"We cannot do full justice to music from other periods unless we hear it as its creator did, and attempt to reproduce it, as far as possible, in the style and with the resources of the period when it was written" (Paul Badura-Skoda)
"I think that instruments from every period have effects and colours that cannot be reproduced on today's pianos—that compositions were always conceived with the instruments of their time in mind, and only on those can they achieve their full effect" (Anton Rubinstein, 1892)
Performance practice issue: Tempo rubato
Tempo rubato, or "l'accent pathétique", is difficult to describe in words or notate on the page, but the notion of tempo flexibility according to "Affekt" is I believe one of the more striking differences between modern and historically informed interpretations. More specifically, in an earlier form of "melodic rubato", note values were stretched and shortened in an improvisatory manner over a steady bass accompaniment. Mozart commented in a letter from 1777, "what these people cannot grasp is that in tempo rubato, in an Adagio, the left hand should go on playing in strict time. With them the left hand always follows suit." Documented in the Baroque era and sustained as a performance practice through the ensuing centuries, in tempo rubato, performers continued to take liberties with their melodies while the accompaniment kept strict time. This push and pull of the melodic line, creating a spontaneous flexibility and near autonomy against a steady accompaniment, is almost completely lost in many twenty-first century interpretations. How to recreate this particular style of tempo rubato?
Here is a wonderfully natural illustration of melodic tempo rubato in the vocal sphere sung by Bea Arthur in "What'll I Do", written by Irving Berlin:
Tempo rubato, or "l'accent pathétique", is difficult to describe in words or notate on the page, but the notion of tempo flexibility according to "Affekt" is I believe one of the more striking differences between modern and historically informed interpretations. More specifically, in an earlier form of "melodic rubato", note values were stretched and shortened in an improvisatory manner over a steady bass accompaniment. Mozart commented in a letter from 1777, "what these people cannot grasp is that in tempo rubato, in an Adagio, the left hand should go on playing in strict time. With them the left hand always follows suit." Documented in the Baroque era and sustained as a performance practice through the ensuing centuries, in tempo rubato, performers continued to take liberties with their melodies while the accompaniment kept strict time. This push and pull of the melodic line, creating a spontaneous flexibility and near autonomy against a steady accompaniment, is almost completely lost in many twenty-first century interpretations. How to recreate this particular style of tempo rubato?
Here is a wonderfully natural illustration of melodic tempo rubato in the vocal sphere sung by Bea Arthur in "What'll I Do", written by Irving Berlin:
Tempo rubato is often closely associated with the music of Chopin, but performances that embrace this earlier ornamented melodic flexibility have been largely forgotten in our time. The recordings of Raoul Koczalski, a student of Karl Mikuli (who, in turn, was a student of Chopin), provide clues as to how this music was interpreted in Chopin's time. The complete freedom of the hands in Koczalski's interpretation and the added ornaments make these interpretations of Chopin's Nocturnes truly his own.
F. Chopin - Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2
F. Chopin - Nocturne in D-flat major, Op. 27 No. 2
Performance practice issue: Improvisation
Improvisation was a central and monumental practice to musicians for centuries within the Classical idiom. Whereas in Classical concerts of our time, improvisation is rarely heard, in the jazz sphere, it is a core practice. I believe the heart of improvisation lies in a thorough, embodied, "inside-out" knowledge of stylistic sentences and trademarks, the syntax of a language, and the ability to free-associate in the genre, according to a small set of boundaries. How did classical performers slowly lose this skill and why did it disappear from concert platforms? Drawing inspiration from great improvisers of the twentieth century, here is Oscar Peterson demonstrating the pianistic styles of contemporary jazz pianists:
Improvisation was a central and monumental practice to musicians for centuries within the Classical idiom. Whereas in Classical concerts of our time, improvisation is rarely heard, in the jazz sphere, it is a core practice. I believe the heart of improvisation lies in a thorough, embodied, "inside-out" knowledge of stylistic sentences and trademarks, the syntax of a language, and the ability to free-associate in the genre, according to a small set of boundaries. How did classical performers slowly lose this skill and why did it disappear from concert platforms? Drawing inspiration from great improvisers of the twentieth century, here is Oscar Peterson demonstrating the pianistic styles of contemporary jazz pianists:
This act of learning to demonstrate and improvise in the style of other famous jazz pianists created a vocabulary through which Peterson could learn to imitate and eventually speak in his own style. In other words, we can get closer to the practice of improvisation by first duplicating the styles of other Classical composers.
In parallel to Oscar Peterson's imitative and immersive practice, Muzio Clementi published a print-version along very similar lines to the preceding "Piano Lesson". Exactly like Peterson, he demonstrated a copious, first-hand, fluent knowledge of the styles of famous contemporary composers in the late eighteenth century. Separated by centuries and in a different idiom, the core practice of learning to improvise was the same. Here is a link to his Musical Characteristics, or a Collection of Preludes and Cadences, Op. 19:
http://ks.petruccimusiclibrary.org/files/imglnks/usimg/9/93/IMSLP82457-PMLP159877-clementi_op19.pdf
In parallel to Oscar Peterson's imitative and immersive practice, Muzio Clementi published a print-version along very similar lines to the preceding "Piano Lesson". Exactly like Peterson, he demonstrated a copious, first-hand, fluent knowledge of the styles of famous contemporary composers in the late eighteenth century. Separated by centuries and in a different idiom, the core practice of learning to improvise was the same. Here is a link to his Musical Characteristics, or a Collection of Preludes and Cadences, Op. 19:
http://ks.petruccimusiclibrary.org/files/imglnks/usimg/9/93/IMSLP82457-PMLP159877-clementi_op19.pdf
Here is a clip of the cadenza that I wrote to Clementi's Sonata in B-flat major, Op. 24 No. 2, after studying his preludes and cadenza in this volume.