Re: GG: repeats

[Bradley Lehman <bplehman@yahoo.com>]

Karl Berry <karl@cs.umb.edu> wrote:
>
> GG tended to do the first repeat only (AAB instead of AABB).  All I've
> read indicates he did this for `dramatic' purposes (the ending
should be
> the ending).  And in the repeats he does do, they're almost always a
> different conception.  There was one English Suite where he did a true
> repeat though -- reused the tape from the first time through :-).
> Bazzanna talks about this a little in his book.

I thought the main reason GG didn't take repeats in binary movements
was that he didn't like the sudden harmonic jolt of going back for the
second half.  When the second section has provided a satisfactory
conclusion in the home key, he apparently thought it seemed odd to
leap back to the key where that section started, effectively undoing
the harmonic progress that had been accomplished.  (And as you say, he
thought of this as bad drama.)  But one could equally say that it's
bad drama to repeat only one section and not the other, as this throws
the balanced architecture of the music out of shape.

> From: wiseman sarah ruth <srwisema@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
> Subject: musical repeat
> 
> I'm stumbling in here because I was thinking about how to play those
> repeats in any Bach suite or partita. I'm working on the B-flat
partita on
> piano. What people seem to do is play the section with one pattern of
> articulations the first time through and then either keep the same
> articulations and play softer or louder the second time, or reverse
> something (or if they're really working hard, make a new pattern
> entirely--but this almost never happens) in the articulation pattern
and
> keep the sound level fairly constant---and that's it, that's how
> we repeat.

That sounds like merely a pianistic way of imitating registration
changes, as a harpsichordist or organist might do for variety.  But
it's just an option, not a requirement.  When playing an AABB form one
might use two "registrations" as XYXY, or XYYX, or even XXYY...or
stick with a single style throughout the movement.  Or one can make
changes of touch or registration on smaller levels, not merely at the
predictable terraces of each half.  It depends on the instrument, the
audience, the registrations/styles of other movements, the degree to
which one ornaments the music on repeats, and not least the
performer's overall concept of the piece.  (By the way, it's also
possible to play AABBAB, as specified in a number of 17th-century
French compositions, or in Bach's A-minor English suite (Gigue).) 
Conductors and their ensembles can also do "registration" by using
more or fewer players in different sections, or by varying the
balance, or whatever.  It all of course comes down to what seems to be
good taste for that particular performance.

A particularly interesting Bach example is the slow movement of the
triple concerto in A minor (flute, violin, harpsichord).  This
movement is an arrangement of a binary movement originally for organ,
from one of the trio sonatas.  The trio sonata's score doesn't say
anything about how to register the performance...but Bach's
arrangement in the concerto has the players switch parts on the
written-out "repeats" (playing the AABB form with XYXY tone colors). 
The other movements of this concerto can also be instructive, as they
are elaborations/orchestrations of a prelude and fugue originally for
solo keyboard.  But as for being normative to other pieces or back to
the originals...one is at one's own risk as to how much to assume. 
Personally, with this concerto I think Bach made his orchestrational
choices as he did just because he thought it would sound nifty; it
doesn't necessarily prescribe what one should do slavishly when
playing the earlier versions of the pieces.  That is, his chosen
orchestration was just one possible way of doing it among several
valid solutions.  (Like Schoenberg's orchestration of the Brahms piano
quartet, or the myriad orchestrations by various people of
Mussorgsky's "Pictures", or Webern's pointillistic orchestration of
Bach's six-part Ricercar from the "Musical Offering"...if it might
sound good as a musical experience, give it a shot, and perhaps it
doesn't matter so much what the composer of the original version was
thinking at the time.  Aesthetics change.)

Some years ago as a degree project I compared Forqueray's first suite
for viola da gamba against the later harpsichord version arranged by
(probably) his daughter-in-law and published by his son.  As part of
the project I made a new harpsichord transcription which (in my
opinion) more closely preserves the intense and wild musical effects
of the original: more physically difficult, thicker, gruffer, and with
huge dynamic contrasts.  Forqueray's music is the most difficult in
the repertoire for the viola da gamba.  The more familiar harpsichord
version which everyone else plays is, by comparison, much more polite
in character: smoother texture, simpler harmonies, less athleticism,
an nowhere near the extreme limits of harpsichord playing...in effect
it appears to reflect an aesthetic change to the less-dramatic musical
goals of a later generation, prepared after the composer's death.  But
was the arranger really going for a newer ("kinder, gentler")
aesthetic, or simply trying to make the pieces easier to play by a
wider audience?  We don't know.  When one plays that arrangement,
should one try to make it sound like the original (either through
changing some notes, or through emphasis), or play it as a
straightforward new piece for harpsichord, as if the original didn't
exist? That's a performance choice to be made.  It depends on the
performer's own artistic goals and temperament, and on how much work
the performer wants to put into studying the possibilities.  

Then later I got together with a viola da gamba player to play this
suite, and we came up with a hybrid version of it...some of my new
arrangement, some of the published keyboard version, some of the
original piece, and even having her play the original string part at
the same time that I played a harpsichord transcription, using the
harpsichord to sustain selected notes across the phrases.  Sometimes
we varied the texture within movements, sometimes between movements,
sometimes XYXY, sometimes XYYX on the repeats, etc.  And in one
movement we had her play the accompanying bass part instead of the
solo part, reversing the roles of the two instruments.  The overall
goal was to make a lively performance that would be exciting and fun
to listen to, taking both instruments to the limits and playing off
the composer's reputation as the most fiery performer of his day. 
Another ensemble approaching this piece might choose entirely
different solutions, going for different effects.

> 
> But I suspect that kind of treatment of repeat misses the point.
> What kind of questions will turn the music, played half through
(because
> it has a repeat! instruction) and sounding quite complete, into only a
> half? And how to avoid assuming that two "halves" are therefore
> bilaterally symmetrical? What distinguishes repeat from recursion?
And how
> can one discover the dynamics at work (and I do NOT mean the relative
> loudness) is a section of a dance suite that, upon repeat
retroactively
> present a whole that cannot be heard in two?

Is your question about how to make the individual movement
convincingly balanced and dramatic through some repeat scheme?  Or
about how to discover clues in the music indicating when a repeat
might be more appropriate or necessary than in some other piece, where
the repeat sign might be merely a structural formality?  Or about how
to make the movement pull the proper amount of weight in the context
of the entire suite, balancing the movements against one another?  Or
all the above?


==
Bradley Lehman ~ Harrisonburg VA, USA ~ 38.45716N+78.94565W
bpl@umich.edu ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/ 

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music 
and cats." - Albert Schweitzer  
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