Imagine that in some musical work, the third horn player had to execute a particular theme (or fragment of a theme) 36 times in performing the work.
If he gets the rhythm of that phrase wrong the first time out, odds are things aren't going to go to well for him.
If he should get the 27th repetition wrong, he really does no damage. You, the listener, know the phrase by now, and can compensate for the performer's indiscretion.
That gives you a sort of perfection :-)
Posted on: 11 June 2010 by u5227470736789439
Even the superb live performance remembered for a half-lifetime would reveal the odd imperfection here or there if listened to carefully on a tape afterwards!
So I would say that the perfect performance is still in the future. But a performance may seem ideal, great, involving, and revealing of real understanding of the music ...
These memorable performances are not diminished for being played by humans who have supreme but not inhumanly perfect control of their instruments. A major mistake may be ruinous, but little indiscretions are part and parcel of even the greatest musical renditions.
In the recording studio, if editing is employed, then it is possible nowadays to "create" a perfect rendition, but I personally find that these much worked over and edited together renditions are soulless, sterile and lack that crucial element of momentum and build of power that is impossible to achieve except as a continuous real performance.
I do find the same mistake made twice very irritating and made more than twice, and I would leave at the next break in the music! Anyone should be forgiven one mistake in any performance, but once it becomes ham fisted, then one must ask whether the music is technically beyond the performer.
"Without adequate technical prowess, no expression is possible to convey." I am not sure which great performer said this, but it is true.
The pursuit of technical perfection for its own sake is to ignore the greater part of the significance of music is also equally true. Furtwangler had much to say about this, and I agree with his views in this respect, even if I don't have much sympathy for his music making.
ATB from George
