The Composer as Performer












"I am disturbed that Gosfield doesn't place the acquisition of musical (esp. instrumental) technique at the top of her list. Ever since it became acceptable to be a "accredited" composer and not a performing musician (thanks to universities which began issuing degrees in "composition"), "composers" have given us music which is not worth the paper it is written on.

Young composers should spend more time being performing musicians and less time hatching half-brained works which the public is invariably going to hate. I liken the contempory composer to a chef who conjures up recipes without ever having set foot in a kitchen.

Having listened to "Lightning Slingers and Dead Ringers" (2008) is it clear that Gosfield has a good command of the piano: young composers should aspire to the same level of proficiency. If your instrument is the computer, then please don't compose for acoustic instruments."
- Desabata. Hamburg, Germany

I deeply agree with the above idea that we composers need to aspire to master instruments.

Our greatest influence is the voice, from which in the tongue which we speak, we find our most subtle musical phrases. The next is the rhythm with which we move through life, our dance. After that are the instruments we play and lastly the ambient sounds of railroad trains, steam kettles and catbirds which inhabit our personal worlds. Somewhere in the mix, of course, are all the other compositions that have beautifully or obnoxiously invaded our ears. (My order here is quite arbitrary and may be skewed.)

The instruments we play and to the degree we master them, are frustrated by their limits, alter them, imagine them just beyond what they can do, and push and struggle against them for perfection, become our internal tools of composition. "Break your instrument," Casals.

Whether adjusting the pitch for cello notes higher or lower within a piece's harmonic and step considerations or getting a piano sound like other various instruments as did Horowitz, or altering the emphasis of notes as did Rachmaninoff for others' piano works, we learn.

Modern composers are generally strong in getting feedback from musicians as to how to stretch their instruments in new ways. If there is not first however, the deep, subtle connection to wonderful music playing of these or another instrument by the composer herself, the adjustment is only a parlor trick, an "Ah, ouuh, look at my cleverness," not something deeper.

The greatest composers were among the greatest performers. And I imagine, this will continue to be.