KEY NOTES

Historical perspectives on piano technique KEY NOTES

BY MURRAY MCLACHLAN

FIDELITY TO THE SCORE

Music competitions in the UK dier from those in other countries in one crucial respect: the use of sheet music. I am not referring to the competitors’ performances (most of which are given by memory) but rather the use of music by judges. It is not uncommon for jury members in UK-based competitions to be seen turning pages of scores while performers play – something which rarely happens in competitions in Italy, Belgium, Australia, the States and elsewhere.

is reects dierent approaches to listening, and leads to questions about the impact and necessity of following instructions (or guidelines?) in the editions of works we play and study. Just how important is it to be reverential to the composer’s markings in a score? Does following the music during a performance shift the listener’s perspective and alter what they hear? In any case, what is the most important thing to prioritise – literal reproduction of the score, or a subjective ‘opinion’ of what the music means to a particular individual? Should the markings in a score be seen as instructions (rather like directions in a recipe book) or indications of the composer’s aesthetic and feelings? ese are all big questions way beyond the scope of a modest article such as this, but for the beginnings of answers it is interesting to compare and contrast music from dierent historical periods, and fascinating to note ways in which performers from dierent eras and schools have tackled these issues. Pianists today are fortunate to be working in a culture that has benetted from the laudable work of the historical performance movement. We are used to excellent editions and revelatory performances from artists who have researched and studied source material and writings. anks to the scholarship of musicians of the calibre of Robert Levin and Paul Badura-Skoda, there are many fantastic examples of good practice to inspire us. is column has frequently mentioned the necessity of reading CPE Bach’s Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, but there are other texts which can similarly help to enhance our understanding, including Howard Ferguson’s Keyboard Interpretation from the 14th to the 19th Century and urston Dart’s e Interpretation of Music. Editions of keyboard music published prior to 1800 cannot be considered to present more than 50 per cent of the musical material necessary for realisation, exploration and exposition. e 18th-century aesthetic demanded executants to contribute signicantly to the music they performed. e interpreter was expected to add a tremendous amount to the printed page in terms of ornamentation, improvised cadenzas, links and decorations at cadences, fermatas and bridge sections. Arpeggiation, ‘lling in’ textures (so that single notes or pairs of notes become chords) as well as the employment of rubato is expected not only in JS Bach, Handel and Scarlatti, but also the French harpsichord masters ‘Les Clavicinists’, CPE Bach, JC Bach and – in totally dierent ways – Mozart, Clementi and early Haydn.

If an 18th-century score itself does not provide all the information we need, perhaps performers should also consider other available source material as ‘the score’. Writings on performance practice, research, recordings, alternative editions, manuscript facsimiles and accounts from letters of the period are invaluable. So too is the experience of listening to and playing harpsichords and fortepianos. We are being parochial and stuck in our own time if we think we can use the score as a ‘road map’ to navigate our way through compositions of this era. In fact, we owe it to ourselves to venture much further as we gather evidence, data and inspiration for study and consideration.

Of course, total authenticity in performances of music written over 250 years ago is neither possible nor desirable. We can never ascertain exactly how Bach would have performed his Fugue in D major from book one of e Well-Tempered Clavier (Example 1, below), and we have no way of exactly replicating the lighting, heating, or acoustical qualities of rooms where music was performed during 18th-century court spectaculars. In any case, do we really want to do this? Pianists are not in the business of cloning interpretations. e art of interpretation is a subtle combination, a synthesis that involves channelling source material via the sweat and perspiration of hours and hours of practising. Eventually,

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the fruits of this labour will be evident in performances that require active listening by an audience – the nal link in the chain that starts with the composer’s inspiration. It is possible to play Bach’s fugue subject totally ‘straight’, counting four semiquavers evenly for every beat. Alternatively, you could embrace the Baroque performance aesthetic of double-dotting and choose to emulate the spirit of the French Overture style. Try celebrating the quasi-Handelian grandeur and monumental majesty of the subject by adorning it in the most orid ornamentation possible (as can be heard in Bernard Robert’s recording on Nimbus). Or you could seek to emulate an organ, harpsichord or string quartet. By comparing and contrasting performances by numerous leading artists (in addition to Roberts, try Richter, Hewitt, Tureck, Schi, Gould and Edwin Fischer) we can immediately see that textual delity is as variable as handwriting. Conviction and integrity come from the manner of delivery. Beethoven provides much more information on the printed page for the performer to consider. Whether or not one chooses to perform from memory, the ability to remember and replicate such detailed instructions (so-called ‘aural photography’) is an extremely benecial and laudable ability. But it is not the end of responsibility for the performer: we still have to decide what type of staccato, legato, accent, ritardando, accelerando, etc to use. Our dynamics are relative, and we need to nd the soundworld of the music we are recreating. is can readily be seen at the opening of Beethoven’s Les Adieux Sonata Op 81a (Example 2, below). It would be dry and somewhat challenging to replicate every phrase marking and dynamic indication provided here by Beethoven. Indeed, it is far more exciting – and equally thorough – to ‘orchestrate’ this music. e opening three notes evoke a distant horn. Breathe the phrasing as you would if you were a brass player. e C minor chord at the start of the rst full bar could be heard and ‘reproduced’ as the string section of a symphony orchestra in hushed mode. When the dotted rhythm enters in the right hand you could imagine a clarinettist. e horn notes could be played deeply into the keys with rounded ngers, the string chord equally deeply but perhaps with atter ngers, while the clarinet gure could have somewhat shallower articulation and a thinner sound. Equally, you may choose not to hear this extract orchestrally but rather emulate the soundworld of a string quartet throughout. e choice is yours, but the approach is always via reverence and respect to Beethoven’s text.

‘e art of interpretation involves channelling source material via hours of practising’

With the Romantic repertoire, one could argue that the text is of less literal importance than in Beethoven, though it is still vital to observe dynamic suggestions and avoid distortion. Editors have had a huge, sometimes rather biased inuence on the text of many Romantic works, so it is essential to know when the composer leaves o and their editor takes over. For example, Emil von Sauer’s laudable edition of the works of his teacher Franz Liszt contain pedalling that is often excellent, but not necessarily by Liszt. Fortunately, we live in an era where urtext editions are commonplace, so it is easy to check performance traditions against markings present in the source material of particular works.

Adagio

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As in the 18th-century repertoire, it is not enough in the Romantic literature to be merely reverential. In Chopin, for example, there has to be an awareness of dance rhythms, particularly those of the mazurka. ere has to be an understanding that dotted notes are not necessarily counted literally, and that if you have a dotted quaver followed by a semiquaver in the right hand against three triplet quavers in the left, you could opt to play the semiquaver simultaneously with the third triplet quaver.

Minute rhythmic inexions and approaches are the life force of music. ese are impossible to notate exactly and require sensitivity and understanding that comes from feeling the music in one’s bones. Delaying or accenting the second or third beats in a mazurka will not necessarily give a performance conviction, but awareness of this possibility is a good starting point. Besides, Chopin is a special case, as there are instances of completely dierent versions of the same piece in his hand (eg the celebrated Fantaisie-Impromptu), so one realises that any published piece by a Romantic composer may be a long way from what they considered the ‘denitive’ version. With post-1900 repertoire, we see a huge range of approaches from dierent composers. Some, such as Busoni in his late music, are extremely spartan in their demands, leaving much to the discretion of the player. But as the era of the superstar Romantic virtuoso waned and the world of total serialism, Boulez and Stockhausen beckoned, many composers began to desire less ‘personality’ and more reverence from interpreters.

Messiaen was a stickler for detail: his scores are pasted throughout with information. Not only do his dynamic and articulation markings require reverence and respect, but his rhythms are extremely complex and razor-sharp in their specicity. Woe betide the player who is rhythmically loose and approximate in the likes of ‘Traquet stapazin’ from Catalogue d’oiseaux.

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Cultivating the necessary discipline for much of the post-1900 repertoire can be a tiring and time-consuming process. Even the simplest Bartók scores are saturated with instructions, as can be seen in the opening of his  rst Romanian Folk Dance (Example 3, below). But we should always remember that composers are human and that even in the music of apparently strict  gures such as Bartók, textual  delity is not always what it seems. Bartók’s approach was so detailed that he frequently went as far as notating durations of movements at the end of pieces, with timings down to the last second. Yet when playing his own music, recordings reveal that he often contradicted his published markings – he could be far freer as an interpreter than as an editor!

 ere is always much more to interpretation than reverential respect for the score. We may be amused at the contrast between competition juries who follow the music and those who don’t, but both approaches have their place. Invariably, I stop looking at the text if I am listening to captivating playing: inspirational performances always take you away from reality. Peak experience in the concert hall stops listeners from turning pages and makes them listen exclusively. IP

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