Should you change a composer's music?

I was running through something the other day that I arranged a year ago.  I hadn’t played it in probably six months, so I printed out the arrangement and was reading it.

As I played, I found myself thinking that I must have written some things down wrong.  Some of it made no sense to me.  After I tried to play it once, I quit looking at the music and just played what I wanted. 

Few would argue that I have the right to change my own music.  But what if I wanted to change the music of someone else?

I read a post over on James Koert’s blog that referenced this article in the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703580904574638380890512334.html

The article was written by a concert pianist who was discussing whether performers should change the work of the composer.  He says yes, but the reality is that there is an ongoing fierce debate about this issue with plenty of emotional fireworks.  If a performer dares to suggest that she can change Bach’s music for example, she will be immediately called arrogant for daring to suggest that she “can improve on Bach.”

This mindset that some composers’ work must never be changed is dubious and it is dangerous to the development of musicians that actually want to be functional (useful).  Granted, there are a handful of classical musicians that can make a difference in this world performing beautiful classical music exactly like it is written.  Of course, the chance of being one of those people is about as likely as being a point guard in the NBA.

The rest of us live in a world where we play in church or other events.  We normally do not get enough practice time and we are not virtuosos.  Sometimes, the music in front of us was written by a vocalist instead of a pianist and is pretty much unplayable to begin with.

Pianists need to feel free to change any music in front of them and they need to know how to do it.  They should not be accused of arrogance because they attempt to make music better, or at least better for them.  And they should be taught how to modify music to better work for them.

If you play my music, you are welcome to change it.  I may not like your changes or I might like them enough to steal them for myself.  Regardless, I will not call you arrogant.

The same should be true for any music you play in church.

And frankly, the same should be true for (don’t gasp!) Bach.

After all, Bach was not opposed to changing his own music.  He obviously did not feel it was inspired because we have varying manuscripts of the same music.  The same is true for Chopin and others.  In fact, those composers valued improvisation and undoubtedly encouraged it.  I can imagine that if they were alive today, they would be astounded to think that some believe their work to be untouchable.

There is something to be said for changing Bach and other composers to make their music more relevant to today.  Some musicians have tried very successfully.  I will talk about that in a future post.