Great Pianists on Piano Playing / Study Talks with Foremost Virtuosos. A Series of Personal Educational Conferences with Renowned Masters of the Keyboard, Presenting the Most Modern Ideas upon the Subjects of Technic, Interpretation, Style and Expression

by James Francis Cooke

The Inadequacy of Musical Signs

I have already referred to the inadequacy of musical signs. Even the mechanical guide, the metronome, is not always to be depended upon to give the exact tempo the composer had in mind. Let me cite a little instance from the biography of Ries, the friend of Beethoven. Ries was preparing to conduct a performance of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony. He requested Beethoven to make notes upon paper regarding the metronomic marks of speed at which the composition should be played. The metronome at that time was a comparatively new instrument. Maelzel, its inventor (or, rather, its improver, since the principle of the metronome was of Dutch origin), was a friend of Beethoven. At times they were on the best of terms, and at other times they were literally "at swords' points." Nevertheless, Maelzel, who had a strong personality, succeeded in inducing Beethoven to put metronomic markings upon several of his compositions. Naturally, the metronome was immediately accorded an important place in the musical world even at that day. Ries was consequently very anxious to give the Choral Symphony according to Beethoven's own ideas. Beethoven had complied with the publisher's desire and sent a slip of paper with the tempi marked metronomically. This slip was lost. Ries wrote to Beethoven for a duplicate. Beethoven sent another. Later the lost slip was found, and, upon comparing it with the second slip, it was found that Beethoven had made an entirely different estimate of the tempi at which he desired the Symphony to be played.

Even with the most elaborate and complete marks of expression, such as those, for instance, employed by Beethoven and by Wagner, the composer is confronted with his great poverty of resources to present his views to the mind of the interpreter. Extensive as some of the modern dictionaries of musical terminology seem to be, they are wholly inadequate from the standpoint of a complete vocabulary to give full expression to the artist's imagination. It also gives full scope to an infinite variety of error in the matter of the shades or degrees of dynamic force at which the conventional marks may be rendered.

One might venture to remark that composers are the most keen, most conscious judges of their own works, or, rather, of the garments which fit them best. There is in all composition a divine part and also a conscious part. The divine part is the inspiration. The conscious part has to do with dressing the inspiration in its most appropriate harmonic, polyphonic, and rhythmic garments. These garments are the raiment in which the inspiration will be viewed by future generations. It is often by these garments that they will be judged. If the garments are awkward, inappropriate and ill-fitting, a beautiful interpretation of the composer's ideal will be impossible. Nevertheless, it is the performer's duty in each case to try to see through even unbecoming garments and divine the composer's thought, according to the interpreter's best understanding.