Digging In: Part II - Werktreue, a big German word

In Part I, we briefly explored the modern approach to classical music through the lens of other musical genres and other “classical” musicians before the 1800s. Some of these assumptions (our “drawl”) we listed were things like playing music saturated with performance directives, the irrelevancy of improvisation in our performing abilities, or playing a select group of works repeatedly. 

Many of these classical assumptions stem from the notion of Werktreue – “work-fidelity.” It is the approach that music is a fixed “work” written by a composer to which the performer is supposed to be “faithful.” The latest edition of New Grove articulates this notion: “There is no single ‘correct’ interpretation but there may be many incorrect ones – those that manifestly defy the composer’s instructions.” Stravinsky, for example, hated the term “interpretation” in favor of “Execution: the strict putting into effect that which is explicitly commanded.” In other words, “Unless it is commanded, it’s forbidden.” (Hmmm... but who’s doing the forbidding?) Derek Bailey writes in Improvisation: Its nature and practice:

Music for the instrumentalist is a set of written symbols which he interprets as best he can. They, the symbols, are the music, and the man who wrote them, the composer, is the music-maker. The instrument is the medium through which the composer finally transmits his ideas. The instrumentalist is not required to make music. He can assist with his ‘interpretation’ perhaps, but, judging from most reported remarks on the subject, composers prefer the instrumentalist to limit his contribution to providing the instrument, keeping it in tune and being able to use it to carry out, as accurately as possible, any instructions that might be given to him. The improviser’s view of the instrument is totally different.

The “improviser’s view” is similar to the approach to music in the Baroque and Classical eras. But as music began to take on a more reified form and the role of the composer grew in power and distinction from performers, they eventually lost almost much creative freedom. Performers merely became transparent vessels through which the composer transmits his ideas.

As anything, this change had positive and negative effects. On the one hand, it allowed composers to stretch the boundaries of conventional performance practice in ways that were not possible before. Thus, composers like Berlioz could write Symphonie Fantastique with its wealth of extended string techniques, dynamic shadings, articulations, and moods. This kind of piece would not have been possible within the paradigm of the Classical and Baroque era because composers would not have been so specific in their musical notation. Music was able to take on new dimensions that deepened its expressive capabilities. But on the other hand, performers lost an element of participation in the creative process.

At this point one might argue that it is not fair to criticize the notion of Werktreue. After all, any actor is essentially following Werktreue – bringing to life someone else’s creation which implies a kind of fidelity to the play. And certainly in any situation where a leader gives direction to a group, the individuals in the group will have to submit themselves, to some degree, to the leader and his or her directives. This is not wrong but necessary for any group to function.

OK, good point. But what happened in classical music was not normal leader/group dynamics, neither was it similar to the actor analogy. It was motivated often by a cynical, suspicious view of performers (Notice the stunning graphic of the hand-drawn, suspicious look above designed to enhance the readability of this post). Remember the A.L. Crelle quote and his biting tone toward performers referring to their changing of a piece as “wicked” and “presumptuous.”  Richard Taruskin says, in his article On Letting the Music Speak for Itself in Text and Act:

Most of the idea of letting the music speak for itself implies a hostility, contempt, or at least mistrust of performers. It is what Brahms had in mind, for example, when he declined an invitation to the opera saying that if he sat at home with the score he’d hear a better performance. Or think of Stravinsky with all his raillery against “interpretation,” or Milton Babbitt when describing his motives for adopting electronic media as a way of compensating for what he called the “low redundancy” of his music. All three composers seem to share a view of performers as undesirable middle men, whose elimination would only improve communication between composer and audience. (Underline mine)

This is not representative of every composer, but certainly there were enough people who shared this sentiment to cause this transition from the performer/composer of the 17^th and 18^th centuries to the transparent performer of today. I can’t help but feeling that behind this idea lies a cynical motivation that seeks to honor musical works above the men and women who perform it. Think of conductors like Toscanini and Fritz Reiner who were known for constantly berating and demeaning their orchestras in service of “the music.”

But that’s not all folks. What was eventually wrong with Werktreue is that instead of meaning, “Fidelity to the spirit of the work” it came to mean, “Fidelity to the musical text.” Musicians forgot that the score is merely a blueprint to create a musical experience and mistook the score itself for the music. To return to the culinary analogy, musicians began “eating the cookbook,” so to speak. Think back on Stravinsky’s definition of “execution” and his insistence that fidelity means playing only exactly what is written.

Taruskin defines this as “Text-fetishism: the exaltation of musical texts over those who read or write them.” Taruskin tells a funny story about how he mimicked unmarked rubato that Prokofiev himself plays in a recording of Prokofiev's Gavotta Op. 32, No. 3 composed in 1918 and recorded in 1932. When Taruskin's teacher criticized him for playing something unmarked Taruskin retorted that that is how Prokofiev himself played it. His teacher responded: “I don't care. It's wrong.” Taruskin concludes, “…since texts outrank performers, even when the performer is the composer, texts outrank composers, too.” Oh the irony. 

Well, we’ve defined our “accent” as classical musicians a little more clearly (Werktreue) and drawn out some positive and negative implications of it. But what does all this philosophizing matter for performance? We’ll explore that question a bit more in Part III.