Pitch Specificity

One of the hazards of our buying into equal-tempered tuning (the artificial system in which all half-steps are equi-distant) is that we stop responding to the particular aspects of particular pitches on particular instruments.

When I am listening to the radio and I hear a string quartet I can tell within seconds whether there is substance in their intonation or whether they are actually trying to sound like a piano.  By substance I mean the awareness that certain pitches resonate differently on the strings according to the way the strings are tuned.  This, in fact, was the entire point of composition for strings for hundreds of years.

Recently my son came into possession of a natural horn, i.e., the valveless horn for which Mozart composed his many horn concertos.  Just imagining how he must have reacted to that sound in order to write such glorious music for it is reason enough to take the instrument seriously.

Turns out that Beethoven wrote one sonata for the instrument plus piano, Op. 17, in 1800.  I checked on my Beethoven timeline:  Before I knew this work I assumed that Beethoven's flow of fourteen brilliant sonatas involving piano began with Op. 22; I changed my mind this morning when I realized that this Op. 17 was written in 1800.

The piece is written off as "fluff" by people who cannot imagine fascination with pitches so colorful that their function disappears into pure lyricism, just by virtue of the intonation.

Singularity: Was it Ever in Fashion?

Given the level of musical conformity that surrounds us it is hard to imagine just how singular the people and the sensibilities were that composed stuff we take for granted as being playable by ten-year-olds.

Schubert's music is a case in point.  Last night by chance I heard snippets of an old recording of Rubinstein playing a minuet movement from a Schubert sonata.  I had to turn it off not because of the playing, but because it seemed unreal that the sound was so sterile:  I know he didn't play like that!  Somewhere in between his playing and the commercially released product the sound got cleaned up.

That cleaning up process corresponds to the notated aspects of the musical score which, being discreet in terms of ink and shapes on the page, encourage corresponding attitudes, no matter how inappropriate.

Along with this super-cleanliness goes an assumption of predictability, good behavior.  You can have it.

When is a Phrase Mark Not a Phrase Mark?

Few articulation markings are as confusing as the slur.  We are told that it indicates a phrase.  How can that be true when the mark is used in so many different ways?

Aren't there different kinds of phrases, or different levels of phrase?  A melodic phrase exerts its power with or without the articulations specified by slurs: we feel the tension of one tone leading to the next whether or not it goes there directly.  Then, too, there are clearly phrases that are interrupted, by rests, for example.  Mozart seems to have had a special fondness for these, as many of his rests are preceded and followed by the same pitch.

I have come to interpret slurs in the early days of piano composition (Beethoven, Schubert) as pedal indications.  Try it; you may be surprised at what you unearth.  If a single slur extends over what look like changes of harmony it might mean that the chords need to be voiced so as to resonate sympathetically under a single pedal.

I know it sounds radical as a proposition.  The amazing thing is that it doesn't actually sound radical on the piano; it just requires an adjustment in favor of the ear over visual analysis.

Isn't it stunning that the first movement of what we call the "Moonlight Sonata" indicates that the whole movement is to be played "senza sordini" (without dampers, i.e., with the damper pedal down) and that there are very few slurs?  This seems to me a clear indication that the melody is in the bass whole notes and that the famous boring triplets are enhancing overtones of the moving bass line.

Try it.  You have nothing to lose but your probably not-previously-acknowledged boredom.

Eavesdropping

Today a listener from one of my recent house recitals described that it felt as though he was eavesdropping on a conversation between me and Haydn.  What a lovely compliment, not just to myself, but also to him--that he would permit himself that degree of intimate involvement.

The cues in Haydn are vocal.  Vocal cues do not require text to be vivid.  They require a physical involvement in direction and in intervalic coloration, as in a descending vs an ascending half-step, or a black-key to white-key vs a white-key to black-key half-step.

Having sung all my life these colorations come naturally.  Doesn't everyone hear them? 

The Master Teacher: A Flawed Notion

I have been privileged to study with two recognized artists at times of their fullest artistic and personal maturity.  (I studied with two artists in addition to these, but their artistry was not world-renowned, so my point does not apply to them.)

In the first instance I had organ lessons over the course of an academic year in which it was clear that we did not get along:  the master was blind and, besides having to communicate in a language I had not mastered, I would arrive at my lessons physically ill from unbearable tension.  Toward the end of the year he assigned me analysis of a Prelude and Fugue by Buxtehude, a work that was totally new to me. 

His response to my analysis was to ask where I had gotten it from.  I was crushed.  "It is my work."

 He then proceeded to tell me the truth about his teaching of the many foreign students who came to work with him.  They expect to be taught in accordance with accepted usage, so that is what he teaches them.  When he performed, he told me, he executed the ornaments "correctly" the first time through, but on the repeats he did as he felt the music demanded, which was often in direct contradiction of the learned treatises, and he demonstrated what that entailed.

In confiding this to me he gave me a great gift, much more significant than praise.

The second case involves a master whose work I admired beyond description despite the fact that I often disagreed with it.  I tried and tried to emulate it and could not.  I had one lesson with him in which he identified clearly and accurately the essence of my piano playing, by so doing giving me hope that one day I would figure it out.  It took a while but I did figure it out.  And I noticed that, as I did so, my playing was resembling his to an increasing degree. 

I cannot state on a resume that I studied with him as I enjoyed only that one encounter, pivotal though it was.  But I listened attentively to pianists who have studied with him and find in their work no trace of that teacher's particular voice. 

I am reminded continually of the earlier encounter.

Mental Foot-tapping

One of the hazards of public listening is the possibility that someone in a nearby seat will be beating time.

Most of us learn at some stage that rhythm is based on body movement, so it is natural to express it with bodily movement.  I say it all depends.

Some rhythm is decidedly not based on body movement: the rhythm of song, for example, is subject to flights of whimsy that would cause a moving body grievous injury.  And there is the rhythm of the mind at play, many times faster than either the quickest body or the most mercurial lyrical impulse.

Sometimes when I play I make a semi-conscious effort to keep my listeners from even thinking of tapping their foot of otherwise slowing themselves down.  I want every vibration to be heard and felt.

Impromptu: A Musical Moment Under Another Name Perhaps

It is striking how removed from actual, close-up, live listening our culture has become.  As I recall the exciting CD of Maria Pires's playing I marvel at how close-up it feels, how little like something reproduced or reproduceable.

Having been trained to recognize forms we seem reluctant to let go of them and just listen, though by now several generations of contemporary composers have tried hard to get us to do just that.  Now that we have heard Schubert's G-flat Impromptu  can we really listen to it?

Today I am struck by the oddness of the composer's articulations: they certainly do not match the versions of the piece that I have heard!  I wonder if I can engage listeners in the unlikely proposition that they have never heard the piece before?