Should classical music aspire to the condition of theater?

Theater Conventions have been different from the get-go, that being the 'Tradition' of theater. Shakespeare was performed in modern dress, as were Monteverdi, Mozart and Handel Operas. (The music, at the time, was modern, so played, LOL, in the modern style.) I don't know at what point in theater history it was that 'period' costumes became de rigeur - but would guess the Romantic era, with its propensity for sentimental tourism and glamorizing the past, other eras, and the 'exoticism' of other times and places would be where to first look for that shift having taken place.

Many an older opera, play or ballet has been staged in a completely 'modern' setting, a Mozart opera, for example, as staged by Peter Sellars ~ but I have yet to hear of a radically "re-interpreted" musical delivery of the same, at least one which has 'worked.'

I'm sure one could do a very different performance of older repertoire, outside of expected practice, within the context of dance, however, which could work. Outside of it's context, I don't know if it would be worthwhile or even interesting to listen to.

But this question seems to be a very strong and running personal theme / bugbear of yours. It often seems you have more than a bit of resistance to and rancor about performing classical music as a "reproductive performer." It has already been made clear in argument, and by your example, that the differences in performing classical era musics do not allow for a huge latitude of style variant. I would argue that within those parameters are universes of difference, including whether the piece sounds at all like it should or not, or whether it succeeds or doesn't.

What I don't understand is an apparent resistance to having 'signed up' as a reproductive performer (if you have) and then bridling at the known expectations of the craft.

I wonder, somewhat antagonistically, 'how much you really hear' if you can make such a statement that the only differences between Korsantia and Emanuel Ax performing Brahms "amounts to slight variations in tempo and articulation." It reads more like a built-in statement of your agenda to disagree with the premise of reproductive performance, as if for you it is such a heavily freighted issue that you are compelled to discount those very different performers and performances just to favor your argument.

There are OCEANS of latitude within the parameters of rendering one composer and their music while staying within the appropriate style. After multiple serial posts over the past few years where your seem to contest -- protest against -- that, I truly wonder if you recognize or hear those differences, or more likely have a personal 'tic' wherein you feel too personally 'subsumed' when so doing. (IMHO, it sounds more like a youthful ego concern vs. a real question about real art. ~ the current vogue for glamorizing 'self-expression' being accountable for that which has skewed the value and taste judgment about art for now at least one American generation.)

If you just can't stand being a reproductive performer, which all fully written-out music pretty much requires, you should instead choose only music where a great deal is left up to the performer - 'indeterminate' music (in its many academic permutations), or Jazz - about which the convention of a great difference from performance to performance and performer to performer is expected.

Stravinsky battled with stylistic manners of orchestras half his life, his work far too often being rendered with all hallmarks of Romantic era delivery - I doubt if the Maestro would appreciate 'another' interpretation of his work - his work, his writing, his right.

Of course, those who are not fully satisfied with any of it, really, turn to composing so they can (it is to be hoped) hear what they want to hear as they want to hear it. But then the chicken and egg proposition rears its ugly head - as the author, what will you expect and require of those who perform it? (Ahem and Aha....)

Best regards.

JoshuaCharles: to your comment of Haydn sul pont or Luigi with the piano harp plucked; there is plenty of music which requires those techniques, so what would be the point? 'This' matter of interpretive constraint has come up from you many times, none of them ever accompanied by more specifics, or best, an audio, of that which you speak. Haydn sul pont or col legno? Done a thousand times over as a fun, funny or interesting take on Haydn, usually within the context of academia or a tight circle of musicians. - I wonder if 'the public' would find it fun, funny or interesting. Do enough to a piece, it is a re-invent anyway ~ ergo ~ something else then clearly to not be criticized as outside the parameter of usual interpretive expectations. So what, and where, is the problem?

In both theater and music, it depends a lot on what the writer of the work specified. Shakespeare can be done in a myriad of different ways because he didn't use a lot of stage directions, so anything other than the dialogue can be interpreted and realized in various ways. More modern playwrights often write similar to this style...usually with a little more direction, but not dictating everything a performer must do.

Generally, music is much more specific about what the performer needs to do, but there are exceptions. For example, music in Shakespeare's time (and extending through the Baroque period) utilized figured bass for lutes and keyboards. This notation gave the performer the bass line and chord indications, but everything else (melody, voicings) was completely up to the performer. This is part of the reason Bach was known for being able to improvise: All keyboard players were expected to be able to improvise. Also, canons (especially repeated canons like rounds) often had some interpretation to be done, such as how many times to repeat or just how many voices to use.

Throughout the years, composers have been more and more specific about what musicians need to do. They started writing out the keyboard parts. They started using diminuendo and crescendo marks. They started telling violin players to bow in certain ways, and use certain parts of the bow. They started telling people details as far as what order the players should sit. This is all done to achieve various effects, and books upon books have been written on most of these decisions.

I don't know enough about its history to say with any certainty, but I expect a similar trend has happened in theater. Certainly with film scripts the stage directions are very specific (though still open to interpretation by the director and actors). Theater is definitely more open to interpretation than music, simply because of what the playwright does NOT include in the script.

To answer your question...I don't think so. If certain composers want to start using figured bass again, or leaving more interpretation up to the performer, they can do so. But as a general whole, the music community shouldn't march toward this idea. As a composer myself, when I write I often have a specific sound I want to hear, and I try to convey this as clearly as possible so that it happens how I want it.

Classical music *is* theatre, always has been and always will. Theatre is 'to come before the people'. So Music has nothing to aspire to in the sense you propose: it's already there and always has been.

You seem, instead, to be tussling with 'production' -- a notoriously fickle, fashion led, and promiscuous undertaking -- one which would have 'plucked' B'hoven sonatas to 'gather the crowds' -- public hangings once historically had the same effect, it has been reported.

> differences between Alexander Korsantia and Emanuel Ax performing Brahms

> amount to slight variations in tempo and articulation

And mere (musical) bookkeeping reveals even less, as you have already found.

How about re-evaluating the tree your barking up against...?

All the best,

I love classical music, but only if it's epic! Like Ecstasy of Gold by Ennio Morricone or Lux Aeterna or Escape by Craig Armstrong, haha I'm a nerd XP

It already happens. No two performances of any given piece are the same. Perhaps the interpretational differences between performances are more subtle than those of theatre productions, but they're there, make no mistake.