Knowing the Score, Vol. 2

Nine years after the publication of acclaimed DVD Knowing the Score (2005), in which aspects of earlier notations were discussed and elucidated, distinguished pianist Malcolm Bilson has released Knowing the Score, Vol. 2 - A Supplement.

In Knowing the Score, Vol. 2 - A Supplement, recorded before a live audience at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest in March 2014, Bilson examines works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert in great detail and challenges the conventional manner of execution of these works.

Have we lost a speaking language that was easily understood in the nineteenth century?

Can it be regained by returning to a more basic understanding of what eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers so painstakingly communicate in their notations?

In this DVD, Bilson addresses topics including

• The proper reading of rhythmic conventions: Do two sixteenth notes, for example, occupy the same time span as one eighth note?
• Tempo fluctuation: Is changing speed allowed in the music of Beethoven?
• Tempo rubato: The accompaniment stays steady while the right hand, singer, flutist, etc. floats flexibly above it.

Bilson's readings will be construed by some as daring, by others as revelatory.

Knowing the Score, Vol. 2 - A Supplement is presented with English subtitles. It features region-free encoding and is recorded in Dolby Digital Stereo.

Knowing the Score, Vol. 2

Bilson explains in a beguiling way how one phrases the simplest passage, how they are to be read in a way to avoid simply 'playing them through,' how the slurs are to be understood, and how one plays rhythmic subtleties with a certain freedom, always in order to reveal the true 'musical thought'" Carsten Dürer, Piano-News