Volume 4 Issue 6 - March 1999

\
Jeanne Lamon
continued from page 4
there is one forte and one piano
given in a movement - which
doesn't mean they played
everything at one volwne level. It
just means we have a Jot more
work to do than when you're
playing something by a late
romantic or a 20th century
composer, where all the information
is on the page. Absolutely
everything is given that can
possibly be written down. So all
you are doing ti1en is reading the
music, in a sense, to the audience.
Yes it is very important and
it can be well read or badly read,
but you don't have a Jot of
leeway. Whereas if you have
different performances of
baroque music, a Brandenburg or
someti1ing, alti1ough the notes
will always be the same, the
tempos, dynamics and character
ofti1e piece will vary enormously.
l11at's a Jot of fun.
Frustrating, but a great deal of
fun.
WholeNote: Do you feel, having
done this for quite some time
now, that you've got inside the
head of at least certain composers?
·
Lamon: Yes, that does happen.
l11ere are some composers who
come up over and over again and
you've studied so many ofti1eir
works that you really feel that
you're quite at home. When you
have a piece of music by Bach in
front of you or a piece by Vivaldi
you think differently. You try to
tl1ink as the composer might have
or one of ti1eir violinists might
have .t110ught. But it is only
"might have" and that's
the unlucky side. It is a broken
tradition and there are so many
questions that remain tmanswered
and can never be answered
with any certainty.
WholeNote: How was it broken?
Lamon: It died out with the
French Revolution and with the
American Revolution, with a Jot
of revolutions .. They were big
watersheds culturally. We always
think of them as purely political
moments but they certainly
changed tl1e face of culture. I
must say there is nothing worse
ti1at could have happened to
French culture· timn the French
Revolution. It seems strange, but
somehow in very repressive
societies you sometimes get the
greatest cultural'achievements.
WholeNote: So how do you
account for the popularity of
baroque music today?
Lamon: Why do people nowadays
prefer Baroque music to
Braluns or Schummm, whose
music is also great music? To a
certain extent that seems to be
the case, m1d in tliat case it is not
a question of quality at all. I
think that we live in a world with
a certain kind of aesthetic m1d I
don't ti1ink people have time to
go through all tl1e layers ti1at it
takes to get to tl1e point in late
Romantic music. Baroque music
is very direct in its emotional
message. It's also short and very
to tl1e point. l11e movements are
short. You cm1 get it in bite size
pieces. People don't have time to
sit down m1d listen to a move-
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Lamon: I think they must. I
mean, we all hear one arrother's
recordings and we all jet-set
armmd the world in a very llll-
baroque way, playing in other
people's home towns, so, of
course there is some cross-
fertilization. Since we're so
isolated in Toronto for us it's
very welcome. I think it's very
difficult for some of the groups in
Europe who are constantly in
is that there is a Jot of cacophony, everybody else's back yard and
a Jot of disorder in our Jives and everybody's in their front yard
contemporary music reflects tilat and it's just too much.
very well, but I don't tilink
There is a certain degree
everybody really wants tllat to which· what we all strive to do
reflected so realistically when is very lofty - to recreate the
ti1ey go to a concert, when they broken tradition - sort oflike
are listening to music to relax. p~ople two hlllldred years from
l11ey wm1t something more now trying to recreate jazz from
orderly, a little more harmonious. sheet music, without the benefit
I think actually we live in of recordings. But in fact it has
a world where spiritual things are been said, and I think there is
not very valued m1d are not more th~ a kernel of truth in it,
talked about or tJ1ought about that ~hat we are doin.g is actually
very much. But I tilink that music creatmg the new mus1c of the late
is a way of touching tile eternal, · 20th cen~. .
t11e infinite. Witi1 all tonal music It s new mus1c for a Jot of
I ti1ink - ti1is is certainly true for' · people, because if they grew up
Mozart and BeetJ1oven _ you feel with baroq~e ~usic at. all they
ti1at you liave touched something ~ew up Wlth.!t .solllldmg very
that is infinite, call it God if you different.. Th1s IS a new so~d,
like. But you know when you new so~d colours - ~e mus1c
play contemporary music it is
solllld~ like new mus1c, wh~n you
harder to hear it ti1at way. I think ha.v~n t ~eard baroque mus1c on
that baroque music fills a certain ongmal ms~ents before. It's
need for something spiritual to got that exc1tement that we've
counterbalance tJ1e rat race and been missing for the frrst half of
tl1e money race m1d all ofti1at
'
Jeanne Lamon,
continues next age
ment ti1at goes on for forty
minutes. A piece that says it all
in a three minute movement,
followed by a two minute
movement followed by m10ti1er
three minute movement is sort of
what people can hm1dle. People's
attention spans are very short.
And I ti1ink that baroque music
(ironically, because it's not for
ti1at reason that it is that way)
just clicks in. It's good on tile
radio-- they don't want people
to change stations. We have an
awful lot of pieces in which each
movement is Jess than tluee
minutes, mm1y one and a half or
two minutes, and the radio
stations just Jove it.
Another reason, maybe,
that the rest of the world is
rmming on.
WholeNote: There s a relatively
small number of period orchestras
in the world today. Do they
influence each other?
~~
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