Courtesy enharmonic

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John Ruggero
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Post by John Ruggero » Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:20 pm

Despite your frustration, you come up with good solutions for you and your students, using your intuition, which is what really matters. However, in case it helps with the frustration part, I offer a summary of my own attitude toward the issues that you mention:

There is a lot more information encoded in musical notation than it appears on the surface, and the best composers were able to set down the essential information necessary for knowledgable players to realize their intentions. European art music is based on concepts and these concepts are passed on through a sophisticated notational system rather than through an aural tradition. This means that composers expect each performer to express the essential concepts of their music, but also understand that a sincere and conscientious performer will do that in their own way. The only tradition that really counts are the concepts expressed in the music. For this reason, I advise my students to stop listening to performances of a piece when they are working on a piece seriously for fear of imitation. Each performer needs to understand the music so deeply so that they can express it in their own way without fear of doing violence to it.

Comments on the specific spots you mention:

1. Since most pianists cannot span a major tenth of that configuration in the Etude op 25 no 10, Chopin expected that most would break it and the following chord, and therefore put in the pedal marks. The upper line in the LH is actually enhanced by breaking. It adds greater expression to the G# and A# like a portamento between these notes. Breaking chords in keyboard music is a personal thing like vibrato or bowing that a performer can use to express the things that are going on in the music in their own way.

2. The Debussy spot is well-known and knowledgeable players would play it with the half-notes of the 3/2 measures equal to the quarters of the 6/4. Debussy wrote 6/4 = 3/2 but left out a quarter=half equation. It is obvious from the spot shown in the example how it works:
Debussy Engulfed.jpg
Debussy Engulfed.jpg (152.21 KiB) Viewed 2238 times
I think that he did this so that the half and whole notes would have a symbolic significance since they look like "church music", i.e. the cathedral v.s. the quarter-notes representing the lake.

3. Rachmaninoff did some funky rhythmic things. But that was his own personal approach, as opposed to his role as composer. I don't think that it is advisable to imitate his personal performance style unless it is also happens to be ours.
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gary-duane
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Post by gary-duane » Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:32 pm

John Ruggero wrote: 3. Rachmaninoff did some funky rhythmic things. But that was his own personal approach, as opposed to his role as composer. I don't think that it is advisable to imitate his personal performance style unless it is also happens to be ours.
This first:

I agree 100% for his interpretations of other people's music. I totally disagree about his way of playing his own music.

This would be a bit like our being able to go back in time and hear Chopin playing his own Mazurkas. From what I've read he stretched one beat, probably beat 2, so long that listeners claimed he was playing in 3/4 time.

I've heard this "story" since I was young.

I'd certainly like to hear how he played this music, and playing it "straight", in even 4/4, is probably as wrong as playing something that is supposed to swing in straight rhythm - or vice versa.

I would never ignore a great composer's playing of his own music.

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John Ruggero
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Post by John Ruggero » Sun Aug 20, 2017 11:35 pm

gary-duane wrote:I would never ignore a great composer's playing of his own music.
Nor would I. The Debussy above is the perfect example of the kind of information that can be gained or verified if there are errors in the text or other interpretative uncertainties. On the other hand, it takes a mature musician to sift through a composer's performance to understand what is of general significance, what is something that happened during a single performance and therefore subject to change, and what is an unintended idiosyncrasy of the player. For that reason, multiple performances of the same piece by a composer (as exist by Rachmaninoff) are even more helpful. One should also consider that many historic recordings were made without benefit of editing and that performers did not have ready access to recording and may have been startled by imperfections in their own playing, as we all are when hearing ourselves for the first time. Schnabel's famous rushing would be an example.

In the case of the Debussy, I wonder how many pianists have double timed the 3/2 passages in the manner intended by Debussy, without knowing the composer's performance, as I and several students of mine have done, simply because it is so natural to do so, and then were "mis-corrected' by a teacher.
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"The better the composer, the better the notation."

gary-duane
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Post by gary-duane » Mon Aug 21, 2017 9:05 am

John Ruggero wrote:
gary-duane wrote:I would never ignore a great composer's playing of his own music.
Nor would I. The Debussy above is the perfect example of the kind of information that can be gained or verified if there are errors in the text or other interpretative uncertainties. On the other hand, it takes a mature musician to sift through a composer's performance to understand what is of general significance, what is something that happened during a single performance and therefore subject to change, and what is an unintended idiosyncrasy of the player. For that reason, multiple performances of the same piece by a composer (as exist by Rachmaninoff) are even more helpful. One should also consider that many historic recordings were made without benefit of editing and that performers did not have ready access to recording and may have been startled by imperfections in their own playing, as we all are when hearing ourselves for the first time. Schnabel's famous rushing would be an example.

In the case of the Debussy, I wonder how many pianists have double timed the 3/2 passages in the manner intended by Debussy, without knowing the composer's performance, as I and several students of mine have done, simply because it is so natural to do so, and then were "mis-corrected' by a teacher.
John, absolute agreement with of the above, and specifically this:

"In the case of the Debussy, I wonder how many pianists have double timed the 3/2 passages in the manner intended by Debussy, without knowing the composer's performance, as I and several students of mine have done, simply because it is so natural to do so, and then were "mis-corrected' by a teacher."

That's a great question. I would say that we are, in general, mislead by Debussy's markings, because his beginning "6/4=3/2" to me is utterly incomprehensible, without explanation. At first, listening to Debussy, I thought he was double-timing those sections, but as I listened more, it became clear to me that he switching the counting or beat from measures where there were clear quarters to those where halves were clearly the beat, and this (to my ears) totally changed everything.

After absorbing this idea - which to me sounds so natural and so right - listening to most other players just sounds unconvincing. Rubinstein, much to my surprise, seems to have done what Debussy had in mind, no doubt pretty much instinctively.

And "yes" to students being miscorrected by teachers.

Also "yes" to hearing multiple recordings, to judge whether something done was simply spur of the moment - and may not actually have worked so well - or something quite obviously intended and important.

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