Unfaithful to the Score?

[Richard Moss]

I wonder what members views are concerning performances that are not 'true' to the composer's score.  From the few times I've heard different versions of the same music, I  know there can be quite a variance and I know senior members of this forum have previously compared different performances - for example noting one conductor may have chopped a significant section compared to another or significantly changed the tempi of some parts.

What I'm NOT aware of is ever finding any comment in the CD (or LP!) notes from the conductor that 'I've speeded it up' or 'added xyz players' or 'discarded certain bars' etc. that represent measurable changes to what the composer wrote, as opposed to reasonable variations in emphasis but still based on the original score.

I don't have a problem with such performances 'per se' - if they please the ear, surely that is the main thing; however, if they are based on changes to the composer's score, the honest thing would be to let us know what (and why).

Any views, anyone?

Richard

[thalbergmad]

As a third rate hack pianist, I do not always obey what is written, as to me the score is a suggestion and not a direct order. I therefore do not have a problem with others that do the same. My piano teacher did not agree with my slight changes to the Liszt/Paganini La Chasse, but to me I was personalising the music and I don't think Liszt would have cared.

I think we are on "safer" ground when doing this to the romantics. I would not dare amend Beethoven.

Thal

[eschiss1]

It depends. If it destroys an important, calculated element of the piece's structure (like what Fellegi did to Medtner's sonata tragica, on Marco Polo- with no note in the program notes, either- converting the sonata into a, well, more normal-sonata-form by reinstating the recapitulation of the second theme and removing the cadenza) -then I may mind very much (I am told Toradze's recording of Mussorgsky's Pictures is in much the same bin). Liszt, anyway, seems to have had fewer such qualms regarding Beethoven, but then Beethoven was the new music of his day...

[Richard Moss]

Eric,

I think you hit an important phrase in your comments "... with no note in the programme notes... ".  An arrangement of a composition by someone else is probably as old as music itself and nothing wrong with that.  It's (to my mind) the undeclared changes that are, at face value, less than honest.  (Having said that, I wonder if Beethoven himself ever performed it 'as written'!!)

Particularly when bringing an 'unsung' back to life, we are totally in the hands of the artists involved and, has been remarked before, except for those fortunate enough to have access to, and ability to read, the original manuscripts, what we hear on a CD release (plus its notes) is maybe all we'll ever know of the piece.  There may never be another recorded version for comparison - so the 'honesty' of the score preparation, recording and accompanying notes  is, I think, paramount. 

'Thal' has mentioned his own pleasure in effecting small changes.  As a non-performer myself, I'm now wondering if there ever was a tradition of playing  it 'as written' or has making such changes always been a part of performing?

Tks for your comments guys

Richard

[jerfilm]

It depends. If it destroys an important, calculated element of the piece's structure ...

That sounds good, Eric, but who is to say what the important calculated elements were to the composer?  If I were a concert artist,  I'm sure I'd do that for my personal satisfaction but never in a concert.......

J

[JimL]

While perusing the score of Reinecke's 3rd Piano Concerto yesterday, I found, to my surprise, that there is an entirely alternate ending to the first movement!  The one on the cpo CD was the original, but there is a more conventional sounding forte ending as well.

[Rob H]

As a huge part of my listening is to pianists of a bygone era I am used to alterations to the text - usually textual, maybe doubling octaves. Based on what I've read over many years it would appear that a certain amount of liberty would often be taken with a score - Liszt is said to have added little cadenzas to works he played and even added thirds and sixths to the piano part of the Kreutzer Sonata. More recently you could look at Rakhmaninov's music - he himself admitted to cutting variations out of his Corelli variations (depending on how much the audience coughed on any evening) but more pertinent perhaps are his recordings - do we follow the tempi and dynamics that he (the composer) wrote in the score or do we follow the tempi and dynamics that he (the composer/pianist) played on recordings?

As for cutting a work - why? One can understand old recordings trimming a piece to fit onto discs but in this era of CDs and digital files what purpose can cuts serve? If alterations to the structure of a work have been made I feel that the reason should be given somewhere in the notes. In his recording of the finale of Scharwenka's second concerto Raymond Lewenthal cut a big orchestral tutti from near the end but his notes do explain that he felt that the finale was the only worthy section of the concerto and that as the tutti referred back to material of the first movement it was pointless including it.
Rob

[JimL]

Well, the part that he left in still contains a quote from the secondary theme of the first movement!  And, knowing the entire piece, I heatedly disagree with his assessment!

[thalbergmad]

As a huge part of my listening is to pianists of a bygone era I am used to alterations to the text -

Mine too.

I often wonder how pianists of the caliber of Rosenthal or Barere for instance would fare in a modern piano competition.

Thal

[Alan Howe]

There's unfaithfulness and then there's interpretation. Discuss...

[John H White]

The problem is exacerbated with unsung composers works, many of which have only one recording, so that one is tempted to think that is how the work should sound. For instance, the slow introduction to Franz Lachner's Symphony No 8 in G minor is marked, "Andante", which is generally taken to mean, "at a gentle walking pace", yet the conductor, Paul Robinson, takes it at "funeral pace"!
      Of course, in many cases, unless we have access to the score, we just cannot tell what liberties the conductor or performer has taken with the music.
    Cheers,
         John.

[thalbergmad]

There's unfaithfulness and then there's interpretation. Discuss...

I guess unfaithfulness is changing the notes. Interpretation is playing what is written but not how it was intended.

Way above my musical level this one. A thesis could be written on this.

Thal

[Amphissa]

It's really only since the mid-1900s that the score has come to be treated as some sort of sacred document. (I blame it on the critics, who sit in hope for something to criticize about a performance or a recording that will demonstrate their great acumen and incisive musical knowledge.) Before then, you had a quite wonderful variety of interpretations by conductors like Furtwanger and Scherchen.

It was pretty common for pianists and conductors to make cuts or revisions, either with or without the blessing of the composer. Rachmaninoff did not mind the changes that Horowitz made to his 3rd piano concerto. He was apparently less thrilled with the orchestration of his piano music into orchestral works, but I'm not aware that he ever got testy about it publicly.

Stokowski was a champion of the music of Gliere, and yet, listening to his two recordings of Gliere's 3rd Symphony is shocking! He basically cut HALF of the music from one recording, and almost that much from his other recording. Yet he thought he was doing Gliere a favor by just playing the musical highlights and getting the recordings out. In fact, for a very long time, a recording of the complete symphony could not be found, as they were all chopped up.

At what point do cuts and revisions become egregious? I haven't looked at the album covers of his two Gliere 3 recordings, but I don't remember anything said about the massive cuts. Mahler made revisions to the symphonies of Schumann and even Beethoven's 9th. Recordings today make it clear when the Schumann is Mahler's edition, but I wonder if he ever said anything about his revisions before live concerts.

[Alan Howe]

I think it's far more complicated than Thal asserts. For example, I personally can accept as valid both Chailly's and Klemperer's wildly divergent views of Beethoven 3, but can they both actually be right, objectively speaking?

[eschiss1]

I recall from a review of the Mahler retuchen that what he did to Beethoven and Schumann was very little different from what other contemporary conductors did to make those works sound better with their orchestras (rather than, say, with Beethoven's or Schumann's orchestra sizes, instruments and balances- the differences do matter, and the better the conductor (and conductor/composer!!) the better they can adjust a score for changing circumstances. In the interest, as it were, of bringing the musical ideas out better- being more faithful to the composer's wishes rather than less with a well-judged but necessary change. Which makes sense to me.