Composers’ originals
amended by conductors
by
Arthur Butterworth
In the 1930s it was
a commonplace for fashionable dance-band
leaders to announce on radio that "the
next ‘little number’ is a smart new
arrangement we are now to play for the
first time". This was common practice:
popular dance tunes that might have
been familiar for several years were
given a face-lift to bring them up to
date, since the craze was always for
the latest sound. To play things, as
we would say nowadays, that were past
their sell-by date, was just not the
done thing. Like women’s fashion, popular
music had to be bang up to date; if
not it was looked upon with faint contempt
- "last season’s tunes" as
one might put it.
This attitude is the
very antithesis of the "precious"
reverence we feel for the classic arts.
It would be unthinkable to touch up
masterpiece paintings, sacrilege in
fact. Great literature, when modernised
by script-writers for film and television
production, or opera which has aspects
of its original plot or its scenic details
modernised by contemporary producers
is disdainfully, even angrily, ridiculed
by critics who invariably pour forth
their wrath and contempt on the insensitive,
uncultured way that philistine producers
molest great classics.
Serious concert music
- the classics - have been far less
liable to such tampering by later generations
of musicians. Listeners to a recital
or concert of the classics are generally
quite unaware of the familiar things
they are listening to having been in
any way ‘doctored’ in the same manner
that, for example, it is often all too
evident that an opera they are both
hearing and seeing on stage has been
drastically altered to suit the whim
of a ‘clever’ producer who is arrogantly
keen to make his own individual mark
on artistic society. But even in concert
music this does happen, despite what
has been said.
How? Such refurbishing
of older music comes about in a variety
of ways, sometimes done so surreptitiously
that the ordinary listener is generally
totally oblivious to what has happened.
One of the perhaps
inevitable things to have taken place
as time goes on is the fact that musical
instruments, the ones the older composers
were familiar with, are now either obsolete
or have been technically improved out
of all recognition. The orchestra of
Bach and Handel’s day was soon regarded
as old-fashioned once the rococo, or
early classical period of Haydn and
Mozart arrived. An early - and very
familiar - instance of this came about
when Mozart decided to re-orchestrate
"Messiah" - and no
matter that you might think this heresy
for me to say so - this was one of Mozart’s
most grave and unforgivable errors of
judgement. It was sheer vandalism of
him to have re-written the splendid
trumpet obbligato "The Trumpet
shall sound" just because orchestral
fashion in his day had changed and become
dumbed-down from the splendid baroque
elegance of Bach and Handel. I could
never forgive Mozart for this wanton
act of sacrilege. Examples of this kind
of cavalier editing can be found in
just about every period of musical history.
The argument has been
put forward - and it is not always without
justification - that the way in which
instruments have developed makes it
justifiable to update the orchestration
of earlier music because "that’s
how the composer would have done it"
had such improvements in orchestral
instruments been available to him in
his own day. Does Beethoven sound better
on a modern Steinway piano than ever
it would have done on Beethoven’s own
Broadwood? Are not modern woodwind instruments,
with their exquisitely developed key-work,
far, far superior to the old - crude
- boxwood oboes, early clarinets and
bassoons? To say nothing of the modern
metal flute compared with the wooden
one of tradition? Generally we accept
that they are and that those composers
from a past classical golden age would
agree with us were they to be alive
today.
However, for a couple
of decades or more there has been a
burgeoning re-awakening of interest
in authentic instruments of the past;
it is not now the done thing to perform
‘Messiah’ in Mozart’s cocked-up version
complete with clarinets, horns, and
even trombones; we know better than
that nowadays.
What profound effect
on the whole family of brass instruments
did the invention of the valve have
on the way composers subsequently were
able to write for these new instruments?
Of equal interest: what impact did the
invention of the valve have on the way
older brass parts might in future be
performed? For one thing it implied
that many of the limitations that formerly
restricted what horns and trumpets could
effectively do no longer applied; a
result of this was that later players
- perhaps encouraged by enterprising
conductors - were able to make their
parts more effective and satisfying
to play once the severe diatonic limitations
had been overcome. So how far might
rewriting the older, restricted parts
be allowed to go in the pursuit of making
them more satisfying to play and to
listen to? Could a wholesale re-editing
of them be justified in this way? What
about authenticity and composers’ original
intention being preserved - in the same
way that a classical painter’s canvas
is preserved. If there is no justification
for altering a visual work of art, is
there any more justification for altering
a musical work of art just because it
is technically possible? The honest
answer to this is that there is no justification
at all.
There are far many
more or less obvious refurbishings heard
which the listener is often quite oblivious
to; little things that are not noisily
vaunted by conductors in the self-aggrandising
manner of opera producers. Instead such
alterations are done quietly, very often
so that the listener is hardly aware
of them.
Despite such lofty
sentiments about being faithful to the
composer’s original intention, is it
conceivable that - perhaps - the composer
would have agreed with such revisions
had he been able to avail himself of
the modern technological advantages
we now possess? The problem is that
we shall never know. So while we think
he would invariably agree with us, we
just do not know. Would Bach have preferred
his splendid keyboard music on the modern
piano, or would he still really choose
the harpsichord because somehow the
sound of the harpsichord is all part
of the ethos of what he created whereas
the piano is not. It may indeed be easy
for us to say we prefer the piano, for
we are familiar with so much harpsichord
music long having been played on the
piano, but that does not allow us so
arrogantly to presume that Bach would
have agreed with us.
There is another facet
to all this - a slightly different one
- it concerns transcriptions from one
medium to another. Where, for instance,
a work for a keyboard instrument is
not just, as it were, updated, but is
re-created into what is in effect a
totally new work, using the original
as no more than a starting point. There
are countless examples of this: one
of the more well-known being Moussorgsky’s
"Pictures at an exhibition".
Originally for solo piano, the version
by Ravel - and there are several others
- is probably even more well-known in
its orchestral transcription. Wind bands,
not least the brass band tradition was
founded on the art of transcription.
Were it not for the great corpus of
classics - opera, symphony and choral
music, there probably would never have
arisen the brass band as we have long
known it. Original brass band music
is of comparatively recent times when
the situation is carefully examined.
However, while it might
be argued that transcriptions, by their
very nature admit from the very outset
to not being a composer’s original conception;
therefore no deception is intended,
there is this other more debatable ethic
of whether we should alter a composer’s
original while still pretending that
it is his own. This comes about more
often than is realised by the innocent
concertgoer. An example of this is familiarly
met with in Beethoven where the horn,
and even more so the trumpet parts,
are edited by enterprising players aided
and abetted by consenting conductors.
Beethoven’s valveless trumpets were
so limited in the notes available to
them that it does indeed seem irksome
that they cannot take full part in the
exposition of an important theme - such
as that of the first movement of the
"Eroica" Symphony. On the
other hand with just a little touching-up
they are just as capable as any other
instrument in the orchestra of playing
the tune in full, instead of having
to leave out bits because with the trumpet
of Beethoven’s day such notes were not
obtainable. So, for the most part, modern
conductors instruct their trumpet players
to fill in the otherwise ‘classically’
missing notes. This kind of touching-up
of inevitable limitations in classical
scores is widely resorted to, but in
general the listener is not all that
aware of it. After all it is usually
done discreetly; it is not comparable
to the wholesale redesigning of an opera
plot, or the scenery, transferring it
from one period of history to another.
Some composers, Schumann,
for example, were long regarded as a
rather indifferent orchestrator, a bit
clumsy and maybe unimaginative in the
way he handled a large orchestra - although
we no longer take this hyper-critical
view of him. It has often meant that
later composers, notably Mahler, went
to the not inconsiderable time and trouble
of re-orchestrating passages in Schumann’s
symphonies in the light of later 19th
century expertise in the way an orchestra
could be used.
For purely practical
and economic reasons an orchestra might
slim down the instrumentation of some
works: it does not always make economic
good sense to engage - say - an alto
flautist, merely to play a few modest
notes in Debussy when the orchestra
is playing in a small town where the
audience capacity is limited; so the
few notes intended for the alto-flute
are discreetly transferred to the clarinet.
Parts ideally intended by the composer
for four or five percussionists can
often be handled quite dexterously by
two or three slick-handed players who
somehow contrive to squeeze in all the
notes the composer intended. Very often
an opulent part for a second harp can
somehow be managed by just one player.
Some composers - Vaughan Williams especially
so - was aware of the economics of orchestras
and not infrequently wrote parts that
were ad lib and could therefore
without too much loss of effect be dispensed
with. Conductors, notably Stokowski,
were not above reinforcing some passages
which were thought to be in need of
strengthening: maybe the top line of
the 1st violins might be
doubled by the piccolo in exceedingly
loud passages in order to let the line
stand out more clearly.
This kind of behind-the-scenes
touching up of some large-scale works
is something I myself have resorted
to more than once: all conductors do
this from time to time.
In general we do not
need to touch up the early classics,
Haydn, Mozart and the early romantics
- in such as Weber, Mendelssohn - and
certainly not Brahms. However as already
suggested, Beethoven’s trumpet parts
are not infrequently deftly enhanced.
Such minor alterations make them more
satisfying to the player, and add significantly
to the fragile balance of the whole.
So it is a delicate
thing to consider. On the one hand I
go along with the purists who rightly
believe we should leave things as their
composers originally intended, for we
can never know whether they would consent
to employing all the newer developments
in instrumental design that we take
for granted. On the other hand I admit
that - done with the most careful expertise
and discretion - it is sometimes
justifiable to make the orchestration
of a piece more effective by a very
cunning adjustment here and there.
Arthur Butterworth
February 2008
