Play it again, Sam

[Pabmusic]

I want to sound off about repeats (in musical performances, that is, not on TV).

This has annoyed me for years. We are all taught that the dots at the beginning and end of a passage mean that the section between is to be played again – and that something similar happens with D.S. or D.C. Quite simple. Yet as soon as we start playing in earnest, there’s almost an assumption that any repeat is optional, almost because the repeat sign is there. Conductors quickly become used to having to sort out repeats in advance, rather than assuming people will simply play them because they’re there. I have had serious ‘discussions’ (we never had arguments of course) about why I should have the gall to insist on a repeat.

I know that it’s sometimes necessary to omit repeats for timing’s sake, or the need to fit in with the whole programme (this is often the justification for doing so with the Strauss family); and again, composers did often wrote ‘automatic’ repeats simply because it was the style. But what permission does even this give us to ignore them without serious thought beforehand?

And then there are symphonic repeats. The absence of an exposition repeat noticeably affects the balance between the movement and the whole work – generally a bad thing, surely. I think Dvorak’s New World can easily suffer in this respect – the first movement is quite short without its repeat. Also, you sometimes lose long passages of music that appear nowhere else if you omit the repeat (Mendelssohn’s Italian is often quoted – the ‘lost’ bridge passage is some 40 bars!).

But my main objection is that, by leaving out repeats, we are not presenting the music as the composer wrote it.

I hope I am not being too dogmatic; there are good reasons for leaving out some repeats. The exposition repeat in the last movement of Beethoven 5 is an example. When the movement starts, it comes as a blaze of C major after that long bridge passage from the scherzo; you just can’t do that on the repeat, so it seems (to me) weaker. Also, of course, Beethoven introduces trombones into a symphony for the first time with that ‘blaze’ – something that loses its edge on the repeat. This is my opinion, and others will differ, but at least it comes from serious thought about the music and not from a blind assumption that the repeat is optional.

I’ll put away my bonnet now, though I suspect the bee will stay in it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The bonnet fits me, too! And what lovely honey that bee produces!

A repeat is a structural necessity. The composer's timing of climaxes is damaged if the marked repeats are ignored - a sort of premature ejaculation, that satisfies only the performer and leaves everyone else aroused but disappointed. Repeats affirm Tonal and Harmonic movement in the large scale in the same way that phrase repeats affirm them in the small. Even Dvorak, who wrote letters excusing performers from observing his Exposition repeats, betrayed himself as a composer in this respect - and it is significant that he couldn't bring himself to excise the repeat marks either from the autographs or from the published scores.

A good performer realizes that a repeat isn't a mechanical "going over" the same ground twice (those that do this often have nothing to "say" in the Music first time round, anyway!) but a psychological re-appraisal of the Music in the light of what has been heard since. Things are heard anew, not "again". (I'd even disagree with you about the Beethoven #5 Finale - Krivine's performance suggests how this can be effective: "blazing" the first time through, less so on the repeat, more so at the start of the Recap. Wonderful stuff!)

Go on, somebody mention Furtwangler, Karajan, Walter, Klemperer et al!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The bonnet fits me, too! And what lovely honey that bee produces!

A repeat is a structural necessity. The composer's timing of climaxes is damaged if the marked repeats are ignored -

I disagree. The concept of exposition repeats is a historical habit that some composers have managed to overcome.

Repeats affirm Tonal and Harmonic movement in the large scale in the same way that phrase repeats affirm them in the small.

The very idea of composing a carefully graded transition to begin the second subject in a new key is negated by an abrupt return to the start - it's as though you weren't listening to the first playing. Rapid transitions back again (e.g. Brahms 2) are clever but contrived.

Even Dvorak, who wrote letters excusing performers from observing his Exposition repeats, betrayed himself as a composer in this respect - and it is significant that he couldn't bring himself to excise the repeat marks either from the autographs or from the published scores.

I understand that he did remove the exposition repeat from one of his scores, but doing so in a published edition, would be a tad more difficult.

A good performer realizes that a repeat isn't a mechanical "going over" the same ground twice (those that do this often have nothing to "say" in the Music first time round, anyway!) but a psychological re-appraisal of the Music in the light of what has been heard since. Things are heard anew, not "again". (I'd even disagree with you about the Beethoven #5 Finale - Krivine's performance suggests how this can be effective: "blazing" the first time through, less so on the repeat, more so at the start of the Recap. Wonderful stuff!)

I agree with you on this, in that the performers should endeavour not to make the repeat sound monotonous.

Go on, somebody mention Furtwangler, Karajan, Walter, Klemperer et al!

Is there any need to state the obvious?

Brahms said his exposition repeats were not really necessary for audiences who knew the music already, which ratrher knocks on the head the structural argument.

Even worse than exposition repeats are development/recapitulation repeats (e.g. finales of Mozart's last 3 symphonies). It it has finished, it has finished. Do you really want to read the last chapter again?

Short repeats are quite a different matter and I did not like Jansons omitting those in the Strauss waltzes on New Year's Day.

[vinteuil]

altho' I wd begin from a position of always trying to observe the composer's intentions it is also worth while considering what the expected listening experience would be too. When the works were first composed, most people at that time hearing a Mozart - Haydn - Beethoven symphony - piano concerto - quartet etc wd be lucky to hear them once or twice, very seldom more often. And so a composer may well have needed to repeat a subject to establish it firmly enough in the noddles of the audience. We now, of course, thro' concerts and recordings and scores, hear the works endlessly and 'know' them in a way that wd have been unimaginable to their composers. So the need to establish a subject 'memorably' is not the issue it was for the original composer, and perhaps the sensitive performer can reflect this.

I accept entirely, of course, the arguments in favour of repeats where the structural balance calls for them.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And so, ironically, the debate starts again.

I would merely comment:

Brahms said his exposition repeats were not really necessary for audiences who knew the music already, which rather knocks on the head the structural argument.

No it doesn't. Brahms the composer wrote the Repeat marks in his scores to be observed (the sleight-of-hand in the Fourth is completely lost if the precedent of following the letter of the scores of the first three Symphonies is arrogantly overruled): whatever Brahms the pragmatic promoter of performances of his Music says doesn't take priority over the scores. (He also said that the Clarinet and Horn Trios could be performed by an orthodox Piano Trio. Some of his "practical" suggestions don't do the Music any service.)

Even worse than exposition repeats are development/recapitulation repeats (e.g. finales of Mozart's last 3 symphonies). It it has finished, it has finished. Do you really want to read the last chapter again?

That fearless campaigner for the "Authenticity Movement", Leonard Bernstein disproves this argument far more elegantly, eloquently and efficiently than I ever could. And YES, I do read final chapters again after finishing a novel: the whole point of Great works of literature is that they require continual turning back pages, picking up points overlooked the first time - as Toni Morrison told Oprah Winfrey, "That's what makes it Literature, my dear!"

Best Wishes.

[salymap]

I remember a performance of the Schubert Great C major when the very good DT critic they had years ago pointed out that it 'lost' about 15 minutes or so by the repeats not being played.

[rauschwerk]

Oh dear. This thread has become tedious in record time. Are we not fortunate to live in an age when we can choose recordings with the repeats we like to have? Personally, I can't abide repeats in Menuetto da Capo and the like, and in a number of otherwise excellent recordings (Mackerras's Mozart, for example) I copy the CD and edit them out.

[Pabmusic]

I disagree. The concept of exposition repeats is a historical habit that some composers have managed to overcome...

Not quite so simple. Take Dvorak, who clearly was ambivalent towards - if not entirely against - exposition repeats. He even abandoned the exposition repeat entirely in no. 8, but then included one in no. 9. Why can we not read this to imply that he positively wanted one in the New World? And why talk about composers 'managing' to overcome such repeats? Are we really suggesting that there is a natural progression from exposition repeats towards none?

Of course, many composers wrote such repeats as much out of habit as anything else, but then they also wrote for 'standard' instrumentation, in common musical language, for much the same reason. The use of convention does not confer the right to ignore repeats, surely?

Ferney - I don't actually disagree with you about the finale of Beethoven 5. It's just that I think it's much more difficult to bring off effectively if you do the repeat, so my argument becomes as much rationalisation as anything else.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My apologies, Rauschy!

Mind you, they're nothing to what you'll have to apologize for and atone to Mackerras and Mozart in the hereafter!

Seriously? You edit out the Minuet repeats after the Trio sections??? What about Beethoven's Scherzos?

[Chris Newman]

If the conductor can make repeats interesting enough I am all for them. Sir Charles Mackerras and Sir Adrian Boult did it so well in Schubert's 9th (though both leave some of them out) and Sir Charles is one of the few who really could justify them all in Mozart. Similarly Kyril Kondrashin and Sir Colin Davis made it work in Dvorak's 9th. I am all for rereading chapters and finding patches of green pasture I missed first time round. Not every conductor can pull off repeats, or in Britain most are defeated by the shortness of available rehearsal time.

[jayne lee wilson]

A fundamental point in symphonic music is the distinction between statement and development; evidently, omitting the repeat does undermine that structural essence. Beethoven 5 may be a little sui generis, since it also has a repeat of the scherzo and trio, and if this is observed it does seem to make better structural sense if the finale repeat follows.

As Robert Simpson commented:
"Sir Adrian Boult has pointed out to me that a serious difficulty in observing the finale repeat is avoiding a sense of anticlimax with each return of the main theme. But he has himself convincingly demonstrated how with a skilful reservation of power each appearance of the theme can be increased in intensity."


Brahms 4 is indeed a good example of the creative contradiction of expectation, Beethoven's Op.59/1 String Quartet is another; their impact does depend on repeats being usually observed. But what happens when you get used to them? Does it still work?

Going the other way, Mahler 6 1st movement is very deliberately a classical sonata structure, the repeat throws the later violence into vivid relief. "Mahler storms the classic citadel of the symphony" as Cardus put it.

Case on merits perhaps, but there are few I would want to leave out. Unless, Rachmaninov 2nd Symphony - phew! What about that one?

[rauschwerk]

Seriously? You edit out the Minuet repeats after the Trio sections???

Take Mozart 39/III. If all repeats are done, in the da capo as well, the first 12 bars and repetitions thereof account for 96 out of 220 bars - nearly half the movement. I find this rather tedious, I'm afraid, as though Mozart were performing for an audience that was only half listening. Pinnock, whose recording I very much like, makes all repeats and so I cut some in the Minuet (not, I assure you, in the other movements). The Beethoven case is different since in most cases he writes out the da capo and varies it somewhat.

[cloughie]

...(Mackerras's Mozart, for example) I copy the CD and edit them out.

As Johnny Mac would have said....

And I thought I had a problem copying Sibelius Leminkainen Legends, switching the Swan to 3!

[rodney_h_d]

An unwise repeat?

I recently heard a live performance of Beethoven's "Archduke" Piano Trio Op.97 which I thought I knew pretty well as it has long been a favourite. The second movement Scherzo seemed to go on for ever and ever. It began to sound like a recording that had got stuck and was repeating itself. After the performance I said to the cellist Guy Johnston that he and his fellow performers must have included all the repeats in the Scherzo. He just sort of nodded.

When I got home I looked at the score and realised why I had been surprised. There is only one [possible] repeat in the Scherzo, but it is 284 bars long out of a total of 443 bars. Beethoven seems to have written out the repeats and then indicated a repeat for the whole passage. That surely is a repeat that should never be taken! I don't think I've ever heard it before, and don't really want to hear it again!

[MrGongGong]

Vexations without repeats ?