a southern gal and her music

Grown-Up Enough for Beethoven - New York Times

October 21, 2007
Grown-Up Enough for Beethoven
By JAMES R. OESTREICH

ANN ARBOR, Mich.   IT might seem a natural thing to do, and from a musical point of view it is. From a box-office point of view the logic pales, and in a day when ticket sales rule so much, perhaps only a pianist of the stature of Andras Schiff could hope to get away with it.

Over the next two seasons Mr. Schiff is playing all 32 Beethoven sonatas here, on the University of Michigan campus, as well as in San Francisco and Los Angeles and, starting Sunday afternoon, at Carnegie Hall. As imposing a challenge as it is, doing all the sonatas in a stretch, even a much shorter stretch than that, is not novel. Mr. Schiff himself has already done them all in 15 European cities, and live recordings of one of those cycles, in the Zurich Tonhalle from 2004 to 2006, are being released on ECM New Series.

What is remarkable is that he does them in chronological order. For maximum box-office appeal, you would expect the programs to mingle the unfamiliar with the well known, the early works with the late ones: each evening a rounded and polished gem. But Mr. Schiff is taking them as they come, and over a long period of time.

So here is the problem: Beethoven’s sonatas for piano, and for piano and violin, are prime examples of repertories in which nicknames count, rivaled only, perhaps, by Haydn’s symphonies and string quartets. One of the most overworked record packagings of all time, surely, is the hallowed combination of Beethoven’s “Pathétique,” “Appassionata” and “Moonlight” piano sonatas. (Nowadays CDs allow room for a fourth: the “Pastoral,” say, or the “Waldstein.”)

But Mr. Schiff’s two Carnegie programs this week barely touch on nicknames, offering only lesser-known early sonatas bearing nothing but opus numbers, until the “Pathétique” (No. 8, Op. 13) arrives at the end, on Wednesday evening. Then there is a long wait until April.

“I think that the no-nickname sonatas are not less great than the nicknamed ones,” Mr. Schiff said here early this month, still jet-lagged from his flight from Europe and nursing a bit of a cold on the morning after his first Ann Arbor recital. But he acknowledged the problem of selling tickets to listeners looking for anchors and expressed sympathy for the marketers who had to deal with it.

He harked back to a time in Japan when he had played Beethoven’s violin sonatas with the venerable fiddler Sandor Vegh. “There were three evenings,” Mr. Schiff said, “and one had the ‘Spring’ Sonata in it, one the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata, and the third one had, to me, the greatest violin sonata, Opus 96, but it doesn’t have a nickname. And the third one was the only one that was not sold out.”

Grown-Up Enough for Beethoven - New York Times.

The model of a modern major maestro - Times Online

From The Times
September 28, 2007
The model of a modern major maestro
Maurizio Pollini, one of the greatest living pianists, has an unswerving passion for the contemporary
Maurizio Pollini
Richard Morrison

Maurizio Pollini is getting almost chatty these days. I first met him 20 years ago in his Milan apartment: part of a Renaissance palazzo, pristine white, exquisitely furnished. He was courtesy itself. Yet while his wife, as extrovert as he is insular, played with their son in the next room, I found myself spouting what was virtually a monologue in order to extract the odd precious monosyllable from the impeccably suited figure opposite.

Par for the course, I later discovered. Pollini might well be one of the greatest pianists of all time but, as far as interviewers were concerned, he has been an impenetrable enigma. For some concert-goers, too. There are morticians who go about their duties more chirpily than Pollini on the concert platform.

Yet at 65 he seems mellowed, relaxed, prepared to offer whole sentences, even short paragraphs, in reply to questions he deems interesting. He’s in London for two reasons. The first is to play two Beethoven concertos – the Emperor and the Fourth – with the London Philharmonic (the latter performance, on October 7, marking the orchestra’s 75th anniversary). The second is to take part in the South Bank’s celebration of the avant-garde Italian composer Luigi Nono, one of Pollini’s closest friends until his death in 1990. That concert, on October 31, will include . . . sofferte onde serene . . . – an astonishing work for piano and electronic tape specially written for him.

The model of a modern major maestro - Times Online.

Thomson speaks...

“Of all the professional trainings, music is the most demanding. Even medicine, law, and scholarship, though they often delay a man’s entry into married life, do not interfere with his childhood or adolescence.

Music does. No musician ever passes an average or normal infancy, with all that that means of abundant physical exercise and a certain mental passivity. He must work very hard indeed to learn his musical matters and to train his hand, all in addition to his schoolwork and his play-life. I do not think he is necessarily overworked. I think rather that he is just more elaborately educated than his neighbors. ...In any case, musical training is long, elaborate, difficult, and intense. Nobody who has had it ever regrets it or forgets it. And it builds up in the heart of every musician that those who have had it are not only different from everybody else but definitely superior to most and that all musicians together somehow form an idealistic society in the midst of a tawdry world.”

--Virgil Thomson, From "The State of Music," (1962 Second Edition) in Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Musiced. Elliott Schwartz and Barney Childs (New York: Da Capo, 1998), 173-4.

Joshua Nemith's Cincinnati Pianist Blog.

Musical Rules at Home and in Life

- Robert Schumann

'The Musical Rules of Home and in Life' were written by composer Robert Schumann to accompany his famous piano book 'Album für die Jugend' (Album for the Young), and athough they were found with the original manuscript, they were only included in the second edition. This version of the Rules I have typed from my Urtext version of this Album, taking the words from a translation by Paul Merrick (which I assume is from the German, not Franz Liszt's french translation, both of which are included in the book), so any errors are my own. The Rules are an interesting document, not only providing an insight into the character of Schumann himself, but also into composition and life in general. Occaisionally Zen-like, many of the Rules have not dated, and are applicable to many areas.

link

Aural training is the most important thing. Try right from the start to recognise keys and notes. A bell, a window-pane, a cuckoo - learn the sounds they make.

You should be diligent in playing scales and other finger-exercises. There are, however, many people who think they can achieve everything by spending many hours a day, right into their old age, doing mechanical practice. That is almost like everyday trying to say the A B C as fast as possible, getting faster and faster. Put your time to better use.

The so-called 'dummy keyboard' has been invented. Try it for a while, and you will see it has no effect. The dumb cannot teach you how to speak.

Keep strict time when you are playing! The playing of some virtuosos sounds like a drunkard walking. Such people should not be copied.

Learn early on the basic rules of harmony.

Do not be frightened by words like Theory, Thoroughbass, Counterpoint etc. They can be your friends if you approach them in a friendly manner.

Never just strum. Put your mind to it when you play, and do not stop half-way through a piece!

Dragging the tempo and hurrying are both bad mistakes.

Take care to play easier pieces well and beautifully: that is better than a mediocre performance of a difficult piece.

Never play an instrument that needs tuning.

You must not only know your pieces with your fingers, you must also be able to hum them away from the piano. Train you imagination so that you can remember not just the melody of a composition, but also the harmony that goes with it.

Make efforts, even if your voice is not a good one, to sing at sight without the help of the instrument; in this way the sharpness of your hearing will continually improve. If you have a beautiful voice, waste no opportunity to have it trained, and treat it as the finest gift Heaven can bestow on you!

You must reach the stage when you can understand music by just seeing it on the page.

When you are playing, do not concern yourself with who may be listening.

Always play as though a Great Master were listening.

If someone puts a composition in front of you to play, and you have not seen it before, read it through first.

If you have done your daily musical work and feel tired, then do not force yourself to go on working. It is better to rest than work without pleasure and enthusiasm.

Do not play, when you are older, pieces which are in fashion. Time is precious. You would need a hundred lives just to get to know all the good pieces in existence.

Children are not made into healthy people by eating sweets, cakes and icing. Spiritual food, like food for the body, must be plain and wholesome. The latter has been amply provided by the Great Masters; keep to it.

Brilliant passage work fades with time. Technical accomplishment is only of value where it serves a higher purpose.

You must not promote bad compositions; on the contrary, you should expend every effort to help suppress them.

You should not play bad compositions, neither should you listen to them, unless you are forced to.

Do not cultivate technique and so-called bravura. In a composition seek to bring out the expression that the composer had in mind, and no more. Anything beyond that is a caricature.

Changing anything, leaving anything out or adding new-fangled embellishments in pieces by good composers must be held as an abomination. It is the greatest outrage you can inflict upon Art.

Regarding which pieces you should choose to study, ask your elders. This way you will save a lot of time.

You must acquire a thorough knowledge of all the important works by all the great masters.

Do not be led astray by the applause which often greets the so-called virtuosos. More valuable to you is the approval of artists, rather than that of the masses.

All things in fashion will one day be out of fashion, and if you follow it into your old age you will make a fool of yourself, and nobody will respect you.

Playing a lot in society does more harm than good. Look people in the face, and do not playing anything of which you inwardly feel ashamed.

Do not miss opportunity to make music with other musicians, in Duos, Trios etc. This makes you playing fluent and animated. Also, accompany singers often.

If everyone wanted to play first violin, then there would be no orchestras. Each musicians should therefore appreciate his proper place.

Love your instrument, but do not be so vain as to think it is unique and the most important. Remember that there are others which are equally beautiful. Remember also that there are singers who give expression to the highest things in music for choir and orchestra.

When you get older, occupy yourself more with scores than with virtuosos.

Work at playing fugues by good Masters, above all Johann Sebastian Bach. The 'Wohltemperirtes Clavier' should be your daily bread. Then you are sure to become a sound musician.

Among your friends, seek out those who know more than you.

As a relief from your musical studies, read a lot of poetry. Go out for a walk often.

A kit can be learned from singers, but do not believe everything they tell you.

There are many people in the world. Be modest, there is nothing you can invent or think of that has not already been invented or thought of by somebody else. If you do think of something original, regard it as a gift from above to be shared with others.

The study of the history of music, together with hearing actual performances of masterpieces from different periods, is the quickest cure for complacency and vanity.

A good book on Music is: 'On the Purity of Musical Composition', by Thibaut. Read it often when you are older.

If you pass a church and hear the organ playing, go inside and listen. If you are fortunate enough to be allowed onto the organist's bench, then put your little fingers on the keys and be astonished at the mighty power or Music.

Miss no opportunity to practise on the organ. No other instrument takes such an immediate revenge on messy playing and bad composition as the organ.

Sing regularly in a choir, especially the inner parts. This makes you musical.

What, then, does being musical mean? You are not musical if you gaze anxiously at the notes and labour your way through to the end of the piece. You are not, if somebody who is turning for you turns two pages instead of one, and you stop and cannot go on. You are musical, however, when in a new piece of music you can feel what might be coming, or in a familiar one, you already know - in other words when you have music not just in your fingers, but in your head and in your heart.

And how does one become musical? Dear child, the most important things - a good ear and quick mental perception - like all such things, are sent from above. But given abilities can be developed and enhanced. You will not do this by shutting yourself up like a hermit and working all day at mechanical studies - but rather by taking part in a variety of musical activities, especially those which involve choirs and orchestras.

Get to know early on the ranges of the four main types of human voice; listen especially to choirs, find out which intervals carry the greatest strength, and which others are suitable for soft and gentle treatment.

Be sure to listen often to all kinds of folksong; they are a mine of beautiful melodies, and offer you an insight into the characters of different nations.

Learn early on to read the old clefs. Otherwise many treasures of the past will be withheld from you.

Notice early on the tone and character of different instruments; try to impress upon your ear their characteristic tone-colours.

Miss no opportunity to hear good operas!

Keep the old in high regard, but approach the new with a warm heart. Do not be prejudiced against unknown names.

Do not judge a composition on a single hearing; the things that first catch your attention are not always the best. The great masters must be studied. Many things will only become clear to you later in life.

When judging compositions, distinguish between those which are true works of art, and those written to please amateurs. Stand up for the former, but have no quarrel with the latter.

'Melody' is the battle-cry of dilettantes, and certainly there is no music that does not have melody. But what they mean by melody is something simple and pleasantly rhythmic. However, there are other melodies of quite a different kind, and if you look through Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, you will see them in a thousand different forms. Then, hopefully you will soon become bored with the paltry monotony of the latest Italian opera melodies.

If you make up little melodies at the piano, then that is a very nice thing; but if they come to you on their own, not at the piano, then you can be even more happy, as you are beginning to develop an inner feeling for music. The fingers must do what the head wants, not the other way round.

If you begin to compose, then do it all in your head. Only try a piece out on the instrument after you have completely finished it. If your music has come from deep within you, if you really felt it, then it will affect others in the same way.

If Heaven has given you a vivid imagination, then you will often spend solitary hours sitting at the piano as if in a trance seeking the harmonies to express your innermost feelings. The more mysteriously you feel yourself drawn as it were into a magic circle, the more elusive seems the world of harmony. There are the happiest hours of youth. But beware of over-indulging a talent that may lead you to waste time and energy on phantoms of the imagination. The mastery of form, the ability to clearly formulate thoughts, can be acquired only through the fixed symbols of notation. Therefore write more, and dream less.

Learn early on about conducting, and often watch good conductors; even try to conduct pieces alone in your head. This makes you think clearly.

Try to excel in life, as well as in other arts and branches of knowledge.

The moral laws are also those of Art.

The way to improve is always through hard work and perseverance.

From a pound of iron worth a few pennies can be made many thousand watch-springs, which are worth hundreds of thousands. Put to good use the pound that God has given you.

Without enthusiasm nothing worthwhile can be accomplished in Art.

The purpose of Art is not to acquire wealth. Just strive always to be a greater artist; everything else will follow of its own accord.

Only if the form is first clear to you will the spirit then reveal itself.

Perhaps only Genius really understands Genius.

Somebody once said that a consummate musician is one who, on first hearing a complex orchestral work, can visualise the score as it really is. This is the highest conceivable level a musician can reach.

There is no end to learning.

Tags: piano, schumann, music+advice

News and more coming soon!

It has been a busy several months---yikes where did the spring go?

Look for updates with lots of photos soon

Some hints as to what I have been up to…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sniffle...cough

we will resume blogging
                                   (sneeze)
sometime
               (cough)
soon
         (we hope).

 

life moves forward

so from two weeks ago making a call to my former teacher to last night playing in the biweekly performance class – my head is spinning!

there is a lot to write about but today i am exhausted – its been a long time since I played the piano for others – singing opera and recitals is a whole other ball game -although performing is performing at the bottom line…

its hard to not replay every note of the piece last night (the first Chopin Nocturne, op 9 #1) and I am finding it hard not to berate myself for the mistakes – so to assauge all of those voices – I am heading back to the keys – for some long slow practice.

more on the events of the last two weeks anon.

tomorrow is DIE MEISTERSINGER.  Six GLORIOUS hours of Wagner with Levine at the helm and Morris essaying his glorious rendition of Hans Sachs … if I were Eva I would have a VERY hard time choosing between Walter and Sachs!

 

Homo Pianisticus

Homo pianisticus: Understanding The Species
(as published in Piano Today: WINTER issue, 2007)
By Carol Montparker

After a season of “overload”—too many concerts, concurrent with other family commitments—I recently decided to take a sabbatical for a year. The moment I made that decision (it was to be my first “time off” since I was six years old), a strange thing happened. I began to think of myself as a person, not as a pianist! As disorienting as that was, it became clear that the piano had become an opiate, a substitute for many things, a shield, an excuse, a passport. And I am welcoming the shift of perspective for whatever further revelations may come to light.

I knew it would be a struggle to turn down invitations to play, but my plan was to use the year to learn new music and work on some recordings without the pressure of a deadline. Considering the number of pianists of every shape, size, and genre getting cranked out of conservatories and universities each semester, and the diminishing audiences for classical music, one must ask the glaringly inevitable question: Why? Why does pianist after pianist continue to believe the world needs yet another one? What could possibly be the seductive factor in the face of such odds. I believe that the answer lies in the fact that, in the end, to play the piano, with or without fame or recognition, is one of the most noble and beautiful endeavors. It is a calling in the deepest sense of the word, defying explanation. And we who have answered that call belong to a rarified and elite species: Homo pianisticus.

Solitary, lonely, driven, introspective, reclusive, overworked, thrashed, obsessive, narcissistic—these are some of the descriptions of the species, and although my own personal choice of adjectives would be privileged and joyful, I can still attest to all of the above.

continued here

Barenboim on Bach

I was reared on Bach.

My father was virtually my only teacher, and he attached great importance to my growing up with Bach's keyboard music. He considered it to be very important, not only for its musical and pianistic aspects, but also for everything else that is played on the piano.

For him polyphonic music-making was simply one of the most important issues concerning everything relating to piano-playing. In itself the piano cannot seduce by virtue of its sound alone. The listener can be seduced by the lovely sound of, for example, a violin or an oboe. The piano, on the other hand, is a neutral instrument, and the art of playing it involves a sleight of hand. It is possible to create the illusion of a legato on the piano although, in the physical sense, it is impossible. But it is possible to create the illusion of sustained sound similar to that of a string instrument.

The most important part of piano-playing is the symphonic element. The music can only be of interest if the different strands of the polyphonic texture are played so distinctly that they can all be heard and create a three-dimensional effect - just as in painting, where something is moved into the foreground and something else into the background, making one appear closer to the viewer than the other, although the painting is flat and one-dimensional.

In my childhood I played practically all the Preludes and Fugues from Das wohltemperierte Klavier and many other pieces by Bach. That was my basis.

At the age of twelve I moved to Paris to study harmony and counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger. When I arrived for my first lesson, Das wohltemperierte Klavier was on the music stand of the grand piano. She turned the pages forward and back; finally she settled on the Prelude in E minor from Book One and said: "Right, my boy, now play it for me in A minor". She held a wooden ruler in her hand and every time my fingers played a wrong note she tapped them with it.

Thus Das wohltemperierte Klavier became the foundation for everything. In addition my father communicated something to me that I only found expressed in words when I was an adult - in a book about Franz Liszt in Weimar. It describes how he explained to a pupil that the piano should not be played with two hands or as two units. Either you play with a unit consisting of two hands, or with ten units in which each finger is independent.

This is a very important piece of advice. I was really pleased to read that, because I recognised once again what my father had taught me without putting it into words. This is the only way to tackle Bach. One might well imagine a nocturne by Chopin with the melody in the right hand and the accompaniment in the left, without any polyphony. But Bach's keyboard works definitely call for ten fingers that are independent of one another. And if they are, they can be brought together to create a unit.

Barenboim website

music education

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up” - Pablo Picasso

With a 20th-Century attitude that tends towards permanence and rigid categorization, this is very difficult. And it’s why people who refuse to change, find the modern world increasingly hard to live in.There’s no stopping what’s happening, and the only practical response that we can make is to adapt. A key part of this is to adapt education so that future generations will be able to exist happily in a constant state of change.

This is not possible in a society where mistakes are stigmatized, because it represses the ability to take risks and chances. However, without risking a mistake, creativity is limited.

If we’re educating people for a future about which we have no clue, then we need to emphasize creativity over academic achievement, and celebrate rather than pour disdain on mistakes.

Technology and the explosion of population will make degrees and other categorizations increasingly irrelevant. What will set us free will be the celebration of the human imagination above all. A central part of that is the celebration of music.

Music Education Will Become Ever More Important