From Ritmico Journal No 92 July 2012
From Ritmico Journal 92 July 2012
Graeme Humphrey: The
Mystery of the Dots and
Dashes in Musical
Notation: What the
Composers Really Meant
IRMTNZ
North
Conference
2012,
Graeme Humphrey: The Mystery of the Dots and Dashes
playing various excerpts from well-known
pieces. We were asked to consider their
different interpretations and to note how what
they played did not always agree with the
detail on the score. Helpfully, he projected the
scores on a screen.
Palmerston
Mozart’s Piano Sonata in B flat, K333
Reviewed by Rosemary Bromley
The first performance was the opening of the
second movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in
B flat, K333, played by Mitsuko Uchida. She
played this with great poise and simplicity but
curiously, we did not hear her play many of the
slurs and staccato markings that pepper the
Henle Verlag Urtext score. Instead, we heard a
marvellous continuity of line. Next we heard
Vladimir Horowitz play the same piece. He
observed some of the slurs, there was a
greater sense of ebb and flow in the beat, and
the tempo overall was considerably faster. The
two performances had differing merits.
Concerning tempi, Graeme said that when a
student asks how fast a piece should go, he
replies, “Let’s hear your sound, bearing in
mind the difficulties you will encounter at
various points, and I will tell you if the tempo
you have chosen is working.”
Graeme Humphrey
What is it that gives music its meaning and
charm?
This was Graeme Humphrey’s first question.
We are all probably aware that if a performer
plays precisely what is in the score and
diligently observes the “dots and dashes”, the
sounds that result may only create a stilted,
mechanical ‘noise’. Music seems to be created
when the performer contributes the subtlest
changes to what is written in the score. These
generally amount to carefully chosen
gradations of dynamics and exquisitely
sensitive manipulations of pace. What was
most startling about this presentation was that
Humphrey suggested, perhaps provocatively,
that at times the best thing to do was to leave
out some details on the score.
To make this point Graeme played several
recordings and videos of famous performers
Articulation marks
He then went on to tackle the issue of whether
or not to observe the articulation markings in
Mozart’s scores. We heard, probably not for
the first time, that Mozart edited his music as if
he were a violinist, and that these markings
indicate what a violinist might do with the bow.
Does this mean we can disregard them
because, when he was writing for piano, he
still used the notational habits formed when
writing for strings? Surely, we have, at least, to
consider how these ‘bowings’ affect the
sounds of the notes concerned when played
on the violin, and then consider imitating these
effects on the piano.
It was pointed out that articulation markings
only became commonplace at the time of
Mozart. However, since then the range of
symbols has not really been extended,
although the meanings attached to them
undoubtedly have. For instance, semi-staccato
markings in Mozart’s music mean a much
lighter touch than in the music of Brahms.
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From Ritmico Journal No 92 July 2012
Early in his talk Graeme Humphrey advocated
that the prime concern is to decide on the long
range phrasing involved in a piece. This can
be figured out by determining the main
harmonic progressions involved. (An even
more useful trick is to sing the melody to
experience its contours and consider where
the natural breathing points are.) We need to
focus on the musical sentences and not let
articulation details assume an overbearing
importance. But are we entitled to leave them
out altogether?
Above all, Graeme was encouraging us to
become confident editors of the music we, and
our students, are studying. He urged us to
consider how we might move a student off the
page and into creative thinking. We were told
to plug in to what we know, and to have
enough conviction to pencil in ideas, or to rub
out some of those that are in the score.
At the end of the session, he said he hoped
that he had ‘rattled our cage’! If we ponder
what he presented, both in the recordings
played and in his advice, certain precepts that
many teachers hold dear were surely tossed
around. The question is: how exactly should
we rearrange our musical conscience, and
how do we present this new way of thinking to
our students?
Editions
It is well known that we should work from
scholarly editions, such as Henle, which have
sourced the original manuscripts. By doing this
we can follow the instructions of the
composers themselves rather than editors
from other eras. However, in this presentation
we saw the details of the Henle edition of the
Mozart sonata not incorporated by the brilliant
Uchida, and we too were encouraged to drop
them if we so decided.
Graeme used several other examples of
performances to illustrate his point that often a
score is cluttered with more detail than is good
for it. Among them was a Mendelssohn Song
Without
Words,
the
‘Venetianisches
Gondellied’, Op. 19 No. 6. We observed the
19th-century Augener edition of this music,
which he said was well regarded, having been
published close to the time the music was
composed. Then we saw a recent video of a
most beautiful performance by the Italian
pianist, Roberto Prosseda. It was a poetic and
captivating rendition. We saw staccato
markings and rests, but we didn’t hear them;
rather Prosseda created the most glorious
sound picture of a gondola gliding along a
Graeme Humphrey: The Mystery of the Dots and Dashes
Venetian canal. But still the puzzle remains:
Why did Mendelssohn insert all those staccato
markings and rests? Many of them remain in
my 1981 Henle edition, so they were not just
an Augener foible.
In an earlier session at Conference, Graeme
had introduced us to books of duets for
student and teacher that he had edited. The
introduction to his selection from the
celebrated Soirées Musicales by Léon
d’Ourville outlines the issues he encountered
in this project and probably best explains his
current point of view.
He writes as follows:
‘The original edition was heavily edited,
resulting often in inconsistent advice. I have
eliminated much of this editing, preferring to
leave the performer to follow his/her own
instinctive musical thinking. In general, it
seems to me that less editing means more
musical freedom, and I would encourage the
performer to experiment in these matters. One
of the editorial problems (that of slurring and
phrasing) was well summarized by Howard
Ferguson in his preface to [Schubert’s]
Impromptus for solo piano, D.899: ‘It is as well
to remember that Schubert, like most classical
composers, often used slurs to divide a long
legato line into shorter units, each generally
ending at a bar line. This does not generally
imply a break in the legato...’ This habit of
slurring in short units had started with Mozart
and Haydn and continued largely unchecked
and unchallenged throughout the nineteenth
century. The idea of playing with more line and
thinking in sentences sits ill at ease with the
visual signals suggested by short slurred units,
and it has been my intention to edit these
works to encourage playing in longer units.’
By observing the extremely cluttered early
edition of a duet by d’Ourville called Le Lac
(The Lake), and then looking at the beautifully
presented,
clean,
easy-to-read
version
Graeme has published in his collection, it is
very easy to be swayed by his approach. In
the 19th-century edition a vast array of dots
and dashes directs us to add all sorts of
articulatory detail to the notes. This would
certainly create an impression of very troubled
waters. Yet the melody tells us that the waters
are indeed calm. The direction tranquillo e
espressivo reinforces this. A performer is far
more likely to get to the essence of the music
using Graeme’s edition.
But the question still remains: Why are all
those dots and dashes there?
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From Ritmico Journal No 92 July 2012
Graeme Humphrey: The Mystery of the Dots and Dashes
The exam systems’ criteria for performance
and also for aural tests call for this awareness.
Trinity Guildhall tests involve the candidate
observing a score while the examiner plays a
version with errors of pitch, rhythm or
articulation. The candidate has to pinpoint
where the errors occur and what they are. So
how and when do we break in with the news
that these signs don’t need to be observed?
Does this apply to all repertoire? How would
Stravinsky, Debussy, or Psathas feel about
this?
The principal problem is how to ensure that we
are well enough informed, that what we know
is enough to launch forth with well-founded
confidence. It is apparent at gatherings of
registered music teachers that we are thirsty
for knowledge, especially about current
scholarship concerning the performance of
music composed in earlier times. In order to
become the confident and legitimate editors
Graeme urged us to be, I feel we need more
in-depth teaching on this subject at future
events, and it would be good to find
information, advice, and sources we can
explore.
Graeme Humphrey
Immediate concern
Of immediate concern is what we say to our
students, and at what point do we say it. In the
early stages of teaching a student, we
teachers of the classical repertoire focus on
getting them to honour meticulously all the
directions on the score. Our students are all
too happy to disregard them. Still we persist in
instilling in them the awareness of all that
these signs mean and that they are crucial.
Rosemary Bromley of Wellington teaches
piano, singing and theory. She has a BA and
BMus Hons in Piano Performance from
Victoria University of Wellington where she
studied with Judith Clark. She completed an
MMus in Music Theory and Analysis at King’s
College, London, and a postgraduate Singing
Diploma at the Guildhall where she was taught
by Noelle Barker.
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