"Quo Vadis?" -The Art of Piano Performance"

Curious title, curious frame of mind, curiosity killed the cat. I have more time these days to ponder weighty subjects, and I can think of nothing that matches my curiosity about piano performance today. I just read a few pages in a self-help book by a noted scholar of piano literature and performance practice. I had to put it down after a few pages, as I felt if I had to suffer like some people over performance anxieties, I would not even leave the house. It is such a luxury to share misery, but frankly, any misery connected to the piano is a very private affair. It never ceases to amaze how many pianists sit down at the piano bench, and instantly forget (or they never read) Tobias Matthay's most valuable suggestion: "Never sit down at the piano except to make music". What does this tell us? It tells us that everything we do at the piano should have some amount of framework, design, objective, purpose...you can add you own word. Exercises? These are the most challenging of all, as they demand our utmost discipline and unwavering attention. This is when we deal with craft, and craft is the basis of any art. The painter sizes his canvas while peering into the white void, his internal vision already alive with purpose. The writer looks at the blank page and suddenly writes a few words that soon open up into sentences and paragraphs. The ballet dancer works at the barre,yet if it is a good studio, music plays and each exercise builds towards the complete body/mind experience. The pianist must ease himself into his session, first determining what kind of session it might be. Just the thought that one might plan out the time might be news to many. What is your goal for today, tomorrow, the week, month, year....decade!! Are you starting all new pieces at the smae time, or, are you adding them slowly, so each work is at a different stage of development? How easy to be overwhelmed. Have you really thought about the musical and technical challenges of each work, so as to avoid having everything being a plunge for notes and organization? Buffets are fun, but eating at one every meal might make one soon turn off food in general. So the same is true for repertoire. Do you really enjoy sitting through programs that are more about the performer tackling one hurdle after another? Perhaps it never entered his head that the audience is usually the reason he is there, and they don't want a huge buffet. They want a balanced program, which means just that. On reading my words I think I might be still under the influence of The Victorian Age. On reflection, my early teachers were very much under this influence. We often think Victorians were stuffy, rather stifled people. But it amuses me that so many dramatic breakthroughs came just at the end of this age. Tobias Matthay made great insights into the whole process of learning, balancing scientific observations with equal amounts of common sense and instinct. Freud made his amazing journies into the psyche, and Stanislavsky made acting into something vital and timeless. Alexander made his bold discoveries about mind and body, so nobly illustrated recently in "The King's Speech", where his techniques were used to unlock the tongue of George VI. I grew up in an age when beautiful tone was the great challenge, as the Golden Age of Pianists had at it's core this wonderful aesthetic of sound. I heard many of the great practicioners of this art, including Rubenstein, Hess, Horowitz, plus many others through their recordings...especially Cortot and Gieseking. Each had a unique sound, but they all had this tonal art that was at the core of their music. I have a vivid memory of Carl Friedberg, then in his eighties, playing parts of the Brahms Concerto in B Flat Major. We had finished a lesson, and he was showing me some of his ideas. What struck me so stongly was the focus of his sound. It had weight, but it also had virility and strength. His fingers were deep in the keys, and everything was directed to the musical intent. He didn't wave around, fall around, or any of those things we see in abundance today. I just read a review in The Guardian of a recital by Yuja Wang in London last week. The critic was eager to say she had fantastic fingers that did everything she demanded with ease. What surprised him was the lack of depth in her playing, and the sound could become hard at times. She is very much a pianist of the moment, and she atrracts attention by dressing unconventionally for her public. Perhaps we are entering a whole new AGE. Its more about the package and the predictable results, than it is about the searching for soul and profond moments. I have grown very fussy in my advancing years, not wanting to be made to listen to speed and thrills. Years ago my teacher Frank Mannheimer sat through a performance of a Chopin Scherzo by a master class student, a performance so loud and fast it was almost unbearable. He smiled at the end and told the young man."A racecar could have not done it any faster". Luckily that young man grew into a fine and sensitive artist.