Music and the Child in Us

Too much seems to be at stake for many young people face to face with classical music: They seem to have the impression that listening involves some kind of preparation or effort, neither of which they have or want to have. 

Why can't they simply listen, even better, be still and listen. 

Being still may be part of the problem in a culture in which everything makes noise, from refrigerator motors to cars being unlocked. 

But a greater part of the problem is the notion embedded in the phenomenon of Music Appreciation, a major league scam if ever there was one. 

One bright high school student of several decades ago told me that he dutifully identified themes A, A (1), A (2) and B in a work played for the final exam in MuzApp though, in fact, they were all the same.

Better to contemplate the combolulous cauliflower.

Who Wns?

I am by nature fiercely competitive, partly out of the knowledge that I have no business competing in some of the several ways in which that trait manifests itself--in physical terms, for example.  Put me in an exercise class and I will break my neck rather than acknowledge that I cannot do as the others are doing. 

Hanging out around a music school--which my daughter once called "the wrong crowd"--is rather like that exercise class but with some considerable additional challenge, namely, music.  Pianists compete all the time, to play more notes, to play them faster, louder, more brilliantly, etc.   Early on I chose not to break my neck in that department.

But it has taken me many years to shed the pressures of competition.  That I have finally succeeded in doing so was clear was I could perform two magnificent cycles of music for children in the company of a real hot-shot pianist.  Neither of us would be caught dead or alive playing the preferred repertoire of the other but it is a recent development that I have even been able to discern the magic in these cycles which sound simple though crafted with the utmost insight and skill. Playing that music straight is truly difficult.

If I have finally outgrown my competitive inclination it is thanks to children, my own as well as those I teach. 

Music for Children

Last night I performed for an audience of piano players two sets of pieces written by composers for their own children: Prokofiev's Music for Children and Schumann's Kinderszenen.  I was remarkably nervous because one of the pianists present is of a school of pianism that does not work small in any circumstance; as he had never heard me play I couldn't help but be aware of the chasm that separates us.

In the aftermath of the performance I have already enjoyed two deeply significant exchanges with audience members.  One was on the general point of whether children are capable of "getting" the subtleties in music composed for them.  I maintain that there is no better audience for subtlety than children for, though they may not be able to verbalize their responses, they are truly all ears.  Two memories come to mind:  The words "combobulous cauliflower" in an Edward Lear story about a voyage around the world with, among other creatures, a quangle-wangle.  By the time I got to the fourth syllable the audience of six-year-olds was prepared for the very worst.

The eminent pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski advised me to "Play for children" as a way of fine tuning rhythm and phrasing within the spirit of both the music and myself.

The second conversation was about competitiveness: tomorrow's post.

Haydn, Humor, and Storytelling

Having just finished a performance for a distinguished audience that included several pianists, I cannot help but comment on the prevailing view that Haydn is unbearable with two notable exceptions, the E-flat Sonata and the F minor Variations. 

Interesting. 

I do not play  the E-flat Sonata: I don't get it.  The F minor Variations, ah, that's different.  But it's all that "simple" stuff that eludes comprehension.

Included on the program I just performed were Prokofiev's Music for Children and Schumann's Kinderszenen, which have a lot in common: Both are quintessential pianistic storytelling, "simple" only on the surface, full of the magic of the piano sound, imaginative in the extreme. 

Knowing that a big, bravura pianist was in the room made it only slightly more difficult to stay on track.   I was strengthened at every moment by my conviction that the power of the music is in its sound, not in its technical demands.

Does It Go Up or Does It Go Down?

The answer most of the time is it goes sideways, i.e., from left to right as on the printed page or on the piano.  The only  time "it" truly goes up or down is when singing.

Playing the Bach Two-Part Inventions as if they are puzzles about how many ways an instrumentalist can disguise upward or downward motion utterly transforms them.  I looked up Inventions in Grove yesterday where, according to John Caldwell, they are "textless ricercare,"  a description I quite enjoy.  In other words, they are textless instrumental works searching for the sense of text, which in Baroque terms would have had a great deal to do with up and down.

The Three-Part are not called Inventions but Sinfonias. As I do not (yet) have three hands I always find these works challenging.  But I am working on it.

Artistry Among Amateurs

Some would say it is an oxymoron, that there is no artistry among amateurs.  But I have staked a great deal of my teaching career on the assumption that, on the contrary, true artistry is more easily found among amateurs than among the general professional population.

Yesterday I was treated to a wonderful example.  A young man, student of mine for many years, not a practicer, not even a pianist, but an improviser, is working on his sight-reading.   We are using as a text the brilliant compendium of Preludes and Exercises by Muzio Clementi, a source of astonishing insight into the connection between ear and hand.  We had reached the point where we were discussing the dramatic tension that arises when note values confront tone values, so to speak. 

Working on the A flat Prelude he experienced from within himself full awareness of the power of long vs. short, of soft vs. loud, of dissonance vs. consonance, modeling the piece to realize its full potential.  Within its limited nine-bar duration it touches many extremes in the categories just listed.

I am fascinated at his awareness as he worked on the choices he had, his desire to do it better, and his satisfaction with his achievement.  I am even more fascinated that nothing in my training prepared me at his age to be in touch with my own responses.  My reaction to the piece would have been to reject it out of hand.

Are We Going to Let the Eyes Have It?

Everyone (well, not exactly everyone) wants to know who killed classical music.  Look at it this way: If it is written down it must be so.  If music is written down that must mean something.

Imagine you are a recording engineer.  When what you hear doesn't correspond to what is written down you will get high marks for erasing the parts of the sound that interfere with the clean and tidy written symbols.

I had the privilege many years ago of working with Richard Dyer-Bennet, the renowned balladeer who accompanied himself on the guitar with splendid complex textures almost too rich to imagine.  His first commercial recording, I believe on Columbia Records, so denatured his sound that he started his own record company so as to control every aspect of production.  That was long before the existence of the electronic processes that make such an enterprise so easy nowadays.  When he and I collaborated on his English language version of Schubert's Schoene Muellerin (The Lovely Milleress published by Schirmer) it was the first time he had worked with a pianist.  When we recorded it he was determined to use the same approach as when he had recorded his guitar work, i.e., to capture the whole sound with all its overtone complexity. 

Another true story from many years ago:  I first heard Yo-yo Ma play at a special presentation at the old Mannes College of Music auditorium, a wood-paneled room on Manhattan's east side.  The informal program consisted of selected movements from the Bach Suites for unaccompanied cello.  It was a truly amazing experience, which I recall vividly to this day.

My young daughter, having devoured an old Folkways recording of the cello-like Indian serengi, would, I was sure, love hearing such playing.  So I bought the CD set, gave it to her for first listening, and was shocked when, a half-hour later, she handed me the discs, saying, "You can have it."  Astonished, I gave the CDs a listen.  She was right.  Not an overtone to be heard.  All gone.

Where?  Why?