Len Fehskens wrote:

>One recurring position I heard was "repeats served a useful purpose when
>music was being heard for the first time, but now that the music is so
>familiar, they're useless/irrelevant".  This is a variation of "the
>composer knows best", i.e., "the composer knew best then, but this is now".

It's not clear whether or not Len agrees with this 'composer knows best'
view, but I find it fatal to be so heuristic when reading others' comments.
Are repeats irrelevant? Is the music really that familiar? Doesn't this
all depend on the listener.  To the majority of concert-goers, the first
movement of Brahms' first symphony probably isn't familiar (or any of the
Beethoven symphonies for that matter, save 5).  The simple fact remains
that there are plenty of examples of sonata form movements where the repeat
was left out by the composer originally.  This was pretty much standard in
opera overtures.  It seems odd that this lengthening feature of the music
(the repeat) would be left out in perhaps its most obvious setting (the
opera), where the main goal of the time was to entertain, and the audience
could probably finish another glass of wine during the exposition repeat.
Even in the twentieth century some very prominent conductors (Boulez) have
left out some very important repeats (Berg Chamber Concerto) which create
an aurally notable, unbalanced structure.  If the music is in fact so
great, what's the problem with hearing it repeated--especially if the
composer wrote it in?

Marcus Maroney
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