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.

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....

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?

The Necessary Heft

What I call "offbeat" Beethoven is the focus of my current piano series, exploring his fascination with beats in unusual, unexpected places.  How can he get away with it?

The answer has to be that in anticipating a beat which does not materialize we are doubly engaged in the musical moment.  We want, we need, our wish is not granted, therefore we delight, or we reject.   All of that is packed into every single upbeat instant .

This implies an awareness of real commitment to the beat as a physical event, i.e., the dance.  We have to be careful, in our dance-deprived era, to recognize our lack of knowledge in this area.  Can you tell a minuet from a mazurka from a landler from a furiant?  I doubt that I can, particularly because I have to rely on versions of these 3/4 meters that may or not accurately reflect the essence of the dance step.

I think it best when a movement is marked "Minuet" to ask to what degree it really conforms to whatever it is we know about minuets.  Don't be surprised if it does not conform.  The designation "Tempo di Menuetto" indicates a departure from the formal minuet though with some of its characteristics.  Perhaps we should play more of these before tackling the "real" thing, as if we knew what that was.

When I was ten my sister took me to see the ballet in Chicago.  To this day I recall my dismay when they danced a Mazurka, clearly in 3/4 time but with no discernible downbeats!

Intention is More Interesting than Perfection

One of my favorite students is someone who never practices--I suspect because the only piano in the house is prominently located in the living room and he is a really private individual.  But his playing is remarkably interesting because his ear is unfailingly responsive to every element of every sound he makes.

This entails making mistakes prompted, in large measure, by confusing or downright unwelcome overtones.

When I drew his attention to the array of bewildering vibrations to which Beethoven invites him to respond I was reminded of a bus ride in the London suburbs late in the 1950's before they had banned the burning of a low-grade coal and when there were periodic killer fogs.  One such fog having rolled in there was no way for the busdriver to see the road and a passenger had to walk alongside the edge of the pavement so as to guide him.

Overtones in the hands of great composers can be killer fogs.

Ten Cents a Dance

Dances, being practically nonexistent in contemporary culture, have become pedagogical traps.  Children are taught that a 3/4 time signature is a waltz.  That is all there is too it, according to that plan.

But minuets are in 3/4 time, as are mazurkas, and they ain't got nuttin' to do with waltzing, as there is no accentuated downbeat in either one.  Nor in a saraband, for that matter.

So what are we to do?  Maybe we should spend more time at the movies watching people dance who really know how to do it, whether in 3/4 or in some other meter.

There has to be room for bodily movement in between the beats, for exuberance, for drunkenness, for flirtation, for simple teasing.

Last night I played a selection of dances from various periods, old and new.  Not a dead beat in the bunch, and I mean within the dances themselves.  The composers: Clementi, Bach, Bartok, Gershwin, Tibor de Harsanyi, Debussy, Schubert.  No deadbeats there either!

This Business About the Piano in Your Child's Room

A student who completely agrees with me on this subject objected that, of course, most New York children do not have their own rooms and that, even if they did, there would probably not be room in them for a piano.  She suggested that while a child is playing the piano everyone else should go out for coffee.

Well....that beats sitting around listening, I suppose.  But the real issue is not simply privacy, but fluidity of access. 

I think it's important to remember that it's only since 1914 that pianos have been household furniture, associated with living rooms, certainly not with privacy.  It's important also to note that Chopin, famously a great pianist, did not play concerts in public, but for intimate audiences in intimate settings.