What do you mean how can we be certain? It's right there in the score in black and white and if you've any question consult the manuscript. We don't need an mp3...Beethoven has written it all out for us...no db measurement needed.

You're quite welcome. Assured in knowing that you're "right"?

Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention! I did not know this existed!

Plus Beethoven was well known for being a skilled improviser. For all we know, he might have played his own music differently than what he wrote.

All we have are the various editions + any and all surviving manuscripts, which along with a bit of thought, is really all that's needed to come up with an 'interpretation'.

i would like to ask the following questions, prefaced by a description of urtext edition, from wikipedia:

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"The sources for an urtext edition include the autograph (that is, the manuscript produced in the composer's hand), hand copies made by the composer's students and assistants, the first published edition, and other early editions. Since first editions often include misprints, a particularly valuable source for urtext editions is a copy of the first edition that was hand-corrected by the composer.

Typically, an urtext edition will include a preface indicating what sources were consulted by the editor. In the case of manuscripts, or first editions that have become rare, the editor will indicate the scholarly library or other repository in which they are kept.

Where the sources are few, or misprint-ridden, or conflicting, the task of the urtext editor becomes difficult. Cases where the composer had bad penmanship (for example, Beethoven[1]), or revised the work after publication, likewise create difficulties.

A fundamental problem in urtext editing is how to present variant readings. If the editor includes too few variants, this restricts the freedom of the performer to choose. Yet including unlikely variants from patently unreliable sources likewise serves the performer badly. Where the editor must go farthest out on a limb is in identifying misprints or scribal errors. The great danger—not at all hypothetical—is that an interestingly eccentric or even inspired choice on the composer's part will be obliterated by an overzealous editor.

One other source of difficulty arises from the fact that works of music usually involve passages that are repeated (either identically or similarly) in more than one location; this occurs, for instance, in the recapitulation section of a work in sonata form or in the main theme of a rondo. Often the dynamic markings or other marks of expression found in one location in the source material are missing in analogous locations. The strictest possible practice is to render all markings literally, but an urtext editor may also want to point out the markings found in parallel passages.

One common response of editors for all of these difficulties is to provide written documentation of the decisions that were made, either in footnotes or in a separate section of commentary."

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one might compare the urtext and subsequent editions to an organized religion. at first you have the epiphanies from upon high, then you have the gospels according to X, Y and Z, and then you have the myriad priests and scholars who, thru the ages, revise and "refine" what the master meant.

my questions are: in light of the multitude of variables incurred from the handing of the autograph to the original transcribers and on down the line, how can we be exactly sure what the composer meant?

each composer would have been more or less assiduous in defining what he or she wanted. for example, debussy indicated soft pedal very infrequently, explicitly suggesting the pianist should discover for themselves what sounds best. unless we forensically study each composers' predilections and psychology, at which point subjective interpretations are being made anyway, how can we be sure we know exactly what the composers wanted?

the instruments have radically changed from the time the compositions were created. e.g., should we really follow chopin's long damper pedal markings because he was composing on an upright with poor sustain when we are playing on a modern grand piano? likewise, you know other examples for bach (harpsichord), mozart, beethoven, et al.

do we believe these creative geniuses did not want the performers of their works to infuse their own inspirations into the work? did they want automatons to stamp out their works in assembly line fashion each time they were performed, ad infinitum?

do we believe that classical music (piano) is no longer a creative art form but merely an interpretive one, faced with dogmatic intellectual arguments defending our decisions of interpretation against a history of evidence as to what a smudge on the autograph meant?

inquiring minds want to know...

IMO most of great pianists do follow the composer's markings the huge majority of the time, at least for around the last 70 years or so (and for many pianists long before that time also). It's a fallacy to think that doing this does not allow for creativity. There are thousands of interpretive decisions to be made beyond what's marked in the score and many markings are not absolute(crescendo, for example).

I have posted a Youtube example of many pianists playing the opening line of Beethoven's PC #4 several times before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZGiGMCiB3k
If so much variety is possible in a single line, then think of the endless possibilities in the whole concerto.

No one seems to complain that staging Shakespeare's plays without changing the words implies the actors can't interpret their parts.

the words (notes) yes, but where did shakespeare indicate how looooong or LOUD to express his words and phrases? wasn't that left to his producers, directors & actors?

There also does not seem to be much complaint when some of the words are changed to make them more intelligible to modern audiences. Musical notation has been very stable when compared to the English language but the whole historically informed performance thing indicates that there is still significant wiggle room.

Yes, but "Allegro. crescendo, or a dot above a note" can be interpreted in more than one way. And just like in plays, there are almost an infinite number of choices to be made about what's not marked in the score. That's why pianists can follow the composer's marking but still sound different.

but surely only one of them is correct, n'est-ce pas?

The reality is that she is "there" and we are "here".

regards,

Best post in this thread.

I cannot believe there are people who actually think it's okay to ignore what's on the page (not just here, in the music world in general). Especially with Ravel, Debussy, Bartok and Beethoven. You do NOT mess with what they wrote. There are letters proving that they were very specific and insistant on their markings - Beethoven would write to the publishers, upset that they misprinted some staccato markings and he wanted them done in very specific places. I thought it was common knowledge that he was VERY particular about what he wrote, and cared about it being followed - much more than accidental wrong notes, in fact. Now, there are composers like Brahms who under-edited a lot, so that's very different. Or Mozart, who wouldn't write a dynamic marking for pages. Or Medtner who is known to allow more freedom in the performer's interpretation. Etc etc.

Again, while I basically agree with this (and try to follow it), I think that the real situation is more complicated. Name the pianist-- I'll find a marking in the score that they don't follow. These "people" who you cannot believe include Horowitz, Barenboim, Richter. Everyone. Everyone bends the rules.

-J

Yes but even Richter said it was impossible to memorize every single marking on the score and so he started playing with music to make sure he did.

Listen to Kuerti's Beethoven........

Perhaps Richter didn't have a very good visual memory.

That's not why he started using music.... despite what the majority of people think.

I'm also pretty sure Barenboim follows the score very carefully in Beethoven. I've never heard Horowitz's Beethoven although I don't think I'd like it, nor have I heard him do Debussy or Bartok...... I was specifically pointing out those composers.

Absoltely. Musical performance is an act of recreation, not merely interpretation. It is not unusual for performers to occasionally deviate from the composers' markings, if they think that such a deviation will be musically effective. It is not an issue of having no regard for the composer's intentions, as even "Romantic" pianists such as Horowitz and Rachmaninov never seemed to consciously undermine the composer's vision. It is an issue of following the spirit, rather than the letter, of the composer's vision. A composer may make certain suggestions about how to execute his music, but there may be other approaches that are just as effective or even more effective. If the performer has ideas that are even truer to the spirit of the music and thereby more musically effective, then I don't think that he or she should refrain from such ideas merely on account of a slavish adherence to the composer's markings. Perhaps the performer may have insights that are superior to the composer's own, as a composer is not necessarily the best interpreter of his own music. Many people, including Rachmaninov himself, felt that Horowitz played Rachmaninov's music better than the composer himself.

In Mozart's Sonata in C, K 330, there is a descending double note passage that is marked staccato in the Urtext. However, Horowitz plays the upper voice legato, probably in an attempt to clarify the melodic line of the tenor voice. Although that is different than what Mozart notated, I'm sure that it sounded effective to Horowitz. I don't think that it is a crime to make alterations like that, especially if they can clarify a melodic line and facilitate musical expression.

A couple of stores-inspired devil's advocate questions:

What are we to make of a composer's own indecision? Depending on the edition, the ending of Scriabin Op. 8#12 is marked either fff or p. Which do we play? Did Scriabin change his mind or believe that two interpretations were valid? If he did believe two interpretations were valid, how can we know what of his other pieces might be open to alternative interpretations?

Should we be playing Chopin's 20th Nocturne at all? If we are obligated to perform a work as the composer notated it, aren't we obligated to *not* perform a work if the composer didn't deem it worthy of publication? Presumably Chopin could've offered it for publication (it was written in 1830), but he never chose to do so? And how are we to interpret the piece, knowing that Chopin was unable to offer suggestions or correct the publisher's proof?

She should be your dream pianist then.

Kreisler, I was really more talking about Beethoven... (since I almost never play Ravel or Bartok, although I am playing Debussy violin sonata right now and a LOT of Beethoven), I don't know what it is, the pure genius which is so intimidating but so so wonderful and almost divine, that plus him being so insistent with people following his markings, and the struggle in his writing that is apparent through his constant scribbles, crossed out stuff and rewritten passages and more crossed out sections etc, I would not play around with his markings. That is, of those that we are certain of. Which leads me to the point about Scriabin - if no one is sure which dynamic he marked, then one must use their logic and instincs. There's nothing wrong with that, after all, we're not psychic. Just like in Brahms I've come across pages with nothing on them. We have to really just think about it and follow our instincts (if we have good instincs, haha). But for the things we ARE certain of, we should follow. There is no question. Don't people have respect of these composers? You start with the score! And of course everybody's way of doing so will be different because humans aren't identical... we all have our own DNA (which really shows through our playing). I'm sure you know all of this stuff, I'm just not sure what your point is...........

In my opinion, he is pretty much hot or cold with Beethoven. Sometimes it is quite brilliant, other times he comes across as disinterested. There are better, more consistent interpreters of Beethoven than Horowitz.