SATURDAY LETTERS : VIRTUOSOLESSNESS

I should like to comment on various replies sent in by readers in reference to Martin Bernheimer’s May 10 article on Andre Previn (Calender Letters, May 16 and 17).

What most of these people don’t realize is that most great music requires both a virtuoso conductor and a virtuoso orchestra, neither of which we have ever had here in Los Angeles.

Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms demand a virtuoso conductor, while Richard Strauss demands a virtuoso orchestra, particularly virtuoso horns. But Webern, Varese, Penderecki and their ilk demand only that the performer hold either his or her instrument right side up, and make it emit an occasional sound.

I once heard a concert of modern “music” during which the orchestra stopped making its customary noise, at which time a tape recording of machine shop sounds was played. This constituted an original musical composition. And the audience applauded wildly.

During the 19th-Century time of the noted music critic, Eduard Hanslick, this would not have been tolerated. The audience would have dragged the performers out and beaten them.

Ah! for the good old days!

MARTIN PEPPER

Los Angeles