What does it mean to play "as the composer would" and does it really matter?

[mjames]

So I'm watching this:

and at around 7 and a half minutes (

=457 ) he starts talking about Beethoven's personality and I see people doing this a lot, but why should it matter? I am having a hard time understand why it's necessary to play something as the composer would, or to play according to his personality. For example, "Schubert was a shy guy" so play his music shyly? That's what O'Connor did, Beethoven was an angry guy so play it as if you were angry? Shouldn't it be about expressing the pianist's soul instead? I mean, we hear stories about composers personalities being the exact opposite of what their music express. Like for example Rachmaninov and Chopin being relatively happy people (from an outsiders perspective) despite their music being depressing.

I mean I'm not a high-level, master pianist like he is so I'd really love to know the importance of a composer's personality and if it really is important in a musical context. Does knowing actually improve one's understanding of the actual piece?

[kevin69]

In literary criticism (as with musical criticism) the mainstream opinion tends to be that
what the author (or composer) was trying to do is very important. Hence their personality matters,
and how the author sees the work defines what it means.

In the 1950, 'New Criticism' said that the reader (listener) was more important than the author.

So i'd say that mainstream opinion agrees with O'Conor, but there is a serious school of thought that agrees with you. I'd also expect more jazz musicians to agree with you than classical ones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent

[rubinsteinmad]

Well, we can't really know what Beethoven was really like, aside from some biased rumors preserved in letters. Also, people's personalities tend to be complex; Beethoven may have had temper tantrums, but that doesn't make him an exclusively "angry" person, you see..

"On May11th, the French bombed Vienna and Beethoven allegedly spent the night with pillows over his ears in the basement, wailing and complaining as the roar of the cannons hurt his already impaired hearing"

[handz]

Good point, I was never so much friend of some accurate interpretation, I take them as recommendations or some guides but not strict thing. What is important is how it sounds in the end.  I hate when on youtube you find perfectly played piece, with feelings and people write "too slow" or "too fast".  Musician should not be just interpreter, but also give something from him to the music, some personality.

[outin]

A composer's personality and temperament most likely does reflect somehow in his music. I think it's hard not to, especially when writing music that they would perform themselves as the past pianists-composers did. It might not always be so for the modern commercial composing for advertisements though...

So I think it matters in that sense. It may be that some composer's music is more appealing and easier to play because you share their personality traits and it makes the choices in music easier to understand. Or the opposite.  But I don't think it matters in the sense that you should try to replicate it somehow in performance.

And in the case of long dead composers you really don't have access to full knowledge of what that personality was like.

From all accounts Beethoven seems to have had an impulsive personality. I don't really like impulsive people and I don't like his music. Co-incidence? Probably...

I doubt Chopin was happy in a carefree way during most of his creative days. He was plagued by bad health and without the present day medical treatment it must have had an effect on his mood. He was also always in financial trouble. From his letters it seems he was at the same time self centered, maybe a bit neurotic, and careless in his everyday life. He was lucky to be able to attract people around him enough to want to help him a lot. Was it because of his music and playing or because he was really likable?

Rachmaninov suffered from depression and it is not something that just comes out of the blue, it has roots in past experiences and the development of personality. So I doubt he had been that happy even before his depression...

Of course from the perspective of us, most of these composers who lived on the 19th century had pretty miserable live circumstances.

In the end, better to play as YOU feel is right, as long as you actually CAN do it.

[mjames]

The biography I read painted Chopin as a relatively calm person with an optimistic outlook. Of course I'm not saying the man was like Sesame Street happy, but when I read about him waiting for George Sand to come back and him keeping all her letters even after she slandered him in public paints him in a positive light for me. And then there was the fact that he was willing to go to unnecessary lengths to help other people. For example Solange (Sand's daughter) and Jane Stirling.

You're right in Rachmaninov's case, but I was talking about how other people thought about him. And the accounts are that his personality didn't reflect his music...but those are most likely unreliable sources.

In literary criticism (as with musical criticism) the mainstream opinion tends to be that
what the author (or composer) was trying to do is very important. Hence their personality matters,
and how the author sees the work defines what it means.

In the 1950, 'New Criticism' said that the reader (listener) was more important than the author.

So i'd say that mainstream opinion agrees with O'Conor, but there is a serious school of thought that agrees with you. I'd also expect more jazz musicians to agree with you than classical ones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent

Thank you. Gives me a little bit more of a perspective. I want to ask you something though, what do you think (which school of thought do you belong to) about it? I understand how New Criticism can help someones playing, but how does mainstream opinion work? Have you actually seen it improve someone's interpretation of the work? I'm not trying to talk down on it, I'm just curious.

Similarly, how can one express specific emotions in piano playing? I understand playing happily, depressingly, and what not, but how would you express jealousy, shyness and other specific emotions? I've seen people call a certain passage of music (for example in Prokofiev) ironic or even humorous; and I'm just like "how is that possible?" I guess I'm just having a hard time understanding this because I just perceive music as organized sounds, I don't really put much "spirituality" into it even though I love it very much. I'd be really curious to know how these arrays of literary expressions can be shown in music.

[marijnhartkamp210999]

Personally, I have never understood why people ask this to themselves (however, I'm stil happy you did). My opinion is that it is completely fine to leave out all of the composers own intent if that is required to perform the piece how you want to. I think one should never let his, in his own opinion, perfect interpretation be limited by this question. In other, shorter words: I think the composer's own idea of how to play the music is completely irrelevant and one should never ask himself if he is playing it in a way the composer meant it to be played.

However, it is of course true (at least, that's my experience) that a lot of music, when I have thoroughly thought about how I'm going to interpret it, turns out sounding very much in a way the composer might have intended the music to sound. Then again, when this happens, I usually think about interpretation again, as I think music should never by played in a way it has been done before.

BW,
Marijn

[kevin69]

Thank you. Gives me a little bit more of a perspective. I want to ask you something though, what do you think (which school of thought do you belong to) about it? I understand how New Criticism can help someones playing, but how does mainstream opinion work? Have you actually seen it improve someone's interpretation of the work? I'm not trying to talk down on it, I'm just curious.

I mainly listen to jazz and rock music, and am definitely in the "New Criticism" camp in that
once the composer has published the music, it should stand on its own merits and the important
thing is the thoughts and feelings that it inspires in me, as a listener, not what the composer intended.

I think the general idea behind the more mainstream approach is that you can take the composers intentions as a short cut to analysing the piece (especially if you are starting from sheet music rather
than examples of people playing the piece). In fact, even the title of a piece can be taken as a hint from the composer about their intent. To give a simplistic example, a piece named 'raindrops' is crying out to be played in a staccato fashion, in a way that a piece named 'ripples on the millpond' is not.

The sheet music never captures music in its entirety, any more than a film script captures the experience of seeing a movie. If you know what the composer intended, it certainly gives you more ideas to play around with or start from. This is definitely a useful starting point for some people and some music. If you are John Coltrane, it probably doesn't matter much to you what Richard Rogers was thinking about when composing 'My Favourite Things', and i'd rather listen to Coltrane than watch The Sound of Music (again)

[kevin69]

Similarly, how can one express specific emotions in piano playing? I understand playing happily, depressingly, and what not, but how would you express jealousy, shyness and other specific emotions?

I tend to hear music (without lyrics) as textures rather than emotions, but my wife (a sax player)
hears music as stories and dialogues. For example, she hears 'Blue Monk' as a story of an unfaithful
husband promising he'll be faithful in future. The emotions in story that she hears then feed back into how she would play that piece because thats what she thinks of as she plays.
Whether someone else can hear that in her playing is another question, but it does give an internal logic
and consistency to where the emphasis goes, and i think that can be heard, even if you might interpret it differently.