Thursday, February 12, 2004

Can they play him on a kazoo?

Lynn Sislo links a guy named Erik who says this:

I still think that those who publicly play Bach and Scarlatti on a piano should be branded and flogged.

Well, ummmmm....why? Yeah, I know, from a musicological perspective, the harpsichord is the appropriate instrument. But for one thing, pianos are a lot easier to come by these days; and more importantly, if pianists can't play Bach, what about brass quintets? or symphony orchestras, in the case of those transcriptions Leopold Stokowski did?

Similarly, should Liszt's piano transcriptions of orchestral repertoire be disavowed? Should concert bands and wind ensembles no longer be permitted to perform band transcriptions of classic orchestral works?

Music is a fluid art. It doesn't do well when placed under rigid constraints.

EDIT: Link fixed, and thus rendered non-useless.

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