Play it again, Sam

[Bryn]

Vexations without repeats ?

That's A Vexed Question, MrGG. Some years ago it was available via the BBC Radio 3 pages.

Here you go:

https://www.rapidshare.com/files/164..._Satiation.mp3

[jayne lee wilson]

The problem with this though, rauschwerk, is that minuets are of course dances - again a musical form where repetition is fundamental - essential even; hard to enjoy a dance if the band doesn't repeat it enough, or stops too soon! And again, the nature of minuets, scherzi, divertimenti is to provide the greatest contrast to sonata structures which are more fluid and developmental; to provide some respite for the audience's concentration - half-listening indeed, as you would be if you were dancing.
Haydn's endlessly inventive manipulations of sonata, rondo and sonata-rondo can only work against the background of conventional exposition or sectional repeats, especially vivid in finales following these more relaxed and repetitive 3rd movement types.

If your editing helps you enjoy, as opposed to merely tolerating, these largely 3rd movement (no accident after 2 serious movements) structures one must accept that is a possible digital-age choice; but I'm sorry to say I don't really respect it... Whilst I'm not overly reverential to a score, which is after all, a set of instructions to be (hopefully) creatively interpreted, I would always listen to the performers' choices in a given work.

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.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The problem with this though, rauschwerk, is that minuets are of course dances - again a musical form where repetition is fundamental - essential even; hard to enjoy a dance if the band doesn't repeat it enough, or stops too soon! And again, the nature of minuets, scherzi, divertimenti is to provide the greatest contrast to sonata structures which are more fluid and developmental; to provide some respite for the audience's concentration - half-listening indeed, as you would be if you were dancing.

But a minuet in a symphony is not intended for dancing. It merely imitates the style. Whether or not the composers intended Da Capo repeats to be observed is rather murky. Christopher Hogwood's argument was "it doesn't say 'don't'", which is vague evidence rather than proof. I believe that for musical balance, it is better not to repeat in Da Capos. In ternary form, the usual structure is AABA, rather than ABA or AABAA, and the Minuet and Trio combination mimics this structural balance to some extent.

[rauschwerk]

But a minuet in a symphony is not intended for dancing.

Exactly.

I want to add that I have become increasingly in favour of second-half repeats in outer movements in Haydn and Mozart. To my mind, many of Haydn's quartets benefit from the observance of these. As far as late Mozart symphonies are concerned, I certainly want to hear them in the finales of 38, 39 and 40 but not in 41. In the matter of repeats generally, I'm with Alfred Brendel, who says, "I regard repeat signs as options, not as commands." and, "I don't believe that repeats are a matter of proportion."

And when I am listening at home I shall damn well listen as I please. Why should I be answerable to anybody, here or in the hereafter?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And when I am listening at home I shall damn well listen as I please. Why should I be answerable to anybody, here or in the hereafter?

Absolutely. It's nobody else's business but your own: my own "dig" in #9 was meant in an ironic, playful tone (thus the emoticon) not as censure.

[Flosshilde]

As far as late Mozart symphonies are concerned, I certainly want to hear them [repeats] in the finales of 38, 39 and 40 but not in 41. ... And when I am listening at home I shall damn well listen as I please. Why should I be answerable to anybody, here or in the hereafter?

Ah, but you might be answerable to Mozart in the hereafter (depending on where you go)

[Dave2002]

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.

I'm curious to know how you do that!

In the days when some CDs had index points that should have been easy, but now it must be quite a faff. Some aspects of technology seem to be going backward.
Why can't we have players with logic embedded, plus data (CDs, DVDs) which allows us to program the playback in real time?

I remember one recording of a violin concerto (was it Beethoven's) which had many different cadenza versions, and the theory was that it should be possible to program the whole concerto while selecting the particular cadenza to play. Not sure how well it worked - whether there were gaps in the playback - but it was in theory a nice idea.

[Bryn]

I'm curious to know how you do that!

In the days when some CDs had index points that should have been easy, but now it must be quite a faff. Some aspects of technology seem to be going backward.
Why can't we have players with logic embedded, plus data (CDs, DVDs) which allows us to program the playback in real time?

I remember one recording of a violin concerto (was it Beethoven's) which had many different cadenza versions, and the theory was that it should be possible to program the whole concerto while selecting the particular cadenza to play. Not sure how well it worked - whether there were gaps in the playback - but it was in theory a nice idea.

It's not that much of a chore with a DAW, Dave. Even Audacity will do the job. I have an LP of Beethoven's 4th piano concerto (Paul Badura-Skoda) with two different first movement cadenzas, both by Beethoven, and both rounded off by orchestra and fortepiano. I remember making a cassette transfer of the second
option. When DHM got round to issuing a CD version, they omitted the second cadenza.

[rauschwerk]

I'm curious to know how you do that!

With Minidisc it's a doddle. Otherwise an audio editing suite.

[rauschwerk]

Absolutely. It's nobody else's business but your own: my own "dig" in #9 was meant in an ironic, playful tone (thus the emoticon) not as censure.

Sorry - not very good with emoticons & should have added one to my reply!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sorry - not very good with emoticons & should have added one to my reply!

[jayne lee wilson]

But you haven't answered my point about respecting the performers' choices here. I do find it arrogant that it is THEIR choices you are overriding; you are not yourself choosing from the composers' given options, as Brendel correctly expresses it. I think serious listeners have to be "answerable" to the performers in that respect, rather than just dismissing the repeat choices they have made. Are you telling the spirit of Mackerras that he got it wrong in a given Mozart minuet? Would you approve of the record company editing their artists' choices when they pleased?

Nor is it straightforward to say, "a minuet in a symphony is not intended for dancing"; most listeners won't get up and dance to it (mind you, why not...? Don't many of us dance in our chairs?) but the mind can dance and twirl through its repeats, in a mesmerising cyclical relief from developmental intensities. These forms relate to more primitive dance music from other cultures in their often hypnotic, physical simplicity.

I wonder what you all make of Mackerras' original recording of Schubert's Great C major, with all its scherzo repeats dancing wildly on and on! Isn't part of the point to drive you a little mad, like a dance of death?

Exactly.

I want to add that I have become increasingly in favour of second-half repeats in outer movements in Haydn and Mozart. To my mind, many of Haydn's quartets benefit from the observance of these. As far as late Mozart symphonies are concerned, I certainly want to hear them in the finales of 38, 39 and 40 but not in 41. In the matter of repeats generally, I'm with Alfred Brendel, who says, "I regard repeat signs as options, not as commands." and, "I don't believe that repeats are a matter of proportion."

And when I am listening at home I shall damn well listen as I please. Why should I be answerable to anybody, here or in the hereafter?

[Bryn]

Now, about Mackerras specifically NOT observing the repeat in the first movement of Mahler's 6th ...

[I recall an interesting discussion about that, the order of movements and the reinstatement of the third hammer blow in the finale a few years ago (BBCMM cover disc).]

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, he made a choice, as a performer - so your point is?
I'm not about to re-record it and program in the exposition repeat now, am I?
(Stop giving me wicked ideas!)

Doesn't anybody around here read their IRR? There's been a passionately, even angrily argued, debate about the Mahler 6 inner movement problem this last month or two - they were so worn out, they didn't even get round to the hammer blows...

I feel a new thread coming on...

Now, about Mackerras specifically NOT observing the repeat in the first movement of Mahler's 6th ...

[I recall an interesting discussion about that, the order of movements and the reinstatement of the third hammer blow in the finale a few years ago (BBCMM cover disc).]

[John Skelton]

choosing from the composers' given options, as Brendel correctly expresses it.

In the case of the first movement of Schubert's B flat sonata, 960, I don't think he is choosing an option; it's obvious from the music Schubert wrote to introduce the exposition repeat that he is ignoring Schubert and choosing Brendel.

As for being "answerable" to a performer - that's not really what's going on, is it? You are talking about something which is a mechanical reproduction of a performance, edited for distribution and repeatable. It's not like ostentatiously putting in ear plugs and reading a book when minuet repeats arrive .