Unfaithful to the Score?

[Alan Howe]

All I was trying to say was that two radically different performances can't both be right - or can they?

[Mark Thomas]

I don't see why not, to be honest. A great composer surely produces scores which are capable of different interpretations, which say different things in different hands at different times to different people. Isn't that the essence of performance art? Isn't that why Vivaldi or Beethoven are still valid and enjoyed centuries after their deaths? I'm not saying that all interpretations are valid, of course not. And it's more difficult when a composer himself recorded a performance of his own music, such as Elgar or Richard Strauss. Then we know clearly what was in the composer's own mind and maybe we should be more discriminating about interpretations which are wildly different from that. But generally speaking, I would hate for there to be an orthodoxy of interpretation and anyway, how would we decide which/who was was the correct one?

[Alan Howe]

Actually, I agree with you, Mark. Although in my own my mind I am sure that, for example, Chailly's Beethoven symphonies cycle comes much closer to Beethoven's intentions than, say, Klemperer's (especially in terms of tempi), nevertheless great music, it seems to me, permits a wide variety of interpretations - which is why I reject the current hegemony (not the existence!) of HIP-influenced performances, especially of the extreme and doctrinaire kind perpetrated by, for example, Roger Norrington.

[Mark Thomas]

We are, as usual, as one  Although, like Colin, I too enjoy Tomita's Pictures from an Exhibition 

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well, there is not only one way of staging a play by Shakespeare - thank God!  And much the same applies to a musical score. It is a statement of intention - the finished product is the performance.  However, that doesn't give one carte blanche to impose on the work all sorts of ideas of one's own which do not arise directly from the work itself.  The artist's duty, it seems to me, is to try to get as close as possible to the composer's intention as he or she understands it - and this endeavour alone allows for ample differences of interpretation in pursuit of that goal.

[TerraEpon]

For me, talk about objectivity and validity are highly problematic. They become especially difficult to sustain when a work is played on instruments other than those for which it was composed. Unlike most classical music fans (I gather), I adore Tomita's synthesizer account of Pictures at an Exhibition - it's dramatic, clever, amusing, and moving, by turns, and to me it's better than the original piano or orchestral versions.     To choose a less radical example, how can we use Vivaldi's score to develop validity criteria which would apply to Richter's recent re-working of The Four Seasons?  It's wonderful in my view, and has been widely praised, but it's light years from Vivaldi's score. So, I find the concept of a valid performance problematic indeed! For me, it's much more a case of whether I enjoy it, whether it moves me, or whether it illuminates the music, rather than its fidelity to the score. So, I think we should look for validity criteria not in the score but in the effect the performance has on listeners.

There's a huge difference, however, in making an arrangement of some sort, and simply excising or adding something and still presenting it as is, as it were. If you look for a recording of Rachmaninov's 2nd, Gliere's 3rd, or Rhapsody in Blue -- or whatever -- there's no indication if there's cuts or not. Hell I got lucky there was a site with a bunch of comparisons so I could find an uncut versions of Rach's PC3 (with the version of the cadenza I wanted on top of that).
By contrast, Tomita or Richter or whoever do what they do....and leave the original alone, as it were.

[bulleid_pacific]

There are some first movement repeats that are almost never done, the most unknown one is the first movement of the Rachmaninoff 2nd. The only really complete recording I know of is Zinman's on Telarc, but there may be others.

The Rozhdestvensky/LSO recording also has it.  I can always hear that music twice too, so no problem there, although the work then plays for a mighty 66 minutes.  I have not encountered the Zinman.  If you leave out the repeat, one unique bar in the first time bracket goes unheard 

The work which has probably lengthened the most over it's recorded career is Schubert 9, which seems to have regained repeats in movements 1, 3 and 4 since the arrival of CD.  It would have been too long to fit an LP comfortably with all of them - 30 minute sides are possible of course, but only when cut at quite a low level.  Do we need all those repeats?  I certainly do!  Someone remind me who it was that spoke of its 'heavenly length'......

Oh, and is Schubert's late work classical or romantic?  And therefore can I discuss it here?  I think it's distinctly early romantic - though not at all unsung, of course! 

[bulleid_pacific]

And it's more difficult when a composer himself recorded a performance of his own music, such as Elgar or Richard Strauss. Then we know clearly what was in the composer's own mind and maybe we should be more discriminating about interpretations which are wildly different from that.

That's dangerous when the composers concerned were recording in the 78rpm era.  We know that carving the music up into vaguely coherent 4 minute chunks means that the tempo is frequently at the mercy of the primitive technology and may be very far from what the composers might have done in the days of magnetic tape and later.

And further back in the acoustic era, of course, we can make no assumptions at all, especially when string basses were replaced by a tuba and so on.  Elgars's first recordings were made using the acoustic process and I would be reluctant to draw any conclusions about EE's intentions from those.

However, once we reach 1950 or so these objections disappear and I would agree that composer-conducted performances from then on have a lot to tell us.  Except that they're not usually romantic nor unsung.......

[JimL]

Someone remind me who it was that spoke of its 'heavenly length'......

Schumann, it was.

[Gauk]

However, once we reach 1950 or so these objections disappear and I would agree that composer-conducted performances from then on have a lot to tell us.

I would be distrustful even then. You don't know what went on in the studio. Also, I tend to be distrustful of recordings made with the composer conducting altogether. A good composer is not necessarily good on the podium. And he may be too absorbed in the work to hear objectively what the orchestra is playing.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I agree, Gauk. The same can sometimes be said of instrumental performances by a composer. I once heard Malcolm Williamson give an exceedingly bad performance of his own Organ Sonata, replete with wrong notes!  (I feel this is far too often the case with poets as well - they nearly all read their own poetry very badly indeed, frequently adopting a sort "poet's chant", a melancholy monotone in which every word is so pregnant with meaning it can barely move. The result is so dull and tedious it makes me want to stop their mouths with a large custard pie! - Apologies for the aside.)

[Gauk]

(I feel this is far too often the case with poets as well - they nearly all read their own poetry very badly indeed, frequently adopting a sort "poet's chant", a melancholy monotone in which every word is so pregnant with meaning it can barely move. The result is so dull and tedious it makes me want to stop their mouths with a large custard pie! - Apologies for the aside.)

*Laughs* - that is SOOOO true!

[bulleid_pacific]

I would be distrustful even then. You don't know what went on in the studio. Also, I tend to be distrustful of recordings made with the composer conducting altogether. A good composer is not necessarily good on the podium. And he may be too absorbed in the work to hear objectively what the orchestra is playing.

The lack of conducting skill in many composer-conductors cannot be denied.  All the same, I'd expect them to get the tempo approximately how they intended, even if niceties of balance and phrasing go awry.  And differences of tempo are the single biggest variation we find amongst recorded performances from different interpreters.  That's the aspect which 4 minute 78rpm sides could distort so badly................

[Gauk]

I'm still very much of the opinion that there is not necessarily only one right way to perform a piece. Once it leaves the composer's desk, it is the performers' task to decide what to do with it. And that goes for all other art forms as well. The composer's own idea of tempo is not necessarily the best one.

[bulleid_pacific]

Once it leaves the composer's desk, it is the performers' task to decide what to do with it. And that goes for all other art forms as well.

Well, if their ideas of harmony, melody, structure and instrumentation are fixed, why not tempo and dynamics also?  After all, dynamics are recorded meticulously in almost all scores and often metronome markings are given too.  But note that I'm playing devil's advocate here, since I have multiple versions of many many works which vary enormously but which I enjoy in equal measure..... 

The joy of music over many other art forms is that it *is* open to the interpretation of the performer.  The same is true of dramatic plays, of course.  I imagine the Mona Lisa is supposed to be viewed in a particular quality and intensity of light - not sure the Louvre provides what Leonardo had in mind though.  Even so, I think the composer's view, if he has a conducting talent, should be taken account of and valued, even if ultimately ignored.

The composer's own idea of tempo is not necessarily the best one.

...but his idea of instrumentation (for example) IS?  Perhaps you see what I'm driving at.  A musical composition is an amalgam of many elements, all of which the composer must have in his/her mind at the moment of creation.  I don't believe that Beethoven wrote the Ode to Joy without having a suitable tempo in his mind's eye.  And that being so, we have no more right to play it significantly outside the metronome marking (if there is one) than to re-score it for bagpipes and ocarinas.....