Improvising on Repeats (Classical and Baroque)

[thomasmgill]

Whenever I listen to a Mozart or Scarlatti sonata, (and other classical/baroque composers as well), there are so many repeats that it seems to slow the music down to an unlistenable pace and becomes incredibly boring.

My understanding is that when Mozart and Scarlatti composed sonatas and wrote in repeats on almost every section, improvisation was not only encouraged but essentially required.

Take this for instance, the theme and variations from K.331. Every single section is repeated with virtually no change. It's already a pretty repetitive piece.

Why is this? Are classical performers afraid of scaring away purists? Or is that hard to improvise?

[iansinclair]

Improvising on repeats in classical and Baroque music is, indeed, to be expected, and was assumed in the performing tradition.

Why isn't it done?  First of all, it is -- in the world of opera.  It would be a very poor performance of an opera or oratorio of those periods which did not include improvisation in the repeats.  Singers take considerable trouble to learn how and when to do this -- as well as ornamentation in general.

I'm not sure why most instrumentalists don't seem to.  I suspect it comes from three directions. 

First, as you note, there has been a style in the last few decades for performing instrumental works exactly as they were presumably written, on instruments which are as exact reproductions as possible.  This may well be a reaction to an earlier style -- perhaps best exemplified by Sir Thomas Beecham and Leopold Stokowski -- which took immense liberties with the scores.  My personal feeling is that the result is very poor, thin, performances, but that is a personal taste.  My observation is that this style had become a bit extreme, and is moving back towards a less narrow position. 

The second is that while improvisation is not inherently all that hard to do, it is difficult to do correctly; an improvisation on a repeat which would be eminently acceptable for Mozart would be horrendous for Handel, for instance.  One has to be very familiar with the composer and the work and the styles to be able to improvise credibly.

The third is that, unlike singers, many intrumentalists are encouraged to strive for technical accuracy and virtuousity in that way, rather than really becoming musicians.  The training simply isn't there.  This shows up in so many different ways in so many performances that it would be impossible to catalogue -- and besides, idiosyncracies in performance which I might really love might drive someone else to fury.  Do you prefer Rubinstein?  Horowitz?  Lang Lang?  Casadesus?