Violin Meets Piano

"How do you do?" 

The comedian replied, "How do I do what?"

Which came first?  Historically the violin came first.  But the piano changed everything about the acoustical world in which string intonation ruled supreme.

With the piano came a previously-unimagined fog.  It might be compared to the difference in sound between a solo violin and a violin section.  Notice the difference next time you have occasion to hear what I am talking about.  It is not unlike the difference between a single bass note and one doubled at the octave on the piano. 

Except that every pitch on the piano resembles the string section sound, for the simple reason that every pitch is made by three vibrating strings inevitably vibrating slightly out of sync with one another, therefore with fuzz around the edges of their frequency.

Can a violin make peace with such an arrangement or does it always have to project like the concerto soloist?  That depends on the ear of each player, and that depends on the desire of each player to produce a new sound.  It involves a sort of acoustical magic that fuses the two players in one element that neither one can produce alone.

The current Tonal Refraction work is a return to Beethoven's Op. 24 Sonata in F for Piano and Violin, the "Spring."  It is very much concerned with frequent intersections of the two sounds, made more evident by their wide separation.  What a splendid demonstration of what happens when this magic is allowed to happen. 

Have you ever heard it performed in such a way that you feel that you are beholding that level of meeting?

Touch and the Ear

Touch is perhaps the most elusive skill involved in piano playing.  It cannot really be taught because it reflects the most intimate connection between the player's inner ear and the tiniest nerve endings in the skin of each finger.

I have been knocked down by the touch of a few pianists in my lifetime.  Could I figure out what they did?  Not really.  Could I figure out what I wasn't doing?  To a certain extent, I could.

At one point I lost sensation in my fingertips for a few months.  During those months I was performing regularly and also recording those performances out of which two CDs were ultimately produced: Haydn / Bartok and Piano Works of Joseph Haydn.  During the performances I was unable to hear soft sounds :  I couldn't feel the keys, therefore I couldn't hear them!

Yet the sounds are all there on the recording.  So intimate is the connection.

Hard to Listen

One of the parents who attended my recent class get-together remarked that it was hard for her just to listen when she goes to a concert.  Oh!  The MuzApp devils have truly taken their toll!  Where else would she have gotten the idea that she had to be doing something besides just listening?

All it takes to listen is that one relinquish control over time.  Think about it:  It means whatever timing you walked in with you will let go of as soon as the music begins.  If it is Adagio and you are a distinctly Allegro con brio type this will not be easy.  (It never was for me; I used to hate having to listen to anything slow.)  Just doing that, though I do not mean to imply that that is a simple thing to do, but doing that will allow you into the realm of the vibrations that the performers are producing and you will be more likely to listen.

Of course, that assumes that the performers are themselves paying appropriate attention, which is not always the case.  I would go so far as to say that if you are bored they are bored.

"Do Nothing"

These simple words were among the most important instructions I have ever received.  Hans Neumann, my piano teacher, indicated that this was what the true artist did after having done all there was to do with a piece or a passage.

Ironically I teach all my students to do nothing, all the time.  They must learn to respect articulations and dynamics on a par with the notes themselves, but their ear is the only arbiter of sense in the sounds they produce.  Because they listen intently everyone who hears them play listens also at that level.

Sounds make their own sense.  A good composition makes its own sense.  We have only to learn to listen to it.  The time that it takes to achieve this is well worth spending.

Listening Binds Us

An extraordinary group of people met yesterday afternoon in my home, several current students, one former student.  Of the current students one has been studying with me for 16 years, one for 17 years, one for 14 years.  The former student had left town to go to college after at least 10 years of study.

It seems extraordinary to me that each of them had gone beyond the arbitrary quitting dates for many young people: graduation from elementary school, high school, college.  No, these people had stayed on.  Why?

I wish I could answer the question in any number of words, but I cannot.  The premise in my studio is that the art of music involves precision in the coordination of bodily and mental responses to the infinite variables of sound and of sound perception - I believe these are two separate things, each to be observed and respected in its own right.

With maturity the importance of this coordination grows, as nothing is assumed to function according to a template of expectation.  Not only that, but the relevance of the process to every other activity of the individual becomes clearer with age, whether or not the individual practices the piano.

It has been a privilege to work with these young people.  Their perseverance is in no small measure a reflection of their parents' belief that there is more to achievement than the measured results associated with traditional piano lessons.

More on Precision

Among my students is a young man who is blind, autistic, and severely developmentally challenged.  He does not verbalize any aspect of his experience. Weighing the impact of his work on the other students, I have come to appreciate the extent to which both his deep caring about music and lack of facility arouse in those listening a keener awareness of their own caring as well as more meaningful connection to their own capacity for verbalizing.

It is astonishing to me that in this highly competitive area of music, particularly of piano playing, this most elusive quality - verbal precision - has been fostered by exposure to its opposite.

Clair de Lune

Were you one of those teenagers whose piano repertoire had to include Clair de Lune (along with the Rachmaninoff Prelude in C# minor)?  Of itself it made no sense to me except as delivered in an overly maudlin state by other players.

It wasn't until many years later that I realized it was part of a Baroque-inspired suite of dances.  I have been fascinated with the Suite Bergamasque ever since.
The more I perform it the closer it gets me to the feeling that, while all the other movements bear appropriate names: Prelude, Menuet, Passepied, that one alone has the wrong title.

It must be for a reason.  The Verlaine poem of the same title (Clair de Lune) is all about not knowing what is real and what is imagined, remembered, or no longer alive.  The movements are usually played with metric strictness in all the movements except this one.

The other evening it was as if the suite played itself in exactly the opposite manner, with all  the movements except this one played freely, conversationally, lyrically. This movement seems to have its lyricism notated right into it: no freedom required.  It comes to life on its own terms in what has to be one of music's most colossal ironies.