To continue from yesterday's post:
What happens is overuse of vibrato to mask any qualitative difference between one tone and another. By making all pitches uniform there is no need to attend to the implications of sympathetic vibration.
Violinist Gregor Kitzis and I did a Beethoven Spring Sonata last week (and will do a second performance this evening) that revealed what happens when this kind of listening is unleashed: It sounds like Webern Klangfarbenmelodie! One hears a counterpoint of resonant tones traded back and forth between the instruments, playful, lustrous, crystal clear. Nothing that can be read on the page, but that exists only because it is heard. At no time did we discuss this. But I immediately sent a CD to my composer friend, Ursula Mamlok, who is tremendously affected by specific sounds as was Anton Webern.
