Ruby Rubato!

In the first instalment of the Expressive Gems series, we examined a variety of tempo alterations and their use in musical expression. In this second instalment, we will examine perhaps the most expressive of all our expressive gems  — rubato! Deep and rich, like the colour of a ruby, rubato is an expressive tool with a profound capacity to mine emotional colours from a musical canvass.

From the Italian for "robbed time", tempo rubato, often shortened to rubato, refers to stealing time from one note or set of notes and giving it to another. Stealing time, not rhythm. This is an important distinction because we don’t want to change the rhythm — that’s altering the composition itself. We don’t want to change quarter notes to sixteens or eighths or doubled-dotted whatever … rather the goal of rubato is to apply a sense of push and pull, stretch and release. In other words, slowing down a measure, phrase, or a few notes, (or even lingering on one note!) at the performer’s discretion, and often speeding up the notes that follow, or vice versa.

For example, in a series of quarter notes followed by eighth notes, the quarter notes might be played slower or drawn out for emphasis and the eighth notes that follow might be played slightly faster than the regular tempo in order to have a sense of balance and fluidity to the tempo fluctuations. This is a very simplified, and is some ways, inadequate explanation of a very complex technique, but hopefully it gives you some idea of what rubato is.

Learning to play rubato is an art on its own, a skill that one is always both refining and rediscovering! There’s just no end to how it can be applied! 

Rubato is very subjective and a matter of interpretation by the performer. Let’s examine Franz Schubert’s gorgeous and yearning Valse Sentimentale (Sentimental Waltz) op. 50, no.13 (rated Level 6, RCM). We’ll listen to three different performances with three very different applications of rubato. 

To get the most out of this exercise:

• Listen with the score in front of you. If you don’t have a copy of this public domain piece, you can view or download a free copy here. (michaelkravchuk.com is a great resource for free public domain pieces and the list available is expanding all the time.)

• Examine the score briefly before listening. Note the simple rhythm throughout in 3/4 time. The right hand rhythmic pattern is almost exclusively two half-notes followed by four eighth notes, while the left hand keeps a steading quarter-note rhythm.

• Clap along with the left hand quarter notes while listening to each of these performances, just like you would a song on the radio. You’ll notice that at times your clapping will be in perfect sync with the performance and at other times it will off, by varying degrees, due to the performer’s application of rubato here and there. You cannot keep a steady clapping beat throughout any of these performances!

1. Here’s our first performance, by Dr. Lisa Tahara of the University of Toronto: Did you notice that you could keep a steady beat through large chunks of this  performance and there were only sprinkles of well-placed rubato here and there and that it was fairly predicable? This performance has little rubato.
   

2. Next, we have Dr. Alan Huckleberry’s (University of Iowa) interpretation: Did you notice that it was very difficult to clap along in this performance or anticipate what he was going to do next? This performance has much rubato!

   
   

3. Finally, let’s listen to renowned Italian pianist, Paolo Bordoni (timestamp 09:29 - 10:47):

   Did you notice that this performance was somewhere between the first two in terms of rubato? What I love about Bordoni’s interpretation is that from measure 29 to the end, there’s no more rubato, just a slight ritard on the final measures, creating a beautiful sense of emotions no longer being held back.

Which raises the question, why might a performer want to create a sense of emotions being held back or hesitancy in this piece? What do the title and mood of the piece suggest? Are not our most tender feelings or the most important things we have to say, like “I love you”, often communicated hesitantly? In all three of these performances, rubato is used to create a sense of hesitancy and intensity. In Bordoni’s interpretation, this beautiful hesitancy is finally resolved in measures 29 to the end. Did someone finally get those words out?

So which performance is the correct one?

All of them! It’s all a matter of interpretation, and that may even change over time. One day, depending on your mood, you might prefer the first one. It’s lighter, happier, faster, and a bit bouncy with just a few emotional inflections. The second one is emotionally jam-packed, at times hesitant, at times rushing forward. The third one is subtle, hesitant and ends freely. Which do you prefer?

While some form or another of rubato has arguably been around since the dawn of music, it really came to the fore in piano performance during the Romantic Era. For a deeper dive into the complexity and beauty of rubato, and how it might even be applied to Bach’s music, check out this fascinating podcast.

And come back next time when we examine the wonderfully expressive damper pedal and how it gave the piano wings!