Piano Forum

The way I perceive classical music in general is without a strong sense of pulse. For example, Fur Elise is written in 3/8 and the first measure is upbeat (last 8th note), but I hear the first measure as 4/8 (starting regularly on a downbeat) which then shifts to 3/8 for two measures, one measure of 2/8, then repeat (back to 4/8, etc)

When performing, how important is to paint the pulse exactly as written? With Bach and Mozart I assume it's very much so, but with later composers it gets quite a bit fuzzier.

One can hear that even the professional pianists sometimes disregard the pulse.* Let's take Cziffra's performance of Feux follets as an example:
If one analyzes the score, it will be quite evident that Cziffra doesn't respect the pulse (he even skips some rests and adds them where they're not supposed to be). The most notable example of his disregard of the pulse is at 3:58 where this four-note descending group is repeated 5 times. He plays it 6 times instead. Such a mistake can only happen when the performer doesn't take pulse into account

So, how important is the pulse? Did the composers sometimes write the bar lines just as a formal necessity while the music isn't really supposed to have indicated pulse? Or should the performer always try to portray the pulse as the written bar lines suggest?

*Note that playing rubato isn't the same as disregarding the pulse. One can play a lot of rubato but still follow the pulse as written