My deep fascination with this work is made all the more compelling by how beloved it is by people of all ages, including very young children.
Many below-the-surface aspects of the work make it worthy of continued study beyond its evident technical challenges. One of its biggest conundrums is the marking of the last movement: Presto agitato. As noted in a dictionary (Koch's Lexicon, an early 19th century music dictionary), agitato cannot mean fast, as there are many words to indicate speed and qualities of speed. So what might it mean?
I observe agitato to mean that what seems to be strictly duple rhythm is not, but that it contains undercurrents of three, sometimes five, or perhaps both at once. Looking at the sixteenth-note broken chord figures in that movement it is striking that they begin after a sixteenth rest. That means that there are 7 beats of sixteenths minus one sixteenth note; i.e., 27 not 28 notes in the passage. Try playing the figure in sets of three against the clear duple eighths in the left hand. You and the (night and the) music will become instantly agitated, I assure you.
Last spring when I performed this way listeners commented that I played it faster than most people. I am sure that this is not the case, but I am prepared to believe that it felt faster.
A recent performance of the work in Avery Fisher Hall was faster than I have ever heard it played. Was it agitated? Not in the slightest.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Schubert / Dvorak Series
Currently I am presenting a series of in-house programs featuring works by Schubert and Dvorak. The next program features the Schubert A minor Sonata, Op. 42, his F minor Impromptu, and Scottish Dances, as well as two Humoresques of Dvorak, and his Scottish Dances. The next performances, Saturday November 10 and Sunday November 18 take place in a private location in New York City. If you would like more information please send an email to nancygarniez@tonalrefraction.com.
Music to Scale, continued
Returning to Schubert's Moment Musical, No. 2, I would like to consider its rhythmic resonances.
The piece is in 9/8 with a characteristic alteration of dotted-eighth/sixteenth/eighth followed by a dotted half. It is tempting to rush the third eighth into the following long note, though the slurring indicates at times an articulation of the long note separate from the group. This would imply movement not forward but resisting forward--a kind of melodic stasis.
Consider what seems to be the melody: C D-flat C D-flat. What if the real motion is from the first C to the second (long) D-flat, not from the second C to the long D-flat? It changes everything, absolutely everything. What seems to be still is made to move--again, like Degas's dancer. What seems to move is actually resisting motion.
Such powerful reversals of customary rhythmic logic depend entirely on the pianist's knowing that every ear in the room can follow and will be unable to resist internalizing this profound contradiction.
When I play this piece in my living room for a small audience, as I did just last month, I know that it is a matter of life and death, not in any sentimental or abstract way. It requires of me that I face every element that creates tension--I prefer the German word, Spannung, which evokes an image of "from here to there"--and the musical elements that create that tension challenge the core of my vital self to a kind of quiet that transcends my will.
Once the contradiction is set in this special internalized motion every long duration is charged beyond measure.
The piece is in 9/8 with a characteristic alteration of dotted-eighth/sixteenth/eighth followed by a dotted half. It is tempting to rush the third eighth into the following long note, though the slurring indicates at times an articulation of the long note separate from the group. This would imply movement not forward but resisting forward--a kind of melodic stasis.
Consider what seems to be the melody: C D-flat C D-flat. What if the real motion is from the first C to the second (long) D-flat, not from the second C to the long D-flat? It changes everything, absolutely everything. What seems to be still is made to move--again, like Degas's dancer. What seems to move is actually resisting motion.
Such powerful reversals of customary rhythmic logic depend entirely on the pianist's knowing that every ear in the room can follow and will be unable to resist internalizing this profound contradiction.
When I play this piece in my living room for a small audience, as I did just last month, I know that it is a matter of life and death, not in any sentimental or abstract way. It requires of me that I face every element that creates tension--I prefer the German word, Spannung, which evokes an image of "from here to there"--and the musical elements that create that tension challenge the core of my vital self to a kind of quiet that transcends my will.
Once the contradiction is set in this special internalized motion every long duration is charged beyond measure.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Sound and its Proper Scale
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art there is a Degas sculpture of a young ballerina getting ready to take a step. Having seen only photographs of this life-like figure I was amazed that it was actually less than two feet high. That sculpture haunts me. So much vitality, so much potential movement, condensed to a larger- than-life fourteen or fifteen inches.
The opposite effect was evident in a recent performance of Schubert's Moments Musicaux at Avery Fisher Hall. It was as if someone had blown up that haunting Degas figure to the size of the monstrous nudes in the lobby of the Time Warner Building on Columbus Circle.
To achieve this requires a simplification of all the elements of those pieces that make them powerful, predominantly their mysterious resonances, both rhythmic and harmonic.
Both are epitomized in the second piece, the almost lullaby-like Andantino in 9/8. Schubert hides the heart of the piece in the chordal doublings.. But these doublings are neither visible to the theoretically-biased eye, which discerns discrete chords rather than continuous resonance, nor audible to the audience seated a block away from the piano. (Artur Rubinstein, perhaps unique among pianists, knew how to bring the top row of the balcony into his awareness of overtones.) To hold the audience's attention in a too-large room the pianist brought out the melody, thereby obscuring the work's hidden grounding in repeating doubled E-flats. Within their solidity harmonies shift but never completely change--there is always a melt between sounds.
This melt is possible only on the piano--even on the piano of Schubert's day it would have been the most obviously surprising element of sound available to a keyboard player. The post-commercial-recording culture, by removing all traces of that melt, has frozen the sound of classical music, not just of the piano, but of highly resonant stringed instruments as well.
In the next post I will discuss the rhythmic resonances of this work.
The opposite effect was evident in a recent performance of Schubert's Moments Musicaux at Avery Fisher Hall. It was as if someone had blown up that haunting Degas figure to the size of the monstrous nudes in the lobby of the Time Warner Building on Columbus Circle.
To achieve this requires a simplification of all the elements of those pieces that make them powerful, predominantly their mysterious resonances, both rhythmic and harmonic.
Both are epitomized in the second piece, the almost lullaby-like Andantino in 9/8. Schubert hides the heart of the piece in the chordal doublings.. But these doublings are neither visible to the theoretically-biased eye, which discerns discrete chords rather than continuous resonance, nor audible to the audience seated a block away from the piano. (Artur Rubinstein, perhaps unique among pianists, knew how to bring the top row of the balcony into his awareness of overtones.) To hold the audience's attention in a too-large room the pianist brought out the melody, thereby obscuring the work's hidden grounding in repeating doubled E-flats. Within their solidity harmonies shift but never completely change--there is always a melt between sounds.
This melt is possible only on the piano--even on the piano of Schubert's day it would have been the most obviously surprising element of sound available to a keyboard player. The post-commercial-recording culture, by removing all traces of that melt, has frozen the sound of classical music, not just of the piano, but of highly resonant stringed instruments as well.
In the next post I will discuss the rhythmic resonances of this work.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Child Prodigies amd "Music"
In a surprisingly compelling essay in the NYTimes magazine of November 4 Andrew Solomon has written about parenting child prodigies. Among other pertinent points he notes the similarities between the challenges of raising a child with physical disability and one of prodigious talent. I am impressed with his thoughtfulness and recommend the piece.
I do take issue, however, with the way our culture assumes music to be a thing external to the individual, to be mastered as is the alphabet or multiplication tables. I do not find that to be the case and I base my teaching of children on the notion that music is as powerfully internal as external to every individual child, as it was clearly powerfully internal to me as a young child.* Thus I continue to learn from an integrated student population that ranges from a severely developmentally-challenged young man to a brilliant teenage girl with many variants, some not readily identifiable, in between.
Accepting that music is at least as real internally as out in the open puts the emphasis on listening rather than on execution. As each student learns to value his or her individual musical propensity she is learning also to listen to the development of the other individuals in the community. This enables each to follow paths of their own choosing, whether improvisational music making or fascination with Beethoven sonatas, with no fear of judgment coming from either peers or parents.
The excitement each finds in the motivation of the others nurtures their mutual desire to take part in this extraordinarily direct means of communication.
Two uses of the word "music" come readily to mind: The first, a song by Leonard Bernstein, one of his several Children's Songs: "I Hate Music!" the lyric continuing: "...but I love to sing."
The second is Henry Purcell's song: "Music! Music for a while shall all our cares beguile." "Music" is set each time on a single sustained pitch. Stationary? Unmoving? I don't think so.
________
*Tonal Refraction arose as an expression of powerful child responses to specific pitches in a Mozart sonata I played as a 12-year-old.
I do take issue, however, with the way our culture assumes music to be a thing external to the individual, to be mastered as is the alphabet or multiplication tables. I do not find that to be the case and I base my teaching of children on the notion that music is as powerfully internal as external to every individual child, as it was clearly powerfully internal to me as a young child.* Thus I continue to learn from an integrated student population that ranges from a severely developmentally-challenged young man to a brilliant teenage girl with many variants, some not readily identifiable, in between.
Accepting that music is at least as real internally as out in the open puts the emphasis on listening rather than on execution. As each student learns to value his or her individual musical propensity she is learning also to listen to the development of the other individuals in the community. This enables each to follow paths of their own choosing, whether improvisational music making or fascination with Beethoven sonatas, with no fear of judgment coming from either peers or parents.
The excitement each finds in the motivation of the others nurtures their mutual desire to take part in this extraordinarily direct means of communication.
Two uses of the word "music" come readily to mind: The first, a song by Leonard Bernstein, one of his several Children's Songs: "I Hate Music!" the lyric continuing: "...but I love to sing."
The second is Henry Purcell's song: "Music! Music for a while shall all our cares beguile." "Music" is set each time on a single sustained pitch. Stationary? Unmoving? I don't think so.
________
*Tonal Refraction arose as an expression of powerful child responses to specific pitches in a Mozart sonata I played as a 12-year-old.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Enjoying the Blog?
Since resuming consistent daily posts on the pressing musical matters of the day readership has been rising steadily.
If you find yourself stimulated by a post, thinking about it as you listen, practice or teach, why not consider supporting it? A visit to www.tonalrefraction.net will yield information on how to do so. Thanks!
If you find yourself stimulated by a post, thinking about it as you listen, practice or teach, why not consider supporting it? A visit to www.tonalrefraction.net will yield information on how to do so. Thanks!
Fascinatin' Rhythm
As I prepare to perform two sets of Scottish Dances, one by Schubert, one by Dvorak, I am struck by how boring these rhythms were to me as a young player and how these two genius composers pierced the rhythm at every level to produce works of extreme delight.
It is particularly notable in the light of the deliberate parodies of boring folk rhythms badly played composed by the likes of Beethoven, Clementi, et al. (Presto alla tedesco; Air Suisse).
Incidentally, it was a nine-year-old student who made me aware of those parodies.
It is particularly notable in the light of the deliberate parodies of boring folk rhythms badly played composed by the likes of Beethoven, Clementi, et al. (Presto alla tedesco; Air Suisse).
Incidentally, it was a nine-year-old student who made me aware of those parodies.
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