A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Score, Playing from

SCORE, PLAYING FROM. The Art of playing from Score forms one of the most necessary branches of a thorough musical education: and it is desirable that the Student should endeavour to master its difficulties at a very early period. Clever Choristers frequently read from Score with great fluency; more especially those educated in Cathedrals in which the original editions of Boyce, Arnold, Croft, Greene, and other Masters of the English School are preferred to modern reprints. For no great advantage can exist without some compensatory drawback; and it is notorious that the modern practice of printing the Accompaniment exactly as it is intended to be played, while it gives to hundreds of amateurs their only chance of playing it, sadly diminishes the number of those who, going to the heart of the matter, unite themselves with the Composer's intention by tracing the involutions of the Voice Parts.

The first qualification needed by the Student who desires to play from Score at sight is, an intimate familiarity with the C, G, and F Clefs, in all their forms.^[1] The second is the power of reading from four, or any greater number of Staves, simultaneously. And to these must be added, the knowledge necessary for filling in the Harmony indicated by the Figures placed under a Thorough-Bass. He who has satisfactorily mastered these three preliminary difficulties will soon be able to read a Vocal Score; and, if he will only be careful to reproduce the interweavings of the Vocal Parts, with the nearest approach to literal accuracy which the nature of Keyed Instruments permits, availing himself of the assistance afforded by the Figured Bass, only when the actual Part-writing becomes too complicated to admit the possibility of its transference notatim to the Key-board, he will be able to accompany with a self-reliance which can never be acquired by those who trust to the facilities offered by an 'arrangement,' however good that 'arrangement' may be.

In order to play effectively from an Orchestral Score, two additional qualifications are necessary: an intimate acquaintance with the principles of Instrumentation; and a sound judgment, to be acquired only by long experience, and careful listening to the effect produced by certain Instrumental combinations. The Student will naturally begin by playing Compositions written for Stringed Instruments alone, or Voices accompanied by Stringed Instruments; such as Handel's Overtures, and a multitude of his Songs and Choruses. The chief difficulty to be encountered here, is that of adapting Violin passages to the Key-board, in cases in which their exact transference is impossible; as in such instances as

which must necessarily be played in the following, or some analogous form.

But little additional difficulty is presented by Scores enriched with Parts for Oboes and Bassoons, beyond the judgment necessary for indicating the desirable contrast between the Stringed and Wind Instruments. But, with the 'Transposing Instruments,' the case is very different. The first power to be attained is that of reducing Horn and Trumpet passages, from the Key of C, into that in which the Composition stands. Good examples for practice will be found in Haydn's Symphonies, which are constantly written for Oboes, Bassoons, and Horns, in combination with each other. More puzzling still, to the uninitiated, are Clarinet Parts; which, as already explained,^[2] are written either a Major Second or a Minor Third higher than the Violins, and, when used with Horns or Trumpets, constantly involve the necessity for reading in three different Keys at once, as in the following passage from 'Mi tradi' in 'Il Don Giovanni.'

which is really intended to sound thus—

Much discussion has lately taken place, in English Musical Periodicals, concerning the desirableness of simplifying the appearance of Orchestral Scores by writing the Parts for Transposing Instruments in the Keys in which they are intended to sound. At first sight the suggestion seems reasonable enough; but there are grave, if not insuperable objections to it. In the first place, it presupposes an amount of knowledge, on the part of the copyist, which few copyists possess. In accordance with our present practice, the separate Parts are transcribed exactly as they stand in the Score; whereas, were the new suggestion adopted, they would all be at the mercy of the copyist's aptitude for transposing correctly. Again, the root of the new idea is, the desire for providing a royal road, where no royal road can, by any possibility, exist, or would be of any use if it could. Surely, the Student who can read, simultaneously, five or six Staves, written in as many different Clefs, need not be afraid of the very slight additional difficulty of transposing a Clarinet Part. The Accompanyist who cannot transpose fluently at sight is incapable of efficiently performing the rôle he has undertaken: and the suggestion we deprecate is calculated rather to encourage his slothfulness, than to afford him any real help. If Art is to progress, in earnest, it will gain nothing by smoothing the road to superficial knowledge, and thereby setting a premium upon half-heartedness, to the manifest disadvantage of those who think no amount of study too great for the attainment of a thorough acquaintance with the arcana taught by the Great Masters.

We therefore counsel the Student to make a bold attack upon the difficulties we have pointed out; and, after having acquired the power of reading Clarinet Parts, to go on bravely to those written for the Corno di Bassetto; playing from the Scores of Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Weber, Mendelssohn, and Spohr, in the order in which we have here mentioned them; and, if need be, proceeding from these to the works of more modern writers, and even to Compositions scored for a Military Band. His progress, after the first steps are surmounted, will depend mainly upon the amount of experience he is able to gain, from careful listening to the performance of the Orchestral Works of Great Masters. The reproduction of an effect once heard is an easy matter, compared to the operation of imagining one suggested only by the appearance of the Score: and it is by carefully noting such effects, and remembering the combinations which produce them, that the Student strengthens his judgment, and eventually becomes an accomplished Player from Score.

[ W. S. R. ]

1. See the formulæ on page 429a.
2. See p. 433a.