Re: Courtesy enharmonic
Posted: 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: 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.
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: 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.