During a presentation by James Parakilas concerning examples of ambiguous musical notation, I noticed something. Parakilas was discussing the metrical organization in Fauré's tenth barcarolle. A curious hovering syncopation pervades the music. Fauré: Tenth Barcarolle A detail of piano writing in measure 7 corresponds, in my opinion, to the practice of singing an audible final syllable for a French word like "rose." Normally spoken as one … [Read more...]
Homeplace
My grandmother, my father’s mother, had a nonchalant and serious way of saying “homeplace.” She was talking about the family farm where she lived for more than five decades, where members of the Brubaker family had lived for a century. It wasn’t grand. But conveyed in her pronunciation of that word was both great comfort and resignation. I don’t suppose I understand it. There were entire winter months when she stayed there, never venturing off … [Read more...]
Of a piece
When I sit at the piano to play a composed piece I'm matching myself against a pre-determined set of musical requirements. Right? I'm trying to meet expectations or even excel to deliver a faithful account of the composition. If that's true, then one performance can be better than another. A performance with many faults might even fail to represent the piece that's written. What is that faulty music? Can it be overlooked or ignored, put out … [Read more...]