Schubert 9 and all the repeats

[ahinton]

I confess that, despite many attempts with many different kinds of performance, I simply cannot take Schubert's Ninth Symphony at all. OK, I know, faute de mieux, sacre bleu and all the rest and I admit it openly. I won't stop trying, but I find it so hard to come to terms with the obsessive repetition of what doesn't really seem to me to bear stating in the first place - a problem that I have with Schubert not only in this work. I can't help it, believe me. OK, I know that there's probably no hope for me, but I'm not gong to pretend. I remember having a lesson with Thea Musgrave in which we looked at the first movement of Schubert's E flat piano trio - one of his better works even if, for me, it seems to be more of a pleasure to play than to listen to; the "development" section begins with a statement occupying two pages of score and is followed by a repetition of this and there follows what promises (I mean threatens) to be a third case only this time it mercifully goes elsewhere; there's something about it that nevertheless seems to work in performance but I still really struggle with it or to undetsnad why it does.

God help me!

[jayne lee wilson]

Very interesting. Jayne (as are all your posts) But isn't this getting a little bit far away from the subject of this thread?
(Repeats in Schubert's Great C Major Symphony)

HS

I know... sorry, my old chum! ....I've a terrible habit of free association...

But what I most want to do in the present context is listen to one of those Harnoncourt Paris Symphonies again, with every # single # repeat....
The brilliant coda to 86 (i) has been running through my head all day, so.....

[Pabmusic]

Of course this is not exactly on topic, but it's food for thought. Clearly, applause during a movement was acceptable. (It's Mozart to his father):

"Right in the middle of the first Allegro came a passage that I knew would please, and the entire audience was sent into raptures – there was a big applaudissement; - and as I knew, when I wrote the passage, what a good effect it would make, I brought it once again at the end of the movement – and they went again, da capo."

[Barbirollians]

Of course this is not exactly on topic, but it's food for thought. Clearly, applause during a movement was acceptable. (It's Mozart to his father):

"Right in the middle of the first Allegro came a passage that I knew would please, and the entire audience was sent into raptures – there was a big applaudissement; - and as I knew, when I wrote the passage, what a good effect it would make, I brought it once again at the end of the movement – and they went again, da capo."

Defecating in the corridors of Versailles was also acceptable in the 1700s as I recall ! As was hanging children for stealing a loaf of bread in the UK !

[Pabmusic]

Defecating in the corridors of Versailles was also acceptable in the 1700s as I recall ! As was hanging children for stealing a loaf of bread in the UK !

Indeed, but that sort pf misses my point. If a contemporary composer (eg: Mozart) saw repeats as mainly a vehicle for applause, then why are we so concerned about structure?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If a contemporary composer (eg: Mozart) saw repeats as mainly a vehicle for applause, then why are we so concerned about structure?

Where in the letter from Mozart that you quote does it suggest that this was Mozart's primary ("main") purpose? "I knew it would please" is all Mozart says, the "raptures" and "big applaudissement" seems to have exceeded his expectations, as suggested by his reporting the repeated "raptures". And,even if applause were the prime motivation for this "passage" in this particular work, why presume that this was also the reason for his repeating a passage in all his works? ( And how long is the "passage" Mozart is talking about: a few bars? The entire Exposition section? )

The Thread has shown clearly that some of "we" are not at all "concerned about structure", Pabs; but for those of us who do take deep delight in Classical period Musical architecture, I cannot see anything in the quotation you provide to suggest that this delight is misplaced. I do hear, however, strong - and, for me, irrefutable - arguments from the Music itself that the repeats are important to my understanding and admiration of the works.

[Barbirollians]

I know. I was being flippant

[Richard Barrett]

I'm not sure that a letter from Mozart to his father ought to be taken as evidence of very much at all apart from Mozart's wish to tell Leopold what a great success his son was having on his travels around Europe.

Returning to Schubert, though, it seems clear to me that he had his own quite individual attitude towards structure and repetition. If we take the first movement of his B flat Sonata as an example, I think it's clear from the existence of a first-time bar that, whatever Alfred Brendel and other supposed "improvers" might say, Schubert conceived the balance of this movement to involve the repetition of a sizeable stretch of music. While it's possible to claim that repeats in symphonies function to acquaint the audience with the music more closely in a time when they might not hear so many performances of a given work, I don't think this really applies to piano music, and Schubert's piano music involves much repetition, just as does his 9th Symphony. In his essay accompanying Andreas Staier's recordings of Schubert's last three piano sonatas, Peter Gülke likens Schubert's extended forms to the feeling expressed at the end of Hölderlin's ode "Mein Eigentum", where the powers of heaven are entreated not to let the Fates "bring my dream too soon to an end". This desire for the dream (as opposed to mundane waking existence) to be extended is given desperate expression in Matthäus Collin's poem "Nacht und Träume", set to music by Schubert, where people greet the dawn by crying for the night and their dreams to be returned to them. I feel that this sentiment is rather strong in Schubert's later music. For that reason alone, quite apart from any musicological considerations, I would suggest that all the repeats be taken, and that if one finds the result too long or monotonous then perhaps one is ignoring an important aspect of the music's expressive character.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Why would different criteria apply to a piano sonata?

[Richard Barrett]

Why would different criteria apply to a piano sonata?

Exactly.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Why would different criteria apply to a piano sonata?

Because a Sonata from the Classical period would be more likely to be played by "listeners" in a way that orchestral Music could not? If the premise is that Exposition (and other large structural) repeats were only "put into" Symphonies by composers so that listeners could get used to the thematic material, why were they also put into works meant for domestic music-making, where the listener/performer was perfectly able to play this thematic material as often as s/he liked?

[Richard Barrett]

a Sonata from the Classical period would be more likely to be played by "listeners" in a way that orchestral Music could not? If the premise is that Exposition (and other large structural) repeats were only "put into" Symphonies by composers so that listeners could get used to the thematic material, why were they also put into works meant for domestic music-making, where the listener/performer was perfectly able to play this thematic material as often as s/he liked?

That's what I was trying to say. (Unsuccessfully, it seems.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That's what I was trying to say. (Unsuccessfully, it seems.)

That's how I understood it - a point that hadn't occurred to me before

[Richard Tarleton]

Returning to Schubert, though, it seems clear to me that he had his own quite individual attitude towards structure and repetition. If we take the first movement of his B flat Sonata as an example, I think it's clear from the existence of a first-time bar that, whatever Alfred Brendel and other supposed "improvers" might say, Schubert conceived the balance of this movement to involve the repetition of a sizeable stretch of music. While it's possible to claim that repeats in symphonies function to acquaint the audience with the music more closely in a time when they might not hear so many performances of a given work, I don't think this really applies to piano music, and Schubert's piano music involves much repetition, just as does his 9th Symphony. In his essay accompanying Andreas Staier's recordings of Schubert's last three piano sonatas, Peter Gülke likens Schubert's extended forms to the feeling expressed at the end of Hölderlin's ode "Mein Eigentum", where the powers of heaven are entreated not to let the Fates "bring my dream too soon to an end". This desire for the dream (as opposed to mundane waking existence) to be extended is given desperate expression in Matthäus Collin's poem "Nacht und Träume", set to music by Schubert, where people greet the dawn by crying for the night and their dreams to be returned to them. I feel that this sentiment is rather strong in Schubert's later music. For that reason alone, quite apart from any musicological considerations, I would suggest that all the repeats be taken, and that if one finds the result too long or monotonous then perhaps one is ignoring an important aspect of the music's expressive character.

I'd be grateful for a recommendation for a version of D960 with 1st movement repeat on a modern piano. I know Uchida is a champion of the repeat, is (e.g.) Schiff? To counterbalance my Brendel

Nacht und Traüme - indeed, and than you for pointing this out. Graham Johnson, in his notes accompanying the sublime Ann Murray version, talks about this theme, and how "Many years before Freud the poet knew that sleep - the other side of the coin of death - is the key to our past joys and troubles..." This theme also explored in the Keats Sonnet in Britten Serenade, and in Dowland's "Come Heavy Sleep" 200 years earlier (poem by Dowland, as far as I know) -
Come heavy sleep
The image of true death....
............
Come shape of rest
And shadow of my end....