What's the Point of Rubato?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I had always thought that the idea behind rubato is to give "shape" to phrasing; to point out moments of particular structural significance; and/or to prevent "mechanical" performance.

The reason I ask is that I was recently at a concert given by the Vienna Piano Trio; otherwise very enjoyable, it was marred for me by their habit of putting a slight (say a fifth of a second) but unignorable "break" between a great many of the phrases, creating a "hiccup" that acted for me like watching somebody speaking with a bit of spinach stuck between their teeth - eventually, you can't concentrate on whatever they're saying because your fascinated by the "flaw".

It recurred again and again with such predictability, that if its intention were to act as a sort of rubato-like feature, it failed significantly. Have I missed the point?

[pastoralguy]

Depends on the repertoire I think, ferney. Bach's music doesn't really lend itself to rubato whereas Rachmaninov cries out for it.

Tea time! Will write more later.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Good point - they were playing Mozart's G major K496; Schönberg's Verklärte Nacht (sounding even more seedily decadent in the Pno 3o arrangement); and the Schubert Bb. All far from immune from a variety of types of rubato - but not this peculiar common mannerism (the silences in the First movement of the Schubert, too, were stretched to lengths I found risible).

It just seemed an injudicious affectation.

But, yes - I'd be grateful to hear others' views on rubato and what it's for, regardless of this individual concert which got me thinking about it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If rubato upsets you, input the music to some good quality software and the click on "play".

I can think of a few performers who sound a bit like that.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If rubato upsets you, input the music to some good quality software and the click on "play".
I can think of a few performers who sound a bit like that.

But what is it for, Alpie? If, as in this case, it becomes predictable - and can be precisely notated - what's it supposed to be doing for the Music that the composer could not have written in the score in the first place?


(And what "good quality software" is there that doesn't make a woodwind choir sound like a set of bagpipes with a bad cold?)

[rauschwerk]

The term rubato exists only because a natural way of performing music (think of folk-singing, particularly the unaccompanied kind) has to be represented in a notation which insists that every beat has equal length. What we call rubato is an attempt to intuitively recapture what was in the composer's head before the act of writing it down.

What the Vienna Piano Trio were doing at the performance you attended might or might not be described as rubato (which is literally 'robbing' time from some notes in a phrase and giving it to other notes) but sounds to me more like a bizarre mannerism.

[Ian]

it was marred for me by their habit of putting a slight (say a fifth of a second) but unignorable "break" between a great many of the phrases, creating a "hiccup"...

Not sure I would class this as Rubato - which, I think, means ‘robbed time‘ - i.e. rather than, say, play a phrase of eight quavers (opening phrase of Fur Elise) completely evenly some notes might be a tad longer and others a tad shorter to compensate. Just adding a bit of time at the end of phrases is something different - something you might do to make the music breathe and sound natural, but that, of course, implies that it shouldn’t really be noticed.

[Ian]

(And what "good quality software" is there that doesn't make a woodwind choir sound like a set of bagpipes with a bad cold?)

with what software can you not avoid making a woodwind choir sound like a set of bagpipes with a bad cold?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Not sure I would class this as Rubato - which, I think, means ‘robbed time‘ - i.e. rather than, say, play a phrase of eight quavers (opening phrase of Fur Elise) completely evenly some notes might be a tad longer and others a tad shorter to compensate. Just adding a bit of time at the end of phrases is something different - something you might do to make the music breathe and sound natural, but that, of course, implies that it shouldn’t really be noticed.

Yes - I think you've summed up my reactions at the time precisely there, Ian. (I'd add "including little moments of accel and/or rall within phrases" to highlight the contour/structure of the phrase.) The frequent "breaks" at the start of phrases (getting on for 80% in the Schubert) didn't so much "make it breathe and sound natural" as give it an asthmatic wheeze. I've encountered this sort of "sticky start" phrasing in other performers, but never to the extent of the Vienna Trio's use of it, and I wondered what they imagined they were bringing to the performance playing this way.

(Although - tangent to the topic - I also often wonder what people mean when they talk about Music "breathing and sounding natural"; in this case it's clear, precisely because the effect seemed to me to be so artificially contrived: a sort-of "ad-rehearsed ad-lib" as Spike Milligan used to say.)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But what is it for, Alpie? If, as in this case, it becomes predictable - and can be precisely notated - what's it supposed to be doing for the Music that the composer could not have written in the score in the first place?

So much in written music is imprecise, with the exact interpretation being left to the performer. "Swinging" rhythms in jazz is a very obvious example; asking for accurate notation is usually met with a reply saying you need to listen to other jazz musicians, rather than translating 4/4 into 12/8 time.

You could write Viennese waltzes with the exact accompanying rhythms, but the result would be horrendous to read.

Sometimes publishers do attempt to write the rhythms the way they've been performed. I have a selection of songs from The Lion King written in this way, and it makes the brain hurt.

(And what "good quality software" is there that doesn't make a woodwind choir sound like a set of bagpipes with a bad cold?)

I wasn't really being serious.

[Ian]

(Although - tangent to the topic - I also often wonder what people mean when they talk about Music "breathing and sounding natural"; in this case it's clear, precisely because the effect seemed to me to be so artificially contrived: a sort-of "ad-rehearsed ad-lib" as Spike Milligan used to say.)

For the voice (and lung powered instruments) breathing is, of course, intrinsic. This doesn’t necessarily mean that time is added for the breaths - usually (depending on the music) last notes of phrases are made shorter than the written durations to accommodate. Other Instrumentalists usually try to imitate this ‘breathing‘ even though they don’t actually need to.

With bagpipes (excluding the Northumbrian version) you can’t actually add breathing so an elaborate tradition of ornamentation has developed to compensate.

[Hornspieler]

So much in written music is imprecise, with the exact interpretation being left to the performer. "Swinging" rhythms in jazz is a very obvious example; asking for accurate notation is usually met with a reply saying you need to listen to other jazz musicians, rather than translating 4/4 into 12/8 time.

You could write Viennese waltzes with the exact accompanying rhythms, but the result would be horrendous to read.

Sometimes publishers do attempt to write the rhythms the way they've been performed. I have a selection of songs from The Lion King written in this way, and it makes the brain hurt.




.

Absolutely right, EA!
That wasn't Rubato - it was Distortion!

HS

BTW

It pains me to say it, but if you wish to hear perfectly placed rubato, listen to the playing of Lang Lang.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

So much in written music is imprecise, with the exact interpretation being left to the performer. "Swinging" rhythms in jazz is a very obvious example; asking for accurate notation is usually met with a reply saying you need to listen to other jazz musicians, rather than translating 4/4 into 12/8 time.

You could write Viennese waltzes with the exact accompanying rhythms, but the result would be horrendous to read.

Sometimes publishers do attempt to write the rhythms the way they've been performed. I have a selection of songs from The Lion King written in this way, and it makes the brain hurt.

You raise many pertinent points, Alpie, particularly from the performers' perspective - but I'm not sure that their different notions of rectifying/addressing what they consider to be imprecisions in the notation gets to the root of what the purpose (or "purposes") of rubato is/are. Are there other reasons besides the ones I mentioned in the OP and those added by Ian? And, if these do make up a collective "purpose" of rubato, then when a performer makes the same points of rubato every time s/he/they play a piece (or play a phrase that is repeated in a piece, for that matter), is that really accomplishing what rubato is supposed to do?

I wasn't really being serious.

I suspected not - but was hopeful that there was better playback software out there that actually sounds similar to the instruments they claim to "be"!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

For the voice (and lung powered instruments) breathing is, of course, intrinsic. This doesn’t necessarily mean that time is added for the breaths - usually (depending on the music) last notes of phrases are made shorter than the written durations to accommodate. Other Instrumentalists usually try to imitate this ‘breathing‘ even though they don’t actually need to.

Ah, that's interesting. When I have used the expression "helping to make the Music 'breathe'", it's been in a much more metaphorical context - the sense of some phrases being harmonically "upbeats" ("breathing in") and others "downbeats" ("breathing out"): my own performing experience being on the violin (upbows and downbows) and percussion (where I find that I often breathe with the phrases from the whole ensemble, and accommodate dynamics in my playing to this breathing). The literal sense of breath only comes into my singing activities, where you can't sing during an intake of breath. (Perhaps this is the root of a problem not infrequently expressed by singers that some composers don't write well for voices: the composers maybe thinking "in" phrasing as they write, rather than breathing?)

With bagpipes (excluding the Northumbrian version) you can’t actually add breathing so an elaborate tradition of ornamentation has developed to compensate.

And in organ music, too? (Stravinsky's statement that he didn't write much for organ because he found it difficult to think in terms of an instrument that "never breathes".)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That wasn't Rubato - it was Distortion!

I think you've nailed it, HS - the breaks got in the way of the Music. The rest of the playing was so impressive - impeccable intonation and ensemble (instrumental balance and rhythmic precision) and well-judged tempi, variety of performing techniques (none of that lazy, homogenised, "one-size-fits-none" vibrato, for example), most repeats observed (the vital second repeat in the first Movement of the Mozart was ignored ) - that this (to me) bizarre mannerism of "rubato" (Ian is right - this isn't quite the right word to express what they did) really stuck with me as infuriating and distracting. Everything else was so good, I wondered if there was a reason that I'd missed to explain why such fine Musicians should think that it was a good idea. Hence the Thread - have I missed the (or "a") point about rubato?

It pains me to say it, but if you wish to hear perfectly placed rubato, listen to the playing of Lang Lang.

Now Now!