, 35 I wished only to get the damn thing over with. I When I had only minutes left, suffering reed, and endurance paranoia, feeling Mr. I-Iendl S hand on my arm and hearing his slow and quiet reassurances, I suddenly felt my mind sl1P' ping away. The performance itself was a purging of self-consciousness. My rational thouSht5 were gone. I perceived only that my ego had finally left me and was passing out through the horn. .-'xfter my piece I wandered around rather lost, as if I had come out from anesthesia. I WSIS wide-eyed and bemused, struggling for a familiar sense of reality. Gradually I came down into a most secure atmosphere of family and well-loved friends. I telt silly to think I had taken the phenomenon so seriously. -differ fmiflg an GXPGFIGHCS, I was glad to slip back into an ordinary existence, in which time passed rapidly and inconsequentially. Melissa Bohl 28

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li..' r,,,, I l Music Critics Symposium December 8-12 ,r f X Q 1 L A 4 -.L W l I' -,ie ,inf-3 Q 4 i W qv.. 1. x . -,f-,1- .J 3 . IQ... J .1 ...va ' . R.: What can musical criticism accomplish for its readers? We are not as we are so often described, watchdogs of the public taste, guardians against error and backsliding from the true, the good, and the beautiful, at all events we are not merely that. More than a hundred years ago Charles Baudelaire put the The Art of the American Popular Singer Critics identify themselves with, support and even encourage the artists arrogant, self-indulgent attitudes. And they bear, as a professional group, a considerable degree of responsibility for the gulf that now separates art and society '.., tIn a criticl I would be looking for intelligence and literary talent rather than expertise. I would want com- mentary, rather than adjudication The good artist doesnt need an intermediary. Communication is his business - or should be. The critic's business is to comment upon and evaluate his achievements as a 3 5 l ' l , ' .. ' .iw .f Ii 1 '-I y-,-..-.x'R ' 'ng- . Q 1 A V ' g , ,. c iilli xc case, with the concision of genius, in exactly seven words. In speaking of his criticism, he said 'I aim to transform pleasure into recognitionf This is an ideal toward which we all can af- ford to strive. Alfred Frankenstein - San Francisco Chronicle - Q... 1 'qi 5 C ' 2 communicator . . . In the assessment of new music particularly, the professional critic has tended to side with the composer as a fellow professional against the hostile or indifferent lay listener . . . As criticism, his work has paid a priC9 in loss of perspective and detachment for what it has gained in expertise . . . I believe that the specialist critic, whether amateur or professional, tends to become an unrepresentative member of the audience. I-Ie hears too much. I-Ie l4noWS too much. And he becomes, inevitably, too pOW2ffUl and too influential . , Henry Pleasants - International Herald Tribune ,qhe bell Fof 'I listen 'r0Und or llenl Of tho f1And ab' erforl Whatet l mal tance' W to 0119 P caSC to leSSl0nal hl ,The C1'l hag to CXPI however ll' and Person The CU iablishmen rhrowS OU' ment - tllii B 'x