Because I don't trust my own judgment at times, I will on occasion listen to a recording of something I am about to conduct. Somebody please stop me the next time I consider doing this. Last night I put on a disc of a famous conductor (whose work I generally admire) conducting Rossini overtures, specifically La Cenerentola. I was curious to see how Maestro would deal with the absence of a written-out percussion or timpani part (there is none in Rossini's hand).
...wait for it...
...wait for it...
...there was no percussion at all...it emerged sounding like a baroque Concerto Grosso.
I was more incredulous than annoyed. Again, there is no right or wrong; there is just informed and less-informed taste. Here is clearly a case of the latter. Had Maestro not even considered the possibility that Rossini assumed the timpanist would improvise or fit a part in to the orchestral texture? Rossini didn't write the recitatives either; does that mean we don't do them? Would this opera then be unique or redefine everything we know about buffo style because Rossini, who wrote the work with his habitual haste, didn't bother to write out a percussion part? Percussion, be it cymbals and bass drum, timpani, triangle or even sistri (look it up; Il barbiere di Siviglia, 1st act finale) is an integral aspect of opera buffa.
And then there is question of the "Ta-da!" chords in bars 2 and 6. Tradition suggests that these chords (16th-note leading to half-note) are performed "all'Italiana" - the short note rendered gesturally; late and resembling a 32nd-note. Maestro had evidently assumed that, because the line in the opening bar is written in a double-dotted rhythm, that the tutti chord in the subsequent bar should be executed come scritto. Va bene, but then cadential chords at the conclusion of the introduction, notated in the same manner, were performed all'Italiana! Not that there is anything requiring Maestro to be consistent in his approach to the chords at the beginning and end of the introduction. That said, I'd love to know what the rationale was. These same chords, which occur throughout the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi, are never written out as 32nd-notes, not necessarily because it is a waste of time to write out the 32nd-notes themselves, but because it is a waste of time to write out the obligatory 32nd-rests preceding the notes, in all of the parts.
OK, the execution of cadential chords preceded by 16th-notes is a matter of taste. But I have my doubts that any conductor in a provincial Italian house would have taken the time to rehearse proper 16th's (and it would have taken time to get the orchestra to execute a 16th-note chord in a slow tempo together). Hence, "Ta-da!" has come down to us as a tradition. Is it in good taste? Were I glib, I would respond, "It's opera buffa; since when do we care about buon gusto?" Instead, I will open the door to the broader discussion of what defines taste. How one acquires taste. I would suggest that this is one of the conductor's primary responsibilities, and a major roadblock to the aspiring non-European conductor in his/her search for authenticity in interpretation. We'll talk about this more in future entries.
What about the opening bars of the overture to Die Zauberflöte? I have done it in a variety of ways, and leave it up to the reader to make an informed decision.
All right, I lied: I was more annoyed than incredulous.
No comments:
Post a Comment