How to read a concerto score

[tbsurf]

I downloaded and printed the score from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, my favorite.  I just started playing it, and am not sure how to handle the measures where there is no piano part.  Am I correct in switching to the lower staffs for the accompaniment where this occurs?  I love the main theme, followed by the roller coaster ride through the multiple chord and key changes.  Thanks for the help.

[j_menz]

I take it

1) you have a two piano version (solo and piano reduction of the orchestral part); and

2) that you are just doing it for fun (ie, no plans to perform with anyone else).

That is, of course fine. For that, I play the orchestra part when the piano isn't doing anything - it gives you a better feel for the piece, and it just feels silly sitting there in silence counting to 200 or whatever.

An alternative is to find a transcription for piano solo, where the work has been done for you and often more inventively. These vary in quality, but are often good. For this concerto, there are ones by Alkan and Hummel on IMSLP.

If you are looking to perform it as a concerto (either with an orchestra or with another pianist), different considerations apply.

[tbsurf]

j_menz
Thanks for the reply.  You have it right, just playing for my enjoyment.  Sounds like I had the right idea.  I also thought the blank measures in the solo piano score might be for the cadenzas.

[j_menz]

Unlikely.  Cadenzas are generally just marked with a note that that's where you stick it in. No fixed number of bars.

The blank bars are where the orchestra is going alone, and you get to take a nap.

[ahinton]

The blank bars are where the orchestra is going alone, and you get to take a nap.

Marc-André Hamelin perhaps knows the dangers of being lulled into such a notion, even if only from a single experience(!). No further comment (but you can write to me direct should you require some elucidation of this!)...

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Hamelin is at his best with blank bars.

Thal

[ahinton]

Hamelin is at his best with blank bars.

Next time he's in London (which I think is next month), I'll invite you both for a drink in such a bar and you can then tell him that to his face.

I presume from a previous post from you that Haydn sonatas are full of blank bars; I am accordingly indebted to you for alerting me to that fact, of which I had for years been entirely unaware.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Next time he's in London (which I think is next month), I'll invite you both for a drink in such a bar and you can then tell him that to his face.

Look forward to it. I will bring along my Rubinstein IV score so I will be able to point out to him where he went wrong.

Thal

[awesom_o]

Hamelin plays with mnemonic brilliance, without a doubt. 

I put him in the category of 'faultless but not particularly compelling'.

[ahinton]

Look forward to it. I will bring along my Rubinstein IV score so I will be able to point out to him where he went wrong.

In that case, I'll have to ensure that a fine piano is present in order that you may demostrate this to him yourself; doubtless you will be able to play all of its blank bars (for the soloist) to a perfection that has so far eluded him and, if so, I imagine that he will be forefver in your debt.

In the meantime, I take it that it is the full score of this concerto to which you refer?

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Hamelin plays with mnemonic brilliance, without a doubt. 

I put him in the category of 'faultless but not particularly compelling'.

His playing isn't faultless - whose is? - but, if anyone finds the playing on the Godowsky waltz disc or his performances of, for example, the Medtner F# minor and B flat minor sonatas "not particularly compelling", they must have different ears to mine.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

they must have different ears to mine.

I am not an expert on DNA, but I think it highly unlikely that anyone has the same ears as you.

Hamelin's Godowsky waltzes are pretty lame when compared to Bolet, Wild, Scherbakov & de Waal, albeit I don't think those pianists were daft enough to record the whole lot on one disk. The music is insubstantial and there is simply to much buggering around before the waltz is revealed.

Godowsky's waltz transcriptions can spice up a disk of transcriptions, but on their own, they are simply too tiresome. Friedmann, Tausig, Rosenthal, Cziffra & Schulz-Evler are all superior in this genre as they actually "get on" with the bloody theme where Godowsky farts about with it.

As far as Hamelin's performances are concerned, I cannot help but feel that your critical senses are numbed by your friendly relationship.

Thal

[awesom_o]

His playing isn't faultless - whose is?

I meant more as in faultless overall as a pianist. He composes, and plays quite a large range of music, including much by lesser-known composers.

I don't generally find his interpretations of standard repertoire to be to my taste, but there are some notable exceptions. Some of his Medtner and Scriabin is very very good, for example.

Regardless of taste, one has to acknowledge his enormous musical capacity! He certainly sets a good example for others as a musician, even if you don't agree 100% with his perspective.

[ahinton]

I am not an expert on DNA, but I think it highly unlikely that anyone has the same ears as you.

Indeed, but I think that you know precisely what I mean here!

Hamelin's Godowsky waltzes are pretty lame when compared to Bolet, Wild, Scherbakov & de Waal, albeit I don't think those pianists were daft enough to record the whole lot on one disk.

Fine as are all of these in such repertoire (and I once reviewed favourably a Godowsky CD by de Waal who sadly died so prematurely), I really cannot agree.

The music is insubstantial and there is simply to much buggering around before the waltz is revealed.

Not true; Godowsky never resorted to buggery of any kind, musical or otherwise and, if you listen with suffieicnt care and concentration, you will find the various themes of J. Strauss II's waltzes woven together in rich superabundance in these "Symphonic Metamorphoses". As you know, I am not a pianist, but I have played through them myself only to discover delight piled upon delight without any sense of the transcriber (or "metamorphosist", if you will) trying to be clever with the material which, in the right hands, still always sounds as though the sophisticated elegance of fine Viennese waltzes is the prime concern.

Godowsky's waltz transcriptions can spice up a disk of transcriptions, but on their own, they are simply too tiresome.

Maybe, but all four of them (of which Hamelin's disc contains but three in any case) occupy only around half of a CD length and you will surely be aware that Hamelin's comprises Godowsky's own original inventions in waltz time along with the three J Strauss II items.

Friedmann, Tausig, Rosenthal, Cziffra & Schulz-Evler are all superior in this genre as they actually "get on" with the bloody theme where Godowsky farts about with it.

Again, all well worthy of attention, of course, yet whereas all created great encore pieces in their treatments of these waltzes (as indeed did quite a few other pianists of the same era, as I'm sure you know), Godowsky elevated them above their station by the subjection of their melodies to vastly more elaborate contrapuntal treatment yet still without departing from the sense of the waltz itself.

As far as Hamelin's performances are concerned, I cannot help but feel that your critical senses are numbed by your friendly relationship.

Then not only is your feeling gravely misplaced but you also appear to know less than I thought you might about my critical faculties which are never influenced by such issues; for example, I love and admire the best performances of Bolet and Cziffra in particular (among those pianists whom you mention here) but sadly I never met, let alone befriended, either.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

and, if you listen with suffieicnt care and concentration, you will find the various themes of J. Strauss II's waltzes woven together in rich superabundance in these "Symphonic Metamorphoses".

I don't care for music that requires concentration to discover its beauty. If it is not evident from a relaxed state, then the composition is unworthy.

Godowsky weaves a strange web that is not to everyone's liking. At least his debasing of Strauss is not as bad as the abortions he created from Chopin.

Thal

[gep]

I don't care for music that requires concentration to discover its beauty. If it is not evident from a relaxed state, then the composition is unworthy.

I think I can only give my full concentration to a piece of music when completely relaxed in every other (mental) aspect. So I think the two states do not exlude each other. I doubt I had been able to listen to Sorabji's 6th Piano Symphony recently (lasting close to 5 hours) had I not been in a state of relaxation that enabled me to not be distracted.
I think many people miss lots of music (or any other art) because they feel they do not need to concentrate (i.e. mentally work) on it in order to take it in. Simply listening itself (and I mean listening, not merely hearing) needs concentration. To hear music you only need functional ears, to listen to it you need a functional (and functioning) brain. And I know you indeed do listen to music!

All best,
gep

[thalbergmad]

I think I can only give my full concentration to a piece of music when completely relaxed in every other (mental) aspect.

Indeed, but the concentration needs to be effortless. To extract the tunes from Godowsky/Strauss requires energy. Or at least it does for me.

Thal

[thalbergmad]

I doubt I had been able to listen to Sorabji's 6th Piano Symphony recently (lasting close to 5 hours) had I not been in a state of relaxation that enabled me to not be distracted.

Congratulations. I would have required a general anesthetic for that.

Thal

[ahinton]

I don't care for music that requires concentration to discover its beauty. If it is not evident from a relaxed state, then the composition is unworthy.

Any music worthy of listeners' attention merits the deployment of at least some degree of concentrative faculties in order for said listeners to derive the maximum benefit and enjoyment from it; that said, repeated listenings may reveal more of the detail than might be apparent at first hearing - but what's so bad about that in principle?

Godowsky weaves a strange web that is not to everyone's liking.

As do many other composers!

At least his debasing of Strauss

Far from "debasing" J Strauss II's music, these works were his way of paying homage and respect to his memory; the middle one of the Symnphonic Metamorphoses, based on the waltz from Die Fledermaus, is indeed dedicated to J Strauss II's widow who was delighted with it.

is not as bad as the abortions he created from Chopin.

As with buggery, Godowsky was not given to conducting abortions of any kind (or to conducting at all, as it happens). His studies on Chopin's études are magnificent both as pedagogical and recital works and, for all their immense difficulty of execution, have been variously recorded and performed by a number of distinguished pianists, beginning with de Pachmann and including Bolet, Béroff, Berezovsky, Hobson, Ilić, Schiĝler and the transcriber's son-in-law Saperton; the entire cycle has been recorded by Hamelin and Grante as well as performed by Grante and Libetta, of whom the latter played them all from memory.

I recently noted in another thread on this forum that any pianist who has a complete command of these studies as well of those of Alkan, Liszt and Chopin is arguably equipped to take on almost anything in the piano repertoire.

For what it may be worth, if I could write just 10% as effectively for the piano as Godowsky did, I would really feel that I had achieved something worthwhile - but then in order to do that one would presumably have first to be a pianist of the order of Godowsky himself!

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Indeed, but the concentration needs to be effortless. To extract the tunes from Godowsky/Strauss requires energy. Or at least it does for me.

For you, as you obseve - but is that really true? I don't know enough of your listening abilities and perceptions to be able to tell, but I was not suggesting that you (or indeed anyone else) listen to these pieces deliberately trying to find and identify these melodies wrapped into Godowsky's often elaborate polyphonic textures as though on some kind of game of hide-and-seek, as surely you must have realised?! The concentration often can be - or at least fell - effortless, as you suggest, by virtue of the music demanding of you that you devote to it the concentration that it - and you - deserve!

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Congratulations. I would have required a general anesthetic for that.

If you could listen, with or without due concentration, to any music at all while under a general anĉsthetic, you must have a peculiar gift not possessed by the rest of us mere mortals!

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

saod listeners to derive the msximum benefit and enjoyment from it

Eh???

Thal

[ahinton]

Eh???

Apologies for (now corrected) typos; I've also now made a couple of other amendments and corrections to that post, so please review it; I note that your only comment was on the typos, which is somewhat disappointing given how much else there was in its content that was correctly typed...

Best,

Alistair