I know that I have a personal bias towards the classical music tradition but whether it a result of that bias or an honest observation, it has always seemed to me that a degree of musical perfection can be found in some classical music that is unsurpassed by any other musical genre or tradition. What do I mean by musical perfection? It is the realization that from start to finish in a musical composition the composer made the best possible choice of notes at every instant. No other choice of notes could have been made without diminishing the effect of the music to some degree. Every note in the score is in exactly the right place and perfectly conveys what the music is expressing.
Does all classical music achieve this? No. However, certain composers achieve that level of perfection more consistently than others. Of course, J.S. Bach springs first to mind. Over the years, having played nearly the entirety of his keyboard works and closely studied many of his other scores, it is a rare occasion indeed when I find myself thinking, oh, he got carried away and went on too long, or a bit of more careful editing might have made this piece better. There are few other composers about which I can say that generally but there are many classical composers who when at their finest, wrote perfect pieces. There’s a reason, for instance, why Beethoven’s manuscripts look like they do. He thought intensely about the placement of every note – wrote and revised until every extraneous gesture was honed away – and in his best works one is hard put to find any out of place (although, again my personal bias, I find what I would consider to be his best works to be far fewer than do most people).
Classical music comes from a long tradition that incorporates generations of exacting technique that comes into play when composing a piece that by virtue of a consistent interior logic seems inevitable at every moment in time. Again, while this may simply be my personal bias, I don’t find any other genre of music that achieves this. There are many genres of music that predominantly rely, for example, on improvisation. While there are so many brilliant musicians who improvise with the most astonishing facility, still, I often find myself thinking that if more time and care was paid to the placement of each note, the overall result would be far better. When listening to performances by musicians known for their extraordinary skills at improvisation, I still catch myself thinking, oh, that was a rote phrase that doesn’t really add anything to the story this music is telling. Thinking as a composer, I am always asking myself, what is the next perfect note? What needs to happen right now? A contrast? A repetition? What is the direction of the music and how should it best get there? Improvisation, no matter how quick a thinker the player is, cannot answer those questions with the best possible answer at every moment.
