The Art of French Piano Music by Roy Howat

Author:Roy Howat
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300145472
Publisher: Yale University Press

LIVING DANGEROUSLY

Given so many complications, the idea of a definitive text becomes a chimera: we can try to represent (or reconstruct) the composer’s intentions as we can best ascertain them, but sometimes no definitive reading is possible, often because the composer wasn’t sure either. It’s fair to convey this in an edition, showing options on added staves or even with the occasional ‘[?]’, provided it doesn’t turn into page clutter or editorial abnegation; at best it can let the performer sense the composer’s – and editor’s – dilemma from within.

We certainly shouldn’t fool ourselves that editing can be objective, an issue that James Grier confronts at the outset in his book The Critical Editing of Music: ‘the central tenet of this book [is that] editing is an act of criticism.’4 Indeed, nothing imposes subjectivity faster than any attempt to duck it. For example, if we leave unflagged or uncommented a reading that seems suspect but is not provably wrong, that decision to stand aloof is as subjective as any visible intervention.5 Our one measure of objectivity is to observe our subjectivity and try to sense all that we can through the composer’s eyes and ears, via what we know of their lives, letters, composing habits, manuscript sources and so forth. In the end no issue is more ‘authentic’ than the basic fact that the composer wanted the piece to work.

Like a performance, any edition is an interpretation of sources, even if it can leave more options open. Thus no two critical editions are ever likely to concur exactly. A well-researched edition can even be something of a virtuoso performance, particularly if it can extract idiomatic solutions from intractable source problems. Even performing a piece makes us the editor of our own performance, especially if the edition we use prompts a choice between viable variants.

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