Character Vignette -- Once, With Another Woman...
What follows is one of my writing warm-up exercises, sparked the line in the title. The lady in question discovered something important about classical music... and other interpretive aspects of life...
My mother always said that I was a silly little vixen. She never said it unkindly, and I know that she meant it entirely as an endearment. You see, she always encouraged me to explore and learn about new things. She was the one who introduced me to classical music, too, and she let me look around, listen, discover for myself. It was through classical music that I learned something very important.
You see, when I first started listening to classical music, I started like most people, listening to things that were popular, or even modern-sounding. Later, I took a course from Professor Greenberg, and he explained everything so well that I really got to understand the music of the western classical tradition. In the beginning, though, I found things like Ravel's Bolero, because it was in a Dudley Moore movie that I really liked. So I found this copy of the Bolero, conducted by Herbert Von Karajen, because I'd been told he was a really good conductor. I listened to that piece so much that I nearly drove my mother crazy, but as I reminded her, it was her fault in the first place.
So some years later, I heard about another amazing conductor, Seji Ozawa, and I bought a recording that also contained the Bolero. And after listening for about ten seconds, the thought that marched across my brain was, "He's playing it wrong!" I went back and listened to the first part of Von Karajen's recording, just to be sure that I was hearing it correctly. There it was - that opening rhythm with the drum, DUM dadadaDUM dadadaDUM dadadadadadadadadaDUM , nice and militaristic. And then I went back to Ozawa, with a higher pitch and lighter touch, DIT dididiDIT dididiDIT dididididididididiDIT. It was different. But which one was right?
So I asked my mother, who called me a silly little vixen, and she explained to me that the purpose of a conductor was to interpret the music, to choose what to emphasize, what to smooth over, and that's what makes the various conductors so different, and why they have so many versions of the same work, played and conducted differently. It's about style, she said, and about what you like and don't like about a particular conductor. It's how they make you feel, and how you enjoy them.
It was that advice from my mother, given so long ago, that has led me to my current happy life. There is no such thing as having a single conductor, or a single interpretation, or Only One Way to experience something. I remembered this when my friend Celine asked me a question one day, and how worried she was about how I'd answer her question. I told her that music and joy and life were something that had to be explored and tasted for oneself. So Celine was very happy with my answer, as were Ellen, Sylvia, Dwight, Fenton, Alicia, the Bellisario twins (Devon and Keri), and a certain group of sorority sisters who were at loose ends (you should pardon the expression).
I don't know why mom was so upset with me. It's all a celebration.