What the Score Doesn't Tell Us
Today’s performers are fortunate to have access to an ever-growing collection of authoritative scores and critical editions, as well as facsimiles of manuscripts and reprints of first editions. At a time when performers want editions that reveal the composer’s markings as faithfully as possible, another problem still remains: do we really know how to read these scores?
The second half of the eighteenth century saw the publication of many pedagogical keyboard tutors that addressed fundamentals of musicianship for the amateur keyboard player. The tutors of Leopold Mozart, Türk, and C. P. E. Bach, however, went far beyond fundamentals to eloquent writings on subtle matters of expression and above all musical taste. Study of these treatises can illuminate many notational idiosyncrasies and raise awareness of performance conventions absent from eighteenth-century scores but known to players immersed in the musical culture of those scores.
Leopold Mozart’s Treatise on Violin Playing
Leopold Mozart. Gründliche Violinschule mit vier Kupfertafeln und einer Tabelle. Augsburg: J.J. Lotter und Sohn, 1800.
Wolfgang’s father, Leopold Mozart (1719-1787), gained an international reputation through the publication of his Gründliche Violinschule, first published in 1756, the year of Wolfgang’s birth. His book sheds light on some of the conventions and issues of taste largely absent from scores but well known to experienced musicians of the time. One important topic Mozart discusses is the proper application and execution of piano and forte. These dynamics function on two levels: as volume indicators for whole sections of a piece and as temporary, local accentuation and tone coloring. Mozart stipulates: "One must know how to change from piano to forte without directions and of one’s own accord, each at the right time."
Türk’s Exercises
Daniel Gottlob Türk. Klavierschule. Leipzig; Halle: Auf Kosten des Verfassers, 1789.
The Klavierschule of Daniel Gottlob Türk (1750-1813) was written at the time when the pianoforte was replacing the clavichord as the principal domestic keyboard instrument. This book deals with aesthetic questions and subtleties of touch and expression in more depth than many of the earlier tutors. The chapter on accentuation demonstrates conventions of musical grammar and emphasis that depend on context and were often not written out in the score. Example 14 is particularly interesting in this regard, as the + signs denote a hierarchy of accentuation derived from the ordering of strong and weak beats and their place in the musical phrase. Türk accompanies the upper example with the explanation that f and p, as a rule, correspond to the strong and weak parts of a measure. "If a composer wants otherwise, he must indicate it in the score."
An Early Edition of Piano Sonata K 284
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, VII Sonates pour le pianoforte [1798].
Observe the markings of measure 194: p and f are marked on every sixteenth note and the second and fourth sixteenths receive the accent. These markings seem peculiar only if one is unaware of the passage in Türk’s tutor about implied vs. notated dynamics. This style of accentuation is difficult or impossible on a modern instrument, where the tone does not fade away rapidly enough to allow incisive accents followed by immediate returns to piano. A clavichord or fortepiano, on the other hand, is perfectly suited to such effects.
C. P. E. Bach’s Essay on the Keyboard
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (1762). Sibley Library, Eastman School of Music.
C. P. E. Bach (1714-1788), the second surviving son of J. S. Bach, had an enormous impact on succeeding generations of composers. His Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments says a great deal about not only issues of harmony, ornamentation, and improvisation, but also performance subtleties that he deems essential to proper expression. The examples shown here illustrate when the ordinary note values should be either held back or shortened, depending on the musical context. "In slower or reserved tempos the phrase segments are mostly drawn out longer than normally, especially when the bass has the same notes and pauses as the upper notes."
Muzio Clementi
Muzio Clementi, Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Pianoforte. London: Printed by Clementi, Banger, Hyde, Collard & Davis [180-].
Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) was a distinguished composer, pianist, teacher, music publisher, and piano manufacturer. His Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Pianoforte is intended for beginners, starting with the names of notes and followed by explanations of scales with fingerings for them. It includes a repertoire of easy pieces written by contemporaries, including Haydn and Mozart. Clementi’s remark that notes should be held their full length is in direct contradiction to the advice of C. P. E. Bach and Türk, and demonstrates a key stylistic difference between the heavier, more sustaining English pianos and the lighter and more detached Central European instruments.