Haydn's Haus

[Jo498]

How is a string section supposed to improvise ornamentation without sounding merely inept?

Of course the whole body of strings cannot improvise. But Rattle had woodwinds add ornaments even in the repeat of a sonata form allegro if they had exposed solo themes already in his mid-90s recording of #90. I doubt that this is historically accurate but it works reasonably well.
Many trio sections have extended woodwind or sometimes violin or cello (in 95) soli, so there could be some trills and turns added.
I do not think those pieces need it. As I said, my main recipe would be to play more menuets in whole bars close to a waltz tempo or even faster, at least if the music goes mostly in half and quarter notes.
I also find it exaggerated to do all the double bar repeats in a dacapo (but even most HIPsters do not do this).

[Karl Henning]

Of course the whole body of strings cannot improvise. But Rattle had woodwinds add ornaments even in the repeat of a sonata form allegro if they had exposed solo themes already in his mid-90s recording of #90. I doubt that this is historically accurate but it works reasonably well.
Many trio sections have extended woodwind or sometimes violin or cello (in 95) soli, so there could be some trills and turns added.
I do not think those pieces need it [...]

I've heard that sort of thing on (happily rare) occasion.  I just don't care for it in the least.

LOL.

Clearly the conductor's directing them and any changes, ornamentation or whatever, he's planned and rehearsed. Improvised is the wrong word.

Then, the conductor is doing some gloss-composing, for which, if we are taking this as Period Practice, I should be most keen to see the documentation.

[Mandryka]

.

Then, the conductor is doing some gloss-composing, for which, if we are taking this as Period Practice, I should be most keen to see the documentation.

And by the same principle the repeat should be identical in solo music too? Or am I missing something?

[Karl Henning]

Only the (what seems to me) obvious principle that a solo performer has the space for spontaneous improvisation which a large ensemble by its nature cannot.

If a conductor is planning something, it is not improvisation.

[Mandryka]

Only the (what seems to me) obvious principle that a solo performer has the space for spontaneous improvisation which a large ensemble by its nature cannot.

If a conductor is planning something, it is not improvisation.

Yes that's right, but it seems strange to me. I've got to go to a meeting now so I can't really pursue it, but I'm uncomfortable about making the means rather than the result the essential thing. I'll think about what you say some more.

Do performers really do the expression in solo music in a spontaneous way? Don't they plan it? It's not supposed to be a whim is it, a random whim?

[Gurn Blanston]

Yes that's right, but it seems strange to me. I've got to go to a meeting now so I can't really pursue it, but I'm uncomfortable about making the means rather than the result the essential thing. I'll think about what you say some more.

Do performers really do the expression in solo music in a spontaneous way? Don't they plan it? It's not supposed to be a whim is it, a random whim?

Back to keyboard; it is supposed to BE planned, but SOUND spontaneous. That is the art of it. This according to CPE Bach and Förkel and everyone else in the 18th century who wrote about ornamentation and other performance issues.

Back to orchestra, people didn't really write about such things back then. Solo performance was the interest. I'm sure there was some small thing they could do, but the real issues were, like, starting and stopping and playing together, violins bowing properly and together, that sort of thing. Big fancy-ass orchestral tricks were products of the 19th century, when they had some time to think about it. Orchestras as fixed groups of players didn't even exist at the beginning of the 18th century...

[Karl Henning]

Back to keyboard; it is supposed to BE planned, but SOUND spontaneous. That is the art of it. This according to CPE Bach and Förkel and everyone else in the 18th century who wrote about ornamentation and other performance issues.

Back to orchestra, people didn't really write about such things back then. Solo performance was the interest. I'm sure there was some small thing they could do, but the real issues were, like, starting and stopping and playing together, violins bowing properly and together, that sort of thing. Big fancy-ass orchestral tricks were products of the 19th century, when they had some time to think about it. Orchestras as fixed groups of players didn't even exist at the beginning of the 18th century...

Most interesting, thanks.  Ad hoc modification of a da capo, with a large ensemble, sounds to me fatally counter-intuitive (maybe my shortcoming, yes).  Wind players given leave to go all prima-donna-whimsical, well, if it's in the historical record, I'll reach some sort of reconcilement with it, but I may never care for it artistically.  Sounds to me a lot like HIP activism running rather to the wild side.

[Gurn Blanston]

Most interesting, thanks.  Ad hoc modification of a da capo, with a large ensemble, sounds to me fatally counter-intuitive (maybe my shortcoming, yes).  Wind players given leave to go all prima-donna-whimsical, well, if it's in the historical record, I'll reach some sort of reconcilement with it, but I may never care for it artistically.  Sounds to me a lot like HIP activism running rather to the wild side.

Can't be very HIP, can it?

Remember Mozart writing to his father about the wonderment in Paris caused by everyone being able to start at the same time?  Over in Mannheim, they had been doing that for over 20 years!      Burney even mentioned it, it was a Big Deal.

HIPsters today, with a few notable exceptions, are only now working up the sack to be able to improvise their own cadenzas. It is the rarity, even now, for someone to improvise their own ornaments or, heaven forfend, to just do a little preluding now and again. So orchestral players, tastefully ornamenting their parts during a da capo, which may or not have even ever been done (I suspect not), seems very unlikely. Any more than the BSO doing it. The car would go out of control and hit a tree, I'm afraid.   

[Karl Henning]

Safety first!

[Mandryka]

I have always thought (based on only superficial reading on the topic) that the repeats in Classical symphonies and other sonata forms were there for mainly two reasons: 1) to balance the sections and 2) to give the audience more exposure to the material.

I'm sure balance is right, but nothing follows about whether the repeat needs to be identical.

Re exposure, when Karl writes something, does he think "hmmm, that's a cool tune. Better say it twice so they don't forget?"

[Karl Henning]

I'm sure balance is right, but nothing follows about whether the repeat needs to be identical.

Re exposure, when Karl writes something, does he think "hmmm, that's a cool tune. Better say it twice so they don't forget?"

We live in a different world, with recorded technology and phenomenal communications.  If it were not for the Internet, you probably would not even know that I am a composer.

So I can write a 15-second piece, knowing that an interested listener will be free to revisit it as often as he wishes.

[Pat B]

Most interesting, thanks.  Ad hoc modification of a da capo, with a large ensemble, sounds to me fatally counter-intuitive (maybe my shortcoming, yes).  Wind players given leave to go all prima-donna-whimsical, well, if it's in the historical record, I'll reach some sort of reconcilement with it, but I may never care for it artistically.  Sounds to me a lot like HIP activism running rather to the wild side.

I like the idea of ornamenting repeats. You're obviously correct that there are some practical differences between a soloist and an orchestra doing it. And I'm not keen on saying, the woodwinds can do this but the strings can't.

But I don't share your objection to the conductor (or perhaps the section leaders) doing some "gloss-composing." This doesn't seem much different than a solo performer planning and practicing his ornaments.

I don't know whether any of this is historically justified. I guess -- like most things -- it boils down to: does it work musically?

[Karl Henning]

But I don't share your objection to the conductor (or perhaps the section leaders) doing some "gloss-composing." This doesn't seem much different than a solo performer planning and practicing his ornaments.

I realize that may be only a personal disinclination.

[George]

I always thought the exposition was repeated so that you can get more familiar with the themes, which will be developed in the development section that follows.

[Jo498]

It's *repeated once* (or played twice) and I also have heard this argument before. Apparently even Brahms is supposed to have said something like that. Only that in Haydn and Mozart very often the second part of a sonata form movement (what we today call development and recapitulation) is supposed to be repeated as well!

[Mandryka]

It's *repeated once* (or played twice) and I also have heard this argument before. Apparently even Brahms is supposed to have said something like that. Only that in Haydn and Mozart very often the second part of a sonata form movement (what we today call development and recapitulation) is supposed to be repeated as well!

If you go to Paavali  Jumppanen's website there's a discussion of repeats in Beethoven where he draws a distinction between structural and rhetorical repeats, he says he takes the repeats differently in they're rhetorical, changing the expression. It's not totally clear to me and it's only about Beethoven. Anyway I guess the da capo in The Clock and elsewhere is structural, if so I guess he'd want to say it's best played identically. But none of this is clear to me.

Someone told me that Rosen also talks about repeats in (early?) Beethoven, and he mentions something about proportions being important to meaning in classical style. I don't understand, and so it's not obvious to me that it has any bearing on how to play a repeat (rather than whether to play a repeat.)

[Jo498]

The da capo of a tripartite structure like a standard menuet or scherzo is completely different from the "double bar" repeats (within such structures).

A repeat means AA instead of A or e.g. in a sonata movement with both repeats AA BB (where "B" is something like CA', namely development and recap)

A dacapo *creates* the tripartite structure A B A (with each of A and B often having themselves a bipartite a b or  a a' or tripartite structure a b a')

Double bar repeats have been skipped frequently but I am not aware that anyone played a menuet, then the trio and then stopped. If the trio is in a different key (and it is usually at least in a different mood/character) this would mess up the movement, in any case the standard structure would be destroyed.

As these used to be based on dances, repetition was a feature, not a bug because the choreography of the dance demanded certain repetitive structures, I presume. Also these types of movements started out fairly short, so for actual dancing they would probably have been repeated even more than once or twice.

The questions that remain are whether there should be changes when playing repeated or dacapo sections. Obviously this depends on the style and type of music. In baroque opera usually lots or ornamentation was expected, even the first time around and presumeably different trills and stuff in the repeats. Similarly to some baroque instrumental music.

I am far less certain with the classical style, especially menuets (in slowish and or concertante movements as well as some opera (seria) there was probably still quite a bit of ornaments expected, but also frequently already written out by the composer).
These are fastish dance movements so there simply is not as much room for ornamental or other changes as in a slowish aria-style movement (even disregarding the practicality of improvised ornaments in larger ensembles). And most of the time it does not make much musical sense either, I think. It can be a nice "gimmick" but also distracting and frivolous.

If one looks at some features that make some menuets more interesting than others it is very often irregularities in rhythm and phrase length that would make many of them rather unfit for dancing. (Already in several trio section in the quartets op.9 the 3/4 rhythm is so distorted by syncopation/hemiolas that the listener can hardly recognize the time signature (e.g. in op.9#3 G major). I think interpretations should bring out both the lilting, dancing qualities of such movements and their surprises and irregularities. If this is done, I think they are interesting enough without dubious alterations like ornaments.

[Karl Henning]

Double bar repeats have been skipped frequently but I am not aware that anyone played a menuet, then the trio and then stopped.

Tangentially (and I shall go back and read your entire post, which is warming up quite nicely), somehow this became the structural/performance norm for the "Sousa march."

[Jo498]

Really: So march main part - trio fine instead of main part da capo?

I have not looked at the Bruckner scherzi but most romantic tripartite movements stick more or less to the old da capo although the da capo section it will often be written out with some (usually slight) changes and maybe a little coda tagged on. This is already true of some (but far from all) Beethoven scherzo type movements.

And Haydn does have slightly varied written out dacapos in "tempo di minuetto" final movements in a few piano sonatas and trios I think (most of which also tend to be in more moderate tempi I believe). So he could have done this with the symphonic menuets as well if he had wanted to.

[George]

I have sampled the cd's on which you hear a clicking noise, not on my set I am afraid so its a pressing issue I guess.

I played them through my near field monitors, they are very analytical and if something is wrong you'll hear it, whatever there is that should not be there.

Thanks again, Harry.

Can you please tell me when and where you bought your set?

Can you also tell me the matrix code for CD 01? I want to have a way to identify a non-defective copy.