Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Do you play the same when you repeat?

When you repeat a section, are you supposed to play it the same way as before? Or are you allowed to make different interpretations each time?

If this question is too general, I am thinking about Beethoven sonatas, for example.

Beethoven Sonatas.......play the repeated section the same as before.

You cannot be serious.

There's no such rule for any music, and I think if anything most advanced musicians would say that there are almost always at least slight differences. I agree that in Beethoven sonatas it's more likely that there would usually be a lot more similarity than difference, but it still wouldn't be "same" -- and it would depend on the kind of movement. Like, in "theme and variation" movements, we'd probably have a greater tendency to vary the repetitions.

I think that convention has it that whether it is Beethoven or any other composer, repeats are not played exactly the second time as the first. Yes, of course the notes are the same, but the dynamics and expression are different upon repetition, perhaps not vastly different, but with some variation of "musical inflection," for lack of a better term.

Regards,

.....or of intensity.
Or something.

Although not necessarily.
There's no rule.

Of course if we play it exactly the same, a lot of people will wonder why we're playing the repeat at all....

I've played things differently the second time through with short, AABB-structured pieces, like in Bach. But a Beethoven sonata exposition? That's always seemed to long, and too structured, to really change anything.

Also, it seems to me that I never hear concert artists vary the repeat of a Beethoven sonata exposition. Anyone have a counter-example?

-J

Seems like maybe some of us mean different things by "vary."
Are you talking maybe about changing notes?
(I'm not.)

Anyway I don't really understand the thing about "too long and too structured" in terms of varying the repeat. I can sort of understand it, but not really, especially if we're talking about slight or subtle changes.

When playing repeats in the Beethoven Sonata that I'm working on, I do play it slightly differently the second time (or I'd like to think I do!) because it just sounds right slightly different because a repeat is after all different from the first time because the first time, was the first time you heard it..:D the repeat is the second time you hear it. Imagine the music speaking to you stating that it fully knows that its a repeat and therefore emphasizes that with some musical nuances.

I wouldn't be able to play it exactly the way I played it at the start even if I tried hard, I'd think..

I wasn't talking about changing notes, or embellishing with ornaments. Just "interpretation". Most recordings of Beethoven expositions don't seem to change even that.

As for "too long and too structured", I only partly understand it myself. All I know is that in the short Schumann pieces I'm working on now, it often feels natural to play a repeated section slightly differently, usually a little more dramatically (for the fiery pieces), or a little more slowly and intensely (for the dreamy pieces). These are, generally, short sections that are repeated, say 30 seconds or so.

But I never feel the same urge in a Beethoven exposition. It's hard to say why not, but if I try to put it into words, I get: it feels too structured; it feels like it's trying to tell a story, and it's the same story each time.

-J

I think it's essential. It's said that music is repetition, and while that is simplistic, there's truth in that. Repetition is what gives music structure, and _how_ you do each repetition is what in many cases makes or breaks an interpretation. I try to construct (or recognize, where obvious enough) an overall arc for every piece I play, which inevitably involves change/transformation over the course of the piece, so that hopefully every repetition is both distinct and part of a recognizable arc or musical story.

Of course, there can be structures where the theme is transformed again and again and does repeat, at the very end, exactly as in the beginning. But I think that's the exception that proves the point -- in that case, that very constancy is what draws the listener's attention (another famous exception is Ravel's Bolero, which is pretty much built on constancy -- it's exactly the constancy of phrasing that most defines its character).

What does the score tell you to do? That is all that matters.

Opinions among pianists vary - some say you should, some say not. I think Hofmann(?) was famous for playing repeats with completely different interpretations than the first time around.

But even if you play a repeated section exactly the same the second time through, the listener will not experience it the same way, because it will be messing around with their short-term memory of what you did the first time (as well as messing around with your own memory of what you just did). It's like some kind of induced pseudo deja vu.

Or you could think of playing through a repeat as a way in which music seems to accomplish an impossible thing, something many people dream of, which is reliving something in the past and doing something about it. How many times do people think "if only I could do that over again, I'd change this or that"? Well, with music, you sort of can.

Varying the notes in Beethoven, when he took such pains to write and re-write? I think not. Varying the way of playing them? At one level, the repeat will always be different, whether we intend it or not, technically, at the micro second level, it is physically impossible to play absolutely exactly the same, even if we needed electronic equipment to detect the differences. I would argue that we instinctively change the interpretation because of what we have just played: the question is whether we should do this consciously. That's our choice. As for recordings: how many repeats are just copied from a good take of the first time around? I have a very respected set (Colin Davis) of Haydn symphonies. In the repeat of the first part of a first movement I wince every time I hear the extraneous noise (soft, but audible) at the same place. The recording engineers and producer should have spotted it, of course, but they didn't, or thought the listener wouldn't detect it.
The listener will respond differently to the repeat, especially on first hearing the work. Should the artist point the way? My own approach is to allow my natural responses to what I have played already to inform my playing of a repeat.

When I learnt the Schumann Papillons op2, my teacher and I worked very hard on varying the repeats to keep it interesting and more expressive.
Here's my recording of the 1st half for reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeFPMH3feO0&
In general, I don't play the repeats the same way. It's kind of boring...

Yes!



Yep. There are several instances where composers write out varied repeats when they want something done differently. Take the Brahms Handel variations for example. The vast majority of the variations are written with repeats, but not the 8th or 19th. In the 8th, he wanted the top voice taken down an octave on the repeat, so he writes it out. In the 19th, the change is more subtle, he simply wanted a different voice emphasized and ornamented, so he writes it out.

Where this is a bit different is in Bach. Bach probably would've done things different on the repeats. However, he wouldn't have done things differently *because* of a repeat. He would've done things differently because improvisation was part of the style (in some things, not fugues!) Obviously, if you allow for some improvisation, then repeats are going to be different, but not because of some silly arbitrary rule that says "repeat = more ornaments" (which is how an awful lot of people treat his music.)

+1

I think there's a big difference between saying "play the same notes in the repeat" and "play the repeat the same". Of course, if the score shows the same notes (or just indicates a repeat), you should (generally) play the same notes the second time around. That doesn't mean your interpretation should stay the same.

Exactly -- and it's still seeming to me that some of the replies are mixing the two, possibly confusing what the OP meant.

Unless I am.

That's been my experience as well (which is why I originally gave a simple answer to a very simple question), and it is consistent with the way I was taught to play sonatas by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

Of course, I recognize that it is almost impossible to play anything the "same way" upon repetition. My most recent home recording attempts certainly demonstrated that !!

I sometimes commit the worst crime in all music. And add extra notes and embellishments the second time round.... don't shoot me!!