melodic variation vs development; thematic & texture tranformation and form

[49410enrique]

so i would like to pose a question i hope will not only help me but others as well in our quest to better understand the framework that holds many of the pieces we play. whether small in scope like miniatures or short dance movements, to the larger more free and extended forms like rhapsodies (and related though not necessarily similarly named works), impromptus and fantasies, etc. Also for those works with more strict form traditions like sonata form or large scale 'cyclical' works like big sonatas and concertos where restatement of music ideas can surface across movements, etc.

how does one go about identifying melodic or thematic material and 'new' but related as in development, vs 'similar but ''different'' ' in variation (i.e. easiest example being 'variations' like themes and variations, or other works with variations in their title, and those that employ theme and variations approaches without explicitly being out to be themes and variations).

is there a definite set of key identifiers to look for that place material into one category vs. another? how does an understanding of the differentiation between these two affect, or how should it guide our interpretation of a work both when they occur within the same work or movement, and then we encounter them separately (i.e. is there anything expressly different we aim for if a melody begins development vs. simple restatement in a varied way?), should it at all?

i understand this is an incredibly complex and loaded issue, and probably not nearly as 'fun' as say the proverbial 'list your favorite ____, or what is more difficult (at least based on what i see gets the most views and replies lol)? or rank this or that, or anything that has Chopin in the post title. but i sincerely would love to get some others thoughts on the matter as i have been turning ideas about this about in my head for months in hopes that i could come up with solid application 'practices' or at the very least alternate frames of mind and perspective when looking at a score and getting beyond the basic notes, rhythms, articulation, and other basic markings.

[emrysmerlin]

I think, in terms of variations, the sonata form has obviously less variations// would focus on a couple major "variations". In the classic A-B-A form, the B is often made as different to A as possible, so that would distinguish between them. Then In the classic Theme and Variation form, there is only 1 main theme and all other ones are variations.

I would like to contribute the basic list of common variation forms: Basso Ostinato, Passacaglia, Chaconne, and the classic Theme and Variations. I will add the definitions later (when I'm not that busy) for those who, like me, aren't that into studying music.

[49410enrique]

I think, in terms of variations, the sonata form has obviously less variations// would focus on a couple major "variations". In the classic A-B-A form, the B is often made as different to A as possible, so that would distinguish between them. Then In the classic Theme and Variation form, there is only 1 main theme and all other ones are variations.

I would like to contribute the basic list of common variation forms: Basso Ostinato, Passacaglia, Chaconne, and the classic Theme and Variations. I will add the definitions later (when I'm not that busy) for those who, like me, aren't that into studying music.

Thanks for replying. I guess I should clarify, i am not so much asking for form definitions as my theory and analysis background is pretty good I'm more after once one has analyzed a work and understands its structure and has identified places where, even within a sonata, for example there are places where melodic ideas are exploited and varied and also transformed or developed into new material that still has some relation to the source, how does one use that knowledge per say in terms of musical planning and interpretation of the work. I have heard what you said about focusing more on a material for example but it's not complete enough for what bothers me. We strive to show all the musical detail and polish a work so we give as much attention to preparation of all aspects of the work but how do we enhance the experience for the listener when we employ a solid global understanding of a work?

 i am trying too get beyond theory principles and compositional tradition but more from the pianists perspective how can we utilize a deeper understanding of a piece of music to give a better performance? I hope that made sense. Still I look forward to your definitions as I know they will be of great help to others and great review for me.

[birba]

You certainly don't fit into that cliché of "body builder".  Not that I ever doubted your preparation and intelligence, but I can't help but seeing in the back of my mind as you tender these questions your half-naked body pumping weights!
Anyway, I know what you're getting at.  I, too, have pondered these same thoughts.  I think when your playing is limpid and sincere, as opposed to contrived and forced, the study and analytical preparation you have made comes through without you trying to "make it heard".  When it's sorted out in your head it just naturally becomes a part of your interpretation.  I know I'm always harping on Kempff, but his playing best exemplifies this idea.  he was, of course, a composer (and a prolific one at that) and this side of his art was paramount.  He knew exactly what the composer was doing.  I think Brendel said the same thing.  That all pianists should have a try at composing in order to really understand what another composer is driving at.  I gather from your post that you already have that grasp of the music you play.  That's it.  You can't "make it heard" like as if you were in a class and demonstrating to the students your analysis of the piece.
This is for YOU, only.  This will help YOU to understand the piece.  In the final performance, these things are, or should be, forgotten, in a sense.  But they aren't, of course, because you have assimilated them.
What do you mean by "Afainmim"?

[49410enrique]

You certainly don't fit into that cliché of "body builder".  Not that I ever doubted your preparation and intelligence, but I can't help but seeing in the back of my mind as you tender these questions your half-naked body pumping weights!
Anyway, I know what you're getting at.  I, too, have pondered these same thoughts.  I think when your playing is limpid and sincere, as opposed to contrived and forced, the study and analytical preparation you have made comes through without you trying to "make it heard".  When it's sorted out in your head it just naturally becomes a part of your interpretation.  I know I'm always harping on Kempff, but his playing best exemplifies this idea.  he was, of course, a composer (and a prolific one at that) and this side of his art was paramount.  He knew exactly what the composer was doing.  I think Brendel said the same thing.  That all pianists should have a try at composing in order to really understand what another composer is driving at.  I gather from your post that you already have that grasp of the music you play.  That's it.  You can't "make it heard" like as if you were in a class and demonstrating to the students your analysis of the piece.
This is for YOU, only.  This will help YOU to understand the piece.  In the final performance, these things are, or should be, forgotten, in a sense.  But they aren't, of course, because you have assimilated them.
What do you mean by "Afainmim"?

birba! that was spot on what I think i wanted to hear and probably knew deep down inside but just had not synthesized it into such a complete and cohesive and short thought. thank you!

as for afainmim and other typos, i hate typing into the forum on my ipad the stupid thing corrects things i do not want to correct, and doesn't correct others i do, and sometimes these silly 'non words' manage to pop up into my typing (stupid 'autocorrect' is not so 'auto' and not always 'correct' ). i would have edited before posting but was late to a rehearsal hall as i had sometime to play on the stage piano before it would be unavailable later .
as for these thoughts, and bodybuilding...well when you play with exercise and related shinanigans as much as i do, i guess you do have time to ponder some great questions.

again my sincerest thanks for your observation, i feel like you are talking directly to all the 'noise' i had in my head regarding this. not to say i won't turn this around a few more times, but you totally make sense!

[j_menz]

.  I think when your playing is limpid and sincere, as opposed to contrived and forced, the study and analytical preparation you have made comes through without you trying to "make it heard".  When it's sorted out in your head it just naturally becomes a part of your interpretation. 

I agree. Indeed, sorting it out in your head can be the real challenge of a piece. Until you've done it, though, you really don't know what you are trying to play, so what you actually do play will necessarily be as half baked as your conception. One may, through instrumental or technical inadequacies (or listener inadequacies) convey less than one's conception, but never more.

On development/variations etc, whether they arise formally or incidentally, you need to be aware of them and know what they are attempting to achieve, both in relation to the original material from which they are derived and for the progress of the piece. In a classic theme and variations, there's probably a greater emphasis on their relation to the original material, although as I wrote that I realised that the in best of them they are equally important to the whole.

[49410enrique]

I agree. Indeed, sorting it out in your head can be the real challenge of a piece. Until you've done it, though, you really don't know what you are trying to play, so what you actually do play will necessarily be as half baked as your conception. One may, through instrumental or technical inadequacies (or listener inadequacies) convey less than one's conception, but never more....

wow. what a simple, yet profound -and though should be totally obvious- not neccessarily so, observation! i'm stealing that one.

[j_menz]

i'm stealing that one.

Hey!! I get 5 cents every time you use it.

[49410enrique]

Hey!! I get 5 cents every time you use it.

do you accept i.o.u's?

[ted]

Birba is right, and we discussed this important point some months ago. There are those times when we play a piece as if it were an improvisation, as if it had just seen the light of day for the first time. Because I am a habitual and compulsive improviser, doing little else, it probably seems strange that I am not very good at bringing this sensation into the small repertoire I do play; and the same goes for ragtime and stride, the feeling transcends idiom.

As I am aging though, I am finding recently, to my great satisfaction, that it is beginning to happen with my pieces more often. However, the question remains, are there any general guidelines as to how we might consciously produce this delightful state every time we play ? As someone virtually untrained in all aspects of performance, common practice music and theory, I very tentatively suggest that it is much easier to find things we should NOT do. I think it is like correcting a dystonia or bad habit, learning to dive, ride a bicycle, thinking of anything but elephants, being able to sleep, or for that matter probably improvisation itself. It involves a redirection of thought away from the primary issue. If we concentrate on a misbehaving finger the problem will intensify. If we worry about falling off the bike we will do so. If we try to sleep we will assuredly remain awake. If we try to ignore elephants they will haunt our every waking moment.

This displacement of thought is not an easy trick at first. After all, it goes against the whole grain of the serial nature of Western education. And unfortunately, being able to do it in one area does not imply facility in another - for example my utter lack of self-consciousness in improvisation but my painful inadequacy in interpretation.

   

[ajspiano]

I've been reading "The art of teaching piano" lately - It contains what I guess could be termed an "essay" on how subjective finer elements of form can be. There's perhaps a fairly reasonable argument to simply say that it is possibly up to your own judgement to discern which is which, and do so in a way that services your own conception of the piece.

I tend to argue that the best way (though not the only way, I just think its faster) to learn that skill is through composition and improvisation..  you can only learn so much through imitation..  sooner or later you have to start saying things that are your own, while you continue to use other composers works to expand your vocabulary.

Doing it that way, for me atleast, tends to lead toward the performance of a work not so much being a strict interpretation..  one has a feel of the myriad of potential directions a piece can go, and so even if you choose to go the way the composer wrote you feel it as if you are writing it..  not just imitating it..   and that state of mind and interpretive choice may apply to a variety of different elements..  it can be extreme in the sense of having a harmonic, melodic and rhythmic awareness where you could take off in a COMPLETELY different direction, or it could be purely the dynamics and perhaps execution of things like rubato.

[hmpiano]

ajs and ted have more or less hit it.  Knowing the formal features of a work means you'll play it as if you are doing the composing.  The beginning of the recapitulation, for instance, shouldn't sound like the opening - there should be a subtle feeling going on in the performer which gets past on to the audience.

[chopin2015]

1) if a passage is difficult technically you must play it musically

So say there is a distinct melody that repeats in different sections as a intro to a new section or an end to the section, I would say that the meaning and emotion behind it changes throughout the progression of the piece, it matures. Expressing this emotionally is what draws the line between repetition and artistic expression. Knowing how to identify the section or repetition is probably stated by what kind of content leads to and what follows the melody, in theoretic terms, of course. There's a chord progression somewhere in there, or a modulation or no modulation at all but most importantly, the notes in the score! Tempo indications, and indications in general. But first, I figure you could probably hear the cause and effect of the sonorities that happen specifically because of what you do, and you can control what you do, and the more you are able to do with sound, the better you will probably hear and play a long work such as a sonata, making it interesting to yourself first, and someone many miles away will think, hmmm this taco tastes like someone on 5th street is playing Beethoven's 1st Sonata

[49410enrique]

all super great everyone! i appreciate all's responses and the collective creative perspectives on this.

now i'd like to push it a little further, can the same be said (i think so but would like some confirmation on it as I do not have yet lots of experience with this type of musc) for the modern music based on new compositional schoos like serialism? do  we employ a similar background understanding to help us naviage the score when traditional melodic and harmonic construction are thrown out the window? is solid understaning of construction and form and organization of even more paramount important when it's not as simple as music 'sounding' similar?

for example, the pasacaglia is probably is the strictest  in terms of form and organizational requirements. i can't think of any other way of navigating this thing other than having a mental 'composer's map' of it, otherwise how the heck do you know where you are as a pianist once the music starts? thoughts? this is a big important question for me as I have not experimented much with learning this modern repertoire for fear of just no understanding it enough and thus not having a sound musical plan of how to approach it, my mind is boggled that this can be played (i know hamelin is an extreme example but still that it can even be memorized is freakin incredible)

Stefan Wolpe's knotty Passacaglia for solo piano, the 4th one of Four Studies on Basic Rows. Performed by Marc-André Hamelin, live in concert.

[hmpiano]

That's why the serialists had to go back to Baroque forms.

[j_menz]

otherwise how the heck do you know where you are as a pianist once the music starts? thoughts?

I did rather keep waiting for that to happen.

I don't have to memorise the ntes, so with the score I'd know where I was. I think with a lot of this stuff there is music in the moments. They do seem to lack music in the whole, though, strructure notwithstanding.

And the question becomes even harder when you look at some of the "found" music or randomly generated music. For example, Cages Etudes Australes and Etudes Boreales were produced by overlaying a blank score with a star chart and copying the dots. Is one supposed to discover music in that or simply play the notes?

[nikolasideris]

If I may chime in as a dual personality of the composer and the pianist, please? :-/

Some works (like the prementioned Cage Etudes) since they are based in chance (and i ching and the such) there's little reason in trying to figure out the appropriate patterns and formations to keep it in mind. This chore (to memorize such a work) is purely mechanical in nature, as far as I'm aware. Of course I don't recall ever seeing any pianist doing it without the score (any such score), but in all honesty it doesn't matter! (especially after me starting a thread about page turns, etc... )

I will offer an example, about one of my works for solo piano. There was this 2 and 1/2 pages of SINGLE, MONOPHONIC stream of notes (16ths) at a relatively fast tempo (120-128 quarter) and the whole idea was based on semi-random creation of permutations, within a simple premise: NO repetition of patterns whatsoever! So the 'melody' (if one can call it that) was going up and down, pretty much without logic for the pianist and with extreme logic for the composer. When recorded it was one of the best parts of the work (not musically, just performance wise) because the pianist used his muscular and mental memory and not much else. A very mechanical process indeed.

On the other hand, when I was learning (as a pianist) a contemporary work, by a Greek composer (an Intermezzo) I was pretty much forced into analysing it as well. Not only the composer was my teacher (LOL?), but the work required such analysis for me to remember it. And it's a difficult 15 minute work actually!

I don't think it's about knowing what you're playing, as much as helping you understand and remember more, though...

[m1469]

Enrique, I wonder if we have similar/related questions and "noise" in our heads about it?  I don't know.  I read through the entire thread, with great interest I might add, and I remember food being mentioned only once .

Right now I actually have one comment/thought.  I don't agree that knowing how to organize these things in your head is just for the sake of the performer.  It's true that maybe not all gets communicated for one reason or another, but if we were discussing the idea of a public speech vs. a piece of music, to me it seems evident what the importance is of organization.  Having letters organized into words, having words organized by grammar into sentences, having our vocal inflections reflect punctuation and intention, and having sentences organized into paragraphs.  It seems to me there is a direct relation to organizing music for the sake of communicating ideas.

[49410enrique]

Enrique, I wonder if we have similar/related questions and "noise" in our heads about it?  I don't know.  I read through the entire thread, with great interest I might add, and I remember food being mentioned only once .

Right now I actually have one comment/thought.  I don't agree that knowing how to organize these things in your head is just for the sake of the performer.  It's true that maybe not all gets communicated for one reason or another, but if we were discussing the idea of a public speech vs. a piece of music, to me it seems evident what the importance is of organization.  Having letters organized into words, having words organized by grammar into sentences, having our vocal inflections reflect punctuation and intention, and having sentences organized into paragraphs.  It seems to me there is a direct relation to organizing music for the sake of communicating ideas.

yep. makes perfect sense. just like having an understanding of sentence structure and how to interpret details like 'punctuation' allows you to make appropriate pacing and voice inflection decisions when dictating, it seems that the sublties of how we 'phrase' a musical phrase can be enhanced by our own interpretation and understanding of their construction and context.  Perhaps this is was was being mentioned, that it is not so much information we utilize with the express purpose of communicating with the audience, but rather we effectively internalize it and make our own decisions on how to procede and navigate the score/performance and in that refined interpretation, we convey a more polished idea or emotion, with more 'clarity'. i think....



and i mentioned modern atonal music as en example of where it seems absolutely neccessary, i think even on the other end, modern music in a more 'tonal' tradition but with less formal construction (ie. traditional organization like sonata form or a rondo, etc), the understanding of where the work is, where it is going, etc. seems to be very important in making things interesting to listen to. i've looked at this score and it would be very easy to come across as bland/boring unless you begin with the 'end in mind' there is sparse texture and lots of repition at times, how else would you know what to to?

"1981" by Lepo Sumera