Listening with scores and libretti
ex-neo-con
without a score (or even a libretto) in hand. I'm not quite sure why.
When I listen with a score or libretto, I may pick up on some details
in the composition that I might otherwise not notice, but I find that I
miss details in the performance itself. Thus, for example, I can
listen to a recording with score and hand and find it just fine. When,
however, I listen to the same recording without the score, I will find
it unimpressive, dull, tedious, etc.
Perhaps I just picked up some bad habits when I began listening with
scores. (I started when I was an embarrassingly young age: eight years
old. I wasn't precocious or a prodigy: I just enjoyed following scores.
Since my father was a conductor and a professor at the local
university, I had easy access to scores.)
I'm curious as to how typical my experience is.
ex-neo-con
jrs...@aol.com
Like you, I find I enjoy different aspects of a performance with the
score in hand. But ultimately, I am reluctant to say I am a better
listener without the score. I'm not even sure I enjoy listening more
without the score. The recent Mahler 9 listening has been a case in
point: I heard details better with the score, and was better able to
put myself in the shoes of the performers. I identify with them and see
what they're missing and what they're doing that I could never do. Some
performances seemed better with score in hand, like the Klemperer, than
without, and the reverse was also true--the Sinopoli and Ozawa were
better without the score, because both had (and have, in the case of
the latter) a particularly evocative sense of Mahler's peculiar sounds.
The score is not an assistance in listening to tone, but it can be a
good way to sort out balance and the building blocks of various sounds.
The bottom line: either way of listening can heighten your
concentration and satisfaction. One listener said he preferred slower
performances (in the concluding measures of the movement in question)
because critical notes sounded so much clearer--but I think that may
have been an artifact of listening with score in hand. For some of
us--myself included--the extra brainpower devoted to looking at the
score and detecting minute detail impedes listening comprehension. I
await a faster internal processor...
--Jeff
Josep Vilanova
For some of
> us--myself included--the extra brainpower devoted to looking at the
> score and detecting minute detail impedes listening comprehension. I
> await a faster internal processor...
>
> --Jeff
>
You know, Celibidache used to say that he didn't conduct with a score
because we only have one consciousness and it cannot be properly divided
between reading and listening the music that was played (or at least he said
something along those lines).
Sometimes I like following the score, as it helps me to focus my attention
in some details, and some other times I feel I lose an overall view of the
performance, as I can't focus my attention in both the details and the whole
character of what is being played.
j
alanwa...@aol.com
Sorry.
I never listen to a Beethoven piano sonata without a score because I
want to "see" how they play the phrasing or the grace notes and I
cannot remember what the score says without it being in front of me.
I use a score as a reminder, nothing else. I do not use one as a
judgment but I am no good at precisely memorising a score and, if I am
listening, like to know how people play what is "written".
If I am studying a composer or a work specifically I could not do so
without the score (s).
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
Kind regard
jrs...@aol.com
alanwa...@aol.com wrote:
> It's the minute detail which fascinates me!
>
> Sorry.
The details *are* fascinating.
>
> I never listen to a Beethoven piano sonata without a score because I
> want to "see" how they play the phrasing or the grace notes and I
> cannot remember what the score says without it being in front of me.
>
Sometimes I like to hear only what is, not what is supposed to be.
> I use a score as a reminder, nothing else. I do not use one as a
> judgment but I am no good at precisely memorising a score and, if I am
> listening, like to know how people play what is "written".
>
Especially performers and performer wanna-be's like to know how people
play what is written.
> If I am studying a composer or a work specifically I could not do so
> without the score (s).
>
True, but is it possible to enjoy and appreciate while not studying?
Some would say "no."
When a string quartet plays from memory, does that enhance their
ability to listen to one another and to themselves?
--Jeff
Josep Vilanova
attention on both the details and the whole arc of the performance. It
doesn't happen all the time though. And in some cases following the score
also helps me to focus on how that particular form is developing (like
seeing more clearly that the exposition is about to end, or that we are
going to enter the coda...)
j
On 1/6/05 12:20 am, in article
1117581618.8...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com, "jrs...@aol.com"
Raymond Hall
news:BEC2B2FB.84A9%josepv...@hotmail.com...
> Yes, the details are fascinating. But I have problems in focusing my
> attention on both the details and the whole arc of the performance. It
> doesn't happen all the time though. And in some cases following the score
> also helps me to focus on how that particular form is developing (like
> seeing more clearly that the exposition is about to end, or that we are
> going to enter the coda...)
Precisely put. I would need the score (and I have very few anyway) to
examine where something happens, and what a performer does with the minutae
of the score, but I completely lose the enjoyment of the sweep of the
performance in the process.
One reason, and perhaps the only drawback, that I maintain a conductor has a
slightly thankless task. To be concerned with minutae, and intricate detail,
and playing the piece over and over again, and being contaminated with
over-familiarisation, must detract, imo, from the pleasure that a reasonably
musically educated listener will get from a piece of music.
But of course, the conductor gets the POWER, and ultimately, the GLORY.
Swings and roundabouts.
Ray H
Taree
Matthew B. Tepper
letters to be typed in news:1117579735.840280.324940
@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>> You know, Celibidache used to say that he didn't conduct with a score
>> because we only have one consciousness and it cannot be properly divided
>> between reading and listening to the music that was played
>
> Or perhaps he was just a slow reader.
Or he wasn't a mutant like some of us.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Take THAT, Daniel Lin, Mark Sadek, James Lin & Christopher Chung!
peter_s...@hotmail.com
"I never use a score when conducting my orchestra...Does a lion tamer
enter a cage with a book on how to tame a lion?"
Peter Schenkman
Simon Roberts
>
>
> For some of
>> us--myself included--the extra brainpower devoted to looking at the
>> score and detecting minute detail impedes listening comprehension. I
>> await a faster internal processor...
>>
>> --Jeff
>>
>
>
>You know, Celibidache used to say that he didn't conduct with a score
>because we only have one consciousness and it cannot be properly divided
>between reading and listening the music that was played (or at least he said
>something along those lines).
I'm sure that's right. Anyway, I prefer to listen when not looking at a score,
and vice versa.
Simon
david...@aol.com
happens 25% of the time.
-david gable
Larry Rinkel
> You know, Celibidache used to say that he didn't conduct with a score
> because we only have one consciousness and it cannot be properly divided
> between reading and listening the music that was played (or at least he
> said
> something along those lines).
>
I'm not sure I believe that, but I find that listening with scores is an
enormous aid to concentration, and what's more lets me evaluate a recording
in terms of how closely it follows the score. I have approximately 2000
scores at home and make good use of them whenever I can take the time to
fully concentrate on a CD (as opposed to playing music in the background
while I'm doing something else around the house). I don't usually bring
scores with me to follow during live concerts, however, as I find trying to
read the score while listening interferes with concentrating on the visual
aspects of the performance.
One reason for a conductor not to use a score is simply the problem of
having to turn the pages. In very fast music, especially if it is heavily
scored, it might require a dozen or more page turns a minute to keep up.
ex-neo-con
not concerned with whether the performer is playing the work _come
scritto_--nor, for that matter, am I even concerned with how he
interprets specific markings.
Well, actually, that's not precisely my position. I will take score in
hand if I hear some particularly striking detail, or if I want to
compare performances. But then I'm already listening for some
particular things.
When I was growing up, I was concerned with how closely the performers
realized the score. This was a result of both my father's inclinations
(e.g., he hated the way Bernstein performed Beethoven because he found
it not to be idiomatic; he also tended to gravitate towards Toscanini
and Walter), and the indoctrination I received from my teachers (who
always were using an urtext and who didn't particularly care for the
interpretations of artists like Perlman and Zuckerman, even though they
had tremendous respect for their technical abilities). Over the
years--and not least because I immersed myself in the HIP debates in
the early 1990s--I came to be dissuaded from this position, so the
score took on less and less importance for me in my listening.
I'm most likely to have a score in hand when the music is turned
off--and, of course, when I'm doing some sort of analysis.
ex-neo-con
Mark Perlman
musical enjoyment. You are too concerned with the technical, and not enough
with the aesthetic.
I also think it is a bit rude to go to a performance and follow along with
the score. It seems to me like you don't trust that they're playing it
right, and you're checking up on the musicians.
I often follow a score while listening to a recording, but I think of that
as a special activity, 'score-reading & recording-analysis', not musical
listening for enjoyment.
Mark Perlman
"ex-neo-con" <ex-ne...@bonbon.net> wrote in message
news:1117577041.7...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
david...@aol.com
Ultimately, there is no difference between the "technical" and the
"aesthetic," and following the score has never deprived any listener of
pleasure who is sufficiently accustomed to reading scores that reading
scores doesn't get in the way. Nor is it rude to take a score to a
performance: it's legitimate for any serious student of music to do so
and by no means a sign that you don't trust the musicians.
-david gable
Ian Pace
<david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1117775707.8...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
> Ultimately, there is no difference between the "technical" and the
> "aesthetic," and following the score has never deprived any listener of
> pleasure who is sufficiently accustomed to reading scores that reading
> scores doesn't get in the way.
Even 'abstract' music does have a theatrical dimension in live performance,
which is something upon which one's attention tends to be less focussed if
poring over a score at the time. I'd agree that the "technical" and
"aesthetic" are inseparable, but not identical.
> Nor is it rude to take a score to a
> performance: it's legitimate for any serious student of music to do so
> and by no means a sign that you don't trust the musicians.
>
Tell me, do you think it's possible for someone to fully appreciate a work
of music, even a modernist work, if they don't read musical notation?
Parallels regarding dance and reading Labanotation or Benesh Notation might
be interesting here.
Ian
Larry Rinkel
"Ian Pace" <i...@ianpace.com> wrote in message
news:yRVne.17103$RG2....@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...
>
>>
> Tell me, do you think it's possible for someone to fully appreciate a work
> of music, even a modernist work, if they don't read musical notation?
>
Define "fully."
Larry Rinkel
"Mark Perlman" <mbpe...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:7bOdnbJWZ-8...@comcast.com...
>I think that listening to music with score in hand gets in the way of pure
>musical enjoyment. You are too concerned with the technical, and not enough
>with the aesthetic.
>
> I also think it is a bit rude to go to a performance and follow along with
> the score. It seems to me like you don't trust that they're playing it
> right, and you're checking up on the musicians.
>
If there is any potential rudeness, it is to one's neighbors in the
audience, as one must be extremely quiet in turning what could amount to
hundreds of pages for a 1-hour work. But one reason I generally don't use
scores when attending live performances is that the house is generally
darkened too much for me to read without eyestrain.
Ian Pace
"Larry Rinkel" <L...@optunderline.net> wrote in message
news:VAWne.2820$hg...@fe12.lga...
someone who can't read music has, in general, a lesser appreciation of a
work than someone who can?
Larry Rinkel
Brief answer: not a lesser, but a different kind of appreciation. I can't
divorce my ability to read music and my training in theory from my response
to music, any more than the person who doesn't read music can look at a
score and see anything but hieroglyphics. All the same, I don't think the
reader and the non-reader are too far apart: I may be able to identify a
minor chord as such when I hear it, but the non-reader feels (I believe) a
similar emotional response to mine when the minor chord is played.
Unfortunately there's also a sense among some non-readers that their
inability to read music and lack of theoretical knowledge makes them somehow
more emotionally direct as listeners than we poor desiccated souls who have
learned about chords and modulations and other such trivia.
ex-neo-con
room with my eyes closed most of the time.
Seriously, I find I do my best listening when I get up in the morning,
fix myself a cup of coffee, and then fire up a piece I really care
about.
ex-neo-con
A. Brain
those in foreign languages. There's simply no reason
to exclude these in recordings, and many operas that
are presented in English today use surtitles, supertitles,
or whatever you want to call them.
In, just for example, the magnificent
Lieder of Schubert, it helps immensely to know what the
song is about and what specifically the music is illuminating
from moment to moment. I know German well enough to
understand most of these songs without having texts, but the
record companies that do not include texts for Lieder and
opera recordings are making their "product" relatively
inaccessible to beginners. There are some "on-line"
sites for texts, and there are a few books that one can
consult, like _The Fischer-Dieskau Book of Lieder_,
but it does not have everything.
Texts are important. Take, for example, just two of
of Schubert's greatest songs, "Auf dem Wasser zu Singen" or "Die
Forelle" (Trout). The music, not just the words, and
also the piano accompaniment, perfectly
portray the singer's mood, the water, and, in "Trout",
the struggling fish. In the celebrated "Winterreise",
the various thoughts and ruminations of the dispirited
young man in his journey need to be understood, maybe
not from line to line, but at least the substance of each
song should be summarized, as is done in the opera house
with surtitles. (I finally broke down and bought the
Bostridge recording, wonder if the notes for
his Carnegie Hall recital included summaries of the
songs, as I would suggest.) And works such as Lieder
are perfectly suited to listening via recordings, since
it's not that common to have a "Liederabend"
programmed in the U.S.
My limited experiences with scores while listening include the
Harnoncourt/Leonhardt Bach cantatas, which in their original LP
editions, included not only texts,but scores. In intimate works like
these, the scores are helpful in getting to know the style and in
appreciating the music.
In larger works, I have occasionally followed scores of the
Bach B Minor Mass, and some LvB, Brahms, and Schubert
symphonies. I thought it might be similarly helpful,
but it's too much of a distraction. I'm not "musical"
enough to be able to study scores without hearing the
music while doing so. I certainly cannot "hear" the music
by looking at a score. I'd be doing well to recognize
what it is.
--
A. Brain
Remove NOSPAM for email.
Mark Perlman
experiencing the music between listeining for a pure aesthetic experience
and focusing on technical details while listening. I think it was Bulloch
who called this "psychical distance" - you can be too close or too far from
an artwork and not get the right kind of experience. Dissecting the
technical details is too far, emotionally. It is the same for film buffs who
watch for camera angles and lighting tricks instead of enjoying the film. If
I listen to a symphony just to gauge the exact length of staccato notes,
then I am too emotionally far fromthe aesthetic qualities of the music.
(Too close would be someone jumping on stage to save Desdemona from being
killed in a performance of Othello, or getting genuinely afraid for one's
life by a horror movie or scary music, that is, forgetting that it isn't
real.)
<david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1117775707.8...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
Larry Rinkel
> Actually, I think there is indeed a difference is in the mode of
> experiencing the music between listeining for a pure aesthetic experience
> and focusing on technical details while listening. I think it was Bulloch
> who called this "psychical distance" - you can be too close or too far
> from an artwork and not get the right kind of experience. Dissecting the
> technical details is too far, emotionally. It is the same for film buffs
> who watch for camera angles and lighting tricks instead of enjoying the
> film. If I listen to a symphony just to gauge the exact length of staccato
> notes, then I am too emotionally far fromthe aesthetic qualities of the
> music.
>
> (Too close would be someone jumping on stage to save Desdemona from being
> killed in a performance of Othello, or getting genuinely afraid for one's
> life by a horror movie or scary music, that is, forgetting that it isn't
> real.)
>
This is very close to the same kind of thing I brought up in my previous
response to Ian Pace. Just what is a "pure" aesthetic experience, or the
"right kind of experience," and who is mandating these things? I am willing
to allow a multiplicity of approaches in listening to music, why can't you?
Why can't there be emotional pleasure in watching for camera angles? They
are a part of the film, and they play a part in my emotional response. And
your image of someone listening to a symphony "just to gauge the exact
length of staccato notes" is simply caricatural. That's not what people who
read scores do.
jrs...@aol.com
Wayne Reimer wrote:
> In article <MPG.1d0ae3c0c...@news.sf.sbcglobal.net>,
> wr...@pacbell.net says...
> > > In article <1117854477....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, ex-ne...@bonbon.net says...
> > That only works for me for certain works, like some Chabrier and Saint-
> > Saens and Rimsky. Eyes closed in the dark works best for some other
> > things like Bruckner and Varese and Webern and most Chopin.
> >
> > To answer you original question - I do look at scores sometimes, but
> > not very often, while listening. I think it's probably reasonably
> > accurate so say that if I looking at the score while listening, I am
> > doing something along the lines of "study", as opposed to being really
> > absorbed in the experience of the music. There's much to be learned
> > that way, but it's not what I think of as really listening. I don't
> > know how to read a score while the music is playing without having some
> > sort of distancing effect take place.
> >
> I forgot to add, since you did mention libretti, that OTOH I do more
> frequently have a libretto or the words to a song in hand while
> listening. That is a different thing than a score, of course.
>
> I wonder, too, how many composers would appreciate listeners using
> scores as an aid to listening. Babbitt, maybe? Or do they even care
> one way or another?
I doubt Babbitt cares, but I did try following one of his scores once
while listening. It helped.
--Jeff
Raymond Hall
I agree fully with what you say. Following a piece of music with a score,
MUST divert the attention in many ways from the purely "listening"
appreciation of the music. Nobody is going to tell me they will get the same
pleasure from a piece of music (performance or recording) following with a
score, as they can by just shutting one's eyes.
Besides, it is huge assumption by some, that many here can follow hugely
complex orchestral scores as well as others, and I would maintain that at
some point, there are few here that could look at a complex orchestral
score, and visualise what the work will really sound like. Maybe people like
Previn, perhaps, but few others.
A couple of staves of piano music is one thing, and a score is a must for
players like myself, who hasn't been able to memorise more than one or two
bars of music to save my life. But reading vertically a list of parts for a
score such as Ive's 4th symphony is quite another.
Ray H
Taree
alanwa...@aol.com
>
> I agree fully with what you say. Following a piece of music with a score,
> MUST divert the attention in many ways from the purely "listening"
> appreciation of the music. Nobody is going to tell me they will get the same
> pleasure from a piece of music (performance or recording) following with a
> score, as they can by just shutting one's eyes.
>
Think of the poor souls in the middle of this debate Mr Hall:):)
I have spent a lifetime mostly in the dark following a piece of music
admittedly not with a full score but with a part, the latter
illuminated usually by a 15/20 watt flourescent tube. No wonder I now
have to wear glasses.
You count endless empty bars, you give a glance to the conductor (if
it's worth it, otherwise don't bother), you cannot usually hear the
singers properly or their volume, but you (I hope) sit there listening
to your colleagues and make your judgments accordingly and in
accordance with what may have been decided at rehearsal and what
actually happens on the night.
I cannot recall ever shutting my eyes but I certainly recall a
performance of Swan Lake in which my flourescent tube gave up the ghost
after flickering alarmingly through the opening leaving me to fend for
myself. No playing or listening in complete darkness for this Old
Chap, if you don't mind, with or without a score/part.
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
Raymond Hall
news:1117930691.4...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
But I do Mr Watkins. In my world, you would all get immediate salary rises
of 100%, and highly paid conductors and soloists would get their salaries
halved.
I have always been an orchestral man. Sod the singers et al.
<g>
Ray H
Taree
david...@aol.com
score such as Ive's 4th symphony is quite another. "
Another misconception. Nobody is physically capable of following all
of the lines in an extremely large full orchestral score
simultaneously. The constant adjustments one makes, moving from choir
to choir while listening: this, too, is done automatically without
giving it a thought.
Even after becoming extremely adept at following scores, certain
contemporary scores have been difficult for me to follow at first.
About the third or fourth time through, though, I've becomes accustomed
to it. OF COURSE you can't literally follow with the eyes every single
line in such a score, even if you're Andre Previn--there are long
passages in Strauss, Debussy, and Stravinsky where this is already
true--but one knows the standard layout of the instruments on the page,
and one's ears guide one toward the most prominent parts: not that you
will necessarily choose to follow them.
I saw Robert Morgan, Philip Gossett, and Charles Rosen sight read from
full orchestral scores at the piano countless times when I was a grad
student, although I don't mean the most complex modern scores. Any of
them would be able to sight read any movement from the full score of a
Beethoven symphony. Doubtless this ability deprives them of the "pure"
experience of music.
Needless to say, there are passages in a piece like Rite of Spring that
ten fingers on two hands couldn't possibly negotiate. It would be
physically impossible. On the other hand, even mediocre music students
accustomed to reading keyboard music can learn to play easier late
18th-century music from full score at the piano with ease. Say
Cimarosa sinfonias.
-david gable
tag gallagher
david...@aol.com wrote:
> Quoth Ray: "I agree fully with what you say. Following a piece of
> music with a score, MUST divert the attention in many ways from the
> purely 'listening' appreciation of the music."
>
> Sorry Ray, but this is absolute balderdash. It does nothing of the
> kind. Not for experienced score readers. I can imagine that following
> a score could be a distraction for the novice who is constantly getting
> lost, etc.
I get your point. But might you not also say that there is a difference
between reading and listening?
david...@aol.com
Reading a score means hearing it in your head while looking at it, or
reading a score at the keyboard. Following a score means listening
while following the score. In the case of listeners experienced with
score reading or following, the latter activity in no way detracts from
the "pure" experience of listening.
-david gable.
david...@aol.com
How on earth can you "study" a piece of music in the sense that you
mean without being absorbed in listening to it? (The kind of study one
does following the score while listening.)
-david gable
david...@aol.com
Here's a piece of music none of you who are attacking score reading or
following should ever listen to: The Art of the Fugue. It was
engraved in open score with each contrapuntal line on its own staff.
Bach had it published that way so that its contrapuntal facture would
not be obscured by the notation. (Bad old intellectual technical
impure brain stuff. Evil Bach.) The score was never intended for
public performance. It was intended for sale to keyboard performers
capable of reading complex counterpoint in open score so they might
play it in the privacy of their homes. Very few copies sold. It was
never intended for public performance in front of an audience. Any
recording or public performance of it is inauthentic, and no HIPster
should countenance such a thing, although it's not clear that playing
it for a few friends at home would be inauthentic. But pity the poor
keyboard player lost in the unfortunate activity of playing the piece
for himself alone. No pure listening experience at all by the goofy
standards of this absurd thread.
-david gable
jrs...@aol.com
I have to admit, the first temptation when seeing the "Art of the
Fugue" in score form is to get together a bunch of friends and playing
it as chamber music...
-Jeff
Raymond Hall
news:1117949655.7...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> "reading vertically a list of parts for a
> score such as Ive's 4th symphony is quite another. "
>
>
> Another misconception. Nobody is physically capable of following all
> of the lines in an extremely large full orchestral score
> simultaneously. The constant adjustments one makes, moving from choir
> to choir while listening: this, too, is done automatically without
> giving it a thought.
Precisely. Match point and I'm off to collect the French Open. In reality,
of course, you are failing to make any distinction between the reading of a
piano piece, such as a Haydn sonata, and an orchestral piece for full
orchestra, by a contemporary composer, such as Carter's Concerto for
Orchestra. In fact, to play the Haydn sonata it is absolutely necessary to
read the score, otherwise one couldn't play it. But to suggest, or simply
say that it is "hogwash" that by my saying 'anyone' isn't in some way
distracted by following the score whilst listening to Carter's piece, is
even more hogwash. In fact ludicrous in the extreme. There are conductors
for goodness sake, who give up on these pieces, let alone the mere mortals
that inhabit this group.
And when you say things are done automatically, without giving it a thought,
in the case of the Ives piece, is equally ludicrous. Not without many weeks,
months, or even years in some cases, of serious study, will some conductors
come to an appreciation of a score. Why was Karajan "learning" the Elgar
2nd? For the sake of academia? For fun? No. But for the very sake of
understanding the work to a level whereby he would be able to direct and
rehearse an orchestra in the work, whereby several aspects of the
performance would be automatic..
> Even after becoming extremely adept at following scores, certain
> contemporary scores have been difficult for me to follow at first.
> About the third or fourth time through, though, I've becomes accustomed
> to it. OF COURSE you can't literally follow with the eyes every single
> line in such a score, even if you're Andre Previn--there are long
> passages in Strauss, Debussy, and Stravinsky where this is already
> true--but one knows the standard layout of the instruments on the page,
> and one's ears guide one toward the most prominent parts: not that you
> will necessarily choose to follow them.
Of course one understands this, but to suggest that a reasonably experienced
listener, or player, of whatever instrument, is going to be able to take in
*SOUNDS*, and their coherency and sweep, whilst following a complex
orchestral score, in the same way as someone who closes his eyes and
concentrates on sound per se, is, once again a preposterous statement. In
fact, you literally say so above, even wrt score-readers such as those type
of musicians mentioned. Besides which, once again, a LOT of preparatory
study will have been necessary, and the only people who have the time
(assuming they actually do) to do this type of preparatory study are those
who are charged with the performance of such pieces. Most individual
orchestral musicians, will be busting a gut to learn their own parts, let
alone expect the vast majority of experienced listeners to step up and
conduct 80 or so of them from the podium. Conductors do have their work cut
out, believe it or not.
> I saw Robert Morgan, Philip Gossett, and Charles Rosen sight read from
> full orchestral scores at the piano countless times when I was a grad
> student, although I don't mean the most complex modern scores. Any of
> them would be able to sight read any movement from the full score of a
> Beethoven symphony. Doubtless this ability deprives them of the "pure"
> experience of music.
As the Beethoven symphony in question would have already been learned
backwards by Rosen et al, from listening experience, that feat above
wouldn't surprise me in the least. Not that I am suggesting Rosen wouldn't
be quicker than maybe anyone else, but we are talking 'genius type' here,
aren't we?
> Needless to say, there are passages in a piece like Rite of Spring that
> ten fingers on two hands couldn't possibly negotiate. It would be
> physically impossible. On the other hand, even mediocre music students
> accustomed to reading keyboard music can learn to play easier late
> 18th-century music from full score at the piano with ease. Say
> Cimarosa sinfonias.
Of course. Most amateurs at home have to do so to play them. It is merely
the level of complexity that is involved, and once again you have stated a
case where a much less complex work, is easily assimilated quickly by no
less than amateurs. In fact, even amateurs, like myself, can read these
pieces quicker, than the actual fingers might allow.
But I will never concede that reading a complex score, whilst listening to
it being played, will allow the same listening experience that a
knowledgeable listener will have, regardless of how more academically
inclined he/she is. The human mind is only capable of, if perhaps only one,
stream of direct consciousness in real time. And real time is what makes
music so damned difficult.
To pretend otherwise, is mere delusion.
Ray H
Taree
Raymond Hall
news:1117955995.8...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Who here is attacking score reading? None that I am aware of. That is what
makes your statements goofy. Hence the goofy thread. And once again, even
though I hate the very word, you simply cannot restrain from attacking
HIPsters at every opportunity can you David. Par for the course. In fact it
is the so-called HIPsters who use the "bad old head" far more than might
those who rely on impure acculturated habits of the heart. Basically, you
seem a mass of contradictions to me.
Ray H
Taree
tag gallagher
the same.
How many pianists play just as well while following a score as by heart?
(I'm not against following scores. I just think you're ignoring all the
issues.)
Simon Roberts
david...@aol.com says...
You keep stating this as though it's self-evidently true. To me, and others, it
seems counterintuitive. Has the topic been studied?
Simon
Simon Roberts
david...@aol.com says...
>
>
>Here's a piece of music none of you who are attacking score reading or
>following should ever listen to:
Not one contributor to this thead, as far as I can remember, has attacked score
reading and/or score following.
Simon
Mark Perlman
examining its relationship to aesthetic experiencing of music.
This is the kind of thing that turns people off of newsgroup discussions -
when someone who doesn't read very carefully what has been said starts
insulting the discussants by calling their views "absolute balderdash" and
calling the people "naive" and accusing them of being too amateur to read a
score fluently.
Anyone who doesn't understand that those who disagree are not necessarily
stupid should be ignored.
<david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1117955995.8...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
Ulvi Yurtsever
news:d7v7s...@drn.newsguy.com:
If you are not with us, you are against us :)
The defensiveness of some of the posts in the thread
is puzzling. Maybe indicating a deeper division, of the
"heart" vs "brain" variety. I agree with David, by the way,
that that particular division is a fiction.
I enjoy reading scores (without listening) more than following
music with a score, but I can't say following the score while
listening decreases my "listening pleasure." Not that I do either
activity that often, only possessing a handful of scores.
Generally, I find listening with a score simply inconvenient,
since I am often doing (or trying to do) something else while
listening.
Many revelations in this thread make me envious, though, such as
the poster who has a 2000-score library, or Charles Rosen's
ability to sight-read any orchestral score at the piano...
I find it absurd to believe any musical ability decreasing
the emotional involvement or pleasure/purity of the listening
act (I am not sure anyone here actually believes this).
Right now I am listening to a CD of Philip Glass string quartets.
I wonder if following a score would help...
Ulvi
Max Erlandsson
wrote:
>Over the years, I've found that I'm actually a much better listener
>without a score (or even a libretto) in hand. I'm not quite sure why.
>When I listen with a score or libretto, I may pick up on some details
>in the composition that I might otherwise not notice, but I find that I
>miss details in the performance itself. Thus, for example, I can
>listen to a recording with score and hand and find it just fine. When,
>however, I listen to the same recording without the score, I will find
>it unimpressive, dull, tedious, etc.
>
>Perhaps I just picked up some bad habits when I began listening with
>scores. (I started when I was an embarrassingly young age: eight years
>old. I wasn't precocious or a prodigy: I just enjoyed following scores.
> Since my father was a conductor and a professor at the local
>university, I had easy access to scores.)
>
>I'm curious as to how typical my experience is.
>
>ex-neo-con
I don't read scores much because I find that it change the way I
listen too much. In new composition it would be useful to read it
because of alternating rythm's but in my world the composer or
performer has failed if you can't enjoy the piece without a score.
David Gable wrote:
"following the score has never deprived any listener of
pleasure"
...which I and many people react to. Of course it has, for example
very often the element of surprise is lost when following a score
while listening to music because you know on forehand that a certain
pause, big chord or whatever, will turn up.
Max
Lena
david...@aol.com wrote:
> Here's a piece of music none of you who are attacking score reading or
> following should ever listen to: The Art of the Fugue. It was
> engraved in open score with each contrapuntal line on its own staff.
> Bach had it published that way so that its contrapuntal facture would
> not be obscured by the notation. (Bad old intellectual technical
> impure brain stuff. Evil Bach.)
Wow. Do you ever happen to apply evil impure intellectual technical
brain stuff to post reading or writing? :)
Lena
Bob Lombard
"Lena" <emsw...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1118069287.9...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>
> david...@aol.com wrote:
>> Here's a piece of music none of you who are attacking score reading or
>> following should ever listen to: The Art of the Fugue. It was
>> engraved in open score with each contrapuntal line on its own staff.
>> Bach had it published that way so that its contrapuntal facture would
>> not be obscured by the notation. (Bad old intellectual technical
>> impure brain stuff. Evil Bach.)
>
> Wow. Do you ever happen to apply evil impure intellectual technical
> brain stuff to post reading or writing? :)
>
> Lena
>
This is not to say that he is tetched, though the word origin is the same.
bl
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Ulvi Yurtsever
@news.sf.sbcglobal.net:
> In article <Xns966C76B...@69.28.186.121>, a@b.c says...
>> I enjoy reading scores (without listening) more than following
>> music with a score, but I can't say following the score while
>> listening decreases my "listening pleasure." Not that I do either
>> activity that often, only possessing a handful of scores.
>>
>> Generally, I find listening with a score simply inconvenient,
>> since I am often doing (or trying to do) something else while
>> listening.
>>
>> Many revelations in this thread make me envious, though, such as
>> the poster who has a 2000-score library, or Charles Rosen's
>> ability to sight-read any orchestral score at the piano...
>> I find it absurd to believe any musical ability decreasing
>> the emotional involvement or pleasure/purity of the listening
>> act (I am not sure anyone here actually believes this).
>>
>> Right now I am listening to a CD of Philip Glass string quartets.
>> I wonder if following a score would help...
>>
> So, you never have experiences listening to music that are so
> mesmerizing and ovewhelming and engrossing and intoxicating to your
> sense of hearing that even if you've got the score in front of you, you
> forget to look at it and later discover that your eyes are sort focused
> on nothing in the middle distance?
How does that follow from what I wrote?
At any rate, experiences like that are common enough to make
it difficult to do something unrelated to music while listening.
OTOH, following the score while listening is not an
unrelated activity. To argue that the score must be distracting
from the emotional experience is like arguing that playing
music must be a distraction from the emotional experience,
since you have to take care of what your fingers are doing
and cannot possibly give your full attention to the music...
Both arguments strike me as equally absurd.
Individual preferences will vary, obviously. My preference
is to listen without the score, not because I am afraid the
score will mess with my emotions, but for the more mundane
reasons of convenience and lack of resources.
Ulvi
Bob Lombard
"Ulvi Yurtsever" <a@b.c> wrote in message
news:Xns966D684...@69.28.186.121...
> Wayne Reimer <wr...@pacbell.net> wrote in news:MPG.1d0d9670232b4a39989d81
> @news.sf.sbcglobal.net:
>
>> mesmerizing and ovewhelming and engrossing and intoxicating to your
>> sense of hearing that even if you've got the score in front of you, you
>> forget to look at it and later discover that your eyes are sort focused
>> on nothing in the middle distance?
>
> How does that follow from what I wrote?
>
> At any rate, experiences like that are common enough to make
> it difficult to do something unrelated to music while listening.
> OTOH, following the score while listening is not an
> unrelated activity. To argue that the score must be distracting
> from the emotional experience is like arguing that playing
> music must be a distraction from the emotional experience,
> since you have to take care of what your fingers are doing
> and cannot possibly give your full attention to the music...
> Both arguments strike me as equally absurd.
>
experience' is acceptable as equivalent to another. Is following with the
score and comprehending with multiple senses the import (for want of a
suitable word) of a series of notes roughly equivalent to the pure,
concentrated aural impact? When playing a piece, does hearing the result of
'nailing' a progression measure up to hearing someone else nail it?
Apples and oranges, folks?
alanwa...@aol.com
I can honestly say that when I follow a piece with a full score (and I
have never done that publicly as an audience member) it enhances, not
detracts, from a recorded performance (for me).
I either want to "revel" in what is being done or question what is
being done or be made to think about what is being done or to think:
"Yes, that is an alternative way of playing that." However well you
know a piece, whatever your instrument, it is unlikely you will
remember every marking, every crescendo, every rall, rit (or I can't
anyway).
I remember the first time I had to play Schedrin's wonderful Carmen
ballet. It was very new then. I took part in the Czech premiere of
it. I got Mr Rozhdestvensky's Melodiya LP with the Bolshoi orchestra
and I sat down with the percussion parts (I did not have a full score)
and I probably listened to it 15 or 20 times in one day.
I thought (and think) Mr R's performance wonderfully musical but some
of the percussion playing is, frankly, adrift and some bits are missed
out. There is a good reason for that: Mr R's recording was made on a
Monday night (the only free night for the Bolshoi Orchestra) in four
hours flat (in the can) and it probably deserves a bit longer than that
in rehearsal.
I recently listened to the Naxos Schedrin recording with the Ukraine
Orchestra which comes and goes as well (mainly through a curious
recording balance, I would guess). For a start the spectacular
xylophone runs get lost, somehow, and I doubt it the player but they
are crystal clear and beautifully played on the Bolshoi recording.
Apart from it sometimes being a professional necessity, I actually find
listening to a recording with a score (in private) a bonus, although it
is not in any way necessary to the enjoyment of music I would say.
However, I like to know or be reminded of what they are tackling, and
how they tackle it adds to my interest, personally.
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
ex-neo-con
renaissance music (e.g., the ars subtilior, Ockeghem's _Missa
Prolationum_) lay in things such as the presentation of the music and
in the ingenious manipulation of contemporary notation. Such practices
correspond to very different notions of listening to that which has
characterized much Western music of the last two centuries. In short,
there's just a lot of music out there that cries out for taking a good
look at the score.
Allow me to reiterate (not for mr. gable's benefit but, rather, for
other readers of the list), that I personally tend to miss the nuances
of a performance when I follow along with the score. If I work at
paying extra attention to those nuances, then I do pick up on some of
them--but usually not as keenly as when I'm listening without a score.
It's the way my mind works. I'm just curious about how many people
fall into a similar camp.
ex-neo-con
ex-neo-con
experience." If I had a nickel for every time a piece has moved me to
tears while following the score, I'd be a very wealthy man.
Beyond that, I'm profoundly averse to judging the quality of one's
encounter with a piece of music on the basis of emotional response.
(Not that I'm some sort of neo-Hanslickian....) That's simply a very
modern, Eurocentric view of music and of listening. For that matter,
it hardly exhausts the approaches that commentators have historically
associated with music of the common practice period.
ex-neo-con
ex-neo-con
(and ambiguous) term! When is one's experience "aesthetic"? Are you
thinking about, e.g., Baumgarten, Kant, Schiller, etc., here--the
notion of a science of universal perception?
ex-neo-con
ex-neo-con
the "technical" and the "aesthetic." Might this be like comparing
apples and oranges. Again, I think that the termselves cry out for
some elaboration.
Personally, I get irritated with people who claim it's rude to bring a
score to a performance. In fact, I often do bring scores to live
performances, particularly if I'm afraid that my attention is going to
wane during the course of a piece. (It usually wanes anyway,
especially when Eschenbach is conducting our local band....)
ex-neo-con
Larry Rinkel
"Ulvi Yurtsever" <a@b.c> wrote in message
> Many revelations in this thread make me envious, though, such as
> the poster who has a 2000-score library,
Some people buy 2000 CDs. I buy scores.
> or Charles Rosen's
> ability to sight-read any orchestral score at the piano...
That is a truly difficult and demanding task. For one thing, the person
doing it must accurately identify the most important voices in the score -
almost always the bass, and then the primary melodic line - though of course
there may be multiple melodic lines. He must recognize what's being doubled,
and what he can safely leave out. Then the score-reader must be able to read
at least three clefs simultaneously, sometimes four, as well as being able
to transpose at sight the lines for clarinet, horn, trumpet, and perhaps
some other instruments that are not usually notated at concert pitch. He
must be able to fit all this into his two hands, which may involve all kinds
of adjustments, as orchestral textures do not necessarily reduce themselves
neatly into what's comfortable on the piano. Knowing standard harmony is
very helpful here, as once one has the bass and melody in hand, it's easy to
recognize what chord tones are needed to complete the texture.
Actually, with a little practice, this is not always overwhelmingly
difficult. The opening 8 bars of Mozart's Jupiter, for instance, are very
easy to reduce at sight. Starting at bar 9, things get a little tougher, as
it's easy to put the martial patterns in the winds in your right hand and
the bass in your left, but fitting in the little half scales in the 2nd
violins and violas is tricky; I'm inclined to leave them out. Things get
easier again by bar 17 because the much of the texture is unison, but 24-29
are pretty hard, because if you play flute/oboe in your right hand and
violins in your left, you have to leave out the horns (unless you try to fit
the horns in your right hand, which makes for some cruel stretching). Bars
31-34 are not so bad if you play violins in the right hand and woodwinds in
your left (even though this means putting the winds down a couple of
octaves). And decisions like this have to be made instantaneously as you
score read. Forget the quintuple counterpoint in the finale!
And even a string quartet can be very hard to reduce at the piano. Late
Beethoven is very rough when he puts the instruments in widely spaced
registers, yet even the opening of the variations in Op. 131, spaced fairly
closely, is hard to realize at the keyboard. It varies from piece to piece,
and creating vocal scores - piano reductions of operas and choral works - is
a real art. Sometimes it becomes almost a matter of desperation to get
everything in, and there are notated reductions rather than spontaneous
reading at the keyboard. One funny example is the ending of Act One, Scene
One in Falstaff, where the piano reduction manages to fit everything in but
the main melody.
Liszt was one of the great masters of piano reduction, and his versions of
the Beethoven symphonies are both amazingly virtuosic and amazingly
accurate. But after one of his recitals, a listener came up to him and said,
"With all your skill, I would bet you cannot reduce the opening of Mozart's
G minor symphony." And Liszt after a moment's reflection laughed and
admitted he could not.
Larry Rinkel
"Larry Rinkel" <L...@optunderline.net> wrote in message
news:Dr6pe.8616$So7....@fe10.lga...
>
>Sometimes it becomes almost a matter of desperation to get everything in,
>and there are notated reductions rather than spontaneous reading at the
>keyboard.
"there" should be "these."
Raymond Hall
> news:Xns966C76B...@69.28.186.121...
>
>> Many revelations in this thread make me envious, though, such as
>> the poster who has a 2000-score library,
>
> Some people buy 2000 CDs. I buy scores.
>
>> or Charles Rosen's
>> ability to sight-read any orchestral score at the piano...
>
> That is a truly difficult and demanding task. For one thing, the person
> doing it must accurately identify the most important voices in the score -
> almost always the bass, and then the primary melodic line - though of
> course there may be multiple melodic lines. He must recognize what's being
> doubled, and what he can safely leave out. Then the score-reader must be
> able to read at least three clefs simultaneously, sometimes four, as well
> as being able to transpose at sight the lines for clarinet, horn, trumpet,
> and perhaps some other instruments that are not usually notated at concert
> pitch.
A fascinating post. Thanks Larry. Wish that I had but a smidgeon of that
skill, but the transposing bit, seems the most devilish.
<~>
> Liszt was one of the great masters of piano reduction, and his versions of
> the Beethoven symphonies are both amazingly virtuosic and amazingly
> accurate. But after one of his recitals, a listener came up to him and
> said, "With all your skill, I would bet you cannot reduce the opening of
> Mozart's G minor symphony." And Liszt after a moment's reflection laughed
> and admitted he could not.
Perhaps I, or some of us, should all endeavour to get these piano
reductions. Scherbakov, I believe, has done them all for Naxos, but I
haven't heard them.
Ray H
Taree
Larry Rinkel
"Raymond Hall" <rayt...@bigpond.com> wrote in message
news:429pe.4726$F7....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> A fascinating post. Thanks Larry. Wish that I had but a smidgeon of that
> skill, but the transposing bit, seems the most devilish.
> <~>
So you would think, but not necessarily, especially if the score is
predominantly diatonic, as in most music through Beethoven and Schubert. For
instance, if one is reading the Eroica, where the horns are in E flat but
notated in the treble clef, you simply read the part in the bass clef to get
the right notes. (E.g - you see C E G in the treble clef, and read Eb G Bb
in the bass clef). Similarly, to transpose instruments in Bb like clarinets
and trumpets down a major second is not too hard. But also, if you have
clarinets in the treble clef, you can simply read their part in the tenor
clef (normally used for cellos, bassoons, and trombones in their high
registers) to get the right pitches! I'm sure every score reader learns
tricks of this kind. And you're not always literally transposing everybody's
part at once; much of the time enough instruments are playing at concert
pitch that you can figure out where the clarinets fit in without too much
trouble, at least in big tuttis.
The real problems in score reading come in when the music gets more
contrapuntal.
Dana Hill
news:1117947172.9...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Sorry Ray, but this is absolute balderdash. It does nothing of the
> kind. Not for experienced score readers. I can imagine that following
> a score could be a distraction for the novice who is constantly getting
> lost, etc. But that's not the right "model" for the act of score
[snip]
Occasionally I will park in my driveway and think to myself, "how did I just
get here? I don't remember anything about my trip home". Reading a score
for me is similar to driving in heavy traffic. I stay focused. On the
other hand, I can't do much else while listening to music. I can't even
usually listen to CDs while reading this group because I can't divert enough
attention away from the music.
>
> One of the signal advantages of following the score is that it helps
> focus attention on the music and nothing but the music, and it helps to
> keep the attention focused there. It also constantly enables you to
> hear things you would not otherwise hear because you see the cues for
> them in the score. This alll takes place automatically in real time
> without the score reader giving it a thought: in other words, without
> the score reader being distracted from the "pure" act of listening.
> Score reading keeps your attention focused on the music while enabling
> you to hear more.
Something similar is often done during televised orchestral performances.
Of course, you are seeing what the director wants you to hear, so to speak.
--
Dana Hill
Gainesville, Florida
Photography: www.danajohnhill.com
Personal: www.danajohnhill.org
Larry Rinkel
"Wayne Reimer" <wr...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1d0fb7ed3...@news.sf.sbcglobal.net...
> In article <Xns966D684...@69.28.186.121>, a@b.c says...
> There's another aspect to how I see this. For most music I care about,
> the ideal performance is going to be as close as possible to sounding
> like it was being made up on the spot, as if it were an incredibly
> high-level improvisation. Looking at a score totally destoys that
> illusion for me; I don't see how it can help but do that.
>
> wr
>
Just to take up one of your points for now, I don't share that assumption at
all. Maybe because I've done my share of composing, I think of composition
as a very different thing than improvisation. (Not that I have anything
against improvisation, as in a good piece of jazz or an Indian raga.) A
composition for me is more like an fully shaped or made thing, and I assume
it may have gone through a lengthy period of gestation and many degrees of
change before it reached final form. And it is hard for me to accept an
illusion of improvisation if anywhere up to 90 orchestral musicians are
involved in the process! I find in fact that a piece that is supposedly a
written-out improvisation, like Beethoven's G minor piano fantasy, is really
not very satisfying to hear more than once or twice. I know that's not quite
what you're getting at, but it's one more reason why I don't find viewing a
score while listening to be in any way detrimental.
Ulvi Yurtsever
> There's another aspect to how I see this. For most music I care about,
> the ideal performance is going to be as close as possible to sounding
> like it was being made up on the spot, as if it were an incredibly
> high-level improvisation. Looking at a score totally destoys that
> illusion for me; I don't see how it can help but do that.
Well, you can imagine the score itself as an incredible
improvisation, coming into being simultaneously with the
performance; some sort-of high-level music recognition/notation
software :)
But I see your point that for some the score could be a distraction
to concentrating on the music; it's an individual preference.
My point was that there is no logical reason why it *must* be so
for every listener.
Ulvi
Larry Rinkel
"Ulvi Yurtsever" <a@b.c> wrote in message
> But I see your point that for some the score could be a distraction
> to concentrating on the music; it's an individual preference.
> My point was that there is no logical reason why it *must* be so
> for every listener.
>
> Ulvi
Amen to that.
david...@aol.com
Ray, I readily conceded that following the score COULD be an impediment
for SOME listeners. What the listeners of that species contributing to
this thread seem to be incapable of imagining is a listener whose score
reading abilities are sufficiently superior to theirs that following a
score while listening increases rather than diminishing their aesthetic
pleasure.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
Quoth Ex-Neo-Con:
"Personally, I get irritated with people who claim it's rude to bring a
score to a performance. In fact, I often do bring scores to live
performances"
I don't recall having seen any at the new Met, but at the old Met there
used to be score reading desks for those people who wanted to follow
the score during the performance. The scores, chained to the desks,
were supplied by the Met.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
not
the same."
That's true: following a score while listening is far less demanding
than actually reading from a score. According to the dubious theory
espoused by some in this thread, it should logically follow that
playing music from score deprives one of even more aesthetic pleasure
than merely following a score.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
"No one in this discussion has been 'attacking score reading.' We are
examining its relationship to aesthetic experiencing of music. "
>From the point of view of those who can't read music or who can't
follow a score with such ease that it isn't an impediment to the
aesthetic experience. The absurdity of this postion can be drawn from
the following. If following a score NECESSARILY detracts from the
aesthetic experience of listening, then the far more complex task of
playing music from score must detract even more. Is anybody here
prepared to claim that playing music from a score necessarily detracts
from that performer's purely aesthetic appreciation of the music? In
the case of a novice struggling to master the skill of sight reading,
it very well might. To the performer who has been sight reading all of
his or her life, it most certainly does not.
There is nothing shameful about being an amateur, but it is insane to
object to skills that most professionals take for granted. I didn't
accuse anyone of stupidity, only of a species of ignorance extremely
common among amateurs. Of course, it's not polite to point out such
ignorance--one is supposed to accept the most egregious absurdities in
polite silence--but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
"How many pianists play just as well while following a score as by
heart?"
First of all, it's not fair to compare these two hypothetical pianists,
the pianist reading a score at sight for the very first time and the
pianist who has learned the piece and now plays it from memory.
Nevertheless, you don't seem to appreciate what brilliant sight readers
the best professional musicians are. If you think that Bach, Mozart,
Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt could not play difficult music at sight
with consummate ease, you simply have never seen such virtuosity with
your own eyes. And this virtuosity is not restricted to composers. An
overwhelming majority of name pianists have the ability to read
difficult piano music at sight, and most of them also can also read
scores at sight extremely competently. There was a time when anybody
who received a conservatory training at the Paris Conservatoire came
out with the ability to read phenomenally well. I don't know to what
extent that is still true. In any case, it is absurd to assume that
musicians who have entirely assimilated such professional skills are
deprived of a purely aesthetic experience by their ability.
-david gable
Raymond Hall
news:1118204962.7...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I agree with what you say above David. Mostly. But I think I am speaking for
the majority of experienced listeners, regarding the comprehensibility
factor of taking in the atmosphere, the texture, the overall span, the
relationship of structures, and especially of sounds and their intimate
relationship, (which after all, to me is music per se), especially when
complex orchestral scores are involved. As I have said before, music is a
real time experience, whereas, say, a sculpture or a painting, is not.
Sound texture is a large part of what music is all about for me. Part of the
reason I love playing George Shearing's music, with those lovely big thick
juicy chords, that proliferate his scores. And partly why the diatonic
aspects, and lack of texture as such, disturbs me about *some* of
Beethoven's music. In addition, the thing that troubles me about some
claims, is the point regarding 'concious levels' being assimilated in real
time. I am sure the average noggin, or even the above average noggin, has
only the ability to fully assimilate one level comprehensively. But I an not
a neurologist, so I could be wrong.
But I readily concede that there are people here, including yourself
probably, that are far far better score readers than others. My level is
basically at the pianistic level, and I have no way of really knowing what
it is like to be at the level that some here can obviously demonstrate.
Ray H
Taree
david...@aol.com
Whether a performance sounds as if it were improvised on the spot or
not has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the performer is
reading the score at sight or playing the score from memory. What in
fact happens, of course, is that a performer planning on performing a
piece ends up memorizing it, not only because it is a convention of the
concert hall to play from memory, but because you play it so much you
end up memorizing it. If you believe that reading from the score
NECESSARILY results in a performance that doesn't sound spontaneous, it
means that you are incapable of conceiving of any musician developing
the sort of fluency at reading that countless musicians have in fact
developed.
Orchestral musicians virtually never play from memory. They follow and
play from their parts in the course of performing. I guess that means
that there are no spontaneous-sounding orchestral performances and that
know orchestral musician derives a pure aesthetic performance from
playing a piece in concert.
This all boils down to a very strange suspicion of literacy and an
entirely irrational suspicion that knowledge is the enemy of pleasure.
Bad old brains, good old heart.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
I meant to write, "I guess that means that there are no
spontaneous-sounding orchestral performances and that no [not know]
orchestral musician derives a pure aesthetic pleasure [not performance]
from playing a piece in concert."
-david gable
david...@aol.com
"Do you ever happen to apply evil impure intellectual technical
brain stuff to post reading or writing?"
I certainly hope so (at least by the definition of it implicit in my
ascription of "evil" to Bach). If only I were that "evil." I'm
certainly not so foolish as to think Bach's technical mastery is
somehow separable from his "inspiration" or musicality. Such a level
of technical mastery is only attainable by the very most musical among
us.
-david gable
david...@aol.com
"very often the element of surprise is lost when following a score"
Max, the element of "surprise" is not lost when you follow the score
any more than it's lost because you've become familiar with a piece
through listening. What you refer to as surprise is not like the
surprise of running into somebody you thought had moved to another
state at the grocery store or a car backfiring down the street. It
depends on the language of the music and the context in which it occurs
within the specific piece, and the experience of it is not harmed or
lessened by following the score. The syncopations in the first
movement of the Eroica (the assertion of two's against the prevailing
triple meter) continue to pack a punch no matter how many times you
listen to the piece with or without the score.
Although it's certainly not unheard of to glance ahead when following a
score, that's the exception rather than the rule. When you're
following the score, you're following the score in the tempo of the
performance you're listening to. What your eyes and ears are doing is
absolutely coordinated by definition: at the moment when you glance
ahead, you are NOT following the score.
-david gable
Josep Vilanova
>>
> So, Celi was an ignorant amateur, eh? If so, I hope the world blesses
> us with many more ignorant amateurs.
>
> wr
I just read that in a website by one of his students, Markand Thakar:
"I heard, that is, after he noticed me following along diligently with the
score, as good conducting students learn to do. He took time out from the
rehearsal to scream, "Close the book! LISTEN, DONT READ!"
But... I do listen with score every now and then, like many people here. I
don't know why debates in this group always degenerate in such big
arguments.
josep
Larry Rinkel
news:1118206030.6...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
They are still there, at the top of the Family Circle, and these desks offer
no view of the stage. As I don't go to the opera with the intention of
reading a score, I can't say whether the scores are chained to the desks or
not, but one invariably sees a few stalwarts occupying them.
Larry Rinkel
news:1118206485....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> "Has the topic been studied?"
>
> For several decades now, I have been listening to music together with
> composers, professional performers, and scholars with all of us
> following the score. I can assure you that it never occurred to any of
> us that we were being deprived of some aesthetic pleasure because we
> were following the score.
>
> -david gable
>
When I was studying music many years ago, it was commonplace for musicians
of all stripes to follow scores while listening to recordings. I would not
say the primary reason was to evaluate the performance, but more to help the
listener hear the details of the composition with greater acuity. The other
night I was listening with score to a piece for which I still have a real
weakness, Britten's Young Person's Guide, and was delighted to realize that
here he is accompanying the bassoons with the tuba, there he is asking for
soft gong and cymbal strokes behind the harp, and more. Some of these things
were hard to hear on the recording, but knowing they were there helped fill
in my sense of the texture and let me hear more than the conductor brought
out or the microphones picked up. In other words, following with a score is
among other things a perpetual lesson in that always fascinating topic,
orchestration. Why an experience like this is lacking somehow in "pure
aesthetic pleasure" is beyond me.
As said elsewhere, I am less likely to follow with a score during a live
concert, as I enjoy watching the actions of the musicians in bowing,
blowing, beating, and such; and besides the hall is usually to dark for
reading. I can remember a performance of Bruckner's 7th at Carnegie Hall
that was so gripping I literally grasped the bannister next to my aisle seat
and held on tight at the big slow movement climax with the cymbals and
triangle, the explosion of sound was so intense. But then again, I also
recall listening to that same movement with score one night from a CD at
home, and being deeply impressed at how Bruckner built up to that moment,
with changes of texture and orchestration - that is, how he husbanded his
instrumental resources at first, adding more density to the texture with
each repetition, until the big climax. I thought that was a profoundly
aesthetic experience too, and I would not have had it were I not following
along with the score.
Simon Roberts
david...@aol.com says...
>
>
>"Has the topic been studied?"
>
>For several decades now, I have been listening to music together with
>composers, professional performers, and scholars with all of us
>following the score. I can assure you that it never occurred to any of
>us that we were being deprived of some aesthetic pleasure because we
>were following the score.
I dare say it didn't occur to you. That proves nothing, though.
Simon
Simon Roberts
david...@aol.com says...
>
Your response to this:
>"No one in this discussion has been 'attacking score reading.' We are
>examining its relationship to aesthetic experiencing of music. "
includes this:
>There is nothing shameful about being an amateur, but it is insane to
>object to skills that most professionals take for granted.
But no one in this discussion has objected to those skills either.
Simon
Lena
> <david...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:1118206485....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > "Has the topic been studied?"
> >
> > For several decades now, I have been listening to music together with
> > composers, professional performers, and scholars with all of us
> > following the score. I can assure you that it never occurred to any of
> > us that we were being deprived of some aesthetic pleasure because we
> > were following the score.
> >
> > -david gable
> >
>
> When I was studying music many years ago, it was commonplace for musicians
> of all stripes to follow scores while listening to recordings. I would not
> say the primary reason was to evaluate the performance, but more to help the
> listener hear the details of the composition with greater acuity.
That's obviously a plus. There's btw a minus to the same thing. Which
is, hearing that detail integrated into your own performance in your
head. (Your own is naturally vastly superior to the real performance,
and your performance's beautiful use of the detail makes the real
performance's missing of it all the more annoying. :) ) This is really
an attitude difference, and good score reading skills actually make it
worse.
(And it doesn't require a score, only a dissonance between the
performance playing in your head and the real one. However, the more
detail the score gives you, or the more you remember, the better your
own performance, and the worse the real one... :) )
[...]
> I can remember a performance of Bruckner's 7th at Carnegie Hall
> that was so gripping I literally grasped the bannister next to my aisle seat
> and held on tight at the big slow movement climax with the cymbals and
> triangle, the explosion of sound was so intense. But then again, I also
> recall listening to that same movement with score one night from a CD at
> home, and being deeply impressed at how Bruckner built up to that moment,
> with changes of texture and orchestration - that is, how he husbanded his
> instrumental resources at first, adding more density to the texture with
> each repetition, until the big climax. I thought that was a profoundly
> aesthetic experience too, and I would not have had it were I not following
> along with the score.
That's really a very nice way of putting it, I think.
I'll just say that I want to defend different styles of musicianship,
analytical and intuitive, and any combination. A highly conscious
appreciation of music is not necessary for or liked by every musician,
or every musically talented person. So let's not legislate this into
an issue of score reading "ability" the way David does. (What ability,
btw?! Since when is score following in the approximate way David means
a difficult task, or one requiring serious musical talent?)
If anyone felt being dispassionate about this issue: you could try to
remove any score-skill variable and just concentrate on the basic
issue, at least for those who play the piano. Choose a piece you play
and choose a recording you like. (1) Listen with score, (2) listen
without score, and, for good measure, (3) play the piece. Finetune
experiment, if necessary. Or better, forget this whole thread...
In a slightly more disciplined way it should also be possible to devise
a test to see how accurately you can read an unknown score and/or
analyze it while listening vs. how accurately you simultaneously note
(other) details about the performance. It will measure something. :)
Lena
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:1118206030.665613.301560
@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
I wonder: Is there a person whose job it is, say, to unchain the _Wozzeck_
scores after the matinee, and replace them with the _La Boheme_ scores?
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Take THAT, Daniel Lin, Mark Sadek, James Lin & Christopher Chung!
Bob Lombard
"Matthew B. Tepper" <oy兀earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Xns966F4D95ADF...@207.217.125.201...
>
> I wonder: Is there a person whose job it is, say, to unchain the
> _Wozzeck_
> scores after the matinee, and replace them with the _La Boheme_ scores?
>
> --
justify in his heart the chaining of it), another who enjoys thwarting
thieves and is not big on symbolism.
bl
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Lena
> > ability to sight-read any orchestral score at the piano...
>
> That is a truly difficult and demanding task.
Could we genuflect a little more realistically? :)
Sorry, but *any* orchestral score? I don't think so. (I really
do not, and neither do you, :) but there's still a small smiley there.)
(There are many reasons why it's impossible to transcribe entirely
unknown big orchestral scores accurately in real time.)
When you discuss the difficulty of transcription, you really should
say, I think, that most of the score reading tasks you mention are
pretty trivial and don't require more than minimal practice from
anyone who plays the piano. (Reading instrument clefs, transposing
clarinet lines, or recognizing most doublings, say.)
> Liszt was one of the great masters of piano reduction, and his
> versions of the Beethoven symphonies are both amazingly virtuosic
> and amazingly accurate. But after one of his recitals, a listener
> came up to him and said, "With all your skill, I would bet you
> cannot reduce the opening of Mozart's G minor symphony." And Liszt
> after a moment's reflection laughed and admitted he could not.
Are you serious? As a cute anecdote, ca va, but that juxtaposition
implies a very bad misrepresentation of the transcription difficulties
involved. Liszt could not reduce many portions of Beethoven's 9th for
two hands, and essentially gave up in the finale. Otoh, the first few
bars of the Mozart G minor are on strings only, with a lot of
doubling. This is not an example of extreme difficulty... Of course,
transciption difficulty means nothing about the quality of a work.
It's to Liszt's credit that his transcription is a lot better than the
other one I've seen, but it's not "amazingly accurate" in the 9th,
unless the term has some meaning I'm not aware of. (It's not his
fault.) It's not only the finale of the 9th, the first movement also
requires major omissions (and the other symphonies don't get off with
clean papers either). This is not only because of traditional
counterpoint, though that too, but because large parts of 9/i are
constructed out of multiple lines of *patterns* (not only melodic
lines).
This gives a sort of a "counterpoint" on a longer time scale.
Omitting such lines is a pretty big reduction in complexity. (All
this more developed here than in any other Beethoven symphony.)
Transcribing that to piano can be more difficult than transcribing
melodic counterpoint (patterns can consist of wide leaps).
In the development section Liszt just gives up on some of these lines;
they're omitted without further ado.
This in addition to frequent simplification of standard counterpoint.
This doesn't affect the ideas of the work in the same way as omissions
of important patterns do, but they're a big loss of subtlety. (Take
second key area in 9/i for starters - in one passage, strings play 3
different lines, and the winds 2 or 3, depending on how you count; not
many of these make it into Liszt's transcription. Figures in strings
are omitted, rhythmic effects are omitted in horn, string patterns are
transposed so their larger pattern is lost. Etc.)
> And even a string quartet can be very hard to reduce at the piano.
Well, a solo piano transcription of some types of string
quartet writing will lose a lot of data, just as its counterpart in
orchestral transcription... (Liszt flatly refused the job of
transcribing the Beethoven string quartets.)
What was Liszt's hand span? It must have been huge.
I'm mad at myself for posting on this stupid topic, against my better
judgment.
Lena
Lena
I have never claimed anything to the contrary. I btw have at least as
big an appreciation of the analytical and technical frame of mind as
you do, I'm feel pretty safe in claiming.
I'm referring to the way your post reading (and some of your writing)
starts to suffer when you get emotional. :)
Oh well, I don't feel it's appropriate to discuss that sort of thing at
length.
Lena
Lena
Lena wrote:
> david...@aol.com wrote:
> > "Do you ever happen to apply evil impure intellectual technical
> > brain stuff to post reading or writing?"
> >
> > I certainly hope so (at least by the definition of it implicit in my
> > ascription of "evil" to Bach). If only I were that "evil." I'm
> > certainly not so foolish as to think Bach's technical mastery is
> > somehow separable from his "inspiration" or musicality. Such a level
> > of technical mastery is only attainable by the very most musical among
> > us.
>
> I have never claimed anything to the contrary.
Oh, I take that back. I do claim something to the contrary. There are
aspects of Bach's technical mastery which are done equally well by
computer, or by a generally intelligent person with a facility for this
type of thing. Writing counterpoint according to a fixed set of rules
is exactly that kind of thing. Sorry. There are algorithms to do it.
There are a lot of aspects to composition, and I don't think all of
them are all that difficult. Many parts of a design of a piece can
also be considered slightly separately from very narrowly technical
ones. Of course, I do actually consider all that to be "technical" in
some sense, but they are different forms of technical, one has a much
freer set of "rules". To lump all technique together with all design
ideas is I think a muddling of issues.
I would rather say that what sets Bach and other composers apart is a
combination of many talents: for example, intuitive sensitivity to
musical phenomena, taste in design, and mastery of the techniques
(which change with era) in the narrow sense, and, very importantly,
imagination.
I'd also like to add, an exploratory spirit, but I think you can be a
very good composer without one.
Lena
tag gallagher
My question wasn't related to reading a score at sight the first time.
My question referred to pianists who have thoroughly prepared a piece
for concert performance but have not memorized it - whether solo,
accompanying a singer or doing chamber music. I believe I have read
observations that Sviatoslav Richter tended to perform less well reading
than by memory.
alanwa...@aol.com
Of course, I cannot speak for everywhere in the world but I would say
that sight reading is still taught to a very high level across all
instruments. Your ability in this field is crucial to a professional
career from your very first audition onwards.
Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins
Larry
Lena wrote:
> > > or Charles Rosen's
> > > ability to sight-read any orchestral score at the piano...
> >
> > That is a truly difficult and demanding task.
>
> Could we genuflect a little more realistically? :)
I wasn't genuflecting to Rosen. I consider this a difficult task,
period.
>
> Sorry, but *any* orchestral score? I don't think so. (I really
> do not, and neither do you, :) but there's still a small smiley there.)
Well, of course not. I'm not about to read The Rite of Spring or
Carter's Orchestra Concerto at the piano, and neither is even Liszt or
Rosen.
> (There are many reasons why it's impossible to transcribe entirely
> unknown big orchestral scores accurately in real time.)
>
> When you discuss the difficulty of transcription, you really should
> say, I think, that most of the score reading tasks you mention are
> pretty trivial and don't require more than minimal practice from
> anyone who plays the piano. (Reading instrument clefs, transposing
> clarinet lines, or recognizing most doublings, say.)
I intentionally provided a simple example. And of course, based on
one's training, there are some things that are simpler than other
things. I know pianists who are obviously fine with treble and bass
clefs can't manage the alto or tenor. For purely personal reasons, I am
fine with transposing Bb clarinets but choke when I see an A clarinet
part.
>
> > Liszt was one of the great masters of piano reduction, and his
> > versions of the Beethoven symphonies are both amazingly virtuosic
> > and amazingly accurate. But after one of his recitals, a listener
> > came up to him and said, "With all your skill, I would bet you
> > cannot reduce the opening of Mozart's G minor symphony." And Liszt
> > after a moment's reflection laughed and admitted he could not.
>
> Are you serious? As a cute anecdote, ca va,
Mais bien sur. Have a look at it yourself.
but that juxtaposition
> implies a very bad misrepresentation of the transcription difficulties
> involved.
> Liszt could not reduce many portions of Beethoven's 9th for
> two hands, and essentially gave up in the finale.
There's a 2-piano version of the 9th. I heard it in performance once,
it's deadly.
Otoh, the first few
> bars of the Mozart G minor are on strings only, with a lot of
> doubling. This is not an example of extreme difficulty... Of course,
> transciption difficulty means nothing about the quality of a work.
>
> It's to Liszt's credit that his transcription is a lot better than the
> other one I've seen, but it's not "amazingly accurate" in the 9th,
> unless the term has some meaning I'm not aware of. (It's not his
> fault.) It's not only the finale of the 9th, the first movement also
> requires major omissions (and the other symphonies don't get off with
> clean papers either). This is not only because of traditional
> counterpoint, though that too, but because large parts of 9/i are
> constructed out of multiple lines of *patterns* (not only melodic
> lines).
I don't pretend to have examined every bar of Liszt's versions set
against the originals. The places I have looked at are, I think, done
exceptionally well given the problems involved. Of course there are
going to be any number of cases where a reduction is not literally
possible, and it would be nice to have a third hand. (Well, maybe not
literally.)
> This gives a sort of a "counterpoint" on a longer time scale.
> Omitting such lines is a pretty big reduction in complexity. (All
> this more developed here than in any other Beethoven symphony.)
>
> Transcribing that to piano can be more difficult than transcribing
> melodic counterpoint (patterns can consist of wide leaps).
> In the development section Liszt just gives up on some of these lines;
> they're omitted without further ado.
>
> This in addition to frequent simplification of standard counterpoint.
> This doesn't affect the ideas of the work in the same way as omissions
> of important patterns do, but they're a big loss of subtlety. (Take
> second key area in 9/i for starters - in one passage, strings play 3
> different lines, and the winds 2 or 3, depending on how you count; not
> many of these make it into Liszt's transcription.
I'll have a look. ;)
> Figures in strings
> are omitted, rhythmic effects are omitted in horn, string patterns are
> transposed so their larger pattern is lost. Etc.)
>
> > And even a string quartet can be very hard to reduce at the piano.
>
> Well, a solo piano transcription of some types of string
> quartet writing will lose a lot of data, just as its counterpart in
> orchestral transcription... (Liszt flatly refused the job of
> transcribing the Beethoven string quartets.)
>
> What was Liszt's hand span? It must have been huge.
>
> I'm mad at myself for posting on this stupid topic, against my better
> judgment.
Why is it a stupid topic? It is no stupider than most of the others
that get posted here.
>
> Lena
Lena
> "No one in this discussion has been 'attacking score reading.' We are
> examining its relationship to aesthetic experiencing of music. "
>
> >From the point of view of those who can't read music or who can't
> follow a score with such ease that it isn't an impediment to the
> aesthetic experience.
??
> The absurdity of this postion can be drawn from
> the following. If following a score NECESSARILY detracts from the
> aesthetic experience of listening, then the far more complex task of
> playing music from score must detract even more.
I'm not arguing the former, but I will still say this:
The playing argument isn't a valid comparison, because you're talking
about two very different activities. (Your brain functions differently
when it executes an action and when it just observes the results.)
I think it's also a mistake to assume that the enjoyment from playing
is only a function of listening very carefully to the sounds you
produce. Actually, if you've heard yourself recorded... :)
I don't think listening is an inferior activity, with or without score.
You can get some types of pleasure from listening you can't from
playing. Or at least I do. Some of it is "social", a feeling of
another person being present, talking to you.
You needlessly pooh-pooh the illusions (of spontaneity, of whatever)
that some people want to attach to this experience. These are also
music appreciation, although not the same type of appreciation that
concentrates on the work as a technical piece of art.
Lena
alanwa...@aol.com
ex-neo-con wrote:
> Likewise, the point of a not inconsiderable body of medieval and
> renaissance music (e.g., the ars subtilior, Ockeghem's _Missa
> Prolationum_) lay in things such as the presentation of the music and
> in the ingenious manipulation of contemporary notation. Such practices
> correspond to very different notions of listening to that which has
> characterized much Western music of the last two centuries. In short,
> there's just a lot of music out there that cries out for taking a good
> look at the score.
>
> Allow me to reiterate (not for mr. gable's benefit but, rather, for
> other readers of the list), that I personally tend to miss the nuances
> of a performance when I follow along with the score. If I work at
> paying extra attention to those nuances, then I do pick up on some of
> them--but usually not as keenly as when I'm listening without a score.
> It's the way my mind works. I'm just curious about how many people
> fall into a similar camp.
>
> ex-neo-con
I fall into a middle way, probably. If I am "learning" a work via a
recording (which I have done from time to time when possible) then I
will sit with the parts (I do not usually have a full score on such
occasions) from the very outset because this is clearly just a
technical exercise. In those cases I will be listening out for
whatever I can hear of the percussion department and while I will
absorb (hopefully) the general piece that will not be my area of
concentration. I find this quite an exciting thing to do, admittedly
on a Nerd level, because I can then think: "Well, yes that sounds okay
or "I'm not going to do it that way.")
If I am listening for private pleasure I generally adopt a different
approach (assuming I own the full score, of course). That is: I will
listen to a recording without the score first and wait for my general
impressions to sink in. Then I will listen to it a second time,
hopefully immediately, with the full score.
At least, this is the approach I take in my obsession with Ma Vlast and
I thoroughly enjoy the utter nerdiness of such an approach. With the
Beethoven Sonatas I listen with the score for the good reason that,
with the exception of the best known or favourites, I am not as
familiar with the inner parts of the music as I am with Ma Vlast.
I suspect we may all be different in our approaches to this. In which
case the answer to the question may well be, as in Hitchhikers Guide to
the Galaxy, 42.
On an entirely different plain listening to recordings on which you
have played is an entirely different experience:):) There's a few I'd
like to be remembered by (or at least think: Yes, that was okay) but
not all of them........I never need a score for those, I know where all
the "blips" are and many stay unplayed after one outing! Some I play
as a reminder of "interesting moments" but that is another
sub-category.
I would reiterate, however, that it is my belief that you do not need
to be able to read a score (or even musical notation) to appreciate and
be moved by music you experience and I would think applies to whether
recorded or live. Perhaps that is why it is so wonderful?