Can I play haydn with rubato?

Question

I'm playing Haydn's sonata in e minor (Hob. XVI/47) 1st movement (adagio) and I've been playing with a fair amount of rubato. The best way of describing it is that I play with a lot of artistic interpretation including dynamics and tempo. I know Haydn is a classical composer and therefore rubato had not yet been popularized. So my question is: Is it musically correct to play Haydn with some rubato? Thanks for all the help!

Answer 1

As a professor of mine used to say, "Well, let's phone Haydn and find out!"

The point is, nobody knows for sure what any composer is or was trying to do. Sometimes the composers themselves aren't sure! For example, some people think the worst recordings of Rachmaninoff's music are the ones he made himself. Listen to a recording of Beethoven Sonatas by Arthur Schnabel, and it will sound completely different from what you are used to hearing. Yet Schnabel's teacher was a student of Carl Czerny, who had studied with Beethoven. Whom will you believe? Schnabel, or an Urtext edition? And yet play exactly like him today and you will be panned by the critics.

Don't be fooled by the fact that Urtext editions look pretty bare. That speaks to the practice of _notation_, not of performance. Baroque and early-classical composers were not compulsive about indicating every detail of performance. Remember that improvisation was still very much a part of "classical" practice in the Baroque and early classical periods, so performers were used to putting a lot of themselves into their playing, not to blindly following a score.

Today's performers are convinced that their performances are more authentic than those of 25 or 50 years ago. That's nonsense. Haydn is just as dead today as he was then, and he STILL hasn't left us any recordings of himself. In any period, performance practice reflects contemprary trends and tastes, that's all.

Ugh. Probably a lot more than you wanted. In the end, my advice is this: you can play it any way you like, as long as you can do it intelligently and convincingly. Listen to many recordings, read books and articles about Haydn, and about his period, and if you have access to a university library, look up some keyboard treatises written during the time of Haydn (many excellent modern editions exist), etc. After that, you can perform the piece however you please, because whatever you do will be informed by a thorough reflexion on the music.

One of the things that distinguishes great performers is precisely how their interpretation of a given piece grows and changes over time. There is no "right" way.

Answer 2

Here is one more thought. I liked a lot of what I have read, but one thing that is an important addition is that the rubato is done differently than it is in Chopin and the like. There is time that is manipulated in a way in which most people, even seasoned listeners, are not aware. You should listen to some of the great artists and attempt to beat small notes (like 32nd notes). You will suddenly become aware that they are not playing metronomically, they instead are playing with a freedom that is less external than internal. When I demonstrate use of time in this way, even my students don't pick up on it easily, which is why I say that most people do not know it is happening. The late great Leonid Hambro told me that part of artistry is playing freely while others think you are not.

I hope your teacher can help you with this.

Answer 3

Yes you can. For Beethoven, get the Urtext version, which has only Beethoven's indications, and do exactly what he ways to do in his score. Beethoven is one composer who must be followed to a tee. IN Baroque music, we do not stop the driving beat or modulate its speed until possibly the last two notes in a movement. IN Hayden and Mozart, be interpretive, but try to understand the need to keep the line of the Melody going.

Romantic era composers allow more personal interpretation.


To me, some of the worst examples of Mozart and Beethoven playing are from the great Horowitz, who has absolutely no idea of what the composers are trying to do. He was usually awful on Chopin as well, but Good on the Russian Composers, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff. Of course, he was awesome on of all people Scarlatti. go figure! On the other hand, Rubinstein certainly understood Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven... as well as modern players, like Barenboim, Peter Serkin (and his dad Rudolf), and many others. Interestingly enough, many younger pianists with awesome techniques have no idea of the proper interpretation, even though they play a zillion notes correctly. Performance practice for a composer or period is essential to properly interpret a composer's work.

Answer 4

Hi there. Listen to a few Haydn operas -- they're all available on CD in several performances -- and you'll very quickly get an idea of how much freedom of phrasing and agogics is appropriate in a Haydn slow movement, and any movt for that matter. To shape it you need some rhetorical freedom, but restraint is the watchword. The term 'rubato' applied to Haydn (and a good few others of the period) is really an anachronism: it properly belongs to the performing world of the 1830s and later, and even there, too, it's all too often misapplied, invariably to excess. But that's another question altogether... :-)

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

Joke's seldom work as well the second time around because you know the punch line. But does that stop people from going to see comedians a second or third time even when the audience knows the act? No, because there's more to a joke than the punch line. There is also the delivery. In the same way with musical jokes, if the quality of the delivery is sufficient for the joke to work, then the piece works the second or third time around (that is in the hands of a good performer). Whether or not the musical joke works is not in the hands of the composer, it's in the hands of the performer.

Answer 6

Use as much dynamic contrast as possible, but when taking time be very very clean and subtle. If you are having trouble making the ends of phrases work with rubato, try withouth - usually things just fall into place.

Answer 7

Some people would say yes and some would say no.