I’ve been thinking about a scale of interpretation that ranges from accurate to expressive.
So often, so many ensembles, conductors, and academicians focus on accuracy. They focus on composer’s intent, historically-informed performance practice, and ensuring that each ensemble member correctly reproduces what is in their score.
But I think that the longer I do this, the more I trust myself to make informed editorial decisions to make the interpretation more expressive and emotionally impactful, even at the expense of the notes on the page. And I trust other conductors to do the same for my music. Of course it must come from knowledge, experience, and interpretive skill, but the fact remains that so many of the expressive fine points cannot be notated; so we must imbue our interpretations with those fine points ourselves.
I will change chord voicings in vocal jazz arrangements (informed by knowledge of the arranger’s intent), adjust tempos from the marked versions, and add all sorts of articulations not present in the score. All in service of conveying the composer’s deeper message.
It’s also why I’ve come around to liking the sort of beige performances that appear on the sample CDs sent by publishers, or in the part recording tracks offered by companies like Choral Tracks. They intentionally leave out many of these important elements, precisely so that ensembles can make these decisions for themselves.
“Accurate” performances can turn out to be not very compelling. Slightly inaccurate performances, when those inaccuracies are in the service of expression of underlying musical truth, are generally much more arresting and memorable.