The Listening Service Extra 10 of 12 - Do the correct notes matter?

Tom looks at Schoenberg’s plea to musicians to play the correct notes in his String Trio, and why it matters so much to his serial music...

'A true musician, reading the score during the performance of one of my later works, went to the artists' room and showed the players many errors, faults, and other shortcomings he had observed in their rendition. He was given the very strange answer: "Maybe, but nobody noticed that!" Strange indeed! Strange at first the morale, which compares very well to a viewpoint excusing a crime if it cannot be proven. But strange also the logic to make such a contention when facing a man who has noticed those "differences." It seems, these players expected nobody would notice differences, which probably they themselves did not notice.' - Arnold Schoenberg 1949

Archive audio and photos with kind permission of Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien