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more About scores with missing notes and directions

The fact that not all scores contain all the notes and directions that a musician needs to play an entire piece of music was noted on the previous page. There we were referring to scores from which a composer deliberately omits portions of his piece; the entire piece cannot be played without them. Why does this happen?

There are two main kinds of music where scores may not to contain all the music a musician needs to play a complete piece: cadenzas and jazz.

Cadenzas

Some scores, especially those for orchestral compositions that date from the 18th or previous centuries, contain passages that the composer expects a soloist to play, not an orchestral group. These kinds of solo passages, called cadenzas, feature a performance by a bravura solo instrumentalist whose performance is meant to contrast with that of the the full orchestra or with parts of it. The composer usually intends for cadenza performances to sparkle; he expects the performer to play them as florid, daring, and brilliant display pieces.

There are two types of cadenza passages—one type is written or scored by the composer; the other type is required and described by the composer but not scored by him.

In this second type, the composer specifies and describes the general nature of the cadenza but leaves it up to the soloist to supply the rest of what's needed when he performs his solo before an audience. There is nothing about this second type of cadenza that composers or performers need to apologize for. Indeed, some of the instrumental passages supplied by soloists who perform their own cadenzas are so good they have been recorded and saved for posterity.

Cadenzas come in different flavors. A composer may write a cadenza passage and specify that his version of the cadenza is optional; or he may write a cadenza and specify that his version is mandatory. If a composer specifies that his own cadenza is optional, the soloist is free to displace the composer's cadenza with his own, with the composer's blessing. If the composer's version is mandatory, the composer's version may not be displaced by another version, but at her peril a soloist may choose to suffer the composer's displeasure and insert a cadenza that she writes anyway.

Soloists who write their own cadenzas are usually exceptionally talented (and sometimes egotistic)—they're instrumental artists with a flare for composition who want to show off both their performing skills and their ability to compose. But this is not always the case. Soloists who are not especially ambitious, talented, or egotistic have been known to borrow another performer's version of a cadenza rather than write one of their own.

The composer who leaves cadenzas for performers to write is not normally a lazy or second-rate musician dodging his job; nor is a soloist who writes a cadenza necessarily a performer who seeks to outshine a composer.

Then why would composers and instrumentalists be willing to cooperate so that performers will create musical passages in cadenzas in this manner? Many reasons apply, depending on circumstances:

  • Soloists may accept a composer's invitation to write a cadenza passage for the same reason that they often accept an invitation to play them—because they want to show off their talents.
  • Composers may give popular or successful soloists the opportunity to show off because they respect a soloist's talents.
  • The composer may owe the soloist a favor, or vice versa.
  • A famous or successful performer can be a feather in a composer's hat. A composer may want her to play a new composition to attract an audience to it, and the invitation is a carrot the performer can't or won't refuse.
  • Sometimes a soloist and composer are friends or associates.

A soloist who supplies the missing notes may compose them in advance of a performance and bring them to the performance to play them. In such cases, she will normally memorize her composition before she arrives at the performance venue and play it by heart.

At other times a soloist will improvise the notes omitted by a composer during a performance and on the spur of the moment. Improvised performances like these can be among the most inspiring and exciting anyone will ever hear because the performer's heart and soul is in them.

Sometimes the composer and the performer will be the same person; the soloist will also be the composer. Composers who are talented performers sometimes take the option to leave a cadenza blank when they write a work so that they are in a position to show off their instrumental skills when it comes time to play their own works. Mozart and Beethoven provide two noteworthy examples of composer-performers who improvise their own missing cadenza passages, with Mozart improvising on several instruments, especially the piano, and Beethoven performing mainly on the piano.

Jazz

Scores of many jazz compositions contain all the notes and directions that the composer wants performers to play. But some jazz compositions do not. In jazz, the missing notes in a score are meant by a composer or arranger to be improvised by the instrumentalists.

Some jazz compositions contain a complete set of notes and directions, but the composer expects the performers to improvise by playing their own notes after they have rendered the notes as set down by the composer.

Sometimes the improvisations are the job of a soloist; sometimes they are the job of a group. Solo improvisations are demanding but they're the work of a single person. Imagine the skill it takes for several people to make up music as they go along and still manage to harmonize. Just starting and stopping at the right time is hard enough.

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