To Crescendo or Not to Crescendo?

At long last, here's another post about an incorrect marking in an important bassoon part. There's something about finding these kinds of mistakes that I find weirdly satisfying, and I hope that pointing them out can help other bassoonists as well.

This time, we'll be looking at the fiendishly fast excerpt from the third movement of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G. This excerpt is certainly a test of auditioners' ability to move their fingers quickly and evenly, but the biggest musical challenge is performing the written dynamics. The excerpt begins and remains piano until there is a mezzo forte marked two measures before rehearsal 15:

I had always wondered what to do about that mezzo forte: should it be suddenly loud there? Or should I add a crescendo leading up to it, risking a committee thinking that I wasn't doing exactly what was on the page? I even posed this quandary to other bassoonists, who had differing opinions.

Turns out I should have checked the score earlier than I did. In the score, there is a crescendo marked before the mezzo forte:

To get extra verification that the score and not the part is correct, I looked at what else is going on in the orchestra in that measure:

Almost every instrument in the orchestra crescendos in that measure, solidifying the case that there is a crescendo missing in the bassoon part.

You may be asking yourself, "So what?" This crescendo might seem like the least of your worries in this very difficult excerpt. Here's why I think it matters:

1. It's not a great idea to ignore markings from the composer.
   
2. If you're playing this piece in the orchestra, you will not be heard if you're the only one not crescendoing in that measure.
   
3. If you're playing this excerpt in an audition, there will be many auditioners who can play this excerpt cleanly. However, there will be very few who make anything of it musically. Playing it cleanly is the first hurdle, but playing it with dynamics—including that crescendo—will make you stand out.
   

The only remaining question is whether it is at all risky in an audition to add a crescendo that isn't in the part. In this case, I do not think it is a risk, primarily because it makes musical sense (especially because Ravel did actually intend for it to be there) and because the committee will be happy if you do the dynamics at all. To help things along even further, if you are on an audition panel where this is an excerpt, make sure that the crescendo gets added to the parts provided to the auditioners and the committee.

Perhaps that "first hurdle" of playing this excerpt cleanly is good material for a future blog post on practice strategies, but for now, enjoy your newfound freedom to crescendo to that mezzo forte!