The reviewer, this unknown

For those who have the humility to recognize its usefulness, yes. Unfortunately, today everyone is increasingly full of themselves and the importance of this figure is increasingly ignored...

Pablo wrote:

What is the function of the reviser? Does it still make sense for them to exist today? What do they mainly deal with? Can it be a profession?

Thanks in advance.

One must distinguish the type of revision we are referring to. For example: I remember well the era of my piano studies as a child, with the various volumes published by Ricordi, such as "My First Bach" and things like that... on the covers of those volumes it was always clearly written "revision by Campanella" (or Canino, or whoever else I don't recall) and the purpose of those "revisions" was to accompany the music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, etc., with useful indications (?) for the young student, such as fingerings (the lesser of two evils), dynamics, phrasing, etc. (the decidedly worse evil, especially for the music of Bach and Mozart, but not only). But such a type of revision is frequent and still present for macroscopic works like Beethoven's Sonatas, those of Mozart, the Well-Tempered Clavier... This type of revision, in my opinion, is deleterious and uneducational (* I will explain why at the end). The work done by a reviser—this type of reviser—can and must be done by the instrument teacher when referring to texts used for teaching (Inventions in two voices, Clementi's Sonatinas, things like that...) and by the professional, instead, when referring to texts approached with musical maturity; but on the author's text, on the original text, i.e., as it came from the pen of Bach, Mozart, Chopin, etc. I personally had the fortune of being guided by a teacher who soon invited me to purchase this type of edition.

And here comes the Reviser with a capital "R". The one whose work is, today more than ever, absolutely indispensable, not only for the young student but also for the professional. The Reviser works on autographs, works on first editions, works on epistolary material, works on drafts that may have been found of works subsequently published; all this with the aim of providing the musician with an edition of the music in question that is as responsive as possible to the author's intentions, comparing the various aforementioned materials to correct any omissions, clarify doubts that perhaps have persisted over time due to an error in the first printed edition or, say, in an orchestral part of a symphony... This type of revision is manna for the musician: the work of revisers puts us, literally, face to face with a text that represents, each time, and with every new revision (always generally preceded by the discovery of a document newly useful for correcting, completing, or simply integrating the previous revision), as I was saying, a text that represents what is closest at that moment to the author's "letter."

Studying a Beethoven Sonata (to give an example) in a "revised and corrected" edition by the pianist of the day (even if they were the greatest Beethovenian interpreter on the face of the earth), who has added slurs, dynamics, and details according to their own criteria, versus studying it in an Urtext edition (read: original text), curated to restore, preserve, and clarify the author's indications, are decidedly two different activities. The one is apparently more "convenient," because it presents an "enriched" text (but in my opinion, actually decidedly impoverished) by the indications of another performer; the other is more fascinating, because it allows for no intermediaries between the author's text and what reaches us.

* I mentioned above that the use of editions full of additions is deleterious and uneducational. Let me explain, even if it is not the first time I am saying it. It is deleterious because it automatically slows down the impulse to "interpret," where this term is understood in its highest possible sense, namely that of understanding and comprehending (or making one's own) the author's text; it is uneducational because if, at the beginning of a child's studies, I allow the conviction to pass that a Bach Invention contains indications that Bach never even dreamed of writing, I mislead them twice: the first error is the superficial one, namely that Bach wrote neither "allegro," nor a metronome (let alone!), nor "accelerando," and so on. The second error is deeper: it is a historical and historiographical error, because a certain type of indication will arrive much later and, above all, for an instrument different from the harpsichord (something that often escapes children who read "Bach: Inventions in two voices, for piano (!!!)" on the texts they are advised to purchase."},

I agree with Carlos and very succinctly... what would mediators be for?

lory wrote:

For those who have the humility to recognize its utility, it is.

What utility do you find in it? I mean, from what point of view?

I think what Carlos says is correct up to a certain point. Going into such detail takes a lot of time and this sacrifices the repertoire. I think that unless one has to enter competitions or give concerts, when studying, in order not to waste healthy days on this kind of reading, one must also trust an editor's notes. If someone has time to waste then okay. However, we should also reason in another way: I don't believe I have the skills to do my own revision, or rather I might have them but I believe that someone like Canino or Campanella certainly has more, having surely conducted research and studies before publishing their own revision. Studies and research which, whether in terms of available means or piano culture and experience, are certainly superior, at least to mine, and this is what I am referring to when I speak of humility. In life, you cannot do everything and know how to do everything better than others. One must be able to recognize and serenely accept one's own limits.

lory wrote:

I think what Carlos says is correct up to a certain point. Going into such detail takes a lot of time and this sacrifices repertoire. I think that unless one has to enter competitions or give concerts, when studying, in order not to waste healthy days on this kind of reading, one must also trust the notes of an editor. If someone has time to waste then okay. However, we should also reason in another way: I don't believe I have the skills to do my own revision, or rather I might have them but I believe that a Canino or a Campanella certainly has more, having certainly conducted research and studies before publishing their own revision. Studies and research which, whether in terms of available means or piano culture and experience, are certainly superior, at least to mine, and this is what I am referring to when I speak of humility. In life, you cannot do everything and know how to do everything better than others. One must be able to recognize and serenely accept one's own limits.

Aside from the fact that if you talk about "wasting time" perhaps you don't have clear ideas about what studying means, excuse me for saying so, but in any case, you haven't even read carefully what I wrote: the "revisions" by various Canino, Campanella etc. are, in fact, editions to which they have ADDED indications that have nothing to do with what the author wrote; that is, they are, in fact, personal opinions. Furthermore, for certain authors, these are outright falsifications: if you read the Well-Tempered Clavichord in the "revision" of Mugellini (I believe it's him) you find more of his things than Bach's (also because Bach only wrote the notes). It is clear that a ten-year-old child is not capable of tackling study based on historical practice etc. etc., but at the very least they can be EDUCATED to know the compositional style of various authors and not to think that, all in all, there was no great difference between Bach's way of writing and Chopin's, because both used the same indications. Then, over time, one learns to know the style of various authors and to play them in the most authentic way possible. If someone at twenty years old, after ten years of playing the piano, cannot understand the difference between the meaning of certain indications in Beethoven and in Chopin, then yes, they have wasted time! But naturally, it depends on the goals one sets for oneself: if one plays as a hobby, everything is fine; if one wants to be a musician, it's a different story altogether.

I agree with Carlos, being an interpreter means putting something of yourself into it. His job is to start from the score and give his interpretation of the author's message. How would this be possible if one had to go through someone else's interpretation?

An editor cannot be of help to the composer... no?

Paulo wrote:

A reviewer cannot be of help to the composer... no?

If a "composer" needed a reviewer, they wouldn't be a composer. A composer should already know what and how to write music in a score, especially today, after Debussy, Ravel, Mahler ... what value could a reviewer provide?

It seems to me that it could only be useful to them if they didn't know what to write

Another matter is relying on performers to verify the feasibility of certain passages, or verifying in the field whether what was imagined actually works.

I reiterate, from my point of view, if a composer has to go through a reviewer to write a working score, they are not a

composer.

I have a doubt, were you perhaps thinking of the copyist?

If that were the case, it's a completely different story...

Paulo wrote:

An editor cannot be of help to the composer... no?

But be careful: you are talking about a possible "editor" like a "proofreader" in publishing, is that right?

Here we are talking about a different type of revision.

Carlos wrote:

"revisore" like a "proofreader"

What exactly is it? Do you mean the copyist Gerardo mentions or something else?

Marziano wrote:

What exactly is it? Do you mean the copyist Gerardo mentions or something else?

In publishing, a proofreader is the one who checks for spelling errors, grammatical errors if there are any... however, I believe a proofreader is only provided for very important authors.

In the field of composition, today as yesterday, the copyist is, literally, the person who copies the parts, especially when it comes to, for example, pieces for orchestra, for which the composer might only provide the score. The copyist does not have an "editorial" role, however, so they must write what they find, except for obvious errors. I know for certain that even very important publishing houses, see Ricordi for example, no longer do editorial work on the manuscript today and in fact print what is provided by the author. Important contemporary Italian authors, who still write by hand, are printed exactly as they are, manuscripts: the copyist or copyists, in that case, intervene specifically to prepare the materials for the orchestra, using music notation software.

PS At this point I would open a small parenthesis: the time taken to prepare "n" individual parts with music notation software is more or less the same as the time taken to transcribe the entire score, from which the individual parts can then be extracted. I have always wondered why, instead of using the copyists' work for the individual parts, they are not asked to prepare a digitized version of the score, which would also help poor conductors, who are instead forced to read enormous handwritten sheets that are sometimes difficult to decipher. Sorry for the off-topic...

The issue is starting to become clearer to me and from what I have understood, it is not a profession in its own right.

Here, dear Carlos, you are the classic example of what I meant... You fit the description perfectly. The one who believes himself to be the Eternal Father on earth, who does not find information reported by reviewers useful—who certainly know more than you—which, on the contrary, you define as not only useless but even misleading. I say this without sugarcoating it: I hate people who are not humble. What you are saying is totally absurd. You are practically saying that a work sector was born despite being useless. I feel compelled to say that reality itself proves the opposite. Work sectors always arise from needs; if there had been no need for them, they would not have existed at all. But regardless, I respect your idea, it doesn't take anything away from mine. Furthermore, never allow yourself again to come and tell me that I don't know what it means to study and make sacrifices. I haven't done many things in my life due to family problems that you don't even deserve me telling you about, but those few milestones I have achieved cost me effort, a lot of effort, a term that perhaps you don't even know. I even went to wash dishes to study; it's not a figure of speech, I actually did it, and I wasn't lucky enough to have someone to pay my expenses for me, as surely happened to you, given the lightness with which you allow yourself to address others. In your place, I would try to respect your interlocutors and the opinions of others, something that it is clear you are unable to do. In any case, I really don't like how you carry yourself with those who don't think as you do. For me, discussions with you end here. I ask you to do the same with me. Thank you...

lory wrote:

Here, dear Carlos, you are the classic example of what I wanted to say... You are fitting it perfectly. Someone who believes they are the Eternal Father on earth, who does not recognize the usefulness of information reported by reviewers, who certainly know more than you, and whom you, on the contrary, define not only useless but even misleading. I say this without flowery terms: I hate people who are not humble. What you are saying is totally absurd. You are practically saying that a professional sector was born despite being useless. I must say that reality itself proves the contrary. Professional sectors are always born from needs; if there had been no need for them, they would not have existed at all. But regardless, I respect your idea, it does not take anything away from mine. Furthermore, never allow yourself to come and tell me again that I do not know what it means to study and make sacrifices. I have not done many things in my life due to family problems that you do not even deserve me telling you about, but those few milestones I have achieved cost me effort, a lot of effort—a term you perhaps do not even know. I even went to wash dishes to study; it is not a figure of speech, I actually did it, and I did not have the fortune of having someone to feed me, as surely happened to you, given the lightness with which you allow yourself to address others. If I were in your place, I would try to respect my interlocutors and the opinions of others, something that is clear you are unable to do. In any case, I really do not like how you position yourself toward those who do not think as you do. For me, discussions with you end here. I ask you to do the same with me. Thank you...

I will gladly abandon any dialogue with you, but not before having replied to you.

First of all, I am very sorry that you take it so badly and, above all, that you resort to words like "hate," but so be it. I find your reaction to be exaggerated, but above all, I find that once again, you have not read carefully: if you had, you would have understood that I made a clear distinction between two types of revision. One, the one that adds information at the reviewer's discretion (that one, for clarity, which leads to editions of The Well-Tempered Clavier full of "Allegro con moto," legato, accelerando, ritardando, metronomic indications, dynamic indications, etc., etc.): this is the type of "revision" that I find misleading. The other, instead, is the one based on the study of autograph sources and seeks through that study to provide the musician with a text as close as possible to the author's letter (I must have used those exact same words).

You say that you "hate people who are not humble." Well, so do I. And I will tell you that I also do not like those who claim "what you are saying is totally absurd" without having understood what I am saying. But so be it.

I am so humble toward music that I seek out precisely the editions that bring me back to the text exactly as it was conceived by the author, and I study so much that I lose my eyesight, to understand what they intended to tell me (and to tell those who would listen to their music).

I am so humble that I believe only that text is worth tackling, reading, and studying, and that my role is to show those who listen how beautiful the music I conduct is, not how good I am at conducting it.

And I am so determined in pursuing this goal myself first that I am not interested in reading a text to which another performer has added their own personal indications: if I want to know what that performer intends, I listen to one of their performances, but if I want to study the music of Beethoven, or Mozart, or Brahms, etc., I want to read only what they wrote.

And here we come to the "professional sector born despite being useless." I am and will be eternally grateful to musicologists and scholars who, for about forty years now, have been concerned with returning musical texts to their origins. It began with Bach in the '70s, it proceeded quickly with Mozart, with Beethoven; today we have Urtext editions of the music of Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Haydn; even in the operatic field, giant strides are being made and with Rossini first, then Verdi, musicology has intervened and today we have (almost) all of Rossini in critical edition and many of Verdi's works (the first to be republished in critical edition was Rigoletto, in 1983).

Thanks to the work of these scholars, we have the possibility of knowing the music of these Masters as it came from their pens and, through the careful study of sources, we have access to so-called "critical apparatuses" that clarify the sense of a compositional language, even in the smallest details. This type of revision, critical revision, is of fundamental importance and I believe that humility lies precisely in trying not to have filters between us"}

and the Masters, the faithful rendering of their music should be the first and most important goal a musician pursues.

The reality, contrary to what you claim, demonstrates exactly what I am saying, if it is true—as it is true—that more and more musicians, more and more orchestras, and more and more teachers in conservatories are abandoning traditional editions to instead use the Urtext critical editions I am talking about. I do not consider myself a "father figure" at all, but you should read carefully, because it is certainly not I who jump to hasty judgments.

I will close with a detail that I believe fits perfectly. For my own reasons, I am reading Shakespeare's Othello in a translated edition, obviously, with facing-page text. It is incredible: Shakespeare writes nothing except the theatrical text, and the only indications he writes are enter, exit, nothing else. Reading the text gives you the possibility to imagine the scene, to imagine the voices of the protagonists and, by studying Shakespeare's theater in depth (and the Elizabethan tradition, obviously), to know how those tragedies were performed. I do not go that far because I would lack the time: I "settle" for reading Shakespeare almost as it came from his pen. I come to the point: what advantage would I gain in reading Othello in a revised edition, say, by Albertazzi (I'm mentioning one at random, nothing against Albertazzi, obviously) that accompanied the text with indications like "Othello, with a hoarse voice, turns to Cassio and says to him," or "Iago, exploding in a tremendous scream," or "Desdemona, with a mellifluous gaze and sweet voice." It would be an "Albertazzi-style" version, but if I want to know how A. intends Othello, I can go to the theater, whereas if I want to read Shakespeare, I prefer to read only Shakespeare.

I hope I have been sufficiently clear.

clearer than this... if one wants to understand, it goes without saying.

This is what you wrote to me: a mean and gratuitous insult without me having said or done anything to trigger such a response

Carlos wrote:

Aside from the fact that if you talk about "wasting time" perhaps you don't have clear ideas about what studying means

> First of all, I am very sorry that you take it so badly and, above all, that you resort to words like "hate," but oh well. (I don't know how to quote again).

Don't play the sheep, and don't try to turn the tables on me, please, at least have the face to take responsibility for what you write and show respect because you and I have never shared a plate, so let's keep our distance... That there are sheep who agree with you on everything even when you adopt haughty attitudes that should, on the contrary, immediately make you the one in the wrong, but for strange reasons this doesn't happen in here—it doesn't seem like news to me—but words fly and writings remain, and I have quoted your sentence exactly as you wrote it, which, for the reasons I have already extensively listed, I did not like at all. I think that people like you who show themselves to be so haughty do not do any good to a forum; anyway, these are things that the administrator and the moderators, whom I would ask to intervene, will eventually consider.

You continue to talk about editors, or rather, that type of editor. I continue to say that you should make it a very personal statement, and quote phrases by adding the wording "for me," because the way you speak makes it seem as if you are firing off absolute truths. I believe that the versions you repudiate are instead very useful not only to those starting to play but also to those who want to engage with someone who has done in-depth studies on a piece before releasing their revision. Research which, I repeat, is without a shadow of a doubt superior to what you could do (not because you are naive), simply because the editors certainly have more experience and were certainly very well-connected people, as they say here in Rome, who could have access to practically anything since everything was justified by the need to release a "revised" edition.

lory wrote:

This is what you wrote to me: a gratuitous malice and offense without me having said or done anything to trigger such a response

Of course, but I was certainly not referring to the difficulties you spoke of, which I did not know about and which did not concern my opinion. I would not allow myself to speak of things I do not know. Instead, I was referring to this:

lory wrote:

Going into such detail takes a lot of time and this sacrifices the repertoire. I think that unless one has to enter competitions or give concerts, when studying, in order not to waste healthy days on this kind of reading, one must also trust the notes of an editor. If someone then has time to waste, then okay.

And I reiterate what I said. If you believe that going into details is a waste of time, perhaps your ideas are not quite clear. But it's not just me saying it, you know?! Go ahead and hate me then...

It seems to me that Lory had an exaggerated reaction; they are referring to general situations and never personal ones. I always have them use the most faithful editions, but with the advent of the internet, many students arrive with the most disparate scores... we spend the lesson correcting errors; perhaps the cost of a good book is more evident than the teacher's fee.

Said very serenely and in friendship...