8/10/2019 Fisk, Eliot - Interpreter's Notes Etude 1 (Frets Sep 81)

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Eliot Fisk

Classical ForumInterpreter's Notes

THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT musical interpreters and their music 11 measures while the bass ascends to the dominant seventhIt;s about the complex reaction that occurs when a performers, chord (B7), Within that crescendo I may freely improvise subtle

imagination encounters that inert substrate of dots and dashes gradations of dynamics o ?ifferent pitches as tey strik myotherwise knwn as "the score I will try to show that even in the fancy but I am aware that t only one of the possble solutosmost learcu example the performer must resolve (consciously An unusual and important hint to performance is provided byor unconsciously) a surrisingly large number of questions about \ what is evidently he composers ow rihthand fingering:pip-ipwhich the printed pae is practically mute \ mi-a-m-a-impi-pi. This artculaton inevitably produs a contin

My "clearcut example is Villaobos'Etude #1 By chosing ual shimmer that resuls from the slight variations in tone qualitythis piece I avoid a phalanx of problems that assault me when produced by the thumb and each finger. VillaLobos does not tellapproach music of the more distant past - problems that are us whether we are to strive toward homogenizing the slight timbralcaused by te absence of composers directions for such things as differences between the fngers or whether we should highlightornamentation tempo and dnamics In choosing the VillaLobos different implied voices with variously sparkling colors_piece also have the assurance that the music was intended for an In regard to timbre Villaobos gives us no directions whatinstrument that resembles mine soever for the use of pontcello and tasto, As critical as thes

Non et he le ss c ar ef ul sc ru ti ny sh ow s tha t Vil la L ob os choices are they are left to the interpreters conscience I favor atwentiethcentury score is imprecise with respect to practically gradual migration from tasto to pontcello to achieve my longevery parameter of music That imprecision is not necessarily crescendo to th B7 chord in measure 11. However I am not ruligundesirable beause it allows the performer a certain amount of out other possibilities

creative space I will discuss how parameter by parameter the And speaking of color - what about vibrato? Do we use fingerperformer is compelled to fill out some of the thoughts that the and/or arm vibrato and if so where? I occasionally use both typescomposer has only sketched of vibrato here to show intensity quiet or menacing) and to

I turn first to the category o nstrumentaton. The "tude #1 convey sweetness (especially in the penultimate chord of thewas composed in Pari s in 1929 a nd is scordpour gutare_ But in piece) However the score do es not even admit the existence of1929 th e guitar had gut strings not the nylon strings we use today vibrao_ To those who question my right to introduce this (or anyOf course by te time the piece was published Andrs Segovia (to other) unnoted element I return the challenge By what authorwhom the piece was dedicated) had switched to nylon strings ity do they omit - through lack of imagination and education -Villaobos probbly accepted the new srings but does the score elements that have always been quintessential in the playing oftell us this? string instruments?

VillaLobos marks the etude allro non troppo (fast but not The performer must even make decisions in the realm of ptcht fast) By avoiding a metronome marking he leaves the per In the chord shon in Ex if the thirdstring is left to its owformer considerable latitude Allegro non trop is a relative term devices it sounds sharp to the on that is somewa dependent on the erformers metabolism e third string so that it is perfectly in tune with the open for thatallegro non troppo of a 20yearold fireball may be quicker than chord w e are then destined to produce an opening chord (see

that of an 8yarold savan x_2) in which heG

is lamentably a As is often the case the Proceedin further we notice that the allegro non troppo con guitarist must find a tolerable compromisesists of continuous sixteenthnotes organized in 4/4 time s gui x, 1 ' x 2tarists we may not stop to thik that te score oes not reflect what iwe actually play in that all the notes of the chord are held down as Wflong as possible Accurate notation of that would require a cumbersome array of ties rests and voices so its easy to understand whyVillaLobos score shows just the sixteenthnotes He probably feltthat the exra sustain was implicit in the words pour guitare andVillaobos never expected to have the piece rendered ith eachnote getting only the exact time value of a sixteenthnote

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Thus my athority for leting the notes ring comes from information that is independent from the score xactly how longshould each ote last? The score does not tell us and the point isinfinitely arguable (as is often the case hen playing the music ofch Scarlatti ozart Haydn and ethoven)

A similar imprecision exists in the parameter of dynamcs Inmeasure 1 VillaLobos gives us the marking pano hereafter hetells us nothing how long does he pano last? One measure?Five? Ten? The score gives us no answers Within the panorking should every note be played at exactly the same decibellvl or should ach note be subtly varied? gain the score doesnt answer these questions I favor a long crescendo over the first

Eliot Fisk hs ain an intrnatonal reputation/or his techncamast an bol interprtations on the classical guita_ A stuent0/ Anrs Segoia and other great artsts Fsk also earned sM.A egree from Yale Unerst where he was selected aschairmn / th uitar department n 1976_

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But what if VillaLobos was alive today and we cou pose allthese questions to him or better still if we could hear him play his"Etude #1 First of all it is likely that VillaLobos own conceptionof the piece would change slightly from day to day and rom year toyear we would get a variety of answers to our uestions_ s forVillaLobos own performance of the work we have the testimoyof Segovia that although VilaLobos was bursting with temprament he was not a polished performer. not even the composers performance could serve as a complete model (any more than

Leonard Bernsteins singing in the role of Tony in West Sde Stcould be taken as definitive)Finally there are the famous engraving errors of the ax

schig edition hose errors which are still uncorrected in recentprintings have forced generations of guitarists to guess (unnecessarily) about the composers intentions_

Then how sould we approach VillaLobos tude #1? Howcan the performer make critical decisions about instrumentationtempo rhythm dynamics color pitch and the text itself and stillsomehow retain the composers spirit? It is in search of answers tosuch questions - never answerable in their entirety and too vastfor any one answer - tha we interpreters repeatedly set out withthe little bark of our wit as we give each performance a

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