It is not lack of awareness of one use of the word (see below) but the lack of recognition of the thing, namely, compositional virtuousity which I am taking issue with. As Armstrong said, if you have to ask what it is, you probably wouldn't understand. I would suggest that you try composing a fugue to see what I have in mind and you will very quickly discover that the skills of Bach as a composer, say, a very much analagous to those which you attribute to Parker below i.e. "he makes harmonic and melodic substitutions at unbelievable speed and unending variety . . . You don't need to know much to feel intuitively how hard that is to do. It's like watching a juggler."
> Interestingly, part of why people make the distinction in classical music
> is precisely because they look down on instrumental skills as second
> class. Look at any classical music program -- the composer's name will be
> in caps under the piece title, and the performers will be in lower case.
I have in front of me the a recording by in which Bernstein's name is in type roughly three times the size of that of Mozart. This is not unusual. The Times has recently taken to omitting names of the composers altogether when they announce recital programs. In terms of the general level of visibility of classical musicians, I think its fairly obvious that far more people can identity performers such as Yo Yo Ma or Itzhak Perlman than, say, even the best known composers such asLigeti or even Steve Reich.
> (In jazz, things are pretty much the opposite, although different graphic
> devices are involved.)
Right. Jazz musicians frequently don't even know the names of the composers of the standards they routinely perform in clubs (and the composers also fail to be compensated for the use of their intellectual property, incidentally.)
> In short, in the snotty world of classical music, where they celebrate
> "fidelity to the score," calling a composer a virtuoso (like Lizst) -- or
> even calling a performer a virtuoso (like Paganini) -- can be a kind of
> back handed insult, implying that they are mainly show and froth (in the
> case of composers) or -- horrors -- embellishing on the composer's holy
> intentions with their own ideas (in the case of performers).
I have no idea what you are referring to. I have never heard the term virtuoso used disparagingly of a composer or a performer. Furthermore, I don't know of any musician who has anything but respect for Andras Schiff's highly embellished recordings of Bach or does not prefer them to say, innumberable "unembellished" recordings of the same works. I think, snotty of not, we try to call music as we hear it, attaching as little ideological baggage as possible. At least, I know I do. It takes some work, and some good will, though. By the way, I quite like Nine Inch Nails for this reason.
> The current
> usage, where it is restricted to instrumental ability, is the result of a
> whole series of historical struggles (e.g., over the legitimacy of
> improvisation, and over the relative status of performers, composers and
> conductors), and it has its meaning defined (i.e., limited) by the
> resultant semantic field. But once you leave that field, you can make the
> word mean anything you want.
>
No, one can use the word in a somewhat more technical sense in the way, say, that physicist use the words "work" or "energy". I can assure that musicologists use it in this way quite frequently.
> BTW, people do sometimes use it for conductors, who are definately
> worshipped like virtuosi. But for the reasons given above, it's never
> used for compositional excellence, even for a guy like Mozart.
>From the New Grove vol. 20 p. 12:
"Vituouso: A person of notable accomplishment; a musician of extraordinary technical skill. . . A virtuoso in music might be a skillful performer, but more importantly, a composer, a theorist or at least a famous maestro di capella."
Also, see Kerman, Opera as Drama for explicit remarks on Mozart's compositional virtuousity: "In Don Giovanni, Mozart's virtuosity extends from the deadly simple stroke at Donna Elvira's first entrance, "Ah! chi mi dice mai," through the richness of the trio already discussed, to the intricacy of the Ballroom Scene with its simultaneous orchestra and the tremedous force of the catastrophe with the Commendatore and the devils."
Never say never.
Best,
John