After I play through a program or a piece for someone (as a step in preparing for public performance), I don't return to the piano to practice. It can be difficult, if something went badly and I want to work on it. But the separation -- practicing for the real concert by preserving the "non-take-twoness" of the performing experience -- matters most. I've read of Busoni returning to the hall to play through an entire concert after the audience … [Read more...]
Marshall Plan
William Kapell, Van Cliburn, Glenn Gould, Leon Fleisher, Gary Graffman, Jacob Lateiner, Eugene Istomin. These were among post-World-War-II American piano ambassadors. In the 1930s and '40s, so many artists, scientists, and intellectuals came to America. Then, in the '50s, these American-trained, fresh faces went into the world to reread the Classical music canon, part of the accidental urban-renewal of European culture. What happened next? To … [Read more...]
No pedal
By some, it's considered a mark of distinction to play J. S. Bach's music on the modern piano using no pedal. Glenn Gould often did. Several of my students have aspired to. It seems like it must be harder to play that way, more pure, more noble. And the harpsichord has no such device for extending sound -- so perhaps it's more "authentic" to eschew the pedal in old music? I always use the pedal. Perhaps judiciously or even undetectably -- to … [Read more...]
Product and Act
Let's not make a categorical distinction between 19th-century musical products -- publications for sale to a public of amateur players -- and the recorded musical products of the 20th and 21st centuries. The work of the "composer" notating sonatas for sale to ladies of the bourgeoisie is the same work as that of performers and producers of 20th-century sound recordings. Both endeavors are musicking, both bring a public into the process/experience … [Read more...]
First Note
To conjure the first sound from the piano, at the beginning of a piece, at the beginning of a concert... In a live performance, this first sound can be made only once. In my mind, I do it over and over again. More than other instruments, the piano is an instrument of imagination. Most of us don't travel with our own pianos. Although we may have an ideal piano sound in our mind, we never hear it. So we're always adjusting, adapting -- … [Read more...]
Great teachers produce…
Great teachers produce great students. Don't they? Young musicians seek out teachers -- celebrated ones whose former students have succeeded in winning competitions, playing concerts, getting management, making recordings. Of course elite teachers pick their students, and the picking is important. The ability to recognize exceptional potential is rather rare. A teacher's celebrity (as a performer or as a teacher) can itself be a tool. And … [Read more...]