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Thank you for that. I was familiar with this believe it or not, haha! It makes me glad to have a Steinway D at my disposal for my next recital.. I love how far the instrument has come!



Yes, I sure hope I know that, haha.... I try anyway. But as you know, I respect the score immensely, and try to follow it as much as I can, and use it as a guide to bring something special to a piece. I'll often even use the score to justify something that most people would think is not ordinarily done, if you know what I mean. How many people sit down with the music and examine it closely, figuring out relationships between thematic material, harmonic structure, not to mention overall structure etc - it's fascinating! Sometimes, I don't even think the composers themselves realized what's really in there. Anyway.



Yes, it should sound as if there is no pedal. I mean, most good pianists play that way - you don't exactly "notice" their pedaling. Which I think is extremely difficult to achieve!

But yes, I should go practice. Tomorrow I have a dress rehearsal in the hall. And if I crap all over it, my teacher will throw rotten tomatoes at me.

Ooooh, I should wear a red dress! Then the tomatoes will blend..

I don't think the composer not putting markings on the score means that the composer thought any interpretation is OK.

Why does it have to be one or the other?

Obviously, you can't have the second thing without the first, PL'us, if you want to read things like a sentence-parsing (*ahem* score-worshipping) literalist. Yet, somehow, I was able to understand (*ahem* make sense of) what Mwm composed without putting a magnifying glass to the "or."

I don't want to press the point unmercifully, but, if one believes in strict adherance to the markings in a score including note lengths, then playing many pieces of the French and German baroque as written would be not respecting the composers' intents. It was expected that one would play notes inégales when and where appropriate to the style of the work. By doing research, reading the treatises, written in the time when the music was written, on performance style and technique, you are able to come closer to the style of playing that was expected by the listener of that day.

Magnifying glass or an absolutely key word in the idea that was expressed which, in my view, makes the statement dubious? The entire discussion for most of the last pages is about whether following the score is a good idea. Perhaps if you had quoted more than the single sentence the intended meaning might be clearer, but as stated the use of "or" in that sentence implies a choice of one or the other.

I would hope you both understand that, as the consummate musicians you are, by following the ink splotches on the page, you are both following the score AND trying to make sense of it.

Someone mentioned above about a painting being frozen - the artist paints it and then is out of the equation. I disagree. The viewer becomes the performer. It is up to the viewer to make sense of the painting, and her interpretation of the painting is only as good as her knowledge of the markings on the painting and their meaning, given the artist, school, and conventions of the day. Symbology in art is as complicated, and fascinating, as that in music. One can give as too romantic an interpretation of an early painting, being ignorant of the artist's intent, as one can give a too romantic interpretation of an early musical work.

You are making art sound elitist, and understandable only to the 'learned', almost in the same way many ignoramus claim classical music is elitist despite never bothering to listen to it.

I don't think anyone needs an art degree to appreciate great art, just as no one needs a music degree to appreciate classical music. When I was seriously into painting (I won prizes as a teenager), all I ever wanted was for people to enjoy my paintings as much as I enjoyed 'creating' them. If people wanted to ask me who my influences were, what my inspiration was, I was happy to oblige. But to 'explain' my painting, the reason for its existence, its 'symbology', the significance of a particular brush stroke?

Perish the thought.

The point of this thread was to ponder whether or not we can truly realize the composer's intent. If we don't understand the language (notation in music, use of symbols such as colour, flowers, mirrors, drapes, clocks, books in 16th and 17th century art), then we can never come close to what the composer/artist intended. I am not suggesting that one can't appreciate music or art without an education. That IS elitist. But it is not elitist to state that one can have a deeper appreciation of the music/art if one IS educated. Think of the Art of Fugue or the Goldberg Variations -exquisite music that brings tears to my eyes with its emotional content; and even more tears when I realize that this man produced that exquisite music with an underlying, complex mathematical structure. Is it elitist for me to enjoy the music at that level? If so, that is very sad.

Actually, on reading my post above, I admit that I am an elitist ____(fill in the blanks). I often think when I play this music for people, "I know all this stuff about this music and you don't!" Then I want to tell them about it, so they can enjoy the music in a different way. Sad, eh? or Huh? as the case may be.

I see you're heavily into symbolism.

As this is a music rather than art forum, I'll leave that part of the discussion for another occasion...
But as far as understanding what the composer intended, and the performance practice of the period, HIP have changed our perception in recent decades, to the extent that even modern orchestras (playing on modern instruments) scale back their forces and reduce the use of vibrato to the bare minimum when playing music from the Classical era. And there are some who claim that vibrato should not be used even in Bruckner and Mahler.

But how much do we really know how music was performed in those days? Notation gives us no clue. (Otherwise why the discrepancy between big-band Mozart as played by the Berliner Philharmoniker/Herbert von Karajan and period ensemble Mozart as played by the Freiburger Barockorchester/René Jacobs? Both are faithful to the score). Correspondence from the period may give some hints as to what performance practice was like - but only hints, open to interpretation (and prejudices...).

As for understanding the 'language', let's see what Mozart has to say about his concertos K413, 414 and 415: "These concertos are a happy medium between what is too easy and what is too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being vapid. There are passages here and there from which the connoisseurs alone may derive satisfaction; but these passages are written is such a way that the less learned cannot fail to be pleased, though without knowing why......The golden mean of truth in all things is no longer either known or appreciated. In order to win applause, one must write stuff which is so inane that a coachman could sing it, or so unintelligible that it pleases precisely because no sensible man can understand it."

Believe me, Mwm, I got it. I was hoping people might appreciate the metaphorical nature of my joke with PL'us as my foil. Every so often, I like to rib PL'us when he goads me. It helps him keep his post count up.

I don't think a little ribbing hurts even when he's not goading you.

Thank you, bennevis, for a great quote!

Which may explain why I have such antipathy towards 20+ century music. I much prefer to hang out with the coachmen, who "know not why", than the connoisseurs, who "know it all". And for Wolfie to then say that music has something to do with being "brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being vapid." What a concept!

Is your antipathy directed towards 20+ century classical music (i.e. avant garde music)? Because the modern coachmen (taxi drivers) listen to pop music. Usually they don't sing to it. But in Mozart's time, the car radio did not exist yet.

The Mozart quote still leaves room as to what is the composer's intent. Apparently, Mozart wanted to sound simple and sophisticated at the same time. But how to do it in our time? That's where the interpreter comes in.

From an amateur standpoint, maybe a good rule is: Playing the piece the way one would like to listen to it. IMO This is respectful to the composer, because if someone takes the time and effort to learn a piece, this person obviously likes and/or respects the composer, and will not butcher the work. The result may not be totally true to the score; but it will probably still be pleasant music; at least for the performer.

Sort of don't agree with the concept of if you take the time to learn a piece you won't butcher it... I butcher things every day and I love my repertoire.....

Now we know!

No, I'm not. I know next to nothing about art, but I have art that I have bought because I it spoke to me and I feel sad that I don't know enough about art to have a deeper understanding. When I read an "art 101" synopsis of of famous painting, and realize that I never saw any of the real detail in the painting, I wonder if that is how people who don't understand music feel. I still enjoy the painting, they still enjoy the music, but I think I am missing the point of the painting and i think they are missing the point of the music.

Actually, if you have studied early performance practice, you would know that there are a vast number of treatises, books, and primers written by composers and scholars during the time that the pieces were written that describe in minute detail the contemporaneous performance customs and techniques. Armed with this information, it is possible to make reasonable educated guesses regarding interpretation.

I think it's sad that anyone needs to feel inadequate for perceived lack of knowledge or 'understanding', of art or music.

When I listen to some of the gobbledegook that some so-called 'experts' say about certain paintings or music (and they also abound in sleeve-notes to CDs), I do wonder if they're living on the same planet. I've had that sort of nonsense imposed on me when some people 'saw' all sorts of significance (and yes, 'symbolism') and fin de siècle existentialism in my paintings that I didn't (and still don't ). I'm just a simple guy, and I paint and compose because I enjoy it, purely for pleasure. End of. (Luckily, very few people have heard my music compositions, or I'd probably be informed that I was predicting the end of the world with my use of major-minor chord clashes overlaid on top of implied atonality.....).

Buy paintings that 'speak' to you, that you want to admire again and again - not because someone 'learned' tells you there's all sorts of underlying significance and symbolism and 'detail' below the brushstrokes and color. Don't feel you're missing the 'point' of it.

Similarly, you don't need to understand the intricacies of counterpoint and fugal writing to enjoy Bach, nor twelve-tone principles to enjoy Berg's Violin Concerto. Nor know what Alberti bass is to play Mozart. Nor bitonality to enjoy Poulenc.