Different the Second Time: Variation Brings Life to the Music

It got me thinking about the way repeats are rendered in our concert-hall performances. Certainly it's impossible to imagine orchestras improvising variations for repeated sections. But when a repeat is taken, in recitals or even in concertos, it would be nice to hear the soloist play around with the melodic line a bit. So many performances I have come across are given with the repeat taken precisely in the manner of the first statement -- not merely the same notes, but the exact same tempo, dynamics, and phrasing. To me this makes no sense, especially today, when we know the score far better than listeners did in the 18^th century. Remember, in Beethoven's time even a conscientious listener might have only gotten to hear the Eroica Symphony a half dozen times in his life. Today, with electronic reproduction and long subscription seasons, serious listeners have heard it fifty or a hundred times, and the repeat doesn't serve its old function of impressing the principal musical ideas in our minds. 

Therefore, if a conductor is going to take repeats, he ought to consider using the second statement of the exposition to develop the performance, to propel it in some direction, and to introduce some new ideas to the articulation and phrasing of the music. Clearly this cannot be capricious, or different purely for the sake of being different, but it does seem to me it would add some dramatic shape and momentum to a performance. And it is so clear to me that adding the unexpected, bringing the element of surprise into the concert hall, has to be a positive development. I'm sure someone will accuse me of promoting a "cheap trick" or something like that, but I don't think so at all. Every piece of literature that we read telling us about the life of classical music in the 18^th and 19^th centuries indicates an element of theater, of the unexpected, of drama, that is all too often missing today.

And this reminds me of a set of old 78 RPM records I once had containing Bruckner's Fifth Symphony, performed by (I believe) the Saxon State Symphony under Karl Böhm. Side 11 (if I remember correctly) was the first part of the third movement, the Scherzo. Side 12 was the middle section, the Trio. Sides 13-18, perhaps, were the finale. As I'm sure you know, dear reader, the Scherzo repeats itself after the Trio in any classically structured symphony. So how did this work?  Simple. The label of side 12 said something like, "please play side 11 again before proceeding to side 13."  How's that for a truly unvaried repeat?