Instead of going on tour I am on tour in my own studio, committed to two performances per month, organized in four month cycles: I stick with one theme per cycle (currently Beethoven's rhythms) in relation to which four programs evolve, each one performed twice.
The development in the programming, in the playing, and in the listeners' involvement is truly extraordinary. It is the kind of music making I have always aspired to. The best thing about it is that the audience is truly part of the enterprise.
They do not come to be impressed but to be let in on music in depth. The location is NYC. Interested? Get in touch.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Conversing with Beethoven
It occurs to me that, though Artur Schnabel did us a great favor by introducing Beethoven piano sonatas onto the concert scene, it is time for us to outgrow the entire-evening-of-Beethoven-sonatas syndrome.
Why not entertain that great music in exchange with other compositions? For example, the combination of the Op 10 No 3 with Debussy's Suite Bergamasque and with Brahms's Op. 39 Waltzes has been revelatory in relation to all three works.
The performance is not about anything but poetry, and not in some flimsy artsy sense. Sound; touch; immediacy.
Someone listening last night told me she was in tears during the Beethoven. Whatever she was experiencing was coming straight from the medium of sound. I do not entertain any emotion whatsoever when playing even the most emotionally charged music: there simply isn't time. Too much is happening to be distracted by a nameable state of mind.
Why not entertain that great music in exchange with other compositions? For example, the combination of the Op 10 No 3 with Debussy's Suite Bergamasque and with Brahms's Op. 39 Waltzes has been revelatory in relation to all three works.
The performance is not about anything but poetry, and not in some flimsy artsy sense. Sound; touch; immediacy.
Someone listening last night told me she was in tears during the Beethoven. Whatever she was experiencing was coming straight from the medium of sound. I do not entertain any emotion whatsoever when playing even the most emotionally charged music: there simply isn't time. Too much is happening to be distracted by a nameable state of mind.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Wrong notes and choices
I firmly believe that people play wrong notes for the right reason: namely, that their ear leads them to a better proposition than the one chosen by the composer, for reasons known to him or her alone.
Today I had a perfect example of how this is true. My computer-animator student with the extraordinary ear kept playing a certain wrong note in the opening of the second movement of the "Moonlight." Anyone with a background in music theory would be incapable of playing that note wrong. I know that I could not do so. I look at the score and know in advance what it will sound like.
Not so this young man. By the time his lesson was over I had learned about the choices Beethoven made much more than I would ever dreamed possible, all because of this young man's unbiased and accurate ear. It is not accurate in any theoretical or conceptual sense; it is simply accurate. There is a huge difference between the two.
Odd, because just this morning I was asking myself why that seemingly "normal" movement sits between two such giant challenges, one slow, the other agitated. Now, thanks to him, I get it.
Today I had a perfect example of how this is true. My computer-animator student with the extraordinary ear kept playing a certain wrong note in the opening of the second movement of the "Moonlight." Anyone with a background in music theory would be incapable of playing that note wrong. I know that I could not do so. I look at the score and know in advance what it will sound like.
Not so this young man. By the time his lesson was over I had learned about the choices Beethoven made much more than I would ever dreamed possible, all because of this young man's unbiased and accurate ear. It is not accurate in any theoretical or conceptual sense; it is simply accurate. There is a huge difference between the two.
Odd, because just this morning I was asking myself why that seemingly "normal" movement sits between two such giant challenges, one slow, the other agitated. Now, thanks to him, I get it.
Monday, March 31, 2014
What We Pay for Progress
The economics of music is a funny subject, worthy of serious study on the part of all music students.
These days it tends to take the form of survival tactics: what you have to do to "make" it in today's world. Good luck.
It might be more meaningful to consider the subject historically, as did Frank Loesser in his wonderful book Men, Women, and Pianos. Loesser makes a point of describing the scene onto which the piano emerged and in the context of which it morphed into the piece of household furniture we all know and love so well.
Yesterday I had an eye-opening experience that did not directly involve a piano, but a violin bow. Working with an intelligent and enterprising violinist, with whom I have not previously collaborated, we are studying the "Spring" Sonata of Beethoven--one of those over-played, under-examined required works from which violin teachers should be given a twenty-year recovery period in which to pose some essential questions....
Gregor Kitzis, who also plays Baroque violin, made the brilliant observation that the modern bow did not exist in 1801, when this sonata was written. Yesterday he brought his Baroque bow and the work was completely transformed by the subtle, light, flexible attack and release values of this instrument--for the bow is as much an instrument as the violin itself.
I laughed aloud at some points, so amused was I, and so dazzled.
Progress in the form of projection into larger and larger performance venues has made it almost impossible for us to hear the "pre-progress" elements of so much music that we know only in over-projection mode.
These days it tends to take the form of survival tactics: what you have to do to "make" it in today's world. Good luck.
It might be more meaningful to consider the subject historically, as did Frank Loesser in his wonderful book Men, Women, and Pianos. Loesser makes a point of describing the scene onto which the piano emerged and in the context of which it morphed into the piece of household furniture we all know and love so well.
Yesterday I had an eye-opening experience that did not directly involve a piano, but a violin bow. Working with an intelligent and enterprising violinist, with whom I have not previously collaborated, we are studying the "Spring" Sonata of Beethoven--one of those over-played, under-examined required works from which violin teachers should be given a twenty-year recovery period in which to pose some essential questions....
Gregor Kitzis, who also plays Baroque violin, made the brilliant observation that the modern bow did not exist in 1801, when this sonata was written. Yesterday he brought his Baroque bow and the work was completely transformed by the subtle, light, flexible attack and release values of this instrument--for the bow is as much an instrument as the violin itself.
I laughed aloud at some points, so amused was I, and so dazzled.
Progress in the form of projection into larger and larger performance venues has made it almost impossible for us to hear the "pre-progress" elements of so much music that we know only in over-projection mode.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Improvisation and Classical Style
Two people asked me this morning how Classical style music is related to improvisation.
My question to one (a non-musician) was when was the last time he had recited a poem. Answer: Last week. And was it the same as the time before that? Couldn't be, was the answer. What was different? Intonation, meaning ... And that would affect timing, no?
And thus it is with Classical style music, or any music for that matter.
When it is mechanical repetition it lacks life, it lacks meaning. All it takes to enliven it is presence in the nano-instant in which one vibration merges with the next to produce musical context as opposed to pre-heard canned goods.
My question to one (a non-musician) was when was the last time he had recited a poem. Answer: Last week. And was it the same as the time before that? Couldn't be, was the answer. What was different? Intonation, meaning ... And that would affect timing, no?
And thus it is with Classical style music, or any music for that matter.
When it is mechanical repetition it lacks life, it lacks meaning. All it takes to enliven it is presence in the nano-instant in which one vibration merges with the next to produce musical context as opposed to pre-heard canned goods.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
What Not "Compete" with Beethoven Himself?
Naturally that is an absurd proposition. But think about it: anyone who takes Beethoven's music seriously enough to go to the trouble to study it is, to a degree, competing with him. It is not too hard to imagine, given his incredible sense of humor, that he (like Haydn and like Mozart) is usually engaging the player in a kind of game: Do you get this? Have I succeeded in keeping the secret so hidden that you still haven't figured out what makes this piece interesting?
The 19th century did Beethoven a great disservice in characterizing him and his music as heroic--another grand cliche from which we have not yet recovered.
Wouldn't it be more stylistically correct to assume wit than heroism and to take the long view of his piano sonatas, for example: Okay, you can play the notes reasonably accurately, so now what?
That "now what" can take a lifetime to figure out. But every minute devoted to the pursuit will be a minute well spent.
Now the question is how to get the poor piano student still reeling under the weight of "heroism" to come listen to a more humanistic Beethoven....
The 19th century did Beethoven a great disservice in characterizing him and his music as heroic--another grand cliche from which we have not yet recovered.
Wouldn't it be more stylistically correct to assume wit than heroism and to take the long view of his piano sonatas, for example: Okay, you can play the notes reasonably accurately, so now what?
That "now what" can take a lifetime to figure out. But every minute devoted to the pursuit will be a minute well spent.
Now the question is how to get the poor piano student still reeling under the weight of "heroism" to come listen to a more humanistic Beethoven....
Friday, March 28, 2014
Back to Beats and Beethoven
Musical training seems to involve proving that one can be as convincingly pedestrian as possible: All the right beats in all the right places.
That leads to the current lack of interest in Beethoven sonatas. After sitting through countless student recitals which resemble nothing so much as mechanical repetitions of reliable downbeats how can anyone maintain that there is the slightest bit of anything interesting in this repertoire?
I have to recall that after sitting through countless such mechanical repetitions of Haydn sonatas I threw into the trash every note of his that I possessed--literally every note. How could anything be more demeaning than that music?
Haydn was required repertoire in the conservatory at which I taught for one semester--my only semester of teaching in such an environment. Are the teachers who require such mindlessness ever held accountable for the damage they wreak upon us mortals and upon those immortals?
An unusually candid recent conservatory graduate will come back to hear one of my Beethoven performances though he has confided to me that he does not find Beethoven sonatas interesting as a genre. But he is coming back for more... hmmm.... could that be you?
That leads to the current lack of interest in Beethoven sonatas. After sitting through countless student recitals which resemble nothing so much as mechanical repetitions of reliable downbeats how can anyone maintain that there is the slightest bit of anything interesting in this repertoire?
I have to recall that after sitting through countless such mechanical repetitions of Haydn sonatas I threw into the trash every note of his that I possessed--literally every note. How could anything be more demeaning than that music?
Haydn was required repertoire in the conservatory at which I taught for one semester--my only semester of teaching in such an environment. Are the teachers who require such mindlessness ever held accountable for the damage they wreak upon us mortals and upon those immortals?
An unusually candid recent conservatory graduate will come back to hear one of my Beethoven performances though he has confided to me that he does not find Beethoven sonatas interesting as a genre. But he is coming back for more... hmmm.... could that be you?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)