Yes, we should not get over the top with the “mastering the score” principle.
Here is Nikolaus Harnoncourt opinion (I hope these few – and out of context – quotes will encourage you to read his books, which should be required reading for anyone interested in “authentic” interpretations):
We believe we possess a system of notation which will inform us about both the individual tone as well as the course of the musical piece. However, every musician should know that this notation is very inexact, that it does not precisely say what it does say: it does not tell us the length of the tone, the pitch, nor the tempo, because the technical criteria for this kind of information cannot be conveyed by notation.
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Let us take as an example […] Viennese dance music of the 19th century, a polka or waltz by Strauss. The composer tried to write down whatever notes were necessary, in his opinion, for the musicians who sat before him in the orchestra. After all, they knew quite well what a waltz or a polka sounded like and how such dances should be played. If this music were given to an orchestra which lacked this knowledge, which was unfamiliar with these dances, and the musicians were to play exactly in accordance with the notes, the music would sound totally different. It is not possible to write down such dance music precisely as it should be played. Often a note must be played earlier or later, or shorter or longer than it is written, etc. Thus we could play this music as precisely as possible, even with metronomical precision – and yet the result would have nothing to do with the work as originally intended by the composer.
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Music has unfortunately been played, for some years and in many places, from “purified” editions; and from the point of view of “faithfulness to the work”. As a consequence the liveliest and most imaginative interpretations of Baroque and Classical music are frequently labelled as “romantic” or stylistically wrong.
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[In the 17th and 18th century] The work and its performance were therby clearly differentiated. The creative latitude offered the interpreter, in which each performance became a unique and unrepeatable experience, is by and large unknown and alien to present musicians.
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Unfortunately, during the past fifty years, a dangerous trend toward “faithfulness” to the work has emerged, one of whose corollaries has been to banish all those good traditions which conveyed the correct interpretation of the score in favour of the authority of the written score alone.
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I find it regrettable that faithfulness to the notes has replaced faithfulness to the work – that we have forgotten many things which used to be living knowledge. This knowledge must now be rediscovered through arduous effort on our part.
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This oft-cited “faithfulness to the work” appears to me the worst enemy of an honest interpretation, because it attempts to make music out of what is written down – while ignoring the underlying meaning. Notation as such cannot convey a piece of music, but only serves as a point of reference. The only person who is faithful to the work, in the true meaning of the word, is the performer who recognises what the composer intended to convey with the notes and plays them accordingly. If the composer writes a whole note, but means a sixteenth note, the “faithful” musician is one who plays the sixteenth note, not the one who plays the whole note.
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The listener should never be given the impression that we are playing something we have learned. It must have been assimilated into our very being, it must have become a part of our personality. We ourselves are no longer aware that we have learned something nor where we learned it. Perhaps we will again do something “wrong” in literal terms. But a “mistake” which comes form conviction, form educated taste and feeling, is more convincing than any musical cogitation.
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there is nothing negative in the concept of faithfulness to the work. The fact that this concept is often wrongly interpreted to mean faithfulness to the notation – and thus unfaithfulness to the work – can certainly not be blamed on this innocent phrase, but only on the incorrect usage to which it is put.
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Music is not a matter of allowing oneself to be lulled by pleasant sounds, but rather of active listening.
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Many Baroque scores and certainly Medieval and Renaissance works are completely misunderstood if acoustics are not taken into consideration. The greatest examples of the mastery of acoustics are found in the works of Bach. […] If for example, a composer has written a fast sixteenth arpeggio so that in such a hall it will blend into a shimmering chord, and the performer of today plays the fast notes precisely and clearly, then he misconstrues the meaning of these notes and alters the composition – not out of arrogance, but rather of ignorance! There is a danger – and this holds for some critical listeners as well – that the performer wants to hear the score. On the other hand, if he listens to the music, he will discover that these fast notes, in reverberating create an indefinite trembling and vague colour. This an impressionistic manner of composition, chosen with the reverberation of the room in mind.
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It used to be taken for granted that beauty is inextricably linked to ugliness, and that neither is possible without the other. Music appreciation, formerly accorded an important position to the ugly and to the coarse, but this can hardly be said of our understanding of music today. We no longer desire to comprehend works of art as a whole, in all of their multi-layered facets; only one component counts for us today: the element of unadulterated, aesthetic, beauty or “artistic enjoyment”. We no longer want to be transformed by music, but only to luxuriate in beautiful sounds.
(Nikolaus Harnoncourt: “Baroque Music Today: Music as Speech – Ways to a New Understanding of Music – Amadeus Press).
Best wishes,
Bernhard.
Topic: Master the score's details in order to be free!