Interpreting MozartAuthor(s): Malcolm Bilson and Eric Van TasselSource: Early Music, Vol. 12, No. 4, The Early Piano I (Nov., 1984), pp. 519-522Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3137981Accessed: 19/09/2010 20:18

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Now, if it is agreed that-to put the case as simply and bluntly as possible-we understand a past genius's music immeasurably better than 'they' did, it follows as a matter of logical course that a priori, we are the more authentic players of it, for without understanding, authenticity is meaningless.

If, then, we are inevitably in a far better position to judge what to do about the sound of great music than they were, the question of how far we ought- to reproduce the acoustic conditions of a former age is entirely up to us to answer-up to the understanders amongst us, whose interpretations have demonstrated their understanding. Advisedly, I have not only inc- luded spiccato in my autobiographical flashbacks: its desirability in the case of certain passages in late Beethoven is so obvious that it need not be argued. But I have also pointed to the problematic question of senza vibrato, a question which cannot be solved as a matter of principle, in a theoretical article, but whose answer will always depend on the player in question and the history of his individual technique: if it so happens (and it has happened) that he has escaped the narrowing down of our expressive range in this dimension, that his right hand is capable of producing, and subtly modulating, his vibrato-less tone, one will, of course, joyfully demonstrate to him what ought to be played without vibrato, and why. The majority of modern players, however, are not able to express their musical understanding by way of vibrato-less tone;

regretfully, therefore, one will encourage such string players to keep within the limits of their natural tone production, within which they will be able to make their understanding audible to a maximal degree. What remains the most important consideration is this very understanding of theirs, without which, or without whose realization, they would play the music in question as unconvincingly as its contemporaries did.

To sum up, the fundamental fallacy at the basis of all reflections upon authenticity is the automatic assumption that 'they' were more authentic than we are, whereas, so far as music of genius is concerned, the true relation between us and them is exactly the other way round. One only has to hear a forcedly 'authentic' performance of, say, Mozart's G minor Symphony and compare it with Furtwingler's over- whelming interpretation of the work (available on record) in order to realize that the heart and source of authenticity is understanding. It is the understanding of the music which enables the performer to complete it with his individual, creative contribution, and so produce an interpretation which, from stage to stage, contradicts the listener's expectations, instead of submitting the usual modern model of predictability, 'authentic' or not. For without this contradiction of well-implied, well-aroused expectation, there is no art. It is not only the great composer who contradicts expectation; the great performer does, too.

Interpreting Mozart Malcolm Bilson

In his review of Jaap Schr6der and Christopher Hogwood's complete recording with the Academy of Ancient Music of Mozart's symphonies (Decca Flori- legium D167D-D 1I73D; reviewed in EM Feb 84 pp. 125- 9), Eric Van Tassel praises the 'virtual absence of any "interpretation" as modern conductors and their audi- ence understand it . . . a performance not merely "under- interpreted" but uninterpreted offers potenti- ally an experience of unequalled authenticity, using the word in a sense as much existential as musico- logical'. I do not wish to comment on the opinions of the performances expressed in the review nor on

recordings made by friends and colleagues of mine, but I should like to reject in the strongest possible terms Van Tassel's basic tenet concerning authenticity for I believe that tenet to be both highly undesirable and, in any case, impossible to achieve.

To take an obvious point first: is it not true that as soon as the performer decides on a tempo, he is already interpreting? If several fast movements have similar tempo markings, decisions have to be made. Is every piano exactly the same as every other piano on all 23 records of this Mozart symphony series?

But a broader point may be raised about Mozart's

EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1984 519

Ex.1 Mozart, D major Piano Sonata K311, bars 1-8 Allegro con spirito

A B C B' r I I 1 I

Ir r

music in the context of the evolution of the Classical style. The development of a new idiom came about because of a need for heightened expressivity. (I have been racking my brains to find any musician before Erik Satie who advocated a new style because the old was 'too expressive'.) One essence of the old 18th-century style is musical development (the so- called Fortspinnungsprinzip); in the new style this is replaced by psychological reaction. What comes in bar 2 comes there because it fits psychologically after bar 1, whether or not it is motivically derived from that bar. Take the first bars of Mozart's D major Piano Sonata K311 (ex. 1). The opening exemplifies a typical Mozart- ian procedure. What has B got to do with A? Is it a reaction to A? Or is it merely a continuation of something started by A, separated by a breath? And if so, is it a questioning breath? (That would surely affect the way we play A.) What is the relation of C' to C? I would suggest that C 'resolves' the dilemma set up by A and B; B' persists in its questioning; it takes C' finally to settle the matter, to get the movement off the ground. That is my interpretation, and my playing of the passage follows from it; others will doubtless see it differently.

No one can play this music without considering these questions either consciously or unconsciously. How could one 'uninterpret' such a passage? In his Clavierschule (1789), p.340, Turk gives an example that demonstrates this point: 'Er verlor sein Leben nicht nur sein Verm6gen' (He lost his life not only his fortune). Tilrk shows us that the meaning of the sentence can be totally altered by the placing of a comma: Er verlor sein Leben, nicht nur sein Verm6gen; Er verlor sein Leben nicht, nur sein Verm6gen. Yet by

Van Tassel's argument, if this sentence were a line in a play, the actor should just say the words; the individual members of the audience should then decide where to place the comma! I am not being facetious: I believe that the music of this period, and Mozart's in particular, has very specific musical meanings, and that a per- former may get them, simply, right or wrong.

Consider the opening of Mozart's A major Piano Concerto K488 (ex.2):

(2) (sl "

,

---

. -I-

-

jJ. - Allegro P

str

Ex.2 Mozart, A major Piano Concerto K488, bars 1-4

Mozart's phrase markings (1) here seem clear to me. In the late 18th century, slurred pairs of notes were considered as sighs, and this passage is surely a series of increasing sighs culminating in a final sigh at bar 4. In many performances one hears the phrasing (2) or even sometimes (3). Now it is possible to observe the slurs as Mozart marked them, and to execute them as prescribed by Leopold Mozart, Quantz, C. P. E. Bach and others, with the second note of each pair weaker and shorter than the first. That at least pronounces the words of this musical sentence correctly. But if the performance ignores the 'meaning' of the passage as a whole, the progression of all those articulated slurs, then it is no closer to Mozart than if it employed the more old-fashioned phrasings of (2) and (3). (Indeed, the old-fashioned ones might be thought better,

520 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1984

because at least they recognize that the sentence has a meaning, and does not merely consist of properly pronounced words.)

There is another point in the review to which I would like to take exception: the notion that players today 'may far surpass the composer's contemporaries in technical skill'. This notion is combined with another, namely that 'only a conductor, who can lead authoritatively with the baton, or explain his aims in rehearsal, or preferably both, can make [certain] things happen; in that sense the interpretation has ceased to be authentically feasible in Mozartian terms'.

What evidence do we have? There are no recordings from the period to compare with modern ones, but there are some very important indications of just how high the standard of good music-making was in Mozart's time. For a start, there is the music itself, which many accord a high place in the history of com- position. Then there are the instruments. Our own century, with its advanced technology, has not yet been able to construct violins better than those produced in the 18th century. And as a player of historical keyboard instruments, I firmly believe that Stein's instruments were never surpassed; nor were Graf's 50 years later (nor, for that matter, were Stein- way's in the latter part of the 19th century).

But, it may be objected, how fine a result could an 18th-century group of musicians (small or large) have been able to achieve with one rehearsal and no conductor? Is it reasonable to suppose that they would simply have played the notes with the proper articu- lation and with some good sense of style? Or is it possible that more inflection and nuance-more, dare I say, interpretation-may have been present? There is no proof; but we can consider modem counterparts. Jazz musicians have much in common with musicians of the 18th century: they are raised in one style, not in the many styles in which classical players are nowa- days trained. And they are used to playing in a very sophisticated idiom on little rehearsal. A group of first- class jazz musicians getting together for a jam session can produce music of extraordinary subtlety and sophistication, even at first encounter. (This can also be the case with classical musicians: Gerald Moore tells of his first encounter with Dietrich Fischer- Dieskau, in which they went through Winterreise once and found themselves in full agreement on many subtle points without either of them saying a word about 'interpretation'.) Why should such encounters be thought less likely among 18th-century musicians?

Anyone who has ever witnessed the Vienna Phil- harmonic Orchestra playing Strauss waltzes on New Year's Eve with no conductor, but with Willi Boskovsky leading just as a concertmaster in the 18th century would have done, cannot doubt that a large group that understands and lives and breathes a musical style can achieve an extraordinary degree of 'interpretation as it is understood by conductors nowadays'.

It is of course true that there are more first-class professional musicians today. The premiere of a new orchestral work by Ligeti, Maxwell Davies or Elliott Carter will probably be of a higher standard than Beet- hoven was used to on such occasions. But that reflects a general increase in 'technical' standards. Certainly there were poor performers in the 18th century; but our concern must be with the best performers of the time, playing the best music on the best instruments. To presume that such performances would have achieved less than any of us could achieve today is unreasonable, pompous and, I believe, entirely ill- conceived.

Eric Van Tassel writes: To take Malcolm Bilson's last point first. When I wrote that Mozart never 'led a band that played so well together', my rhetorical balloon was dangerously over- inflated, but it was not quite without a ground-rope to reality. I had in mind Burney's strictures on the wind intonation of even the Mannheim'band; the implica- tions behind Bremner's advice to orchestral players;' the report by Burney's informant in 1772 that the Salzburg orchestra had in the past been 'accused of being more remarkable for coarseness and noise, than delicacy and high-finishing'; and Mozart's own view in 1778 of Mannheim's virtues as reflecting badly on Salzburg. The high quality of the instruments says nothing about how well those instruments were used, and we cannot assume that the existence of great music means that orchestras lived up to what was offered them. However, I cheerfully concede that it would be silly to try to praise living players by disparaging dead ones whom I never heard; and to anyone who read such discourtesy into my enthu- siasms over the AAM I gladly apologize.

Bilson and I agree that musicians create an inter- pretation as they play: if Bilson imagines that to be a point of difference between us, my extravagant lan- guage is again to blame. Of course an 'uninterpreted' performance, if such a thing were possible, would be monstrous. But I was trying to summarize an argument

EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1984 521

about what kinds of interpretation are appropriate to particular genres.

To use Bilson's own examples. A good jam session does possess great stylistic unity and can be deeply musical, as Bilson says. But a jam session is quint- essentially chamber music, and at its best allows the near-telepathy of chamber music. Jazz orchestras aiming at precision of ensemble, from those of Jelly Roll Morton and Clarence Williams down to the latterday Count Basie band, have used written arrange- ments and devoted a great deal of rehearsal time to achieving tight ensemble (typically, particular care has gone into teaching new recruits to the band all the unwritten details of the existing 'book'). When the early Basie band tried to create homophonic ensemble effects without written scores and without overmuch 'woodshedding', the results were exciting but very rough-hewn compared with those of the well-oiled machine that the band became after 1952.

The VPO on New Year's Eve (a well-oiled machine if ever there was one), playing Strauss waltzes without a conductor, are also playing familiar, well-rehearsed repertory pieces. But I will agree that to the extent that they behave as Bilson says, they are working like a good 18th-century orchestra.

So such an orchestra could indeed play K488 in phrasing (1) of ex.2 with little rehearsal and with no extra instructions from composer or conductor; it could play not only the notes, but the meaning of the 'sentence'. Mozart's slurs in the upper parts, and the signals woven into the music itself (such as the nine crotchets on a in the bass),2 would create very substantial agreement about the dynamics and arti- culation; such an orchestra could play-interpret, if you like-with animation and expression.3

That is the sort of interpretation which I perhaps hyperbolically praised as 'simply . . . getting all the details right. .. do[ing] little more than play the notes clearly and accurately'. The wealth of 'inflection and nuance' in the orchestral writing of Mozart and his peers is embodied in the notes, in written expression marks, in the structure of the music, so that the meaning of each 'sentence' and of the whole utterance could be communicated by a Classical orchestra working 'within the constraints of historical practice'. What lies outside those constraints, though well within the scope of a soloist or a small ensemble, is what I called 'the kind of interpretative master-plan that a modern conductor imposes on a symphony'.

So the example from K488 goes to the heart of this

matter. To play phrasing (2) or (3) of ex.2 rather than phrasing (1), someone has to obliterate the written slurs. That is, someone, somewhere- typically, the sort of conductor who speaks of 'my interpretation of K488'-has to have stood up in front of the musicians and said 'Ignore those six little slurs and play three longer ones' (or one very long one).

If I resist such intervention, and praise its absence, it is not in order to equate 'authenticity' with bloodless austerity or trivial quaintness. Malcolm Bilson's prose, like his playing, burns with a desire to preserve the authentic, living Mozart from such a fate; my determi- nation to slay that particular antiseptic dragon is as fierce as his. My concern is not to expunge expression, but to have Mozart's expression; not to hear a death- like 'uninterpretation' of Mozart, but not to hear a radical re-interpretation of him either, by a maestro who believes that poor Mozart didn't know how to say what he meant, or perhaps didn't quite mean what he said. What I fear is not making Mozart too 'expressive', but coarsening the almost unbearable subtlety and grace of what Mozart did compose.

'Robert Bremner's 'Some Thoughts on the Performance of Concert- Music', published in 1777, is reprinted with ample annotation in N. Zaslaw, 'The Compleat Orchestral Musician', EM, vii (January 1979), pp.46-57.

2The nine crotchets-and their cessation-are I believe one of the signals that place the 'culminating sigh' in bar 3, not bar 4; but of course Bilson wasn't trying to analyse the phrase in all its ramifications.

3They wouldn't have to make a meal of it for a musical listener to get the message, and reinforce it ('lean into' it, in Peter Williams's phrase elsewhere in EM Feb 84) in musicianly sympathy. So much so that an interview afterwards might show that such a listener thought the playing more overtly expressive-i.e. believed he had heard more pronounced differentiations in dynamics and articulation- than an oscilloscopic analysis would prove had been the case. That is what I meant about the listener's completing the realization.

EARLY MUSIC February 1985

The early piano II David Rowland on pedalling

Stewart Pollens on early Portuguese pianos Virginia Pleasants on the English contribution

Howard Schott on the great transition

522 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1984

Article Contentsp. 519p. 520p. 521p. 522

Issue Table of ContentsEarly Music, Vol. 12, No. 4, The Early Piano I (Nov., 1984), pp. i-viii+433-592Volume Information [pp. i-viii]Front Matter [pp. 433-486]Editorial [pp. 434-436]The Classical Keyboard Concerto: Some Thoughts on Authentic Performance [pp. 437-445]The Pianos of Conrad Graf [pp. 446-460]Andreas Streicher's Notes on the Fortepiano: Chapter 2: 'On Tone' [pp. 461-470]Stops and Other Special Effects on the Early Piano [pp. 471-476]Playing the Early Piano [pp. 477-480]The Recordings of Edward Elgar (1857-1934): Authenticity and Performance Practice [pp. 481-485+487-489]Transposition in Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610: An 'Aberration' Defended [pp. 490-516]ObservationsWhose Authenticity? [pp. 517-519]Interpreting Mozart [pp. 519-522]The Singer's View [pp. 523-525]

SaleroomsManuscripts and Printed Books [pp. 529+531]Instruments [pp. 531+533]

BooksReview: untitled [p. 535]Review: untitled [p. 537]Review: untitled [pp. 537-539]Review: untitled [pp. 539+541]Review: untitled [pp. 541+543]Review: untitled [pp. 543+545]Review: untitled [pp. 545+547]Review: untitled [p. 547]

MusicReview: untitled [pp. 551+553]Review: untitled [pp. 553+555]Review: untitled [p. 555]Review: untitled [pp. 555-557]Review: Dove House Editions [pp. 557+559]

RecordingsReview: untitled [pp. 561+563+565]Review: untitled [pp. 565-567]Review: untitled [pp. 567+569]Review: untitled [p. 569]Review: untitled [pp. 569-570]Review: untitled [pp. 570-571+573]Review: untitled [p. 573]Review: untitled [p. 573]Review: untitled [pp. 574-575]Review: Briefly Noted [pp. 575+577+579+581]Review: Briefly Noted [p. 581]

ObituariesImogen Holst (1907-1984) [pp. 583+585]Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911-1984) [p. 585]

CorrespondenceThe Baroque Flute [pp. 587+589+591]More Wealth of Music [p. 591]Bach's Chorus [p. 591]

Back Matter [pp. 526-592]