Never knew this. And it makes so much sense! Always tried to get louder and softer in one bar and ever understood why because it didn‘t really sounded so good in most cases. And your example of Brahms has made the true meaning very obvious. Thank you!
My teacher called it agogic time, the movement forward is made up for by the time you take afterward. You can still use dynamics of course, but you have to be subtle. Most of this is all done with inner voices of course, so it makes you extra mindful of the movement going on in them.
The use of the word "agogic" typically refers to an agogic accent which is slightly different because it applies to taking time on a single note of a phrase. In regards to "giving back" time that you've take in rubato, I feel this is widely misunderstood actually. I highly recommend the tonebase podcast on rubato as it goes through rubato historically from Bach up to the modern era. Rubato literally means "stolen time." I remember when my Russian teacher kept getting upset with me speeding up after I took time. She never understood why. I explained I was always taught as you were, if you take time give it back. She laughed at this and said when you steal you don't give back. This idea was true of Brahms, Liszt and many others the Romantic era forward. But before this the idea was that the left hand stayed steady while the right was more free. I think there's so much nuance it's honestly hard to define in a single way. To me rubato is like taking on a regional accent in speech. Around 17:58 they talk about the evolution towards not giving back time: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Mz9dvlaWQgc.html
Along with rubato, treating the softer note with warmth, like a singer floating a high note - I call this “intense quiet” and makes sense of playing pianissimo at the top of the hairpin.
Interesting. I see the hairpin as an increase and decrease in "intensity" involving both dynamic and rubato, and contained within a short span of time. I would imagine that dynamics should change no matter what, but there would be more rubato (e.g., a freer rendering of tempo) in solo writing, whereas for ensembles, there would need to be a uniformly executed and probably stricter tempo interpretation.
I feel like AI would struggle mightily with rubato. It seems to tap into exclusively human spaces. Emotion. Thoughtfulness. A certain uncertainty. Exploration. Breathing. It was more beautiful to my ear, for its soft soulfulness. I don’t know much about musical terminology, but it felt so much more alive the second way than the first way…and not in the sort of stereotypical “liveliness” state of alive, but in the quiet maturity of contemplation and pursuit of what matters.
It's frightening what AI can do, and unfortunately I think AI would be able to do it. If I understand how it works, then someone could program it to analyze all of the best interpretations of Chopin for instance and after "listening" to 10,000 of the best recordings I bet it could emulate rubato pretty convincingly as well as any other parameter of interpretation. But half the fun of music is being able to see someone do it, and for those who play it's the enjoyment of improvement and the learning process
This is very nice but Rubinstein’s other point was intensifying by softness, which means doing a pianissimo with the tone color and intensity of a hairpins, or even (which similarly can benefit from intense quiet for emphasis). This is especially true for composers like Chopin, who was a big fan of Bellinis operas.
In this special case rubato makes no sense, because the phrases are very short. But mostly, hairpins are in romantic style music not about dynamics. I felt that, before knowing the Rubinstein-Interpretation of Chopin's practice.
No you still do it but there’s diff layers of how much rubato and so on. If you listen to historic recordings of even say, Clementi’s music, it’s shocking how much intentional and directed rubato is used by performers to accentuate the music structure.
Your playing really came alive when you added tempo modification! For more fascinating information about tempo modification, listen to Robert Hill, and check out the book "Off the Record" by Neal Peres da Costa :)
First, wonderful and moving playing of the Brahms! I had no idea that the hairpen was for affecting the tempo. Also, you studied with Dr. Viardo at UNT correct? I attended a few of his masterclasses on Rachmaninoff Etude Tableau and Rach3. I am looking forward to reading your transcription of it! Will it have fingerings throughout?
I studied with Gustavo Romero at UNT. My wife studied with Prof Viardo, and I've sat in on a few lessons of his. For the transcription yes I'm adding fingering and other suggestions. I'm releasing the sheet music on my Patreon account section by section along with explanation videos and slowmo videos for each section. The editing process is an enormous task, so this helps me stay on track by breaking it up into small little bits. My plan is to release two versions, one with mostly the notes of the arrangement without much editorial suggestion, and the other with all the editorial commentary. That way if someone wants to play it their own way it won't be too annoying seeing all my suggestions, but they can always flip to the other version to see what I do.
@@joshvigranmusic Hello, fellow UNT alum! I swear, I was the only one of my friends who didn’t major in music performance or music education. And I miss Bruce Hall. I hope they’re still keeping it weird. You do mean North Texas, right? I understand there are other things UNT can stand for. 😂
@@joshvigranmusic Go Mean Green! You play the piano very well. I’m going to follow. (And just FYI, I felt the urge prior to realizing that we have the same alma mater, but I got distracted.)
Do you make all your musical descisions based on what is written in the sheet? For me this does not change anything as i really try to interpret each section by myself
It depends on the composer and the style. Bach for instance writes almost no markings other than the notes whereas Beethoven is extremely specific in his instructions and became more specific over his life. Rachmaninoff wrote down a lot of details but in his recordings would change things at will. So from there I decide how much to bend the rules
Be careful with how you spread this information, because it could also be incorrect. Bernstein even says so himself, the hairpins apply to rubato only in the romantic era. Hairpins are strictly dynamics related in the classical and baroque eras respectively
