I've got a question about your opinion of contemporary instrumental composition. It seems to me that composers today have a considerably smaller understanding of instrumentation and what works/doesn't work on particular instruments. Whereas composers of the past seemed to be much more cognizant of which instrument was playing what lines and how, composers today seem to just write whatever they want and consider any un-idiomatic writing to be the performer's problem.
That being said, do you think that might be contributing to a greater divide between today's composers and performers? Composers of the classical and romantic eras (and some 20th Century) would write for specific players and the players would have input on what was/wasn't feasible. Why do you think there's a decline in that collaborative process today?
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I've got a question about your opinion of contemporary instrumental composition. It seems to me that composers today have a considerably smaller understanding of instrumentation and what works/doesn't work on particular instruments. Whereas composers of the past seemed to be much more cognizant of which instrument was playing what lines and how, composers today seem to just write whatever they want and consider any un-idiomatic writing to be the performer's problem.
That being said, do you think that might be contributing to a greater divide between today's composers and performers? Composers of the classical and romantic eras (and some 20th Century) would write for specific players and the players would have input on what was/wasn't feasible. Why do you think there's a decline in that collaborative process today?
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