Barnaby Thieme's Page

Joseph Kerman's omnivorous, affectionate attitude toward music has a decisive impact on my appreciation of the art. Never one to shy away from critical engagement, Kerman nonetheless conveys an expansive enthusiasm in his writing, always alert for new ways to appreciate more. Consider this discussion of the "period instruments" debate:

"What would you rather hear - a great performance on modern instruments, or a fair-to-middling performance on historical instruments? People in the 'tradi… Continue

"The composer was expected to participate in and direct his own music. Wider executive powers were conferred at the court of the Sun King on the frivolous Florentine, Jean-Baptiste Lully, who held a lifetime monopoly over opera productions in Paris and absolute mastery over the royal chapelle. A fine violinist and a fabulous dancer, he disdained waving a bow or tapping a foot to beat time, but stood in front of the band and banged heavily on the floor with a wooden staff, a practice that would b… Continue

"All audible sound is given us for the sake of harmony, which has motions akin to the orbits in our soul, and which, as anyone who makes intelligent use of the arts knows, is not to be used, as is commonly thought, to give irrational pleasure, but as a heaven-sent ally in reducing to order and harmony any disharmony in the revolutions within us. Rhythm, again, was given from the same heavenly source to help us in the same way, for most of us lack measure and grace."

Comment: We have learned a t… Continue

In Joseph Kerman's fascinating and wide-ranging essay collection Write All These Down he pauses to consider the place of Schoenberg in twentieth century music.

"Schoenberg's really decisive insight," Kerman opines, "was to conceive of a way of continuing the great tradition while negating what everyone else to be at its very core, namely, tonality. He grasped the fact that what was central to the ideology was not the triad and tonality, as Schenker and Tovey believed, but organicism."

T… Continue