I've been concentrating mostly on the First Concerto in the past few days - the first rehearsal with orchestra is on Tuesday of next week, but I have also tried to cycle through the solo program for the 24th (which includes the Moonlight.) This means that within every 3 days I've managed to play the entire program, and “hone in” on any problem areas. In the case of the Moonlight, this is the last movement, and it's here that I want to concentrate my attention for today's blog. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I've established a tempo range of half note = 80-88. This is based on tempi given in two different editions, the Schnabel (which I purchased as an undergraduate student at Indiana University in the 70's) and a Polish edition edited by Woytowicz (which I purchased in Warsaw while a student there in 75.) The Woytowicz is the lower end of the range - Schnabel in general faster in all his metronome markings. In addition, I listened to two old LP's I have of the Sonata. One by Joseph Cooper, and the other by Walter Gieseking. Here's an aside - students of mine reading this blog will note that I've broken my own rule about not listening to performances/recordings of works I'm currently developing. The problem with doing so is two-fold. Most performances have been edited, so that a perfected version of the actual performance is heard - there is so much splicinig and pasting together of versions that you're really not hearing a performance, but a perfected facsimile of one (I know, I've done the same thing when I've recorded.) And nowadays with digital editing, the possibility of creating a 'flawless' performance are nearly endless. So hearing a recorded performance can unduly influence our expectations of how an actual performance sounds. Second, a recorded performance, with it's aura of finality, validation (afterall, the performer must be pretty good if company x has issued the recording, there's a picture of the performer, usually some validating notes in the liner, etc) can act as a powerful drug, overwhelming our own developing interpretation and imposing an external vision of the work when we are trying to develop an internal vision which we want to communicate to the audience. For these reasons, I've always recommended staying away from listening to recordings.
So why did I break my own rule? I'm far enough along in the process to know the works, and to have developed my own vision. And I listened one time only, with an ear toward the tempi of the last movement in the two recordings. Also, the recordings were vinyl, so the editing is not digital, and there are lots of tiny inaccuracies which give the recording a sense of life that digital editing largely takes away. It's a funny thing that if I had listened to these two recordings before my detailed study and playing of the score, I would not have heard all the little fuzziness that's in the recordings. But once I know the score well, I can begin to hear how really “human” piano playing is - with its imperfections, however small. But it's those small imperfections - a missed note here, a tone a little too loud there, a note a little out of tune - that gives the playing its character.
At any rate, I noticed that the tempo was slower in the third movement for the Cooper recording, and faster for the Gieseking. Yet both were convincing in their own way. The listenings reinforced an insight I've had before: the impression of speed for the listener is not completely a function of the absolute tempo. In other words, I convey the 'speed' of a movement, not just by playing at a fast metronome marking, but by the combination of factors - clarity, phrasing, shaping, color - that convey the emotion associated with 'speed.' You don't have to play as fast as possible to sound fast.
So the exercise in listening to the recordings (one time) was helpful, and a refreshing look back (the recordings were made in the 60's) to a time when the world was not so falsely perfect.
My second approach to the speed of this movement came from the realization that I hadn't fully practiced through the implications of the half note becoming the unit of energetic impulse. At a slower tempo, the “C” marking indicating four beats to the measure would allow us to hear the conventional 'each quarter note is a beat' metric structure, and to play with that feeling. But if we try to carry a pulse on each beat, four to the bar, through to a faster tempo, we're bound for trouble. There's no way to sustain four beats to a bar when the tempo is at half note = 80 or faster. Then the quarter note is equal to 160 beats per minute, and this will result in cramping, both rhythmically and physically. So we both have to feel and hear the half note as the new unit of beat - remember that every beat is the beginning of a new impulse and the last notes of a beat unit get less energy than the first notes - it's a kind of decrescendo of energy (NOTA BENE: not a decrescendo of sound, we're not talking dimenuendo here, but distribution of energy, periodically renewed at the appropriate beat level) So the practical result of my insight is that I'm going back and practicing at speed, but thinking in half-measures, using the half-note as my unit of beat. Now 8 16th notes are subsumed under one beat. In fact, if we look at the way Beethoven has written the movement, analyzing the harmonic movement, we see that it is relatively slow, for example, there's only one chord change every two bars at the opening. We're moving toward a sensation of hyper-measures in which there's a strong beat every two measures. I'm not sure if this is practical from a playing point of view, but it might be a way of shaping my perceptions of the overall flow of energy in the movement.
This practicing in larger beat units has proved to be very helpful in working out some difficult places - I'm placing the impulses more efficiently, and not trying to 'energize' every quarter note. It's also making the speed of the last movement more attainble as I'm hearing in larger units of time. For those of you curious about where the challenging measures are - here's a list: 9-13, 33-40, 111-115, 129 - 135 and 178-184.