Cheating in music

[mjames]

So you know when a composer requires you to play a work in a certain or specific way, say for example, let's pick chopins op.10 no.2 and scriabins op. 9

I mean for a competition or something where they judge how you manage the technical difficulties it should matter, but what if it's just for fun OR rather just a normal concert, a thing where people pay to listen to music...does it matter if you play the etude "normaly" ie not with the weird fingering recommended by chopin. I mean, the goal of the etude is to improve weird fingering acrobatics, but if you're not interested in that or dont intend to work on it, is okay to just you know say, *** IT I'm playing it normally! I mean it reduces the challenges significantly making it easier for you to focus on the music.

Same thing goes for left hand pieces. In Scriabin's Op. 9 you have some really huge chords, and you're just like..I dont feel like rolling it out...is it bad if I just pick up my right hand to play it? Or or, when you're like...*** this is hard..I'll just play it with both my hands.

So what do you guys think about pianists cheating in these kinds of works? Is it acceptable if concert pianists cheat their way through works like these? Are there any pianists that you know of that do this?

[visitor]

would say just about anything goes in terms of getting the sound  you want for 2h pieces.

i'd be more conservative w a lh only pieces, part of the deal w/ that is to make it sound like it's not just a LH, it sort of like altering orchestration or changing instruments out in an ensemble or another.

but then again in a 2h piece we cheat all the time, ie i make hand/finger subsitutions all the time in a fugue/polyphonic style writting in order to make the line sound more cohesive, if keeping it in one had (ie an inner voice) sounds choppy, i trade it around and pass it from one to the other back as the pieces progresses depending what's going on up and downstairs.

 

[stevensk]

-Yes, as I said earlier, its far better to "cheat" and make good music than to play it "accurate" making mistakes, tempo interruptions etc. BUT some cheats are unacceptable so it is a matter of considerations. Im sure all of us are cheating in Scriabins piano pieces. Make it inaudible.  

[iansinclair]

Depends on what you are doing.  If you are playing some fiendish etude or other which was written to address a particular bit of technique, and you are working to improve that technique -- the don't cheat.  Do it as written.

And if you are working on a piece which written specifically for one hand or the other, you really should play it with that one hand.

However... other than those two rather restricted areas, the objective is music, and whatever works for you to express that music and what you and the composer want to say with it is, so far as I'd be concerned, fair!

[dcstudio]

you can do whatever you want when you perform...  the question is will people like it and want to hear it?

cheating is such a bad word to use... it sounds almost criminal..

playing it your way... much better description.

If you are a concert pianist performing with a symphony...playing a well-known piece...that people have paid to come and hear... and the maestro is listening... I would tone down the
"liberties" just a tad... but that's just me.  I am not a concert pianist though... so I really wouldn't know.