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So why not follow whatever guidelines they did write even if it's not complete or one thinks it's approximate? Even if the composer's instructions are not perfect why not make the best with what he did write?

A perfect example IMO of how words with connotations can color a statement. If one replaced "anal" by "respectful" or "concerned" the statement sounds very different I think.

Listening to composers playing their own music (Bartok, Rachmaninoff, Faure, Scriabin, etc.) is really illuminating in this regard.

What is respectful and what is concerned really depend on who you ask. And to my understanding, people in the 1800s were much more liberal about music. Pianists often did what they want with a score without a second thought. One could even argue that back then, it may have been disrespectful to NOT make the piece their own. Just a thought.

Beethoven is rolling in his grave.

I think all the evidence indicates that Beethoven was pretty fussy, but could be won over by a convincing personality. So, try if you want, but prepare to be fried if you're insincere.

I think Bach would ask, "if you double here, do more people come?" That man had kids to feed.

Schubert would have been happy that his music is played at all, great as it is. I think a reverential attitude with Schubert is especially wrong.

Mozart, Chopin and Tchaikovsky would probably be the most diva-like, and complain about tempi and dynamics and instrumentation. (Mozart did it with Clementi, Chopin with Liszt, and Tchaikovsky plenty)

I just cannot understand what is so hard about doing what is on the page. It never restricts you. You don't have to be a purist, snob, elitist, or "score-worshiper" to do what's on the page. You just do it. If you're a good musician, there are still COUNTLESS interpretive choices to be made.

There are very few pianists today who would play a Mozart concerto exactly as written in the score.......

You're talking about 25? Don't fall prey to the Rosen flock. That wasn't an object-lesson in Mozart's free-wheeledness. That was a busy composer not bothering to write something out for himself.

No, I'm talking about all his piano concertos.

Whatever you do, don't ignore what the French composers wrote down (aka, Boulez, Ravel, Debussy, Messiaen)...haha. Learning how to read the score is always a new challenge and is never the same on a composer-to-composer basis. There are many shades of grey, and it's important to approach music with a flexible mindset.

Years ago now, I overheard a conversation between a rising star in avant-garde piano performance and one of the established masters. I won't name the latter, let's just call him Fred.

The young woman asked Fred how he played one bit of the piece she was working on, which used graphical notation rather than standard music notation. He glanced at it and said "I just look at it and improvise. The composers always seem to like it."

The message I took home was that there's no point writing scores that are detailed beyond human ability to reproduce. Furthermore, there's a current of self-delusion circulating in academic music where composers sweat over super-detailed scores even though they can't tell when the performer just takes them as a suggestion.

Andy

Messiaen is an interesting case, because he gave his approval to recordings and performances by many pianists (not just his wife) and conductors. I've heard at least four versions of his Turangalîla Symphony on CD, which proudly boasts that he was at the recording sessions (and almost implied that the conductor and pianist worked closely with him on the work), and that the performance was 'definitive'.

Yet none of them followed every marking in his score.....

Any excuse for some Denk...

http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/03/07/yet-another-ill-advised-egregious-post/

It's really a wonderful rant.

Amen.

There are few Mozart concerto sources which are more than a vague reference to Mozart's intentions, particularly for the solo part. The manuscripts are often incomplete, and most of them were not published under his supervision.

Didn't any of you read my post from yesterday? The simple fact is that a performer is supposed to be making music.

I have spent the last 13 years re-discovering what that is. It absolutely is not meticulously following some score.

The early comment about the Golliwogg's cakewalk which is on the Debussy piano roll is a typical example of what most piano teachers don't know about making music.

As anyone who has ever composed a piece of music knows, what is put down on the page in terms of notes is only a rough approximation of the sound that the composer hears in their minds ear.

Debussy was an impressionist. He was not a realist.

Therefore, what he was trying to do was to create in the listener's ear the "impression" of what it was like for him to see these black circus clowns perform at the Parisien circus.

So, in case you missed it the the first time, I list part of my post from yesterday wherein I quote Earl Wild, who for 80 years played and taught people how to make "music."

From page 448 of Earl Wild's Memoir:

"Since World War II, performers have, with few exceptions, been dominated by musicologists who have frightened everyone into uniformity. We no longer have the large varitey of unique personalities in the piano field.....

When I performed at the University of Maryland Piano Festival, I began my program with the Haydn Piano Sonata in D Major No.50. I was reviewed by a Washington, D.C. critic who criticized me severely because I broke some chords (I rolled some chords at the end of the last movement). It was a very common practice in Haydn's day to do this. Reading this criticism reminded me that there is such misinformtion about music today. We are subjected daily to the "urtext mob" (as Jorge Bolet often referred to them), who have put music into a straitjacket because they believe the printed page is sacred."

Finally, for your listening pleasure, Earl Wild's recording of the A Flat Major Ballade, in case any of you want hear how it is done with rolled and block chords. Please move the cursor to the 16.00 minute mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-59bSNgQAY

So What??? This is what the OP asks!

I did not say what to do if the answer is no as he did not ask that :-D

Can we ever truly realize the composer's intent?

No, of course not, and neither can the composer. If they think they can perform the work such that the listener truly hears the composer's intent, they need to take a course in psychology.

The ultimate arbiter of the music performance is the listener. No matter how one interprets the score, whether by slavishly adhering to all the markings, including editorial additions and note changes, intentional or unintentional, or by ignoring the score and playing according to their own way of expressing what they experience, having worked on the piece, it will be judged by the listener, no one else.

If a large number of listeners, at a given time, agree on the interpretation as having value, then that is all that the composer and performer can expect. Those values change over time, and change according to the listener group sampled. I prefer eccentric interpretations of music I know well, since it is a fresh approach, but I perform the same work with, sadly I might add, very careful attention to the score.

I have to voice support in the corner of Kuanpiano and OSK et al. I have to agree I'm not sure what all the fuss is about when following the score. Presumably the composer approved the manuscript and I've simply never felt limited or bounded by their intentions. Quite the opposite in fact, following meticulously still reveals great degrees of freedom of expression musically.