achieve balance -- but go for it

[ratsrcute]

Making an observation as a listener to classical music and composer: I like "balance," but I think the musician should also "go for it."

"Balance" is a principle found in many philosophies, as well as Eastern religions. It could also be called the "Goldilocks principle": not too hot, not too cold, but "just right."

If a performer is known for taking the slowest tempos around, I probably won't like them. Nor will I like the one known for consistent blistering tempos. You can take things to an extreme all too easily. In-between is the Middle Way.

Consider the contrast between two movements in a Mozart concerto. I love how Mozart differentiates patterns clearly--two movements in the same concerto are like different sound worlds. (The minor classical composers, which infest KUSC in the wee hours of the morning, write slow movements that sound like merely slowed-down versions of the first movements.) Yet these distinctions are not "extreme." Mozart doesn't go too far. Things fit together nicely.

A performer can ruin Mozart by making contrasts too violent.

So that's balance. But there is another principle, seemingly contradictory: "go for it." If a performer doesn't keep this in mind, then distinctions are lost. The Middle Way is distorted into a low-contrast grayed-out mush.

As a composer, if I'm writing a piece that has strong downbeats, then maybe I should consider making nearly every downbeat strong. If I don't "go for it," I can end up with something that doesn't have a clear character---half the downbeats are accented, half aren't, and there isn't a logic to it.

If you mean for a piece to sound loud, then don't play it ambiguously--play it loudly for enough of the time that it's clear you mean it to be loud.

My intention as a composer is to achieve both balance and "going for it" at the same time.

[jbuck919]

Have you ever seen this movie? It is wrong in many respects that I will not now go into. It also gets a few things right. Advance to 1:03 and continue watching.

[ratsrcute]

Nice. Beethoven was good at "going for it." Earlier composers might have said his music was lacking in balance and restraint, but balance is relative, within a context. Beethoven's music has a logic and coherence which he implements with aplomb. Maybe the endings of The Eroica and Symphony 5 are a bit overblown.

[John F]

I don't think "balance," in itself, is a desirable objective in making music. The middle of the road is one way to go, in art as in life, but playing it safe does music and music-lovers no favors; it can too easily lead to mediocrity and boredom. No question but that some performances and some performers go over the top, and that's not good - but at least it keeps us awake!

Here's a recording that I'd say takes virtuosity too far, Schumann's toccata for piano as played by Simon Barer. To me it seems he plays it this fast not as a serious interpretation of the music, but to prove that he can. Schumann's toccata isn't just a finger exercise, but that's what Barer makes it sound like.



However, the most extreme and exciting performance I've heard of Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata is fully justified by the music and Beethoven's title for it, and it makes middle-of-the-road performances sound inadequate to the music's passions. The pianist is another Russian, Sviatoslav Richter, and this too was recorded in live concert.



It's in pursuit of musical experiences like this that I've gone to hundreds of performances over the years and listened to thousands of records, including not a few by Richter.

Of course the same interpretive approach and style aren't appropriate for a Mozart sonata in C major, let alone Bach's Well Tempered Clavier (which wasn't meant for public performance anyway), and a musician should always suit his playing to the expressive character and range of the music. Richter always did. But within that range he didn't avoid the extremes, and it's his individuality and daring, uninhibited by such concerns as "balance" let alone restraint, that made him one of the greatest pianists of his century.

[ratsrcute]

John,
I think you are looking at this like a listener, while I am talking about my experience as a composer who likes to take things apart and see what makes them tick. (As well as work from my gut.)

The principle of balance is very much at work in Beethoven's notes and rhythms. I listened to the first two movements in this performance. The myriad choices that went into Beethoven's compositions include questions of how contrasting ideas are to be paired as foils, how long phrases and sections should be, and how register should be modulated.

My issue with the statement "Richter didn't feel the need for restraint" is that it implies that creating intense emotion is a matter of taking off the shackles and ramping up the energy. There is SO MUCH MORE than that. If that's all intense performances were, then any kid with an electric guitar would blow the socks off Beethoven.

So what makes the difference between a lot of loud banging and a nuanced performance? One ingredient is balance.

The first movement has slower music and faster music. Richter does not appear to be playing the slow stuff at any old slow tempo. No, it's chosen so that it will interact to maximum effect with the fast stuff. That's only one of hundreds of choices, both conscious and unconscious, which must be made to perform classical music.

"Restraint" can greatly intensify feeling. Let me give an example. Last night I heard a recording of Boulez conducting the Rite of Spring. There are many points in which seems to be a little cool, a little restrained basically. But as the first movement unfolded it became clear what he was up to. His climaxes were the most intense and exciting I've heard the Rite of Spring. And "restraint" is what let him pull it off. He didn't show his entire hand at the first few instances of loud and dissonant music, so something was left to spring on us. (No pun intended.)

We can argue about what Richter is up to, but there is no doubt that Beethoven was applying the principle of balance.

I do have a problem with the Richter performance, but it's not that it's too loud and fast. It's that the different textures of the first movement don't seem integrated. There is nothing in the slow introduction that hints at the loud chords to come. What could be done with this sonata, that I would like, is to play the opening music as though it were missing something.

I don't know if you have noticed that Mozart's concertos open with orchestra music that is quite differentiated from a symphony. That's because in a concerto, the orchestra is not all there is. Soon a soloist will enter. And sure enough, the opening of a concerto seems to leave its ideas unfinished, rough-edged. It moves too rapidly from idea to idea. It all makes sense once the soloist enters. "Ah, that's what we were waiting for!" we think. But a symphony is complete from the first measure.

To me, Beethoven's notes in the opening phrases have an unsettled quality, and very much a quality of incompleteness. That little trill idea seems to be there to function as the end of a sub-phrase, but it's just a little too pat. It doesn't feel like the idea is complete. And then it modulates immediately, leaving us unsettled.

"Something is up" our ears should be telling us. When the violence happens, we think "Ah, that's what it needed!"

Richter's violence is particularly violent, so I think he should be doing something special with those opening notes as well. He has to do something to make the violence feel like it belongs in the same composition as those opening notes. I think he should have been edgier in the opening. Not overdoing it, still maintaining the enormous contrast with the loud stuff, but he has to throw us a hint of what's coming.

But I don't hear Richter bringing that out.

But that's me.

To me, the thing any composition and performance must have is integrity. It must all feel like it belongs together. Bring on the shocking contrasts! But don't tear apart the fabric of the music. I am probably not the usual listener, however. I am hypersensitive to certain things, I admit.

[ratsrcute]

Update: I listened to the whole Richter performance. It grew on me! Fabulous on the whole!

But I heard "balance" all the way through. He is always choosing how loud, how fast, how to make contrasts, how to voice the texture, how to accent notes, etc. Getting all these notes to sound good together is sophisticated work that takes sensitivity to avoid overdoing it. The reason he makes some of the fast tempos work is that he is also choosing how to accent notes, the dynamics in different registers, etc., plus all that stuff there is no words for.

EDIT: Do you know the term "Middle Way" from Buddhism? You used the term "middle of the road"; they are not the same thing at all. The Middle Way is enlightenment, found by avoiding the temptation of extremes. In music, the emotional impact of a performance or composition has more to do with how it is organized than whether it uses extremes. Hearing Gustav Leonhardt perform the C# minor fugue from WTC I is an intense spiritual experience, and he takes a middle-of-the-road tempo, and uses "nice" articulation rather than extreme legato or staccato. That's the very reason it's so intense in feeling!

[John F]

Clearly I don't understand the word "balance" as you do. To tell the truth, after reading all your comments in this thread, I've no idea what you mean. This isn't the first time we've had this problem with language. So I'm at a loss how to continue and I'll leave it at that.

[ratsrcute]

John, I value your contributions tremendously, and I'm glad you posted that link to the Richter performance. I don't mind explaining further if you happen to be interested in any of these ideas, but otherwise we can leave it at that.

The one idea I will revisit now (not that you have to respond) is that Boulez makes the climaxes in Rite of Spring more intense by holding back during the buildup phase. Does that make sense? It's an illustration of how restraint can amplify feeling.

Mike

[Heck148]

Making an observation as a listener to classical music and composer: I like "balance," but I think the musician should also "go for it.".....
If a performer is known for taking the slowest tempos around, I probably won't like them. Nor will I like the one known for consistent blistering tempos. You can take things to an extreme all too easily. In-between is the Middle Way.

It's not quite as simple as mere choice of tempo - pulse, rhythm, momentum are crucial factors...

A fast tempo that is sloppy, hashy, messy does not sound "fast"..it sounds ragged and sloppy.
A slightly slower tempo - played cleanly with precision and phrasing, will actually sound "faster" than the sloppy performance.
Likewise with slow tempi - a slow tempo, that has momentum, forward motion, forward propelling pulse may actually be slower than a slightly faster tempo, played with a logy, stodgy inertia, that plods along with little momentum...the faster tempo will seem slower, because it has no forward propulsion.

[maestrob]

Making an observation as a listener to classical music and composer: I like "balance," but I think the musician should also "go for it.".....
If a performer is known for taking the slowest tempos around, I probably won't like them. Nor will I like the one known for consistent blistering tempos. You can take things to an extreme all too easily. In-between is the Middle Way.

It's not quite as simple as mere choice of tempo - pulse, rhythm, momentum are crucial factors...

A fast tempo that is sloppy, hashy, messy does not sound "fast"..it sounds ragged and sloppy.
A slightly slower tempo - played cleanly with precision and phrasing, will actually sound "faster" than the sloppy performance.
Likewise with slow tempi - a slow tempo, that has momentum, forward motion, forward propelling pulse may actually be slower than a slightly faster tempo, played with a logy, stodgy inertia, that plods along with little momentum...the faster tempo will seem slower, because it has no forward propulsion.

Heck: Well said. Finding the right balance, if you mean tempo, for me means settling in a tempo that's just ahead of comfortable for the participants. The last thing you want to do is strain the orchestra or singer by setting too slow a tempo. OTOH, too fast to articulate the notes properly is an equally bad idea: speed does not equal excitement. Finding the proper balance between the two extremes is the ideal outcome. There are many dull performances on record that have exactly the right tempo but no energy, and more than that have sloppy playing (which I can't stand), whether too slow or too fast.

ratsrcute: is the above what you are talking about?

[ratsrcute]

To maestrob and Heck148,

There are no principles that operate alone in making art. That's why I paired "balance" and "going for it." I wanted to keep my post short and give a flavor of my thinking, including the idea that principles sometimes contradict each other. How do you choose a principle to apply? Sometimes it's a gut decision.

Heck148, tell me if this captures your thinking. My tempo example was problematic because it suggests that any given tempo can be accurately described as "too fast," "just right," or "too slow." Suppose you listen to a performance and you perceive the tempo as too slow. Note I said "perceive." But is that an objective reality? Does that mean speeding up the tempo is the fix? Maybe not. I think that's your point. Sometimes you need to change something to give the music momentum instead. Maybe you even slow down more at the same time.

I'm thinking of the story of the coda of the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth.. He wrote a first draft and it felt too short. So he made it longer. Still too short. Made it longer still. Still too short! Then he made it very, very short and it worked.

This is the principle of "going for it" that I paired with "balance." Maybe from the start Beethoven sensed the movement "wanted" to have a short coda. He knew that in his gut. But it didn't work until he made it shockingly short. So the answer to "It sounds too short" was to make it shorter, an apparently contradiction. All this is saying, though, is that perceptions are not reality, and there are no single principles.

I think there was an impressionist painter (Van Gogh?) who said something like this. He would choose some colors for a painting, look at them together, and perceive that they clashed. They seemed too bright. Then he would make them brighter still, and voila! They harmonized.

But let's not forget balance. If you perceive something as "too fast," "too high," "too long," etc., then sometimes that is accurate. Sometimes it really is too fast, too high, or too long.

[Heck148]

My tempo example was problematic because it suggests that any given tempo can be accurately described as "too fast," "just right," or "too slow." Suppose you listen to a performance and you perceive the tempo as too slow. Note I said "perceive." But is that an objective reality?

mostly, it is subjective, however, there becomes a critical [objective point] at which a wrong tempo simply fails to communicate what the composer intended....let me give an example -
I find some of Klemperer's tempi for Beethoven scherzi to be simply too slow - ie - objectively wrong...

the essence of these scherzi requires a separation of notes [staccato] - that provide the bouncy, brisk, humorous quality of the music...if the tempo is too slow, the interval between notes is excessive, and the music takes on a sort of grotesque pop-pop, 'popcorn' effect - there is simply too much space between notes...the solution is to lengthen the notes, and reduce the sonic space between them - but, this then distorts the separate/staccato effect that is indicated....at an excessively slow tempo, the music simply does not work....to me, that is objectively "wrong"

Does that mean speeding up the tempo is the fix?

in this case, yes...you simply cannot achieve the desired musical effect at too slow a tempo.

Sometimes you need to change something to give the music momentum instead. Maybe you even slow down more at the same time.

yes, definitely, the music needs momentum, pulse, or clarity...change tempo, articulation, or rhythm - have the orchestra play at the "front edge" of the beat, not behind the beat...conduct a smaller beat pattern, etc...