Motivations

Tradition brings with it responsibility to the resonance of the ages. It implies a classical education which can merge Hegelian pluralism easily with cubism, or Copland with Kant. When tradition is reduced, however, to a memorized cliché, or an excuse for not thinking on our feet, or on our seat, it becomes mere rote.

    In presenting music purely and ethically, a conductor like William Christie actually removes it from the cliché, strangifying it with truth. Gidon Kremer does it on the violin, as Russell Sherman does on the piano. Cecilia Bartoli can made an aria so personal it moves you, unlike a slicker, more "professional" performance, where the music is perfected out of existence.

    Very few musicians move me, and when they do, it is in strange settings, like a Celtic fiddler by the East River, a saxophonist under an arch of the Place des Vosges, bagpipes in Skye, some accidental amateur fumbling at the soul of a piece, not a smooth pro sitting back in a dead hall, watching his fingers do the walking.