# To exclude repeats, is to exclude the composer's intentions



## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

I am a huge fan of Uchida. I love how she cares on considering all repeats in Schubert's sonatas. That's one of the reasons I love her piano works, especially for our dear Schubert, and that's why I love Mutti in his symphonies.
If the composers' repeats are in the score, why omit them? For me that's the same as recomposing.
It also becomes really annoying to search for a version, because each interpreter omit something the other does not. It is frustrating. The score is there, so it should be respected.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

It is obviously not the same as recomposing, although it might be a drastic choice and produce undesirable results. (It has been the kind of alteration that is generally considered in practice to be acceptable on the part of the performer.)


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Back in the day there were no recordings so repeats also served to ingrain the music in the minds of the audience.

I think it’s really at the discretion of a sensitive interpreter. Sometimes taking all the repeats is overkill IMO.


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## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

i think Schubert put so many repeats because he wants that
he wouldn't approve the exclusion, I talked to him yesterday by Cosmic Mail and he said Brendel sucks


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

^^^ Brendel just called me to say that he still likes Schubert, and all is forgiven if he wants to make up.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

IMO discretion should be used. In a lot of Schubert (i.e. the string quintet and 9th symphony) I _really_ don't like it when repeats are included, and generally if the exposition is longer than 4 minutes I would really prefer it wasn't repeated, unless there's a clear first/second ending that changes the character of the music the second time around. I can't really buy the "you're altering the composer's intentions" argument because it was just such a standard device at the time that people like Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert used it a lot on "autopilot" simply because it was the custom. In his 2nd symphony, Brahms even said that taking the repeat was optional since he just included it due to tradition. So ultimately I think it's up to the performer and how they want to convey their interpretation.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I think in some music in sonata form I would agree, for example in Beethoven's "Waldstein" and Op. 111 sonatas. However in Bach and other Baroque composers my understanding is that in the repeated sections of e.g. a dance movement in a suite, the performer was supposed to add some "personalizations" instead repeating sections note for note.


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## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

well, Schubert seems to be one of the composers that most apply such repeats, right?
Are there other composers who do similar amount of repeats, to the point that different recordings can vary substantially different in length due to the interpreters' particular decisions regarding the repeats?
I honestly only know Schubert that use repeats to such an extent.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

aioriacont said:


> well, Schubert seems to be one of the composers that most apply such repeats, right?
> Are there other composers who do similar amount of repeats, to the point that different recordings can vary substantially different in length due to the interpreters' particular decisions regarding the repeats?
> I honestly only know Schubert that use repeats to such an extent.


Repeats occur frequently in sonata form -- Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc etc. Every one of Bach's Goldberg Variations too is made up of two repeated parts. So are the dance movements in Bach's instrumental suites. If you observe repeats in the Goldbergs, it takes over an hour to perform the whole thing. If like Gould '55 or Kirkpatrick late 50s you don't, then half that time.  With Bach, sometimes performers will repeat the first section but not the second after the final cadence. It has varied I guess, but the pendulum right now seems to be in the direction of "observe repeats".


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## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

consuono said:


> Repeats occur frequently in sonata form -- Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc etc. Every one of Bach's Goldberg Variations too is made up of two repeated parts. So are the dance movements in Bach's instrumental suites. If you observe repeats in the Goldbergs, it takes over an hour to perform the whole thing. If like Gould '55 or Kirkpatrick late 50s you don't, then half that time.  With Bach, sometimes performers will repeat the first section but not the second after the final cadence. It has varied I guess, but the pendulum right now seems to be in the direction of "observe repeats".


thanks!! True, I just remembered this from the Goldberg's.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Yes, omitting a repeat isn't what the composer wrote or wanted. Sometimes. They should be respected unless we know that the composer himself omitted them. In symphonic works the repeats are a bit more tricky. In Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven they are more important. As a listener and player though I am grateful when first movement repeats are ignored, especially in Brahms, Dvorak, and dare I say it, Mahler. It might mess of the formal balance and all that - rubbish!


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

Kenneth Gilbert's notes for his recording of the Goldberg Variations said that neither taking none nor all of the repeats was demonstrating critical thinking.

IIRC, he argued (I'm paraphrasing here) that some of the variations were palate cleansing interludes that did not call for repetition.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

In the Goldbergs, I’m partial to taking only the first repeat in each variation, but I’m not currently aware of any performances that do that. The worst is being wishy-washy about which repeats to take (like Gould ’81). Be consistent and not arbitrary! I do agree with Gilbert’s assessment though.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

As a performer, I'll often observe repeats for a far more selfish reason: It makes a piece take up more time in a program, and requires no extra learning.

But I also learned long ago that if something is repeated note-for-note it should be given a different interpretation . . . I'll bring out the secondary melodies on the second time through, or even add rubatos or fermatas where I played it straight through the first time.

I use this little trick all the time when musical directing operettas . . . there are many songs that have repeated verses, and it's nice to change them up slightly.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

sometimes repeats can be used to build a sense of anticipation for something to come, rather than just being a pedantic device. I know Brahms also does this well.

exposition -> [repeat bars] -> development & recapitulation -> [repeat bars] -> coda.
I find the way the transitions are written in the [repeat bars] of this (the first movement) pretty effective:

0:30


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## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> sometimes repeats can be used to build a sense of anticipation for something to come, rather than just being a pedantic device. I know Brahms also does this well.
> 
> exposition -> [repeat bars] -> development & recapitulation -> [repeat bars] -> coda.
> I find the way the transitions are written in the [repeat bars] of this (the first movement) pretty effective:
> ...


realy nice! That's one of the reasons I so much need versions with the repeats, I think it is the most faithful to convey the building of the melody, or the climaxes the composer intended.


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## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

consuono said:


> I think in some music in sonata form I would agree, for example in Beethoven's "Waldstein" and Op. 111 sonatas. However in Bach and other Baroque composers my understanding is that in the repeated sections of e.g. a dance movement in a suite, the performer was supposed to add some "personalizations" instead repeating sections note for note.


that makes a lot of sense. Do you think this could also be linked to an improvisation character each performer could add?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

From my perspective, how repeats are played is more significant than the issue of observance.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

aioriacont said:


> that makes a lot of sense. Do you think this could also be linked to an improvisation character each performer could add?


Yeah, in a way, in knowing how to spice things up with different ornamentation or whatever other expressive devices. I don't think repeats from that era were necessarily meant to be an exact reprise of the section.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Observing all of the repeats in works of Schubert can be silly. I'm currently playing the little A major sonata (D. 664). In the first movement, repeating the exposition is fine, but I can't see under any circumstances repeating the part after the double bar (development and recap). Same for the finale.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

Haitink conducted a Mozart symphony at the Proms a couple of years ago with all the repeats. I thought it would never end.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Repeats are evil by any measure and often seem to serve only to lengthen the work. Were these guys paid by the minute?

Schubert is, as noted, one of the main offenders. Let’s look at the first movement of his 5th Symphony (I’m using Immerseel’s performance):

Exposition: 1.83 minutes
Exposition repeat (identical): 1.83 minutes
Development: 0.87 minutes
Recapitulation (identical to expo but truncated and lacking the key change): 1.68 minutes
Coda: 0.35 minutes

In other words, even though the movement is quite short, Schubert couldn’t be bothered to fill even half of it with new music. For the most part it consists of repeats. Its longest passage, the expo, is heard no fewer than three times – the initial repeat and then its reappearance as the recap.

So why should we honor the “composer’s intent” when that intent often seems to be to demonstrate little more than laziness and lack of industry?


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Repeats are evil by any measure and often seem to serve only to lengthen the work. Were these guys paid by the minute?
> 
> Schubert is, as noted, one of the main offenders. Let's look at the first movement of his 5th Symphony (I'm using Immerseel's performance):
> 
> ...


Perhaps if the music is appealing enough to hear more than once in a lifetime, it's appealing enough to hear more than once in a sitting.

At any rate, that seems to be the premise underlying an extraordinary amount of music, well beyond Schubert or the classical tradition. Look at popular music in just about any era, up to and including today.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Repeats are evil by any measure and often seem to serve only to lengthen the work. Were these guys paid by the minute?
> Schubert is, as noted, one of the main offenders. Let's look at the first movement of his 5th Symphony (I'm using Immerseel's performance):
> Exposition: 1.83 minutes
> Exposition repeat (identical): 1.83 minutes
> ...


Although I don't really regard Schubert's methods of development highly, I think judging composers by only looking at the "time" they take in going about doing things may not be the most meaningful way to look at things. (Especially when you consider the "golden ratio" was the norm in the Classical era: there is even a movement exactly 100 bars in length: 38 bars of exposition and 62 bars of development-recapitulation).
Take Beethoven (who is often considered the "undisputed master" in this area) for example, 
In Beethoven's *5th* symphony, there are sections of "beeping sound" (for lack of a better term) and an oboe solo:





















For some, this is the best way for development, the best way to evoke "desolate" feelings.
But for others, this is just "prolonged", feels as if Beethoven is trying to "lengthen the time", by intentionally having long pauses and lengthening phrases. I think the arpeggios in the largo section of the Tempest piano sonata 1st movement are an example of this "controversy": 



Likewise, you can write "new music" of longer duration and still thought to not have much substance. (I'm not necessarily saying Beethoven doesn't have substance). I think it's a matter of perspective. I think Beethoven's 6th symphony 1st movement is another that can spark controversy as well:




For some, this feels "transcendent", but is it objectively the best way? I don't know. I'm reminded that there is no "right answer" in music. Just "apples and oranges".


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I think that Beethoven's fifth is a wonderful symphony (I prefer it over any symphony by Mozart for example) and believe that the talking about "beeping sounds" is just bullcrap of people who don't get his music, but it's usual for me to exclude some repeats in works of the Classical era, Beethoven included. I think that it's OK in some cases, if I don't feel that the repeat is important for the structure of the piece. For instance, if I'm listening to a sonata form in which the development section seems to be a culmination of the material of the exposition, I really want the first repeat. I think that it's the case with the first movement of Beethoven's fifth and Schubert's eighth symphonies for example. I don't care for repeats of the development+recapitulation sections though, and usually remove them with a music edition program.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Allerius said:


> I think that Beethoven's fifth is a wonderful symphony (I prefer it over any symphony by Mozart for example) and believe that the talking about "beeping sounds" is just bullcrap of people who don't get his music


Don't get me wrong, I too consider it a wonderful symphony. And the "beeping sounds" - a unique expression that evokes "desolate feelings". It's just that I couldn't find a more suitable term to describe them.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> Don't get me wrong, I too consider it a wonderful symphony. And the "beeping sounds" - a unique expression that evokes "desolate feelings". It's just that I couldn't find a more suitable term to describe them.


Of course. By the way, can you mention some reliable source that also uses this term applied to this symphony? Or that talks about the "controversy" in the _Tempest_ sonata?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Allerius said:


> Of course. By the way, can you mention some reliable source that also uses this term applied to this symphony? Or that talks about the "controversy" in the _Tempest_ sonata?


How _reliable_ is this, in comparison?:


KenOC said:


> Repeats are evil by any measure and often seem to serve only to lengthen the work. Were these guys paid by the minute? Schubert is, as noted, one of the main offenders.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> How _reliable_ is this, in comparison?:


It's the opinion of a member.

But when you say this:



hammeredklavier said:


> In Beethoven's 5th symphony, there are sections of "beeping sound" (...) For some, this is the best way for development, the best way to evoke "desolate" feelings.
> *But for others*, this is just "prolonged", feels as if Beethoven is trying to "lengthen the time", by intentionally having long pauses and lengthening phrases. I think the arpeggios in the largo section of the Tempest piano sonata 1st movement are an example *of this controversy*.


...you imply that there _is_ a controversy according to _others_, it's not only your opinion. I'm just curious to know who are these _others_. =)


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

The only place a composer's intentions are met precisely is in the minds of that composer. Even a composer performing his own work is generally only going to give us an approximation. As soon as a musician takes on the role of performing a composer's music they become co-creators and should be given some leeway for their own perspective and interpretational choices. It is up to the listeners to decide how successful those interpretations are. 

Therefore repeats are optional in my view. They have become less important in the era of recordings, indeed many claim that they find some repeats in Schubert and Mozart completely unnecessary, I think this is because we are more familiar with the music/themes so we don't need to hear them repeated again. Had we been at the premiere of the work, and heard it with repeats we might feel differently. 

In addition to this we have evidence of composers like Brahms ignoring his own repeats sometimes when conducting his own works. So I don't think these things are set in stone. A lot of the issues some modern listeners have like claiming all repeats must always be observed is one that the listener has just made up and it is not backed by historical evidence. 

Another one of these issues is the contemporary listener obsessed with listening to entire works and never individual movements which they refer to as 'bleeding chunks'. However in the past it was quite common for individual movements to be performed, sometimes individual movements repeated, and sometimes other performances were actually sandwiched into a performance of another work like a symphony. For example a virtuoso violinist coming in to perform something in between movements of a Beethoven symphony. 

So my view is listen to music the way you want to listen to it, there is not one right way, and the idea of having to do it one certain way to respect the composers is false. It is just a made up idea that is not backed up by historical documentation.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

All kidding aside, the issue of repeats was sometimes difficult in the classical era. On the one hand, the composer wanted to fix the main theme, subsidiary theme, and all the rest in the listener’s head prior to the development, given that performances were likely to be rare and separated by years. On the other hand, there was the issue of impatience on the part of listeners and even, in extended works, the likelihood of monkey-butt.

Beethoven, for instance, was unsure whether to repeat the expo in the Eroica, given that work’s heroic length. In the end, and only after multiple rehearsals both ways, he decided on the expo repeat (per his brother’s letters). But it could have gone either way, and we should be cautious in claiming that his ultimate decision had any claim on blessing from God almighty.


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## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven, for instance, was unsure whether to repeat the expo in the Eroica, given that work's heroic length. In the end, and only after multiple rehearsals both ways, he decided on the expo repeat (per his brother's letters). But it could have gone either way, and we should be cautious in claiming that his ultimate decision had any claim on blessing from God almighty.


Beethoven was always unsure of everything. That's why it took him years to finish stuff Schubert would have done much better while taking a bleep*hit in the toilet


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

aioriacont said:


> Beethoven was always unsure of everything. That's why it took him years to finish stuff Schubert would have done much better while taking a bleep*hit in the toilet


Beethoven was a perfectionist. His art is full of craft and thought. His methods are distinct to Schubert's: the latter would rely on long melodies for effect, while Beethoven would work with small motifs and make great development sections with them later. I don't think that Schubert would do Beethoven's "stuff" better, nor that Beethoven would do Schubert's better.


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## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

Allerius said:


> Beethoven was a perfectionist. His art is full of craft and thought. His methods are distinct to Schubert's: the latter would rely on long melodies for effect, while Beethoven would work with small motifs and make great development sections with them later. I don't think that Schubert would do Beethoven's "stuff" better, nor that Beethoven would do Schubert's better.


Indeed, nice comparison.

What you have to say about Bach's way of composing? Would be closer to one of those two, or is it a totally different approach?


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

aioriacont said:


> Beethoven was always unsure of everything. That's why it took him years to finish stuff Schubert would have done much better while taking a bleep*hit in the toilet


This is extremely subjective. If that's how Beethoven liked to work and if his piano sonatas, quartets, symphonies etc are the result of it, I don't mind at all that he took more time to compose. One could also suspect that composing something like his late string quartets or Symphony no.9 while being deaf would take slightly more time than from a person with a normal hearing. You seem to be claiming that whatever Beethoven ever did, Schubert would have done better. This is wholly a matter of opinions. In my personal opinion, despite being very fond of Schubert's music, I often prefer Beethoven's works to Schubert's in major classical music subgenres like piano sonatas and symphonies. I just like their profundity but our preferences are largely a result of what we appreciate the most - some appreciate melodies, some great counterpoint, others virtuous orchestration etc.


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## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

annaw said:


> This is extremely subjective. If that's how Beethoven liked to work and if his piano sonatas, quartets, symphonies etc are the result of it, I don't mind at all that he took more time to compose. One could also suspect that composing something like his late string quartets or Symphony no.9 while being deaf would take slightly more time than from a person with a normal hearing. You seem to be claiming that whatever Beethoven ever did, Schubert would have done better. This is wholly a matter of opinion. In my personal opinions, despite being very fond of Schubert's music, I often prefer Beethoven's works to Schubert's in major classical music subgenres like piano sonatas and symphonies. I just like their profundity but our preferences are largely a result of what we appreciate the most - some appreciate melodies, some great counterpoint, others virtuous orchestration etc.


sadly, neither of them has blazing guitar riffs and catchy choruses as Manowar


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

aioriacont said:


> sadly, neither of them has blazing guitar riffs and catchy choruses as Manowar


...but Manowar doesn't have as much contrast of dynamics and rhythms, the amazing counterpoint, the powerful development sections and codas nor the details of Beethoven, nor the long melodies and poetic harmonies of Schubert. Also, blazing guitar riffs are of course great, but my opinion is that intimate piano lines and transcendent violin writing can be even better.

Not that a big orchestra can't also blaze:





















Beethoven on guitar:


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Philip Glass and Ravel's Bolero could be greatly improved by not taking the repeats. And Bruckner's symphonies would be only 20 minutes long! :devil:


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

I love how Leonhardt often skips repeats in Bach. Especially in the Goldbergs. 

I couldn't really care less about Bach's intentions on the matter!


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

aioriacont said:


> Beethoven was always unsure of everything. That's why it took him years to finish stuff Schubert would have done much better while taking a bleep*hit in the toilet


Schubert may have composed quicker, but he sure makes his listeners suffer through the extended longevities that resulted from this insouciance. "Heavenly lengths", indeed.


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## Iota (Jun 20, 2018)

ribonucleic said:


> Kenneth Gilbert's notes for his recording of the Goldberg Variations said that neither taking none nor all of the repeats was demonstrating critical thinking.
> 
> IIRC, he argued (I'm paraphrasing here) that some of the variations were palate cleansing interludes that did not call for repetition.


I should try and find those Gilbert notes somewhere. The Goldberg Variations is currently the only piece that springs to mind in which repeats feel virtually a sine qua non for me. They seem unbalanced and unnaturally hurried without them (one of the reasons I've more or less given up on the Gould recordings). But the idea that a few of them might not be repeated for purposes of balance seems an interesting one.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Repeats have a lot to do with sonata format. They are often necessary to reconcile at the tonic. They seem to have been more important to some composers than others.

Mozart's Gran Partita has more than 30 repeats.

I once heard Stokowski perform Mozart's Symphony 35 without repeats. It was over in 15 minutes.

I wonder if anyone knows if Ligeti used repeats in his microtonal music.

_The Goldberg Variations is currently the only piece that springs to mind in which repeats feel virtually a sine qua non for me. _

I never liked the Goldbergs in part because they were so repetitive. I also wasn't crazy about listening to them on the keyboard.

I located a performance rewritten for 4 woodwinds shorn of repeats. It is over in 35 minutes. I like it a lot better this way.

As to Schubert, his greatest song IMO is _Ganymed,_ about 4 mintues' average duration. Nothing repeats in that song.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

larold said:


> I once heard Stokowski perform Mozart's Symphony 35 without repeats. It was over in 15 minutes.


You seem to say this in every thread about "repeats". But it's really not that big of a deal in most recordings:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

larold said:


> Repeats have a lot to do with sonata format.


Not always:









^this piece takes more than 10 minutes to perform if played as written (the repeats are written out in score)


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> (the repeats are written out in score)


Well, that certainly makes the composer's intentions clear, doesn't it?


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