Anyway, the big issue is that each published score has a different text. Let me show you a short but striking example.

This is the same bar from 2 “urtext” editions, and I circled the two differences. First the meter is different: 4/8 for the first and 2/4 for the second, which means perception of rhythm and tempo are different. The second difference is B flat in the first, G flat in the second. As this one is quite obvious, no need to explain what it changes.

Any indication affects interpretation. If the notation changes, the interpretation changes. This is just one bar and look how different they are! Imagine how different could be the interpretations! And sometimes even the keys (tonality) are different. So how does a performer choose? He studies, he analyzes, he calls specialists, he tries several versions and finally decides what he believes to be the original.

I won’t tell you what I chose, there wouldn’t be any suspense when you’ll listen to the album! But something funny to conclude: I noticed that in all the editions I compared the tempi were always the same, so no mistake possible. Could you then explain me why most pianists are ignoring these precious indications?

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Just for you to understand what I am talking about if you don’t, I let you watch the 2 videos I chose to illustrate today’s topic. I had to choose these 2 pianists of course : THE showman versus THE ascetic. Keep in mind that the point is not to compare interpretations but to analyze two very different styles and their aesthetical implications in a non-judgmental manner.

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Debussy: les collines d'Anacapri

Lang Lang, Debussy: les collines d'Anacapri

Something really weird happened while I was watching all these Lang Lang’s videos: I was so fascinated by his gestures and faces that I forgot there was something to listen to. In fact I focused on visual aspects of his playing, so I had to hide the video to really listen to his interpretation. So, back to the video: he is moving a lot and my old man would definitely appreciate this, seeing him as a “really passionate pianist”. But what I see is that Lang Lang is drawing attention of the audience on himself and not on the music he plays. He seems to show off his bright technique as much as he can even in this prelude.

With Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli we’re in an other world. Nothing superfluous with him, but what a sound, what a subtle interpretation : nothing more than the music needs. In this video, nothing to see, and I was so focused on the sound that I got kind of hypnotized : I had my eyes wide opened but I was not watching anything, just listening to him. If you know a little about Michelangeli, you certainly know this economy of gesture and visual sobriety was something he had worked on and thought about. In fact, he wanted to disappear behind the music he was playing. That’s why he used to politely bow from behind the piano.

As it should be obvious by now, visual aspects of piano playing have a huge impact on the listener, but can also define how the performer defines himself aesthetically speaking. In both cases, the pianist’s body expresses his approach of piano playing and music: one in the role of the spectacular star, one in the role of the craftsman. I won’t go further in this explanation, you got the picture which could be summed up by this new idiom: show me how you play, I’ll tell you what kind of musician you are.

I hear you now loudly complaining “But what’s his point?”. My point is that the old man’s question was much deeper than he thought. In fact he asked me to modify visual aspects of my playing, and thus to re-define who I am as a performer.

I feel much closer to Michelangeli than Lang. I am a craftsman: music comes first. No need to show off, no need to draw attention on me while on stage. Move to produce the sound, nothing more. You don’t need more to serve the composer and his music. And what is more important for a musician than this? So, no, I won’t move a little more, Sir. Music is the art of sound and silence, and I deeply believe music is self-sufficient to express emotions. If sound and silence are not enough to tell others our musical emotion, something may be wrong in our playing or in our understanding of what music truly is.

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In first place, Prokofiev’ second concerto. Long and technically extremely difficult, this concerto is also difficult for the pianist to remember and for both parties (orchestra and pianist) putting together is a hard task.

In second place, I would put the d minor concerto by Sergei Rachmaninov. No need to spell it out, it is an extremely difficult whole but very rewarding when played in public.

Some will be surprised by the third place: Bartok’s second concerto. Nobody talks about it, very few pianists play it, but without a doubt, one of the most difficult piano concertos ever written!

4th place attributed to : Brahms’ second concerto. Maybe the longest concerto in piano history. Very tricky also.

And the last one in this very subjective ranking: Richard Strauss’ Burleske. Wonderful work (I like very much Rudolph Serkin’s interpretation) but really not easy to play…

Let’s sum up this “top 5″:
1 – Prokofiev: Second concerto in g minor.
2 – Rachmaninoff : Third concerto in d minor.
3 – Bartok : Second concerto
4 – Brahms : Second concerto in B flat major
5 – R. Strauss : Burleske

I can only repeat what I already wrote in 2009 : “Of course, this is just my point of view on the subject and you will certainly hear about other suggestions elsewhere.”

And you, what would you add to this list?

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Each sign written by the composer has a global meaning. Each performer has a different approach of the same sign. In other words, notation gives us a certain flexibility, a tiny space of freedom. We have to define the exact meaning of the sign, according to our taste, to the context, to the historical background and the composer himself.

Now let’s consider a practical example. A dot above or below a musical note indicates that you are to play the note staccato. The composer signifies an unconnected note, which is short and detached. Yes, but how short? The shortest possible or just short? This is what the interpreter has to define. The concept of length is very relative: some will play the note very short and others will opt for a less dry staccato. The result in both cases is completely different and will affect the global conception of the work: there will be a different interpretation of the sign resulting in a different interpretation of the whole work.

Each composer has a very clear idea of the musical result he wants. Part of his job is to transcribe this idea in a “universal” language, using a notation understood by all musicians. This notation often turns out to be semantically vague and reflects only part of the composer’s intention. The composer can then clarify his toughts by adding annotations or other signs, but this can sometimes overload the score with information, making it difficult to read. He can also let the interpreter deduce the accurate meaning of a sign used in the specific context of his work. So, the interpreter must always put in perspective what the composer wrote and can not accept notation at face value: it is a basis of interpretive work. Remember: a dot means staccato, yes, but what kind of staccato?

When collaborating with composers, it often happens that your interpretation is very different from the composer’s idea. We are obviously reading the same text, the same signs, but our idea of the musical result is completely different. We can not say that the interpreter is wrong, nor that the composer has written things in a wrong way: our perspectives are different, period. The composer then explains his intentions in order to make the interpreter better understand his music. And that’s so much easier when the composer is still living!

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There are mainly three categories of texts: the so-called Urtext editions, interpretative editions and facsimiles. Each of these various editions can be interesting for a performer. Let’s focus on differences between them. At first, Urtext Edition. “Urtext” in German means “original text”. In this case, the publisher tries to return to an objective text, trying to reproduce the original intentions of the composer, and removing all the additions or changes made over the time. To do so, the publisher uses various sources: the manuscript (if it still exists) , the first editions, and copies of the first edition corrected by the composer himself.

The interpretative edition offers the editor’s point of view on how to perform the work. Often provided by famous performers, it may diverge from Urtext by additions or changes of dynamics, sometimes even more radical changes in the score, for example, altering notes or deleting whole passages.

The facsimile is a photographic copy of a source. Sometimes extremely difficult to read, I am thinking particularly of Beethoven’s manuscripts, they are often used by researchers or interpreters conducting a study on a particular work.

As a student, I often heard my teachers recommending only Urtext editions. But while it is supposed to be the original text, there are sometimes doubts about the quality of some “Urtext” editions, affixing the label as a proof of quality in a mercantile way rather than as the result of serious editorial work. On the other hand, the return to “original intentions” of the composer is something rather difficult to define, and very variable according to publishers. We must therefore try to get to know the different Urtext editions and ask which one is taken as a reference for a particular composer, instead of trusting blindly a label.

A good Urtext edition is often essential to begin with the most faithful version of the composer’s intent, but personal taste is also needed to achieve a successful interpretation. Here come the interpretative editions. Made by experts, interpretative editions can bring you a new perspective and give you ideas to enhance or reinforce your vision of the score. Beyond an opinion on a particular piece, they also help you understand how great artists have forged their own aesthetic.

We will never say it enough: compare, compare and compare again your different sources to explore the text further and reach a personal interpretation of a work. Even if recording took more and more space in our life as a performer, the comparison of editions is still needed and far more conducive to building your really own aesthetic as an interpreter. Listening to records generally lead to imitate a style without understanding its essence. My professor used to say: “Look, look, EVERYTHING is in the text”, and he was damn right!

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My first act was to open up space for a deep introspection. Trying to discover what direction I really want to take, what is really interesting me in the pianist’s job. In addition to the tip of the iceberg, namely concerts, I discovered that transmission of knowledge is an area which is attracting me very much. So I developed a series of workshops around the piano and music of our time, in parallel with traditional master-classes, and refocused on educational programs as a core activity.

These last six months, I also discovered lots of things. Newly self-managed artist, I must say that this experience, even if extremely rewarding, is not a picnic. It is a totally new aspect of the job for me and I did a lot of rookie mistakes which have made me feel a little ashamed. Booking concerts, contacting presenters, selling myself, all this is far from easy, even with a wide experience in the music business. When not swimming (sinking?) in, the management may seem pretty simple. When confronted to it, we get lost easily, and you get discouraged very quickly.

I also found time to adjust my repertoire, at last! Some scores out and some new pieces as Debussy’s studies or Incises of Boulez (whose birthday was yesterday!). New concertos, like Bartok third, enrich my repertoire with orchestra. Sometimes, spring cleaning is good! Spring Cleaning for my technique also, since I practiced a lot and radically changed my technique (I wanted it for a while !). The result is very interesting and I hope you’ll see this in a few months!

These last six months are very positive. I was finally able to think on and confront myself to the music world as it is in reality. I do not regret at all this “suspension” of (public) activity . Occasionally you need to take a bit of distance and change the way of doing things, and that’s what I wanted to do during this break.

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To sum up, Sandow talks about two concerts he heard in Washington: Janine Jansen playing the Sibelius concerto with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and one of the ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra). Both took place at the Kennedy Center.

According to him, both concerts were “dismaying”. Too much technical focus (???) and not enough or an overflow of emotion respectively for ECCO and the violinist. He therefore decreed that classical performances need to be reinvigorated [...] because there’s something somewhat impersonal about them.

Besides the fact that Sandow based his article on two isolated concerts to define basic assumptions extended to all interpreters, he did not mention an essential parameter: The search for emotional truth and accurate emotion is a lifetime work for an interpreter. Criticized interpreters are relatively young and need time to develop their skills towards perfection. But their potential is enormous, and with time they will reach a certain perfection.

Deviating slightly from the discussion, I would like to draw your attention on an underlying problem. Today the world is going faster and faster, are we still able to wait for an artistic maturity that requires time to fully develop? Are we still able to judge an artist as “still evolving” and not as a finished product once he is on stage? I pose the question without being able to answer it…

Sandow raises an important point in his article: Interpreter’s focus on technical perfection of performances. But isn’t it finally healthy? I mean, by the hope of a technically perfect performance, we express our need to free ourselves from technical requirements to better express our artistic soul. Technical freedom is then a first step towards freedom of expression. I think this focus, sometimes excessive, is just a necessary transition to mastery for the young performer. This focus on the technical side of things surely evolves towards artistic perfection in its time.

It is not fair to ignore external factors that may have influenced the interpretation during these concerts. Were they tired? Did the acoustics of the hall suggest them to adjust their interpretation? Did Jansen find that the hall was sounding flat and decided, to compensate, to overplay things that evening?

To conclude, I do not think that classical music is in need of a rebirth. We should stop thinking of performers like machines able to play perfectly every evening. Each concert is an adventure having good and bad sides. The quality of an interpretation depends on so many parameters not related to the musician that sometimes the conditions are not met and don’t lead to an optimal performance. But more importantly, being an interpreter is a lifetime training: we must let time takes its course and never forget that we are in a context of constant evolution towards a delicate balance.

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As we have already discussed it a few weeks ago, we won’t go back on the history of notation. However I advise you to refresh your memory by (re) reading the articles about the development of musical notation. They are available at:

1. The little story of musical notation 1/4
2. The little story of musical notation 2/4
3. The little story of musical notation 3/4
4. The little story of musical notation 4/4

The score is an act of communication to the interpreter. By writing a score, the composer wants to make his music able to be played by someone else, codifying it with a special notation. Like any transcription, it may be accurate on some points but also very relative on others. While duration and pitch of sounds are, in itself, easely measurable, the nuances and attacks remain at the discretion of the performer.

The partition is a set of signs printed on paper or screen, called notation and enabling performers to reproduce the composition using instruments or voices designated by the composer. The composer has encoded the music he wants to be heard in the form of conventional symbols.

Although some data appear qualitatively and quantitatively well defined, we can not only consider a simple reading of the score and play exactly what is written. Who would play a score of Chopin respecting blindly the written rhythm? The result would probably sound awkward and far from the composer’s world and rubato that he wished the performer to achieve. This simple example illustrates the relativity induced by a notation appearing clear and objective: the score is entirely subjective, and raises rather difficult questions of interpretation without even having begun to play the first note .

It appears that interpretins a score is not an easy and repetitive task. We need as interpreters to put us in the composer’s perspective to understand the value of each sign of the score. Preliminary work on the text is therefore essential but is often neglected by interpreters. Yet this study of the score is paramount to an authentic interpretation.

In our study we will focus on three key points which have to be clarified before even beginning to play: the editorial quality of the text, the interpretation of signs and connotations associated with the text. These questions will lead us invariably to discuss the thorny issue of style in a composer’s notation.

Finally, to complete our overview of the score interpretation, we will focus on certain types of notations in the graphic scores much less common than conventional examples.

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The word interpretation is a common word in the world of music, meaning how a performer plays a piece. Indeed, the execution itself often informs us about the interpretation given to the text. As an image of the player’s mind, his play reveals much about his relationship to the art of music. The mind controls the discourse, whether consciously or not, and performance inform us about the intellectual work performed. In a sens, we could say that performance is an implementation of our intellectual work. Just as an actor does not try to declaim a text he does not understand, I hope that a musician does not play a score he cannot interpret. Musician and interpreter are the two sides of the same coin, they need each other, one feeds the other and vice versa; From inspiration was born the interpretation, interpretation feeds the inspiration.

Any interpretation is interpretation of something. This something, object of our interpretation, is the musical work, or rather its so imperfect medium of transmission, called score. Each sign it contains defines a two-dimensional space: the univocal dimension and the equivocal one, and it is the latter that we interpret. We therefore interpret what is not clear, which implies a judgment and as a judge, we must support this decision by a set of facts and signals, not only good intentions or feelings. The interpretation of the text is based on a set of observations, a priori non-obvious and which you can miss at first glance. These observations enable to guide the equivocal dimension. In other words, « To interpret is thus to uncover the implicit and move towards the elucidation of an object which at first has been refusing. » (Serge Carfantan).

Keeping an open mind is essential: You must be able to reassess and revise your own position, and avoid falling in a kind of interpretative routine. « To interpret a text, is not a matter of giving it a meaning… Rather, it’s a matter of understanding the plurality of which it is made up » said Roland Barthes (S/Z p.11).

Performers work is ambiguous. On one hand, the interpreter should really disappear behind a work, and on the other, interpretation involves his whole being, and leads him to make choices which influence the music. As a second paradox, we interpret to free ourselves from interpretation.

Sometimes research in interpretation is absolutely necessary: in the world of Baroque music, the research towards an authentic interpretation has become a sine qua non for the execution. Seeking manuscripts, understanding baroque playing techniques, searching for the sound of the instruments themselves, freeing from preconceived romantic influences are, among others, part of the “baroque” daily bread. Au contraire, sometimes the work of the interpreter is truncated, empty, non-justified and it borrows from others what the performer should think on his own. This only results in a collage of aesthetics, grotesque music patchwork devoid of unity.

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At the start of this year, I tried to think about the directions my writings could take for 2010. It is thus self-evident that this blog will still be about piano and music, but I would like to give a new impetus and provide more didactic content. Let’s see what will 2010 be like.

First, I would like to introduce you to the world of music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and to convey my passion for contemporary works. Through a series of articles dealing with musical trends, composers themselves and their works, I would like to draw your attention to their logic and aesthetic. To some it may seem pretentious but I will humbly try to convert the recalcitrant and improve the knowledge of others.

At the same time, I will focus on the “problem” of interpretation and we will try to respond together to some of its inherent problematics. Which tools for the interpretation? How to make a coherent interpretation? A few questions among many others that I will try to answer from my, admittedly personal perspective.

I hope this menu will be suitable for everyone, and please also feel free to make your own proposals!

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