When you play a lot of Romantic piano music, you get used to the final notes being extended by a written pause. Composers like Chopin and Schumann often wanted the last chord to ring on gently (or triumphantly) while the mood of the piece hung in the air. We pianists enjoy working out how long to linger on those final notes, using the sustaining pedal to assist us in keeping the resonance going.
The ‘pause’ mark in music – that little ‘eyebrow’ shape with a dot under it – doesn’t have a specified duration, so it’s up to the player to sense how long it should last.
After a diet of Romantic music, it can be a shock to go back to the Classical era and realise how short the final notes/chords are.
For example, in the slow movements of Mozart’s piano sonatas, he often ends with a chord lasting only a quaver, with rests after it to show that he meant it (see picture of the slow movement of K280). You can leaf through a volume of Mozart sonatas and see this time after time. No slowing up into the final bar – just a graceful sign-off.
But because Romantic music has trained us all to luxuriate in the last chord until the poetic ripples have died down, it can feel almost brutal to end a Mozart or Haydn slow movement in tempo and without hanging on to the final notes. Those written rests clearly indicate silence, not a chord extended by the use of the pedal. But if you play exactly what’s written, without slowing down, the silence after the final quaver can come at you suddenly.
For a second, you feel you’ve chopped off the music in a heartless manner. You ask yourself if that is really what the composer meant – that sudden vanishing of the sound? Or is it just that we no longer know how to savour the delicate taste of the quiet, precise ending?
I love your concept of ‘savouring the delicate taste of the quiet, precise ending’! As a composer who plays violin, viola, cello and piano, I find the notation of final bars often undergoes several changes before I’m satisfied it’s the effect I want. At the moment, at a distance, I’m composing and arranging a lot of material for an early stages string group. Their conductor is very aspirational, so I thought of looking at Smetana’s piano arrangements of Polkas and Czech Dances – pulling out little sections that will suit the current skills of the group. Often I have to re-imagine them from very fast tempi into more sedate movements but try to keep as much of Smetana as possible. Lots of these sections end naturally with a pause that the conductor can control, but sometimes Smetana requires the last note to be short – occasionally even a couple of throwaway semiquavers. I’ve noticed how this final note experience differs when I’m trying out the full score on a piano to when I proof read the individual parts on a string instrument. A pianist’s hands might rise from the keyboard and be held still for second or so. But string players might lift the bow off the string with an arcing movement, then stay still (controlled by the conductor) for considerably longer. Mozart, being both pianist and string player, would have been at home with either situation!
Thank you, Mary – a very interesting comparison between the physical movements used by pianists and string players. As you say, Mozart would have been familiar with both.
https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=NBD0186V
The Alchemy of the Piano
Hi Susan, I read about this new documentary and was wondering if you had seen it. I haven’t but it looks quite interesting.
I haven’t seen the documentary, but it certainly sounds interesting, with all these admirable musicians involved.
Very interesting – this made me aware that silence is part of the music even when it’s at the end. The listener senses it is there in the empty beats, and that it has its own meaning as part of the composition.
Very well put, James! Yes, I agree that silence ‘has its own meaning as part of the composition’.