Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
48 PAGES.
VOL. XXVII. No. 6.
Published Every Saturday at 3 East Fourteenth Street. New York, August 6,1898.
INTERPRETATION.
HARVEY W1CKHAM,
MIDDI.ETOWN,
N. V.
[Paper read before the New York State Music Teachers' Asso-
ciation with illustrations at the piano.J
vv
H E N Sampson's
squadron began
the blockade of Havana
there was seen, night
after night, a point of
ruddy light,
shining
steadily above the city.
About the point was a
halo made by the vapors
of the sea, and beyond
IIANVEY W K K I I A M .
this comparative darkness. What was this
light ? The blood-red beacon of Morro
Castle, fitly symbolizing the malignant
idea of oppression.
Such a point of red is actually a part of
every thought, malignant or benign, which
is born in the brain, for a quantity of
blood, physiologists tell us, is drawn to
some part of the brain's surface by the act
of thinking, and marks the field of con-
sciousness.
Surrounding this point, as
the haze surrounded the lantern of the
fort, is the field of semi-consciousness;
while still further from the centre of cran-
ial activity the atoms are inert, being tem-
porarily deprived of blood. Ideas having
their origin outside the area of generous
circulation are vague and general, and the
emotions to which they give rise, having
no apparent cause, are in their very es-
sence mystical. When art would trans-
mute such emotions it must invent and as-
sign causes. To music alone is it given
to record a mood without attempting to
explain it. Not with definite forms and
figures does the composer labor, but with
motives as inexplicable as the mood itself.
The operation proceeds thus:—the mo-
tive or theme is developed into an elabo-
rate tone-picture of the mood. The tone-
picture is reduced to a score which is read
by the executant, who thus arrives at the
original mood. This, by means of his in-
strument, he embodies in sound which
falls in turn upon the listener's ear.
Such are the elements of interpretation,
one of the most important of which is the
auditor, for he alone is so situated that he
can look back, so to speak, through the
whole perspective. That he often performs
his part extremely ill and does little or noth-
ing to put himself en rapport with the
instrument is a fact. That no instrument
yet devised is a perfectly plastic medium
in the hands of the executant is equally
beyond dispute.
But let me pass over
these heads of the argument to consider at
once the executant,—the interpreter per se.
It is the interpreter's mission to trace,
by means of the score, tradition, instinct,
example, or any other helps which may
fall in his way, the lineaments of the com-
poser's conception.
I will touch upon
these various sources of information very
briefly and in turn.
THE SCORE.
The score is not a perfect representa-
tion of a musical idea even at the best and
of ttimes it is verily a maimed and emaciated
indication of the same. It is possible to
play the notes exactly as written without
even suggesting to the ear the true con-
ception of the author. The very words
" con espressione," " a piacere," "tempo
rubato," and their like indicate clearly that
there is something behind the bars which
is not fully set down.
These words do
not indicate anything definite, as a ritard
or a crescendo, but call upon the player to
exert his imagination and fill in the score,
which is confessedly a mere outline in
black and white, with colors from the pal-
ette of his own individuality. The score,
particularly the ancient score, is therefore
incomplete, indicating only the coarser
lights and shades, or if we go back far
enough, not even these.
In consequence, some would have us put
a metronomic attachment upon our fingers,
and I know not what rigid contrivance
upon our hearts, whenever we play Purcell
or Bach. Can anyone believe in this because
an ever-varying tempo was not a theme of
fashionable conversation in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries ? Believe me,
the human heart had then the same
systole and diastole as it has to-day. Let
us not smother the composer under flowers
of unthinking reverence for his written
word, and thiis kill him with kindness.
Again, many scores are carelessly con-
structed.
Every composer knows how
easily the habit is formed of spending
weeks upon a manuscript, determining to
a nicety the exact notes of every phrase,
and then dashing in a few almost random
p's and f's with an inconsiderate pen.
Unfortunately enough, the composer sel-
$2.00 PER YEAR.
SINGLE COPIES, 10 CENTS.
dom learns to play his works before
publication when once his reputation has
won for him a ready market. He may
have developed his idea in detail so far as
pitch and rhythm go without having
thought out the mere effects, nuances
crescendos and ritardandos. Consequently,
the directions which he gives on these points
may well be scanty or even misleading.
The question arises, shall we reproduce
the faults and limitations of the author as
well as his points of excellence ? The
objection will at once be urged that if the
player's judgment be allowed to trespass
upon or to supplement the express orders
of the score, the bars will be let down for
the ignorant and unwary to hurry to their
own undoing. "Where will it e n d ? " is
the ever recurring question.
Look into what labyrinths of absurdity
over-subtile critics of the Homeric text
have wandered. But is that any argument
against a wise elucidation of the epics ?
Because " fools rush in where angels fear to
tread" must a Rubinstein fetter his in-
telligence ?
Shall the "well-tempered clavichord"
be reconstructed so that Bach may be ex-
ecuted (I fear I have pvinned) upon the
instrument for which he wrote ? The
means for the experiment are at hand if I
am to believe the following advertisement
which I clip from a recent periodical:
" A n attachment has been invented
which gives an imitation of the progenitors
of the piano for which the old masters
wrote. Even the original spirit of the
classics can be duplicated with this attach-
ment." Again, in the life of Mendelssohn
we read that he had reason to complain of
the tendency of concert-masters to provide
a poor instrument whenever ancient com-
positions were upon the programme. "As
if," he jestingly remarks, " they wished to
listen to the veritable tinkle of the
clavichord."
Now, if we are to play the old masters
in a strict, "one, two, three, four"
fashion, I see no escape from the conclu-
sion that we are to reproduce the tinkle of
the clavichord too, either by some attach-
ment or otherwise. It is certain that the
ancients listened to this tinkle, though it is
by no means certain that they played in the
humdrum, "one, two, three, four "fashion.
While upon the subject of the clavichord