Practical approaches to performance preparation
This seminar sets out a structured method which takes the practical musician from first viewing of a new, unknown work to its performance in the critical and public arena. It is a personal approach: a method I have evolved for my own use and which has grown out of my own experience as a performer, my own reading on the subject, and – very importantly – from advice and instruction offered to me during my own musical training.
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The seminar is in five parts: |
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The manner of practice | |
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The constructive division of practice time | |
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Practice procedures | |
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Practice away from the instrument | |
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Preparation for performance | |
The content is complemented by PowerPoint slides, which serve to summarise the salient points and to provide a visual focus for their verbal expansion and explanation.
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| Duration: 1 hour. | ||
The duration of the seminar allows it either to stand alone or to be followed by masterclasses in which the techniques described (particularly those relating to practice methods and procedures) can be elucidated in practical terms. |
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Performing editions: the perils and privileges
When preparing a scholarly-critical edition for performing purposes, there exists a fine dividing-line between rectifying omissions made inadvertently by a composer in the act of writing fluently a work in which his intentions are evident to him; and in smoothing out discrepancies between otherwise parallel passages which may be deliberately intended in order to provide musical variety and vitality. This seminar examines the issues that are raised by this question and seeks to highlight some of the methods of thinking whereby a satisfactory solution may be reached.
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The seminar is in three parts: |
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A discussion of standard editorial conventions, and the method of preparing an Editorial Commentary that explains editorial changes in a clear, concise and relevant manner. | |
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An examination of the types of issue that may be encountered and the lines of questioning that should be adopted when attempting to determine, as far as is possible, the composer’s true intention. | |
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A description of the care that must be exercised when preparing a performance from printed material in which inconsistencies are present, and an exploration of the methods by which, in the absence of primary sources, a solution to the discrepancies may be reached. | |
The discussion is enhanced by examples of the issues in question taken from the works of C. Hubert H. Parry, Edward Elgar, Ivor Gurney, Arthur Bliss and Henry Walford Davies: both manuscript and edited sources are used for this purpose. Topics suitable for class discussion are also incorporated. |
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Duration: approximately 90 minutes. |
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Exploring the Sonata for Piano and Violin of Arthur Bliss
The Sonata for Piano and Violin by Arthur Bliss has languished in Cambridge University Library for almost one hundred years. This lecture-recital is an account of the process of editing the manuscript for performance and the issues surrounding its practical realisation; the discussion is lavishly illustrated with musical examples.
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The lecture-recital may be divided into nine sections: |
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A description of the manuscript’s appearance; its possible private performance and the resulting apparent dissatisfaction on the part of the composer, resulting in the deletion of extended passages and the substitution of revisions. | |
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A complete performance of the original version of the Violin Sonata. | |
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The appearance of the revisions in manuscript; the lack of precise delineation and of any form of labelling; the process of determining this delineation and of thereby constructing the revised version from the two extant manuscripts; the problem of the movement’s ending and the speculative original version. | |
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The methods used by the editor of indicating editorial changes; an explanation of the Editorial Policy; the extent and nature of the editor’s intervention when rectifying errors and correcting apparent discrepancies between parallel passages. | |
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Additional alterations made by the composer: their appearance in the manuscript; and the reasons for their non-inclusion given. | |
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A description of the Sonata’s form; the six themes played in isolation; the analogy with ‘conventional’ sonata-form elucidated. | |
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The process of continuous development inherent in the Sonata; its similarity in this respect with the ‘Theme and Cadenza’, op.47; short but pertinent extracts from the latter played by way of illustration; examples of motivic (cellular) development in the Sonata’s thematic construction. | |
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The rhythmic juxtaposition of three- and four-unit cells; the manifestation of this juxtaposition at a micro- and macro-rhythmic level; the resulting unifying role of this characteristic. | |
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A complete performance of the revised version of the Violin Sonata. | |
Duration: approximately 1 hour. |
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