tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post2390996347489358130..comments2024-03-26T15:57:13.443+00:00Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Does it serve the music or does it serve the ego?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-8911695313340166012013-03-30T06:27:10.693+00:002013-03-30T06:27:10.693+00:00I think the need to subjugate the ego is at the he...I think the need to subjugate the ego is at the heart of Claudio Arrau's article 'A Performer Looks at Psychoanalysis', written for High Fidelity in 1967 and reprinted in Joseph Horowitz's Conversations with Arrau. I've been banging on about the primacy of that need for a long time, and I do find that many people are baffled by it at first. They often think that it means to be without ego at all, and thus a sort of vacuous entity.<br /><br />The key here is to make clear the distinction between the healthy ego and the bad, and usually it can be made clear with one illustration. It requires ego for a pianist to appear at Carnegie Hall in a recital entirely of Beethoven sonatas and, to boot, let's say like the late Charles Rosen's recitals of the 'Waldstein' plus three of the late sonatas, the 'Hammerklavier' included. If the ego involved is healthy, the pianist will have undertaken this because he/she truly believes they have something to say about the sonatas while in performance subjugating all ego in service to the composer, the music, and the audience. This is what Rosen did, and in their time titans of the order of Arrau, Solomon, either Fischer, et al.<br /><br />If the ego involved is that bad one, either the performances will reveal nothing whatever to the audience, nothing beyond the notes, or, and worse, the music will be subjugated to the pianist's ego, which is saying only see how fast I can play this Allegro (no matter that the composer added 'Non Troppo'), can you hear these hidden lines I've discovered (though putative 'hidden lines' inevitably detract from the main line, those long main lines that Solomon was famous for and the secret of which Cherkassky, of all pianists, tried to learn from Solomon in the late 1950) -- in sum, distortions of any sort as the pianist of unhealthy ego tries to claim the work as 'his/her own'.<br /><br />Thinking of Lyle's comment, perhaps one might say that there is the 'self-cherishing ego' and the 'other-cherishing ego'.<br /><br />A very happy Easter weekend to you and the family, Bob. Philip Amoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11739418522974972567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-71950398806808140672013-03-28T14:13:01.785+00:002013-03-28T14:13:01.785+00:00Yes billoo, there are many wonderful Sufi sayings....Yes billoo, there are many wonderful Sufi sayings.<br /><br />One that I came across while in Morocco is particularly relevant to classical music today:<br /><br />'If you can be fooled, you will be.'Pliablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10616598845886342325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-39344121043678580512013-03-28T13:43:13.152+00:002013-03-28T13:43:13.152+00:00Lovely post, Pli.
Do not give me scissors, a Sufi...Lovely post, Pli.<br /><br />Do not give me scissors, a Sufi said, but a needle; I do not cut, but weave.<br /><br />Salams,<br /><br />b.billoohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10716970909272480118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-4699780189806218532013-03-28T12:07:03.976+00:002013-03-28T12:07:03.976+00:00Lyle, thanks for that.
I was very mindful when w...Lyle, thanks for that. <br /><br />I was very mindful when writing the post that another great knowledge tradition - Buddhism - also stresses the subjugation of the ego. But introducing that into the narrative clouded things rather, so I restricted the discussion to Sufism. <br /><br />There is so much to learn from the perennialists who embraced all these great wisdom traditions, and I will return to the subject - in the context of Tibetan Buddhism in fact - in a future post. Pliablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10616598845886342325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-88291933334542032442013-03-28T12:00:10.768+00:002013-03-28T12:00:10.768+00:00This is a wonderful post - cuts to the heart of th...This is a wonderful post - cuts to the heart of the matter. Reminds me of that great phrase the Tibetan lamas often use for that quality of ego you're talking about here - "the self-cherishing ego".Lyle Sanford, RMThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11312150272934828223noreply@blogger.com