Notes Become Music: A Guidebook from the Viennese Piano Tradition

by Walter Fleischmann, Robert Crow (Translator)

Notes Become Music: A Guidebook from the Viennese Piano Tradition addresses the many unwritten nuances of dynamics, articulation and agogics as an expression of fundamental principles of a common European musical language. It treats the score as an incomplete musical shorthand that outlines the compositional and interpretive imperatives implicit within it, drawing on historical records from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and detailed comparisons of works to underline the author’s presentation of Viennese tradition. This book is not primarily concerned with questions of style or interpretation. Rather, it explains the many facets of musical notation that were taken for granted by composers who assumed a knowledge of the piano tradition of their day. Notes Become Music informs not only those students in countries where the central European music tradition is still unfamiliar, but also a younger generation of Europeans who have grown up without a living connection to their musical past.

100 pages, Hardcover

Published June 25, 2019

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, yet useful collection of stylistic tips and commentary on score interpretation and notation. 91 pages, with some repetition (not always bad thing). Plentiful musical examples from well known pieces (advanced high students to pros). Not for beginners, or intermediates.

I feel the author could have strengthened his arguments further by providing fewer overall score excerpts, and instead, provide more additional side-by-side examples of the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ to play it. To his credit there are audio citations within the text that illustrate this ‘right/wrong’ comparison.

My most profound conclusion was that the staccato markings are misinterpreted generally. It means: to lift the hand after playing....not short/clipped sounds... and is entirely dependent on the musical context.