The question I pose to this forum is : Can changing the orchestration of a Sibelius Symphony or other work, ever be justifyed?--kullervopete.

I have always contended that a conductor should take some artisic liberty to bring a new, fresh interprettion of a work to the ears of the listener. If every conductor conducted the same way, we would have no shortage of music that all sounds the same.

Bernstein and Furtwangler are glowing examples of how a conductor can take a score and imprint their personalities on it without making changes that are so drastic the music is no longer what the composer had intended. That there will be a controversial statement as many people believed that Lenny and Furty were too "liberal" with the printed score.

But this "tinkering" is, I think, a staple of condutors during the first half of the 20th century. Stokowski also comes to mind. This is when conductors and orchestras had particular "sounds" that made them distinctive. One could probably tell their Georg Soltis from their Eugene Ormandys without much trouble.

Today, there is a trend to obey the printed score to the note more than before. Vanska is a great example of a conductor who doesn't have to do anything drastic in order to produce a a steller version of a piece, but I definitely see him as a more literal conductor than, for example, Bernstein.

Having said all of that, I do not think that conductors should toy with orchestration. I think it is the conductor's duty to toy with what is written, not with what ISN'T written.

I think experimenting with rhythmic figures and orchestral dynamics is fine because you are still working with a set of peramteres laid down by the composer. Wasn't it Stoki who said a printed score is a very unreliable representation of how the music should actually sounc? There's a lot of truth in that. As long as you are not turning adagios in prestos (or something like that), I think the conductor should have some room to "interpret" as opposed to being merely a human metronome.

But adding or taking away instruments seems like its crossing the line. I think in case where the orchestration seems odd or disproportionate, the condutor should work on the dynamics and balancing with volume control, not the addition or subtraction of instruments.

I have never touched a note in a score and never will, especially with Sibelius. If I feel that a piece is so problematic that it requires "touch-ups", I would rather not conduct it.

Is there only one "accepted" way to perform Hamlet or A Streetcar Named Desire? Of course not.

I'm with Tapkaara on this. My god, if all Beethoven (or Brahms, or Schumann, or Mendelssohn) sounded like Norrington's....
And as much as Vänskä seems to be universally admired (at least on this forum), I don't consider him to be the last word on Sibelius.

There are also many practical considerations to take into account; being able to procure an appropriately sized band to accommodate the written score, for instance. Certain "rearrangements" would have to be made.

Kurkikohtaus wrote:

I have never touched a note in a score and never will, especially with Sibelius. If I feel that a piece is so problematic that it requires "touch-ups", I would rather not conduct it.

Sibelius was a master orchestrator and if anyone in the history of music knew exactly what their music should sound like, it would be Sibelius. To mess with the master's orchestration is an excercise in heresy!

I had never seen the quote by Berglund and I guess I was a little surprised. I did not know that he had a penchant for this sort of thing. I wonder what changes he has been known to make...and in what pieces?

Berglund's comment surprises me as well, but one probably shouldn't take it at face value and assume that he changes the score at will, as I have not heard that in any of Berglund's recordings with respect to the actual notes or orchestration.

What Berglund might do is change dynamic markings in places where they are vertically uniform so that they become layered, bringing out the part that he wants to hear. This is what conductors basically do in rehearsals, by telling the oboe to play louder and the horns to play softer (in a specific place), for example. Writing it down in the parts is just going one step further and in my mind an acceptable performance practice. He may also "disregard" (or "underemphasize") Sibelius' tempo markings, prefering his own feeling of ebb and flow in performance than to the "strict" reading that the master indicates.

While these things are OK, changing notes and orchestration is not, which I believe Berglund does not do, staying within the bounds of acceptable artistic liscence.

Berglund does take a few liberties - for instance a significant cut in his later (Philharmonia) recording and concert performances of Lemminkäinen's Return, or allowing the horns (Helsinki) to play wrong notes (for there is no nicer way to say it) in Finlandia.

I don't believe that the views expressed by contributors to this thread are as contradictory as they might appear at first blush. Good music can certainly take a wide range of interpretations, and good performers can achieve wholly different results through slight subtleties of balance, phrasing and expression without ever contravening what the printed score says.

Related issue: what happens when a score is probably wrong? Example: Karelia Suite, Ballade, letter C (Poco più lento) according to the score should not just be dolce but also remain ppp (as Vänskä and Maazel play it, Maazel not in such an extreme way). But the piano transcription marks up the dynamic to mf (largamente as well), which arguably fits the music better. Maybe Sibb simply forgot to include the dynamic marking in the orchestral score, which was after all produced in some haste, and missed it at the proofreading stage – and didn't correct it later because most people play it louder anyway? I honestly don't know and I think conductors should be allowed enough latitude to decide such cases for themselves.

But changing notes or instrumentation - no way. I'm pleased that it is no longer fashionable to do so!

I agree with much of what has been said, but the two Finnish maestro's opposing views on Sibelius's manuscripts still trouble me.
Vanska says that you can trust them, with Berglund, everything has to be corrected.
Was Berglund justifyed in 'editing' the score when he started to prepare Kullervo for its first recording in 1970. It was reported at the premiere of the work in 1892 that the vocal soloists could hardly be heard and Berglund decided that in the interests of balance, changes should be made to the orchestration. Berglund felt that some passages were clumsy or even impossible to play. As touched on recently, Sibelius transposed and partly reorchestrated the end of the third movement as a seperate song for Bass and orchestra 'Kullervo's Lament' I do think that Berglund was justifyed in partly using this, transposing it back to the original key. But at the end of the day, we should look on Sibelius's score as the the most accurate guide to his wishes and approach it with the utmost respect. Lets remember also that Berglund has done much work on the Seventh Symphony. His research into the various printing errors, led directly to the publication of a new edition of the Symphony by Hansen in 1980.
Even the finest Sibelians are prone to tinker and I am pleased that maestro Kurki asserts that he would never change a note. Take Ormandy, usually pretty faithful to the score. On several occasions in his 1941 performance of the first symphony, he has the violins play an octave higher than written, in parts of the first movement and Finale, a curiosity that he again repeated in his 1978 recording. I have an idea that Neeme Jarvi might also be guilty of this. It seems to me totally pointless. Again with Ormandy in mind, if Sibelius had wanted an extra trumpet during the final cadence of the Seventh Symphony, he would have surely marked it in the score!--kullervopete.

kullervopete wrote:

I have an idea that Neeme Järvi might also be guilty of this.

You are right (and I could list a lot of other changes that Järvi makes in various pieces, but that would get boring).

As I understand it, most of Berglund's work on the Seventh involved the correction of errors that had slipped into the previous Hansen edition. Nonetheless, in the future it will the the JSW editions to which we shall turn for chapter and verse.

Ultimately it boils down to this: do you play a piece as written, to the best of your abilities, conscious of the fact that the score may contain typos but aware that it (or the manuscript) is still the closest reference material that we possess regarding the composer's intentions? Or do you guess what he might have wanted if he had happened to share your own tastes - and opt for conclusions that are definitely not what he asked for? A no-brainer if you ask me.

As for the soloists at the Kullervo première, I have also heard that there were balance problems. Seems odd though, given that neither the orchestra nor the choir was anything like as large as we normally get today. Must have been a good concert, nonetheless!

At the start of this topic I posed the question of whether changing the orchestration of a Sibelius symphony could ever be justified. I have recently come across a Cd release of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony re-orchestrated by Mahler. This symphony is one of the pinnacles of the symphonic repertoire and I find it breathtakingly arrogant an undertaking. I can just about understand Schumann's Symphonies being re-orchestrated [Mahler again] I can understand a composer orchestrating anothers piano piece such as 'Pictures at an Exhibition' Mussorgsky--Ravel or even attempting to finish some incomplete work. No, Ludwig was stone death but he had the music in his head and knew how to write it down on paper. Just imagine a Cd being released of Sibelius's Seventh Symphony re-orchestrated by lets say for want of argument, Jouni Kaipainen. The mind boggles--what do you think?-kp

I am against this.

The Mahler/Beethoven thing is somewhat well known. Mahler's justification was that, during Beethoven's time, one could not assemble the forces that you now can in 'modern times.' Had beethove been alive 'today,' he likely would have orchestrated his 9th in a fashion similar to what Mahler did.

So, Mahler was basically doing th world a service by giving us a glimpse into what Beethoven WOULD have done.

This may be an interesting experiement at best, but at worst, it's a blatant disregard for Beethoven's good judgement as an artist.

I think back in the early 20th century, this kind of thing was probably more common than not. Stokowski, as we all know, reorchestrated works and made arrangements till he was blue in the face. This practice is more or less dead now and, for us today, the thought of tinkinering with someone else's art to "improve" it is verboten!

I would be hopping mad is some composer or conductor took it upon themselves to reorchestrate Sibelius. You just don't mess with perfection!

I can certainly understand reorchestrating Schumann's symphonies, and I think reorchestrating Beethoven is almost (I repeat: almost) justified. I agree, however, with the majority on this thread, that Sibelius just can't be messed with. His orchestration is pretty well central to his idiom, and if you take away the orchestration, you take away a good deal of what makes a Sibelius symphony a Sibelius symphony. It's just wrong.

World Violist wrote:

His orchestration is pretty well central to his idiom, and if you take away the orchestration, you take away a good deal of what makes a Sibelius symphony a Sibelius symphony. It's just wrong.

My goodness, is that true! Sibelius's orchestration is so charcteristic, that to change it basically ruins the true Sibelius experience.

Was it someone in another forum who called his orchestration "clumsy?"

I don't think for one minute that Beethoven would have orchestrated his Choral Symphony in the style of Mahler, had he been of that generation. Looking at a work such as Prokofiev's 'Classical' Symphony, one can believe that Haydn or Mozart might have written it nad they been around in the 20th Century. I don't honestly think that anything is to be gained by re-orchestrating music by any of the great masters. I remarked that in Schumann's case an argument could be put up, indeed Sibelius pointed out that orchestration was not Schumann's strongest point and I quote 'Construction was not his strongest side, and as far as orchestration is concerned there is a certain degree of helplessness. He believed that by doubling with two different instruments [that is, both playing the same notes] he could produce a stronger forte. In fact it produces the opposite effect'.
In spite of Sibelius's comments he prefared Schumann's symphonies in there original garb, and I must say that as with Beethoven I agree.--kp