A Question for Pianists

[Gurn Blanston]

In this page from a Haydn sonata score, please note the bits circled in red.



My question; are these alternative bits for more skilled players, or are they more ornamented bits to play on the repeat to keep it different than the original exposition? Or are they something else entirely? 

Thanks,

[Maciek]

AFAIK, they're suggestions on how the ornamentations should be played in these specific cases. In other words: what is given in the "main" part of the score is shorthand for what is spelled out on the small systems added above. A pianist may however have his or her own ideas on how to properly play, e.g. a schleifer (the first bit you encircled) or an appoggiatura+trill combination (the second one, in the same line) in Haydn. So these are not 100% binding.

At least that's what I know. I'll delete this post the minute one of the professionals starts mocking me. (I'm not a pianist. Just feeling self-important today.)

[Gurn Blanston]

AFAIK, they're suggestions on how the ornamentations should be played in these specific cases. In other words: what is given in the "main" part of the score is shorthand for what is spelled out on the small systems added above. A pianist may however have his or her own ideas on how to properly play, e.g. a schleifer (the first bit you encircled) or an appoggiatura+trill combination (the second one, in the same line) in Haydn. So these are not 100% binding.

At least that's what I know. I'll delete this post the minute one of the professionals starts mocking me. (I'm not a pianist. Just feeling self-important today.)

Well, I'll be sure to quote you so you can't wriggle away all that easily...

OK, well that's interesting. I haven't looked at a whole lot of piano music, especially from that time, so I haven't seen such things before. Logically then, one would expect something similar in the fiddle part of some sonatas too...

[Maciek]

Not many pianists reading this part of the forum, I guess...

The reason why there are always more ornaments in (pre-romantic?) keyboard scores is the problem of sustaining long notes. I guess that wasn't really any longer a problem in the classical era, but it probably just got carried over from harpsichord/clavichord/virginal writing and it took a while for composers to shed the mannerism completely and start using ornamentation only for musical reasons and not "technical" ones...

[k-k-k-kenny]

For what it's belatedly worth, Maciek is spot on.
Whether these suggestions are those of the composer or the editor of the score, I couldn't say for sure, tho I guess it is the latter: if Haydn had himself wanted them played this way, he could have written it. Unless, of course, there is some convention of the time of which I am (as in most things) ignorant.

[canninator]

In this page from a Haydn sonata score, please note the bits circled in red.

My question; are these alternative bits for more skilled players, or are they more ornamented bits to play on the repeat to keep it different than the original exposition? Or are they something else entirely? 

Thanks,

Link to the score from a 1937 edition

http://216.129.110.22/files/imglnks/usimg/7/76/IMSLP25347-PMLP56889-Haydn_-_Piano_Sonata_No.4.pdf

Without the original fascimile it would be difficult to know but I'm guessing the ornaments were scored in the original but using different symbols.

[Holden]

The human voice was the instrument of choice for many centuries. The majority of ornaments matched what was expected of the vocalist at the time and it was replicated on a variety of instruments, including the keyboard.

The most obvious example of this is the trill - the only way a keyboard can sustain a long note. The Arietta of LvB's Op 111 has some of the most sustained trill passages in the piano repertoire. It's obvious that Beethoven was trying to reproduce what a singer would do - after all it is an arietta.

[Maciek]

The human voice was the instrument of choice for many centuries. The majority of ornaments matched what was expected of the vocalist at the time and it was replicated on a variety of instruments, including the keyboard.

The most obvious example of this is the trill - the only way a keyboard can sustain a long note. The Arietta of LvB's Op 111 has some of the most sustained trill passages in the piano repertoire. It's obvious that Beethoven was trying to reproduce what a singer would do - after all it is an arietta.

I don't think a vocalist needs a trill to sustain a long note.