When I was in high school I was assigned the Saint-Saens G minor Piano Concerto, the first movement of which I played with the school orchestra. I recall it being a most unsatisfying experience. Last night I heard a graduate student perform the same movement with an orchestra in town and I understood why.
In this piece Saint-Saens (quite pretentiously, it now seems clear) sets out to make thematic the very tones that do not work on the piano: B-flat - F#. The theme, very clearly stated in the piano includes the sequence: B-flat / A / B-flat / F#. It simply does not sound or feel good.
This piece is quite standard repertoire. What a pity that we allow virtuosity to hoodwink us into thinking that what we are listening to has meaning.
Saint-Saens was a highly sophisticated composer but I have long suspected that he had various agendas that had little to do with actual sound. One of them was his finishing the project Debussy did not live to complete: writing sonatas for unusual instrument combinations.
He did write some wonderful piano etudes for the left hand alone.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Support the Blog
Every once in a while I invite you to support this blog at www.tonalrefraction.net where there is a subscription option. PayPal accepts payment in any currency. Why not do it? We would prove that the public attaches value to meaning. What is wrong with that?
You might well ask why not accept advertising on the blog?
My very first published article appeared in 1972 in The Piano Quarterly, a high-class music magazine, no longer with us. The magazine was supported, of course, by ads, mostly from music publishers. My article, called "The Teacher / Performer" was missing a critical sentence which went something like this:"There is no reason why we should be teaching junk."
That turned me off commercially backed publication for quite some time; most of my subsequent articles were in Music For The Love of It, a newsletter for amateurs published by a dedicated soul in Berkeley, California.
I invite you to demonstrate that an alternative system can work.
You might well ask why not accept advertising on the blog?
My very first published article appeared in 1972 in The Piano Quarterly, a high-class music magazine, no longer with us. The magazine was supported, of course, by ads, mostly from music publishers. My article, called "The Teacher / Performer" was missing a critical sentence which went something like this:"There is no reason why we should be teaching junk."
That turned me off commercially backed publication for quite some time; most of my subsequent articles were in Music For The Love of It, a newsletter for amateurs published by a dedicated soul in Berkeley, California.
I invite you to demonstrate that an alternative system can work.
The Natural Horn and Mozart's Tonality
Again about Mozart in C minor: Ever since my son has taken up natural horn I have been deeply aware of the impact of that instrument on the sound of specific tonalities. In last night's concerto performance he was playing one of the two horn parts and I paid almost as much attention to those parts as to the piano--perhaps even more, I confess.
The concerto is in C minor, the horns in E-flat--the natural horns, that is, the instruments he heard in making the orchestration. E-flat, the powerful fundamental of the horn in that key, is not the tonic tone. A pianist hearing that power coming not from the tonic would have a different "take" on the piece, inevitably, it seems to me.
In the rush to get all tones and all tonalities to be uniform modern instrument design has made certain things completely incomprehensible, except to the curious artist willing to confess to problems that usually go unidentified because they manifest as malaise and we are trained to pay no attention to any form of discomfort.
I cannot help but wonder how different the pianist's interpretation would have been if she had heard this imbalance, which is all too smoothly disguised with modern instruments.
The concerto is in C minor, the horns in E-flat--the natural horns, that is, the instruments he heard in making the orchestration. E-flat, the powerful fundamental of the horn in that key, is not the tonic tone. A pianist hearing that power coming not from the tonic would have a different "take" on the piece, inevitably, it seems to me.
In the rush to get all tones and all tonalities to be uniform modern instrument design has made certain things completely incomprehensible, except to the curious artist willing to confess to problems that usually go unidentified because they manifest as malaise and we are trained to pay no attention to any form of discomfort.
I cannot help but wonder how different the pianist's interpretation would have been if she had heard this imbalance, which is all too smoothly disguised with modern instruments.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Virtuosity Meets Darkness
Last night I heard a piano graduate student play Mozart C minor Concerto, No. 24, first movement with a pretty good mostly student orchestra. It was striking in that this highly trained soloist apparently had no way of processing the passion and the darkness that meet headon in this taxing and all-too-familiar work.
It brought back memories of my own bewilderment as a high school student playing my first concerto, the Mozart A major. I will never forget the impact of hearing for the first time instruments of the orchestra play the "same" music I was playing. The color of their sounds, especially the winds, still moves me.
Yet I, too, had no way of conceiving passage work--arpeggios, scales, etc.--as anything but flashy. It had never been suggested that such passages were not simply a reason for showing off, but might be pianistic elaborations or particular tone colors. That an arpeggio might be sad, or longing, or tragic--who knew?
The irrefutable proof that the movement is not about virtuosity for its own sake is the soft ending.
It brought back memories of my own bewilderment as a high school student playing my first concerto, the Mozart A major. I will never forget the impact of hearing for the first time instruments of the orchestra play the "same" music I was playing. The color of their sounds, especially the winds, still moves me.
Yet I, too, had no way of conceiving passage work--arpeggios, scales, etc.--as anything but flashy. It had never been suggested that such passages were not simply a reason for showing off, but might be pianistic elaborations or particular tone colors. That an arpeggio might be sad, or longing, or tragic--who knew?
The irrefutable proof that the movement is not about virtuosity for its own sake is the soft ending.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Function vs. Sound
Being quick I figured out function long before I had any theory training: I figured it out as does everyone who wants to accompany singing at a party, for instance.
I figured it out so well that it made me unable to hear the subtleties of voicing that transform function into something more mysterious, hard to name or define. Two examples come to mind:
Schubert Waltzes. How tedious they seemed to me until I freed myself from that pat analysis in which everything is predictable. How to approach these boring pieces? I suggest playing only the black keys, relishing the odd doublings, only then reconstructing them, white keys and all.
My young student's adventure with a simple Burgmuller etude. She played it exquisitely, with half pedal throughout so that there were thousands of sounds happening every instant--that is, until she wanted to play it in a program at school. The music teacher told her that in order to perform it she would have to use full pedal and change it on every bar line. Being ten she did not, could not, object. Result? One sound per measure. Utterly pointless and hopelessly boring.
By the way, it was her own idea to use the pedal that way: she had heard the older kids do it and loved the sound.
What is wrong with loving the sound?
I figured it out so well that it made me unable to hear the subtleties of voicing that transform function into something more mysterious, hard to name or define. Two examples come to mind:
Schubert Waltzes. How tedious they seemed to me until I freed myself from that pat analysis in which everything is predictable. How to approach these boring pieces? I suggest playing only the black keys, relishing the odd doublings, only then reconstructing them, white keys and all.
My young student's adventure with a simple Burgmuller etude. She played it exquisitely, with half pedal throughout so that there were thousands of sounds happening every instant--that is, until she wanted to play it in a program at school. The music teacher told her that in order to perform it she would have to use full pedal and change it on every bar line. Being ten she did not, could not, object. Result? One sound per measure. Utterly pointless and hopelessly boring.
By the way, it was her own idea to use the pedal that way: she had heard the older kids do it and loved the sound.
What is wrong with loving the sound?
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Words and Music
There is always a strong connection between the two, whether explicit or not, in the instrumental composition of anyone who composed for the voice. It is as if the word is hiding in there somewhere.
The other day I heard a video of a Dowland song, performed excellently by two outstanding musicians. Though lovely, there was something unsettling about it: I called it a conundrum. It being a song I do not know, I looked it up on line, printed it out and worked on it.
At first hearing I had noticed that a particular note in the song needed some emphasis it was not receiving. The melody uses very few notes, is short, and has a lot of repeats. But the fact that I was constantly tripping over something made it difficult for me to figure it out as I listened.
Studying it revealed the answer: What looks like a repeated bar turns out to be a cleverly disguised variation. In this case a dotted-half, shortened to allow for a breath at the end of the first phrase, by contrast, at what looks like the corresponding bar at the "end" of the third phrase, becomes energized on the third beat (on the dot!) to elide with the following two bars, causing the particular note that I had heard as pivotal to take on two entirely new degrees of emphasis. This entirely upsets the song's seeming symmetry.
As much of this period's music is about fickleness I find this very a propos.
The other day I heard a video of a Dowland song, performed excellently by two outstanding musicians. Though lovely, there was something unsettling about it: I called it a conundrum. It being a song I do not know, I looked it up on line, printed it out and worked on it.
At first hearing I had noticed that a particular note in the song needed some emphasis it was not receiving. The melody uses very few notes, is short, and has a lot of repeats. But the fact that I was constantly tripping over something made it difficult for me to figure it out as I listened.
Studying it revealed the answer: What looks like a repeated bar turns out to be a cleverly disguised variation. In this case a dotted-half, shortened to allow for a breath at the end of the first phrase, by contrast, at what looks like the corresponding bar at the "end" of the third phrase, becomes energized on the third beat (on the dot!) to elide with the following two bars, causing the particular note that I had heard as pivotal to take on two entirely new degrees of emphasis. This entirely upsets the song's seeming symmetry.
As much of this period's music is about fickleness I find this very a propos.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Then There is Bach
Consider how much incomprehensible garbage has been dumped on all of us about just these three composers (Haydn, Mozart, and Bach) and you have some idea of how difficult it is to listen clean and to think clearly.
Take the issue of Bach and the piano. I first came to New York after having spent five years immersed in the organ music of Bach, first at Oberlin, then in Germany, where I studied with Helmut Walcha. In New York in the early 1960's no one talked about Bach and, if they did so, it was not the same Bach that I had been working on. In fact, all music written for the piano was considered only in terms of post-Chopin technique.
At that time people still pooh-poohed--even in print!--the idea that pre-Classical musical usage had anything to do with Beethoven or Mozart and virtually no attention was paid to the essentials of articulation, ornamentation, rhythmic grammar, and so on.
I have only now begun to perform Bach on the piano. I am beginning with the Two-Part Inventions approached, not as over-regimented "Classical" pieces with accentuated barlines and Classical-style meters, but approached rather as Baroque inventions, combining imitative with vocal writing, structured yet improvisatory, as is all great Baroque music, even the most rigorous.
Take the issue of Bach and the piano. I first came to New York after having spent five years immersed in the organ music of Bach, first at Oberlin, then in Germany, where I studied with Helmut Walcha. In New York in the early 1960's no one talked about Bach and, if they did so, it was not the same Bach that I had been working on. In fact, all music written for the piano was considered only in terms of post-Chopin technique.
At that time people still pooh-poohed--even in print!--the idea that pre-Classical musical usage had anything to do with Beethoven or Mozart and virtually no attention was paid to the essentials of articulation, ornamentation, rhythmic grammar, and so on.
I have only now begun to perform Bach on the piano. I am beginning with the Two-Part Inventions approached, not as over-regimented "Classical" pieces with accentuated barlines and Classical-style meters, but approached rather as Baroque inventions, combining imitative with vocal writing, structured yet improvisatory, as is all great Baroque music, even the most rigorous.
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