Steven Isserlis

(I know I’ve written about this before; but every so often – especially listening to unstructured performances – I get the urge to rant about it. If it’s too boring, you’re welcome not to read on!)

As an interpreter, I find it impossible to understand a piece of music until I have grasped at least the basic structure of a work. That may sound dry, academic – but it really isn’t. It’s a matter of understanding what the music is all about. I would say, similarly, that were I to be an actor, I would be unable to play a part convincingly until I had understood the story of the play – which of course comprises the nature and fates of all the characters involved. (In that way, and so many others, acting and playing music are practically the same. We are all story-tellers, after all.)

When I say ‘form’, of course I mean knowing where each section (eg exposition, development, recapitulation) begins and ends; but it’s far more than that. It’s understanding the nature of each subject/theme, and how the composer treats that subject (its fate, in fact) – as well as grasping how that theme relates to, and contrasts with, the natures of the other themes. It’s knowing where each phrase begins and ends; and also knowing when the music is standing still, and when moving forwards – or indeed looking backwards. There are ways to make all these elements clear through one’s playing – through colour, articulation and even (preferably imperceptibly, in most cases) through tempo. I once heard Rostropovich advising the wonderful, much-missed cellist Boris Pergammenshikov how to make a passage flow. ‘It is like a dog’s nose,’ said Slava. ‘Same dog ie tempo – just pointing forward’. I loved that.

Since I have the memory span of a goldfish with dementia, I find it immensely helpful to write into my part the title/number of the theme or motif I’m playing – or, as the work progresses, to which subject (I’m using theme/subject/motif interchangeably) each passage is referring. My parts are littered with singularly unpoetic markings of ‘1a’, ‘2b’ (since first and second subjects so often contain more than one theme or motif), 1a’ (the ‘ meaning the subject is altered, but the passage is derived from that subject) or whatever; and also reminders of the tonalities through which we are passing. It’s not a pretty sight – my poor parts are often crowded with such graffiti; but it’s extremely useful. I also tend to write in (a few) commas between phrases – especially sequences, each segment of which needs to have its own distinct colour/timbre. (eg: If one has a four-bar phrase in, say, C major which is then immediately repeated in D major, one must feel a distinct difference between the two; if not, the music will soon sound tedious. Similarly, if in a speech one were to be reciting a list of objects, to enunciate them all in the same tone would be deadly.)

As I’m sure I’ve said many times here, it is our job as interpreters to make the meaning of the music as clear as possible. The late Ferenc Rados’ frequent cries of ‘zees I don’t understand’ really said it all. And in order to make the story clear to the listener, one has to convey punctuation of all sorts: just as a tale read with no punctuation would be completely incomprehensible (and therefore boring – bringing to mind the mantra of my teacher, Jane Cowan: ‘Thou shalt not bore’), so in music we have to observe – and communicate – commas, semi-colons, full colons, full stops, etc. And, for that matter, question marks and exclamation marks as well. They’re all there in the music! They are contained in the melodic lines, the harmonic shifts. It’s really not difficult to make them clearly audible – again through articulation, colour, dynamic contour; and perhaps above all through musical breathing, the almost imperceptible pauses between notes. The inaudible lifting of the bow from the string, the foot from the pedal: it needn’t affect the tempo in any way – there is always time to breathe.

I’d dare to say that when one hears a performance of, say, a Bruckner symphony which seems to go on forever, it is usually not because the conductor has failed to grasp the basic emotions of the music (it’s hard not to feel them); but because he or she has failed either to understand or to impart to the orchestra the shape of the narration, the gradual (but inexorable) unfolding of Bruckner’s vast canvas. (Or to be fair – because it’s too easy to blame conductors – perhaps the orchestra is simply unable to fulfil the conductor’s clearly-communicated intentions…)

So – a basic checklist before one embarks on a performance (or even a practice session):

a) Do I know where the exposition, development and recapitulation begin and end. (Obviously this applies to sonata form; but one can adjust to fit any sort of musical form.)
b) Do I know what the main subjects are – and what are their natures, and how they progress?
c) Have I grasped the overall harmonic journey of the piece?
d) Do I know where each phrase begins and ends? In many cases, of course, the last note of one phrase is also the first note of another; again, one has to make that clear.) Do I understand why some phrase-lengths are unusual?
e) Am I clear where the centre of each phrase is? (There will always be a central point, like the most important word in every sentence – or, in fact, every clause.)
f) Do I know which is the principal voice at every point?
g) Do I understand how and why the composer has changed each theme as it progresses, or when it returns? And – preferably – do I understand each of the composer’s markings, whether they relate to tempo, dynamics, articulation, etc?
h) Do I know which passages are transitional (moving forward) which are statements, which questions, and which might be looking backwards, reminiscing?

And so on – there are probably several more elements I haven’t listed; but I sound so boringly didactic that I think I’ll stop there.

Anyway – if the answer to all the above is ‘yes’: you will find that your interpretation will turn out to be entirely different from anyone else’s – even though you’ll be playing exactly the same notes, following the same instructions. How come? It’s magic…