tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993045826856544697.post2583045065126404531..comments2023-12-19T09:49:33.560+00:00Comments on streams of expression: Pisaro / Nishikaze in Hackney: A Subjective Reportdavid_grundyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09822972751622883772noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993045826856544697.post-75221046364956475492013-10-23T13:24:22.292+01:002013-10-23T13:24:22.292+01:00Certainly that's a risk: I think what I liked ...Certainly that's a risk: I think what I liked about this particular performance was that the 'virtuoso gesture' was - if it was this at all - an extremely tempered version of the kind of jokey showing-off (which could pose both as virtuosity or anti-virtuosity, or virtuosity posing as anti-virtuosity, etc) which I associate with a certain kind of Fluxus mode (something obviously with a totally different inflection in its original context, but somehow not really possible in the same way now). While I suppose my problem with the anti-virtuoso, workmanlike 'families of rice droppers' is of a kind of hierarchical approach in which the hired monkey musicians translate some composerly magic into existence without the sense of mediation that the quasi-virtuoso performance display introduces; though equally, yes, that virtuosity could risk a different(?) kind of magical, fetishized 'transformation of the everyday'.david_grundyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09822972751622883772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6993045826856544697.post-35709413570008588662013-10-22T16:54:18.522+01:002013-10-22T16:54:18.522+01:00“All these approaches are equally ‘valid’, and the...“All these approaches are equally ‘valid’, and the delight of a piece like this is watching that aspect of interpretation so obviously and yet unobtrusively provided for and foregrounded. I mean, in that sense, it’s not that different to the pleasures and struggles of Richter or Glenn Gould.”<br />Ah yes, that’s very true, though I enjoy it much less than you seem to. The virtuoso gesture, selling us the miracle of an athleticism transforming the little black dots on paper into pure soul; the poetic performative gesture transforming unmusical activities into an aesthetic meditation on the everyday (or whatever). One might even argue that in such Fluxus-like pieces, or new music with sufficient downtimes to require a formulated show of patience from the musician, we approach a state of pure virtuoso posturing (traditionally the enemy of taste at least since Paganini). I wish it were all more workmanlike, families of rice droppers five generations down.<br />Lutz Eitelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18265424358386584255noreply@blogger.com