Brahms: Quintet for Clarinet and Strings Op.115

I've been thinking recently about how as musicians, we can get so caught up in the technical aspects of music, that we forget the true purpose of music! We can sell ourselves out by forgetting the true music.

This is not good, in my opinion.

I heard Kenneth John Grant (clarinet) play the Brahms Quintet for Clarinet and Strings Op.115 and I sat there in awe of just the MUSIC. Not the "ooh, wow, that is technically brilliant!" appreciation of music. The type of appreciation where it was almost as if they were speaking something through the music. It was refreshing to just enjoy that sensation of music. The second movement was very sad, almost like saying goodbye to a long-time friend. Quite moving.

I say all of that to say this: we as musicians should every so often take a step back and evaluate how we appreciate music. Technical proficiency is a great thing to enjoy in a performance, but I think it should be balanced, if not given a bit lesser weight than what the composer has written.

Let me approach the issue with a different bit of an angle. What has stood the test of time? How the player plays or the content of the music? I would argue that the content of the music is what has stood the test of time. Therefore we need to appreciate both how the player plays and what is being performed.

I have just had this thought again, and I have been refreshed by it. I have found that I can reach this level of appreciation quickly by closing my eyes in a live performance until I am concentrating on the music only. Then when I open them, I am not focusing on the technical aspects as much.

FYI, Kenneth Grant was BRILLIANT. Wow. He definitely is a master of the clarinet. I appreciated his playing and musicianship greatly. His technique was at such an outstanding level that it was so easy to hear music and not his technical fluency. I do not mean this post to criticize him in any way. He was fabulous.

Just a few thoughts.

As Beethoven wrote in the Missa Solemnis, "From the heart it has come. To the heart may it go."