As I hear my student playing the piano through Zoom, just for a moment, I think I am hearing Paderewski in 1912. The sound is imperfect. At moments it drops out. There are distortions of speed and rhythm. Yet, my ear, my mind is hearing music: completing and linking together the aural information that is there. As an adolescent, and thanks to the public library, I listened to a lot of recordings made by pianists of the early 20th … [Read more...]
Change of venue
In the eighteenth century, there were no concert halls. In 1750, no one would have asked: "Who will write the next great enduring symphony?" Venues develop in response to art, or art and venues develop together in some not entirely explainable relationship (like instruments and music). Halls are instruments too. Can anyone doubt that the 2,000-plus-seat Musikverein/Carnegie/Concertgebouw model is a period piece? It's a manifestation of a … [Read more...]