License

Where do you get the license to interpret, say, Haydn?

Nowhere is it printed on the page that license is required , called for, or recommended.  The need for it comes from the ear.  That is why active, live listening matters so much.  It is not the ear of repeated hearing that gives the permission--as in, so-and-so played it this way on the CD so that must be how it goes--but in, gee! that was really interesting!

When the mind starts to wander and the music to be repetitive it is the sign that the ear is not engaged.

Time to get a license!

A Scientist and Music

One of my most determined students is a scientist--a world-class scientist, in fact, who came to study with me because she wanted to know where "the music part" is.  She could play well enough to pass a pretty high level in the British system of grading but she was aware that it did not match some quality of what she heard in my playing.

What exactly did she hear?  That, of course, neither of us will ever know.  But I have some insight into what the difference is between her preferred experience in the lab as opposed to at the piano. 

The essence of a successful experiment is that it can be repeated with the same results by anyone, anywhere.  In order to produce that successful experiment the responsible scientist must maintain both an open mind objectively observing deviations from the hypothesis, and detailed records of every step forward and back.

The essence of successful music-making is, in many ways, the reverse.  "The music part" consists of the never-ending search for infinite variability, both in the quality of the sound and in the sense of the sequence of sounds that we call the composition.  It has taken years to arrive at the place where she is sufficiently confident of her tolerance of this iffy state of being to actually enjoy not repeating herself--or allowing Haydn to repeat himself, which is much more difficult.

24 Frames per second: How's That for a Tempo?

Last night I directed my performance of Haydn's G major Sonata No. 40 with its Allegro innocente opening movement to a young computer animator sitting close by.  In effect I animated the whole thing in sound, of course.  Then I left him with the challenge of animating it.

Haydn / animation: A perfect match.

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.