Two recordings, one sonata: what duration cannot tell you
A candidate is comparing two recordings of the same eighteenth-century keyboard sonata movement. The score is 84 bars in 4/4, marked Allegro, with both halves repeated. Recording A, on a modern grand piano, lasts 4:12, takes no repeats, ornaments the line heavily and uses sustained pedal; the candidate clocks it at about ♩=76. Recording B, on a fortepiano, lasts 4:05, takes both repeats, uses almost no pedal, and sits near ♩=168. The draft opening sentence reads: "B is the faster and therefore the more authentic performance, since the score says Allegro and A is too slow." The examination question asks for a comparison of tempo, articulation and ornamentation with reference to the score, and warns against unsupported claims about the composer's intentions. The candidate has the score in front of them but no access to the recordings during writing.
1. Explain why the draft's first sentence is unsafe, using the timings and bar counts. What should replace it?
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The sentence confuses duration with tempo. Work in bars per second rather than minutes. A plays 84 bars in 4:12, about 3.0 seconds per bar. B plays both halves, so about 168 bars, in 4:05, about 1.46 seconds per bar. B is therefore roughly twice as fast at bar level while lasting almost exactly as long - the repeats hide the tempo difference. That single calculation dismantles the phrase "B is faster overall".
The second problem is the word authentic. Authenticity is a claim about evidence - instruments, sources, documented practice - not a property that faster playing possesses. Calling A "too slow" is also an interpretation, not an observation: Allegro is a character marking, not a metronome figure, and a broad reading can be defended or attacked, but not proved wrong by assertion.
The replacement should do three things: report measured facts (bars, repeats, pulse), describe what is heard (pedal, articulation, ornament shape), and hedge the evaluative claim. A comparison that says "B's pulse is about twice A's, and B's repeats mean it also plays twice as many bars" is safer and more impressive than one that ranks the performers.
2. Rewrite the opening as three defensible sentences the candidate could actually support in the examination.
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Each sentence should be checkable against the score or against something the candidate can hear, and should stop short of claims about intention.
Sentence 1 (measurement). "The two recordings differ far more in tempo than their total durations suggest: with both halves repeated B plays about 168 bars in 4:05, while A plays 84 bars in 4:12, so B's pulse is roughly twice as fast despite the near-identical running time."
Sentence 2 (description). "A's pulse of about ♩=76 is broad for an Allegro and is combined with sustained pedal and a heavily ornamented line, whereas B's pulse near ♩=168 is brisk, with little pedal and a more detached articulation."
Sentence 3 (hedged evaluation). "Both are recognisably readings of the same Allegro marking; judging which is closer to period practice would need evidence about tempo conventions and instrument, which these two recordings alone cannot supply."
What makes this work: sentence 1 is arithmetic, sentence 2 is description the examiner can verify by listening, and sentence 3 states the limit of the evidence. The draft's fault was to do evaluation first and evidence never, which is the pattern the question is designed to catch.
3. Name two further observations that would strengthen the comparison, and one that should be avoided.
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Strengthen. First, ornamentation type rather than quantity: whether ornaments are played as short grace notes taking time from the preceding or following note, or written out as full melodic notes, and whether the same ornament is varied on the repeat. This is observable and directly relevant to the question's mention of ornamentation. Second, articulation and texture, tied to the instrument: on the fortepiano, decay is short and the attack clearer, so repeated notes and Alberti-type figures separate; on the modern grand with pedal, the same figures blend. A candidate who links articulation to the instrument's decay is showing the kind of reasoning the comparison asks for.
A third useful observation would be what changes on the repeat - added ornament, different registration, altered dynamics - since B's repeats give material A cannot offer.
Avoid. Any claim about what the composer wanted or heard, and any ranking of the performers as more or less authentic. Both are unsupportable from two recordings, and the question explicitly warns about the first. Also avoid the reverse error of treating the fortepiano as automatically correct: an instrument is evidence of a sound world, not a certificate of good interpretation.