Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Written improv in Mozart sonatas repeat sections??

Hi everyone! Been a while since I have been regularly 'attending' the forums. Times have proven very busy, not only in concerts, but in editing the 'repeats' of all of the Mozart Sonatas. I am recording the 17-sonata cycle for Koch, and pencil drafted the written-in repeat variants for the sonatas where repeat signs are indicated. At my Facebook group, 'Jeffrey Biegel--Pianist, Composer', I have posted the 'Discussion Board' topic of whether or not it is 'correct' and/or tasteful to add improvisational embellishments and variants--rhythmically and notes in some cases--to these repeat sections. I have completed the first book of the Peters edition, and into the second, and recorded 5 of the sonatas last week. My question is two-fold:
1: Does aybody know if there are recordings already existing with variants in the repeat sections;
2: How do you feel about a new recording which will be 'urtext' with slight variation in the repeats?
I have been impressed with the wide-ranging knowledge in these forums, and welcome your thoughts with sincere appreciation. Robert Levin is a Mozart 'specialist' and has done this for the concerti.

Check out CPE's Sonatas with Varied Reprises. Leopold tried to flog some early Mozart to a publisher as similar. Mozart would have obviously studied them. Instead of a repeat sign CPE carries on with embellishments written in.

I would personally love to hear some variants in the repeats, Jeffrey. It would add to more diversity in Mozart recordings. However, I guess purists would not call it an Urtext performance anymore (but I don't think that should matter too much). Please, if you have a sample recording snippet of your variants to get an impression, let us know. As an aside, many people unfortunately play the repeats not only with identical notes (which is the standard), but also with identical dynamics, phrasing etc (which is boring)...

I don't know about recordings with variants in the repeats, but I recently heard a pianoforte recording of Andreas Staier of the Rondo alla turca with really substantial alterations throughout. I would not be surprised (but don't know for sure) if he takes some liberties in other Mozart movements.

Great replies--thanks!! I will check out the Staier performance. Mine will be the complete cycle, so I wonder if that makes it a first cycle with such variants. I am being extremely careful in this process, to enhance and not take away from the original composer's intentions. There's a delicate fine line to contend with, obviously.

Did Mozart improvise when performing his sonatas?

Curious if anyone here ever came across an answer to this question in Mozart's letters etc? Seems the little genius 'showed-off' and improvised whenever he can. You can tell from some of the variants in the sonatas that he wrote out, thus eliminating the need to repeat--love those!

I'm pretty sure the original composer's intentions were for people to improvise all they wanted to.

The problem is more a question of what kind of authenticity you want. Do you want a recording that recaptures what it might have been like to hear Mozart himself play? Do you want a recording that recaptures how a contemporary performer may have rendered the sonatas? Or do you want a recording that captures the real spirit of improvisation, where the performer puts his or her personal stamp on the works?

I'm guessing, of course, but I think those would be three very different recordings.

The other question is a matter of what improvisation really means. For some, it means *adding* things to the score - ornaments or little scales, eingangs and nachschlags, etc..

I've always had a different philosophy - that improvisation can mean adding, subtracting, or changing things in the score.

I think all I am doing is gentle variants of the original text. Perhaps to 'imagine' what Mozart might have done, without going wild, with the way it would sound on the modern piano without trying to imitate his instruments, but certainly not the third option you mention, which would render it too personal and without regard for the urtext (which I hope I am not doing~~)
Thanks for your input--great questions!

The question that seems to be coming out of these interesting exchanges is : where does one draw the relatively fine line between "gentle variants of the original text" and "going wild"?

No matter which way you go, the purist is going to say it's not Urtext and the "other" purist is going to say "Mozart would have done more than that!"

It's an informed artistic decision, I think, and one that the editor has to make with conviction.

Regards,

That is the plan--

Having done editing, arranging, composing etc, I feel rather comfortable in doing this, otherwise, I would never suggest it to anyone. I also believe the way to do this comfortably, is to play all 17 sonatas and most of the concerti. All of these variants which I am doing, would normally appear in various guises in any one of the other works. Purists will always say it's not pure, and those who know that Mozart always played things differently, as evidenced in his own varying treatments throughout his works, will have their curiousity spiked with the new recordings. I am forever altering things, but I hear it all in my head first, as though it were written, and then transfer this to paper, fixing it until it sounds organic and natural, not as though I did it 'to' the music, but rather, 'with' the music.

The embellishments done by Brautigam and Lubimov in their complete Mozart sonata cycles are certainly worth checking out.

[I improvise embellishments all the time when playing Mozart. It's such great fun!]

Jeffrey, one thing that has always interested me about reports of Mozart's playing is how it was often described in virtuosic terms. When I look at the concertos, I can't help feeling that the scores don't reflect what Mozart would have played. I'm not saying these are technically easy works, but you can see how they might have been a point of departure for virtuosity. In the context of performance practice of the day, when composers very often wrote pieces that they themselves would showcase, perhaps Mozart deliberately didn't transcribe his keyboard skills for fear of imitation.

This may or may not be a fair way to interpret the scores of some of the concertos, but I think it reflects a different attitude to the printed note. It is only really in more recent times that we have come to seek an urtext in an attempt to return to the composer's true intentions. Sometimes I feel people hold too much store by the printed note of an urtext edition, as if it is an unimpeachable document.

An 'urtext' is not derived purely from textual criticism; the process has to be informed by contemporaneous performance practice, attitudes to publishing and musicianship. The urtext may reflect, as closely as possible, the notes as the composer wished them to be set down, but it does not follow from that the composer did not expect or intend for the performer to deviate from the printed note.

So, turning to recording improvisational embellishments variations of repeated sections of an urtext edition of the sonatas, I would say that if such embellishments are consistent with contemporaneous performance practice then they are also consistent with the urtext. The fact that the variations may not be written out note for note seems to me to be irrelevant. People do not cry 'inauthentic' when a singer embellishes the repeat of a da capo aria, unless perhaps the performance is insensitive to the musical period or inconsistent with our understanding of performance practice. The position is no different here.

There are plenty of recordings of Mozart's sonatas in the catalogue that adhere strictly to the score -- one that adopts contemporaneous practice of improvisation or embellishment is going to be no less authentic because the notes played are not on the page. Your approach may in fact be more authentic and that is, surely, consistent with the aims of recording an urtext.

Thanks, Timbo77. I agree with you, which is why my gut instinct dictate what I need to do--and want to do. Take the Bach Toccatas, for example--there are variants in all of the editions, and performers have taken many liberties. How far off was the great Mozart? We need an urtext to work from, though what is the point in having repeats unless we vary the performance? Hearing the same thing twice just makes a case fo architecture and proportion. The music is not a mueseum piece, but something that needs to be re-created, and breathe with freshness and spontaneity. That being said, it is the responsibility of the performers to be judicious in the liberties taken, and that is my prmary goal. Mozart first, me last. All in the service of the master composer.

Janus--in your experience of listening to the Brautigam and Lubimov recordings, do they play actual variants of rhythms, notes, etc other than the dynamic changes and an occasional ornamental alteration?

Couldn't agree more.

I think you are all missing the point of urtext. It exists to make perfectly clear what is edited and what is composed. It's not, in that sense, directly related to performance practice.

My teacher, who studied with Schnabel and Josef Lhevinne used to say to her students, 'How "Ur" is urtext, dear??' Hen'es 'urtext' is a clean, basic, skeletal score. I think Mr. Mozart wanted to provide a playable and clean understanding of his music, and occasionally, in the sonatas without repeats, he writes in his own improv. That gave me the signal that there is room for more, however judicious as I reiterate constantly. The 'urtext' becomes a point of departure.

Unless I see the hand-written score from the composer directly, I don't consider it "urtext" (a misnomer if there ever was one). And of course, considering that these composers were actually human beings, the "urtext" certainly doesn't mean "definitive".

The assumption is always that the composer saw and proof-read the plates of the first edition. That's the difference between urtext and manuscript.

I agree with Thracozaag and keyboardklutz. Closer to home, if you saw the original drafts of Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue' and compare it to what is published, you'd be quite surprised!

And different "urtexts" take different approaches.

We need to remember that all "urtext" means is "original." It could be the original text of the first edition, composer's fair copy, or the composer's manuscript/autograph.

It's also worth remembering that, at least in Artaria/Mozart's case, the publisher was trying to sell music and make money, not provide future piano nerds with a window into the composer's mind.