I agree. "Self" and "Ego" seem to have accquired only negative
connotations. Personally I would hope, rather than effacing my ego, to
identify my 'self' as broadly as possible. An egotist can be a good,
helpful and useful individual. People who are always apologising or
self-effacing (I have been guilty of this too) are not ego-less, by any
means, their ego is merely identified with something other than the
stereotype.
I certainly perform to challenge *me* and to please *me* and to add to the
public idea of *me* as something worth encountering. I have no intentions
of "serving" the music. I am as big and wonderful as it is, and if it is
something I have chosen it is because I love it and want to somehow
communicate to others why it is so good. I hate those performances which
are thin and note-literal where the executant cowers under the umbrella of
"composer's intentions". The notes and words are only a starting point,
just as the words of even Shakespeare need the imagination of great actors
to breathe life into them.
I want to hear/see performers who are willing to be *BIG*, who left their
apologies at the door, and are willing to revel in their bigness in public,
setting an example that allows each audience member to be vicariously
*big*, because I have not stinted, in the name of false humility.
The great composers were *big*; the reason I dare to present their work is
because I am *big* too.
Probably someone already wrote an opera where the principal characters are
always apologising to one another, and lapsing into embarrassed silences,
in which the climax is a duet where two protagonists sing about how
unworthy they are to be singing, and imploring the audience to leave, and
in whose score are markings like "with an ugly tone throughout" "with
suspect intonation" "do not project" "show no character" "with a
sine-tone-like sound" "boringly" "ever more boringly". It would have had
one performance, given with great and literal earnestness, probably in
Sweden or Canada, after which the score and parts would have been lost
because the composer got his grant and didn't care after that. john
...>I think modern society has some really big hangups about people
>expressing self love and doing things solely because it gives them
>pleasure. There is an implicit assumption that the act must have a
>detremental effect on others because it is 'self centred'. However, if
>a person doesn't understand what gives them pleasure how can they know
>what gives pleasure to others.
>
>Kevin
John Blyth
Baritono robusto e lirico
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
|
|  |
