Does the composer always know best?

Who is the best judge of how a piece should go?

Following a bracing walk in Bath at the weekend, we decided to play some music in the car. (Actually, bracing is not the word: for six and a half of the seven miles, it was a very pleasant and picturesque stroll but, for one half-mile, we climbed steeply, ascending some 800 feet. It nearly killed me! I digress. And I lived…) For a change, on the drive home, we put on a playlist of songs from musicals. There were some old standards such as “All that jazz” sung by Liza Minelli and “Nothing’s gonna harm you” from Sweeney Todd. And there were numbers taken from musicals that I’d never heard of (anybody here seen “Pippin”?!!).

My interest was caught by the ‘big’ number from Evita – “Don’t cry for me, Argentina”, sung by Elaine Paige, who had played the role of Eva Peron on stage. Ms Paige drew on her experience of the role to bring the lyrics to life in a way that I had not heard before. It was a performance born of the theatre, both brilliant and illuminating. But, as the song progressed, I found myself increasingly distracted by her free approach to the music, pausing here or pushing ahead there and sometimes deviating from the melody altogether. This was not the song as I had come to know it, when it had been a big hit for Julie Covington in the 1970’s. Ms Covington had sung the song ‘straight’, adhering to Lloyd-Webber’s elegant melody and presenting it in its best light. Ms Paige, to put it crudely, emphasised the text over the melody. A theatrical performance as opposed to a musical performance.

Perhaps that’s as it should be. Evita is, after all, a piece of musical theatre. A marriage of words and music. But should they not be treated with equal respect, held in balance? Can one really be more important than the other? And if it can, which should be more important? This question is not confined to musical theatre. Many a great pop song has been covered by an artist. The cover version sometimes improves on the original but, in some cases, has one shouting out “Nooooo!” in horror. In classical music, the problem (if one can describe it as such) is slightly different. Classical musicians seldom deviate from the written note unless new scholarship suggests an error in the printed version.

(This can happen if the composer’s original handwritten score was unclear or if the copyist misread it. Some composers wrote beautifully neat scores, others were messy and hard to decipher. In the days of handwritten scores and parts, when the copyist was having to

prepare a set of orchestral parts very quickly, mistakes were almost inevitable, This can be a big deal if new research finds that people have been playing ‘wrong’ notes for 200 years!)

Broadly speaking, though, classical musicians aim to stay true to the score. What musicians will do, though, is to interpret the markings which accompany the notes – the tempo indications, the dynamics (louds and softs) etc. They do so in a (usually genuine) attempt to realise the composer’s intentions as they understand them. But the extent to which a musician interprets can be hugely impactful.

Leonard Bernstein, himself a composer as well as a conductor, decided, in later years, that slow music would sound more emotional if he played it even slower and exaggerated some of the composer’s instructions. This was particularly true in his performances of the music of Mahler. As a result, some of the big climaxes became huge (some would say overwhelming, others might say bloated). Taking on its own, this can be thrilling when loud and inspiring music is drawn out to thrill and inspire for a long time. But it can also distort the music such that the shape of the melody is almost lost under the weight of the slow speed. Many people love this approach and think it the only way to perform Mahler. It isn’t. It is possible to play the music as written and without exaggeration without loss of emotional impact. One might consider this approach to be non-interventionist. Others call it boring!

Who is right? In the case of the Mahler/Bernstein example, I might suggest (risking the wrath of Bernstein lovers) that Bernstein began to believe his own publicity and felt that composers needed his help to put their music across in the best light. As a result, some of his later performances drew the music out hugely/interminably (delete as appropriate) in his attempt to wring every last ounce of emotion out of the music. But, in the case of Mahler, there were conductors who had actually worked for Mahler and knew how he conducted his own music. And it wasn’t the way Bernstein did it! I can’t help but feel Bernstein began to put himself before the composer: don’t worry – I know how to make your music work!

Convinced by the results, or perhaps hoping to themselves be as feted as Bernstein, some musicians began to emulate his approach and something of a performing tradition was born and egged on by those who thought this was the only way. Those who trusted in the score and took a more moderate approach to interpretation were sometimes undervalued and labelled ‘dull’. I feel we are moving away from that now and back to an approach which trusts that the composer knew what they were doing when they wrote the music.

This is almost certainly a good thing. It’s not necessary to re-compose a piece in order to present it in its best light - just do what the composer asks as well as possible. It’s surprising how varied the results can be. If the approach is dull, it’s probably the fault of the musician either not being on-form or not really considering the music but simply going-through-the motions. It can be remarkable to hear a familiar piece sound fresh and new in the hands of a musician who has gone back to the music with fresh eyes and no preconceptions, allowing the listener to hear things one had previously missed. (It can also be depressing to hear a good musician play a piece which you have worked on for years, only to realise how lacking in insight one’s own efforts are!).

Yes, there were times when one might question a composer’s decisions, borne out of a lack of self-confidence and steered in a certain direction by ‘friends’ who felt the poor composer needed their help. I suppose there are instances of this working to the composer’s advantage but there are also plenty of examples when the composer should have had the courage of their convictions. Fortunately, in such cases, modern scholarship now allows us to go back to the composer’s original thoughts and see that, more often than not, the composer really did know best.