Local and Global Considerations

Phrasing, as hard as it is, is about the treatment of a small number of notes.  It could include your touch, your dynamics, etc.  Musical consistency, on the other hand, is putting phrasing, dynamics, color, everything together in a consistent manner.

Excuse me for using science/engineering description: phrasing is a more "local" phenomenon, musical consistency is "global".  And as we know, local optimization is much easier than global optimization.

I've been wondering what the word interpretation means in one of my earlier posts.  I think musical consistency is pretty much the same thing.  You think through a piece, you decide what you wish to tell the audience, or maybe just to yourself, and present it in your vision.  A good vision, is likely logical and cohesive in a certain way, and that is what I mean by musical consistency.

I only thought of this when I watched a few masterclass clips--Mario Joao Pires, Susan Starr, and Schiff.  (Yes, youtube is a great resourse.)

Maria had something to say about Beethoven's 32 variations in C minor.  At the end of the theme, there are a few descending staccato notes.  Instead of playing them strictly staccato, as the student did, she suggested thinking of them as portraying something ghostly.  And if you do so, then the staccatos in the 1st variation must be a continuation of this sort--do not play staccatos on the G's, or at least not obvious staccatos.  Otherwise, the consistency and logic is lost.

Susan Starr's student was working on Liszt's Dante Sonata.  There, the consistency is achieved by making sure you follow tempo, and not put in arbitrary rubatos.  It is easy to fall into the trap of changing your tempo when reaching a climax or a lull.  This kind of rubato is also a local consideration.

Schiff's clip is short.  It's on a Schubert sonata.  The lesson here is that Schubert had measures clearly marked out, so just follow them.  In the piece apparently it's easy not to play them that way--yet again, a local consideration.

It is after one starts considering a piece in its entirety that he starts entering the realm of true music appreciation.  Listening for sensuous spots here and there is nice, but a whole new world will be opened up if you start thinking globally.

Replace all those "you"s with "I"s and that's exactly where I am standing right now.  I've got a lot of global considerations ahead of me.