An adult learner may see a natural sign in parentheses and assume it can be ignored. But parentheses sometimes identify the source of a marking rather than a freedom in performance. An editor may have supplied the sign from the musical context even though it is absent from the original sources. Its appearance alone cannot tell you whether to omit it.
Henle editor Dominik Rahmer discusses bar 18 of Rachmaninoff’s G-sharp minor Prelude, Op. 32 No. 12. On the final left-hand beat, he argues that B natural is intended, although both the autograph and first edition omit the natural sign. He supplies it on the evidence of the harmony and the figure immediately following, placing it in parentheses to make the intervention visible. Here the parentheses preserve a distinction between source and editorial judgement; they do not automatically give two pitches equal standing.
Not every edition uses parentheses in the same way. They can mark cautionary accidentals, additions or other explanations, so consult the preface, notation key and critical notes. My judgement is that uncertainty should first prompt the questions ‘Who added what, and why?’ Only then should you decide what to practise. Otherwise, even fluent repetition may turn an unexplored editorial choice into an unquestioned answer.
ScoreFlow
To keep your chosen edition visible on screen, you could try ScoreFlow, Geoffrey Chen’s piano-learning and practice app. Its performance mode displays the original PDF for reference; interpreting the edition still requires reading its explanations yourself.
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