Is written music a set of instructions? A student asked my opinion of a performance he described. In the performance, a pianist used the pedal to sustain long notes while taking his fingers off the keyboard. After thinking, I wrote: "I think the use of the pedal for sustaining notes or helping with legato depends very much on what music is being played. For me, in music by Brahms or Mozart, the central Germanic repertory, long notes must be … [Read more...]
Other Planets
Recurring patterns of signification in music -- topoi. The grand unfolding of time and space represented by a steady repeated-pitch ostinato with slow-motion harmonic change around it, found at the opening of Haydn's Creation, for example. (Haydn could have had a career in sci-fi futurism...) I heard a pianist play through Debussy's prelude "...La terrasses des audiences du clair de lune." Near the end, there's an anomalous passage that … [Read more...]
Line break
In Cesar Franck's Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue, the crescendo which is marked in measure 65 probably continues to m. 67. In the Henle edition of the piece (and others), there's a line break after m. 65. Playing for me, a young pianist finished the crescendo at the end of the printed system (where the line break occurs), not continuing the swell into m. 67. Pianists are visually suggestible. Switching to a new edition of a familiar piece, with … [Read more...]