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Topic: It's all about style...  (Read 1280 times)

Offline Bob

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It's all about style...
on: July 27, 2005, 09:45:15 PM
What's the difference between playing Mozart and Beethoven?  Beethoven and Brahms?  Brahms and Bach?

I know these can be absorbed through recordings.

But...

What are the elements that make these individual styles up?  There is a philosophy behind their styles that translates into the way the notes are performed -- articulation, phrasing, what can be allowed in terms of rubato and accel, etc.

This is what I want to know.  Because you can take a piece and check that you have the true elements of a composer's performance style in there.  I want this.  And I want to be able to tell if I'm playing a piece with the right style.  I don't want to have my "Mozart sound like Beethoven" as I've heard it put.

I know I can listen and pull this information off recordings.  But is there a list somewhere?  Something already created that explains this?  I've had no luck so far.
Favorite new teacher quote -- "You found the only possible wrong answer."

Offline pianonut

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Re: It's all about style...
Reply #1 on: July 28, 2005, 12:30:22 AM
this may sound strange, but go to opera.  listen to mozart's plots and intricacies, and then beethoven.  don't know if brahms composed opera, but maybe the requiem.  when you hear music sung, you get even more of the nuances of what made the composer   'tick.'  what his personal thoughts (despite fantasy plot) might have been and what librettos/ literature attracted them.  kind of like what painters decide to paint. 

for debussy - i see a very light touch.
for scarlatti - a sort of guitar like staccato in places - and strumming sounds, and twangs of seconds
for mozart - phrasing (within tempo -but slightly stretching rh over left), graceful, light
for beethoven - richer, deeper, emotional
for chopin - (don't play chopin very well) extreme technique, lightness, salonesque feel
for bartok - percussiveness
for poulenc - enjoyment of new sounds/chords/techniques  - good feel under the hand (romantic quality - unlike brahms which is sometimes very uncomfortable reaches or one chord after another)

you probably already know your general gut feeling from playing each composer's works, but hearing someone other than yourself or another pianist (preferably something sung) gives you time to digest the 'between the lines' of personality.  also, for brahms, violin concertos or chamber works.  he used the violin like voice.

what a great question, bob!  i really like the simple direct questions because they make you think deeper than 'that's just the way i play it.'  i am sometimes stunned by the beauty that some opera singers can bring to a phrase they are singing.  that's what we are trying to do with piano.  to sing a phrase and to make it come alive and match the meaning.  whatever the piece is about - you give it personal meaning - and yet keep the composer alive.

many composers had a favorite writer, painter, friend.  you can read about the composers in detail and get a feel for what they preferred in each of these areas and sort of sythesize it all.  mozart was very prolific in his letter writing to his family and friends.  he sometimes expressed exactly what he had in mind for his pieces or how he wanted something sung.
do you know why benches fall apart?  it is because they have lids with little tiny hinges so you can store music inside them.  hint:  buy a bench that does not hinge.  buy it for sturdiness.

Offline pianonut

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Re: It's all about style...
Reply #2 on: July 28, 2005, 12:43:21 AM
ps

as i've gotten older, i feel more motivated to go to art museaums too, and really decide what I PERSONALLY like.  it's almost like a new freedom (yes, i'm in midlife).  things i thought i never had time for, i suddenly decide i'm making time for (even if it is once a year).  noone can treat you to what you personally want to learn and do and sometimes the little bits of time can pay dividends into your artistic self.

i'm finding out that there are so many ways to look at something.  mozart was quite experimentive in this way for his time.  he makes music into gems of color.  beethoven makes nature alive. brahms makes unrequited love sound good.  for us, today, sculpture can do this, too.  we can suddenly see not just the sculpture, but the movement in an inanimate object, the placement/location, and the impact it has on surroundings or people that walk by.  does it allow for interaction with passers by - or is it only to be looked at?  can you feel it?  what texture does it have?

lately, jazz has helped me relax.  i have always been a sort of typical classical pianist.  now, i wish to explore the ranges of emotion that jazz singers get into.  they relax their audiences and allow for the most interaction sometimes.
do you know why benches fall apart?  it is because they have lids with little tiny hinges so you can store music inside them.  hint:  buy a bench that does not hinge.  buy it for sturdiness.

Offline lostinidlewonder

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Re: It's all about style...
Reply #3 on: July 28, 2005, 02:04:57 AM
I like to understand composers music by looking at how they reveal contrasting sounds. Like you see in Beethoven, when the piano was only just really beginning to be understood in terms of the sounds it could make + construction, there are fierce changes in volume, opening of the Pathetique for instance. Loud, soft, Loud, soft. Why did he do this? Was it flexing the nature of the piano? How do you represent these contrasts of volumes which where so individual to the piano? Perhaps Beethoven of all composers one has to be so careful about your volumes, because his compositions just rely a great deal of volume control which was really one strong reason why piano was invented.

Look at Bach, then you see there is not so much emphasis on louder this or louder that, but rather a difference in the actual touch of the notes, and you rarely see the pedal used so our playing is very much exposed and flawls cant be hidden with the pedal. How then do you excecute an accent, staccato, legato touch etc in Bach? Bach reveals these contrasts in many ways one example, quavers against semiquavers, the general rule is to represent a contrast through legato semiquavers against staccato quavers. But how does he represent contrasts in tempo in his music? What about his understanding of Key signature and chords?

Then how do we represent this ideas of arpeggio, chords, ornamentation? It makes the mind go crazy if you even consider his First Prelude in Bk1 of the WTC. Do you represent each individual voice and reveal the movement from each voice individually or do you represent them as one body of sound? To represent it as one body you could use the pedal but does that mutate the sound of Bach? You could aim for finger legato so that your playing may be somewhere inbetween playing it detached and with pedal. Or you can play it detached and voiced all individually. Which one then do you choose? It really is difficult to make that choice, but definatly your decision becomes more apparent the more of Bach you actually play. And that really applies to playing all composers. You really only get to know them once you have listened to the majority of their works and played through most of them, memorised a few.

Each composer works with their particular tools of sound. Great composers have this unique sound about their works, but even great composers try to imitate other composers, in that case you have to understand who they are trying to be and how their style can be perhaps still be heard.


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Offline ludwig

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Re: It's all about style...
Reply #4 on: July 28, 2005, 04:23:48 AM
I know some people who study Performance Practice for their whole life... It is actually really interesting, mostly these people study recordings from different times, different performers etc... and analyse them very mathematically (like rubato time, trill/ornament time, dotting time) from within one period, then compare these. Then they extend to different periods which grew out of the previous one and see the changes...There are very ancient treatises which describes the actualy performance practice and conventions. Maybe look into performance practice books for certain periods or google them??
"Classical music snobs are some of the snobbiest snobs of all. Often their snobbery masquerades as helpfulnes... unaware that they are making you feel small in order to make themselves feel big..."ÜÜÜ

Offline moose_opus_28

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Re: It's all about style...
Reply #5 on: July 28, 2005, 04:36:58 AM
I must say, people don't pay enough attention to Bartok's more atmospheric works.  Movement II of the Piano Sonata, Mvt. IV of the Suite Op. 14 are excellent examples.

And I find most Chopin easier to play technically than Beethoven and Mozart.  Such cleanliness, and in Mozart's case, lightness, is very difficult.  Chopin is much more singing and easier to handle on a piano, in my opinion.

And about Bach, has anyone played some of the things where he wrote out the ornamentation to be used on the repeats, such as the Sarabande of English Suite #3?  It's incredibly complex.  No one today adds anything close to that.

Offline dinosaurtales

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Re: It's all about style...
Reply #6 on: July 28, 2005, 05:30:04 AM
For Mozart and Chopin I think opera. For Beethoven I think Orchestra.  For Debussy I think too much cotton candy - I know, gotta shake the attitude.
So much music, so little time........

Offline whynot

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Re: It's all about style...
Reply #7 on: July 28, 2005, 05:52:17 AM
I love all these posts!  As others have said, the music will often teach you what to do if you spend enough time with it (like maybe a lifetime, with some pieces).  Performance practice is fascinating stuff.  A big fun collection of the old treatises is called, "Composers On Music."        
In addition, it's interesting to read the music history of the period of your current piece, plus the period before (so you know what it's reacting against).  Every style period is a reaction against whatever came before, with each period ending in a kind of free-for-all, where signatures of the style become an end unto themselves and are more or less done to death.  Then somebody asks, "Hey, where's the melody?" or whatever seems to have gone missing, and there's a big change again.  So any book of basic music history will outline what the composers were doing at the time and why, whether they were charting new territory or writing exquisitely within the current style, and how the music reflected the life and times of the people.  This leads to stronger, better-informed impulses of how to interact with and interpret your pieces.  

For example, Mozart's time was an age of refinement and elegance.  Everyone "had" to cultivate good taste, or at least try... kind of like everyone's "supposed" to be sexy now, no?  So even though you can't pin all of his music down to this one characteristic, a strong fallback plan in Mozart, when you don't know what else to do, is to make it elegant.  "Wear the mask," like at a fancy ball.  Don't show too much real feeling, and make sure you're wearing the right gloves.  Music was supposed to be pleasing, charming... always!  "Music as conversation."  In contrast, Bach:  if you make the idea of elegance your chief aim in Bach, it sounds fussy.  Even though much of Bach is very elegant, if we pursue the elegance instead of the architecture, we lose the soul of the piece.  In another contrast, Beethoven:  the "conversation" from Mozart's time got louder.  Much louder.  Europe was headed for war, stormy music for stormy times etc.  That's all condensed and simplified, but true... and relevant to how we experience the music.

Someone mentioned the instruments themselves giving ideas about performance.  That's a great point.  For example, baroque string instruments had bows of a different shape.  They were shorter, curved, and tapered at the ends, which altogether meant shorter phrases, more frequent bowing/articulation, and a decay/decrescendo at the end of phrases.  If we phrase baroque music like that, it gives it new life.  All that room to breathe.   

Classical keyboard instruments had some contrasting and sustaining capabilities, but neither was huge.  So we might not actually imitate those subtler sounds on piano-- although some people do-- I could see a good defense either way-- just knowing more about the sounds that were available at the time of composition gives us more ideas of how to make it speak. 

 Well anyway, best of luck with your pieces!
    

  
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