Hesitation, Repetition, Deviation

It was sad to hear of the recent death of Nicholas Parsons, the genial presenter of Radio 4’s popular comedy programme Just a Minute.   “Without hesitation, repetition or deviation” has become a catchphrase used in common parlance.  It is something that any musician who presumes to stand up and talk about the music about to be played would be wise to bear in mind.  As audiences may have noted, I am still very much a learner in this respect. I’d only last a few seconds on that programme. Turning the rules upside down to make hesitation, repetition and deviation permissible in a musical context, some thoughts have struck me in relation to the works that we are playing in our current concert series. Hesitation I suppose the most obvious musical manifestation of hesitation is the pause, indicated by the composer in the printed music by what could be described as a dot with a sideways bracket above it, looking a bit like an all-knowing eye and eyebrow.  There isn’t a single pause in Mozart K 421. There are several in the Webern Bagatelles – momentary lulls in the intense abundance of textures and expressions. There are a few more in Beethoven’s Op 59 No 1. He was an inveterate pause man, even more than your most avid dog or cat lover.  His most famous work (arguably), his 5th symphony, has two pauses in close succession at the beginning of the piece.  Sometimes the pause is used like this for dramatic effect. At other times it marks an important place in the structure of the music where it is time...