jwilzewske: It’s Like That, Is It?!: Chopin Hermeneutics

C onflation may be inadmissible for the editor, but it remains an option and right for the performer. Multiple versions of whole works are presented when differences between the sources are so abundant or fundamental that they go beyond the category of ‘variant’. You see, most in the succession of manuscripts and annotated editions are not ‘corrections’; they are alternative approaches, different equally-valid and endorsed ‘options’ that Chopin put forward. In all, you may conclude from the prolific sequence of ‘options’ and reconsiderations that, for Chopin, everything was eternally a ‘work-in-progress’. So long as he lived, there was no one thought or breath that was ‘definitive’. Every possibility remained ‘open’.”
— Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, lecture handout.

T he latitude of authentic interpretations of Chopin’s piano music was explored in lectures yesterday at the Royal Academy of Music in London by professors Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger and Roy Howat. The lectures were held in the York Gate Piano Collection in the second floor of the Academy Museum building and were attended by about 70 enthusiastic devotees of Chopin. Eigeldinger is retired musicology professor emeritus at Geneva University. He was a founder of the Société Suisse de Musicologie and was Chairman of the Section Suisse romande of the Society. Howat, a concert pianist, is Keyboard Research Fellow and professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

I n particular, Eigeldinger and Howat focused on clues about Chopin’s intentions (regarding fingering, pedaling, and other details) that are offered in the annotations of his students’ copies of his music. Restored/remastered 1905 recordings of Chopin “grand-pupil” Raoul Koczalski were also featured.

A t the time of the Op. 28 preludes, Chopin abandoned the use of the word ‘rubato’. He abandoned placing metronome markings on the music as well. He felt that those notations were doing more harm than good. Besides this, the accuracy of his metronome has come into question insofar as some of the markings on earlier music are quite implausible.”
— Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger.

E igeldinger spoke mostly in French, and Howat provided colorful English translations of Eigeldinger’s remarks. At times, some idea that Howat appended stimulated a further line of thought from Eigeldinger or a question that Eigeldinger would put to Howat, and off the two of them would go. The spontaneity of this two-hour ‘talk that was not a talk’ was truly charming, more like a long fireside chat between two old friends than a ‘lecture’.

E igeldinger observed that, in several cases, the students’ affinity for Chopin was so intense that they began to model all of their behavior after that of their teacher. They began to talk like Chopin; their mannerisms began to resemble his mannerisms; their penmanship started to look a lot like Chopin’s writing, to the degree that notations they made on their personal copies of the Chopin scores are very hard to distinguish from things that Chopin had written. Howat related his purchase at a music shop some years ago in Sydney, Australia, of an old galley-proof copy of compositions by the Norwegian Chopin student Thomas Tellefsen, a book in which Jane Stirling (another Chopin student) had made editorial notations and corrections. The details of Stirling’s markings on the Tellefsen galleys were compared by Eigeldinger to the markings in various Chopin scores and it was finally possible to determine conclusively which of the notations were Chopin’s own and which were added by Stirling and by Tellefsen.

D o not make it melodramatic. Let the music speak for itself. Don’t put ‘programs’ on it.”
— Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger.

E igeldinger and Howat both displayed great excitement in recalling this sleuthing and in celebrating the unlikely good fortune of finding the old galley-proof book that ultimately solved the puzzle just lying around gathering dust on a shelf in a shop in Sydney. To watch the two of them was thrilling—laughing, gesturing wildly, faces lit up by the memory of joys shared and the friendship cemented by this mutual passion for music. The spectacle was cinematic in an ‘Indiana Jones’ sort of way—like seeing two archaeologists rejoicing in a just dug-up treasure-room full of golden antiquities; giddy to be so lucky as to make so momentous a discovery; wide-eyed upon finding themselves immersed in such tremendous opulence; yet leery of booby-traps.

B oth Eigeldinger and Howat extemporized fluently throughout their back-and-forth exchanges, playing short passages of Chopin preludes and nocturnes from memory on two ancient Pleyel instruments amongst the 12 historical pianos in the Royal Academy’s museum collection.

O rdinarily, people are continually bombarded by transmitted ideas during most of their waking hours; music students are no different. For the learning process, what are the implications of this didactic saturation and cognitive carpet-bombing? Annihilation! Effective instruction, as traditionally understood, requires a reasonably high level of attention prompted by adequate motivation. But here, in Eigeldinger’s and Howat’s hands, we have a paradigm for motivating everyone—tell captivating stories! Stories, one after another! More stories!

I s it possible that Chopin’s marking ‘largo’ on Jane Stirling’s copy in this ‘allegro’ passage was ironical, a joke? Was she really that bad a player? [audience-member interjection: ‘Or was she the sort of girl whose constitution was such as to rush that passage, say?’] Well, I think there are many private stories that are here, ones that shall never be reconstructed but that are belied by these notations. It is regrettable that the possibility of humor—of intimate jokes exchanged between a generous, friendly teacher and a beloved student—is seldom considered by scholars. A ridiculous ‘largo’ like this may well have been a private laugh. Or maybe in fact it was simply an earnest reminder to keep the passage broad and not rush it. We’ll never know.”
— Roy Howat.

E igeldinger told stories—accounts that explain editorial methods and practices that have affected the various editions of Chopin’s music; stories of Chopin’s teaching methods, with professional performing musicians and with amateur-musician aristocrats, such as Jane Stirling. Some of the editorial practices (like ones that affected the Paderewski ‘Warsaw’ edition) have been ‘syncretist’, compiling multiple versions into a unified one. Others, including the recent multi-volume one by Edition Peters that Eigeldinger has edited, have selected one version as authentic—one that is the most consistent with the available sources—but then extensively annotated the selected version with alternate versions and ‘options’.

T he insertion of such inter-linear annotations into the music dilates the staves on the page and makes the music visually distracting from the point of view of a student or performer, so such an edition would not likely be used as a copy for performance purposes. But the guidance that such an inter-linear edition conveys “off-line” has inestimable value for the performer as well as for scholars.

H owat commended Edition Peters for their great service to music academicians (and to performing artists) in undertaking such a monumental project, given the large expense and effort that this entails and the fact that the market for such editions is inevitably quite small.

H owat also complimented the efforts of John Rink at Cambridge University and the Royal Holloway in collaboration with Christophe Grabowski. Their 994-page compilation of first editions of Chopin compositions has just been published by Cambridge University Press (link below). Their curation of Online Chopin Variorum (link below) and Chopin First Editions Online (link below) are likewise monumental contributions to Chopin scholarship, which any of us can consult to see copies of Chopin manuscripts and discover for ourselves what interpretations make most sense—or simply see how much latitude of style and meaning there really is.

I n summary, it was a memorable and thoroughly enjoyable afternoon of hermeneutics of Chopin texts, delivered with style and enthusiasm by this wild pair of musicologist friends. We are most grateful, and we learned a lot. This was teaching at its best!

T hese many variants indicate the inherent plasticity of the music, consistent with Chopin’s abilities as an improviser… In some cases, Chopin would make adjustments to accommodate the strengths and limitations of each student. In other cases, he would make adjustments to accommodate the regional differences in piano mechanics, the pedals on different manufacturers’ pianos in different countries, and so forth. I think of this as no less natural than different car-driving practices in different countries. In France they do not drive on the left side of the road.”
— Roy Howat, paraphrasing and expanding on Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger’s remarks in French.

jwilzewske

Friday, November 5, 2010

It’s Like That, Is It?!: Chopin Hermeneutics

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