Jocelyn Wang replies to Steve Schwartz replying to her:

>>>A performance that does not observe all repeats as intended by the
>>>composer cannot possibly be superb because it is patently contrary
>>>to what the composer has made clear the piece should be.
>>
>>Unless, of course, the composer made a mistake or miscalculated.  But
>>apparently the composer can never be wrong.  Sweet racket.
>
>Given that the music is a product of the composer's soul, he is the only
>one who is qualified to say what his piece should be.

Composers are not always correct about what they compose, nor is the
contents of the score immutable.

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that writers know as much about their
writings as composers do about musical works.  Now, suppose you want to
read Homer's Illiad.  If you do not know his dialect of greek, you must
read a translation, which, of needs, must be faithful to some aspects of
the work, and not others.  It takes more than a bit of verbal gymnastics to
get "wrath" as the first word of the poem.

It might seem that music needs no such "translation".  But this is not the
case.  Music plays out against people's hearing and expectations.  To make
Beethoven's 5th symphony means being as faithful to the relationship
between what was expected, and what he delivered, in ones own time and
place, as he had been in his time and place.

The controversy about repeats comes out of a change in the logic of
musical expression which grew ever more powerful during the 19th century
- the idea that one lived the work as a narrative.  In such an artistic
world, "repeats" became unbearable.  How can one repeate even a moment of
life? Hence repeats bcame optional - if the musician was moved to repeat,
he would, if it seemed impossible for him to do so, he did not.  The logic
of dance dominated Beethoven's age - the logic of song the one that
followed.

If a musician is ready to have the results of their work judged, they may
do as they please.  But those decisions made out of artistically coherent
ideas will be the ones which find favor.

I know we have fought this thread before.  Which is why I would ak that
people go back to the sources of why repeats grew rarer - expressed most
forcefully in Liszt's private letters, and in Wagner's very influential
work "on conducting".  Some will not be moved by the arguments there in,
some will be so persuaded that they will se no other way.  But this
artistic tradition has given us too many great performances to be ignored.
To play works in the manner which Wagner advises and not dispense with
many of the repeats would be as grave an error as playing the music in
Beethoven's age and dispensing with them, or worrying about notes over
grammar.

It comes back to the idea of presenting art, rather than typing a copy
of the original, there are right ways to take repeats, and wrong ones.
A musician who does not understand what reinterpretation means in a
repeat is doing the word no favors by killing the spirit.

Stirling