ROSEN:
The way Schnabel used to practice... he rarely practiced the really difficult passages. What he would do is practice the chords in something like the opening chords of the slow movement of the Op. 106.32 And what happened, he practiced them for the balance of sound. And in the end, that's really what the key to a beautiful tone, tone is. I mean, he would practice it until the chord vibrated from it, until the harmonics of the chord started to come out, until the chord sang the way he needed to make it. I mean, what I'm trying to say is, there's a vertical component, which is, you know, how the chord and how the chord vibrates and how the harmonics work in the thing-- and then, of course, there's the horizontal component of shaping the melody. If one of the notes sticks out too much, that sounds like banging. I mean, if you do it wrong. Also, when playing a chord, if you do this [gestures], just play all the notes equally, it's, it tends to be disagreeable. You have to use it only for a special effect. Can I add one small thing, which is that, I mean, what most people mean by a beautiful tone is that you bring out the melody and you use the pedal. And I mean, that's what a lot of teachers do. And I mean, to a certain extent, for a good deal of music, this is a good idea. But the whole, the way music is taught, not only in this country but around the world, which is that you use the same kind of sound for Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Boulez, Debussy, you know, Chopin. It becomes ridiculous. I mean, there should be a different sound for each composer.
The way Schnabel used to practice... he rarely practiced the really difficult passages. What he would do is practice the chords in something like the opening chords of the slow movement of the Op. 106.32 And what happened, he practiced them for the balance of sound. And in the end, that's really what the key to a beautiful tone, tone is. I mean, he would practice it until the chord vibrated from it, until the harmonics of the chord started to come out, until the chord sang the way he needed to make it. I mean, what I'm trying to say is, there's a vertical component, which is, you know, how the chord and how the chord vibrates and how the harmonics work in the thing-- and then, of course, there's the horizontal component of shaping the melody. If one of the notes sticks out too much, that sounds like banging. I mean, if you do it wrong. Also, when playing a chord, if you do this [gestures], just play all the notes equally, it's, it tends to be disagreeable. You have to use it only for a special effect. Can I add one small thing, which is that, I mean, what most people mean by a beautiful tone is that you bring out the melody and you use the pedal. And I mean, that's what a lot of teachers do. And I mean, to a certain extent, for a good deal of music, this is a good idea. But the whole, the way music is taught, not only in this country but around the world, which is that you use the same kind of sound for Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Boulez, Debussy, you know, Chopin. It becomes ridiculous. I mean, there should be a different sound for each composer.
FLEISHER:
The wonderful thing, the problem, I think, or one of our challenges is: Music is a horizontal activity, and yet it's the piano, the unique instrument that produces horizontal activity through a totally vertical, totally vertical activity. Violin: horizontal. Blowing air, from piccolo to tuba, is horizontal, in a sense. Putting down 88 keys is totally vertical.
The wonderful thing, the problem, I think, or one of our challenges is: Music is a horizontal activity, and yet it's the piano, the unique instrument that produces horizontal activity through a totally vertical, totally vertical activity. Violin: horizontal. Blowing air, from piccolo to tuba, is horizontal, in a sense. Putting down 88 keys is totally vertical.
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ROSEN:
We all come from families which were immigrant families, too. I mean, there's the second displacement, in other words, that we came from families that were displaced. It's what I said, that-- now, actually, most of the students in conservatories like Juilliard, they come from displaced families from Korea and Japan, and they're an entirely different-- the tradition hasn't changed. I mean, what happens is that music for immigrant families, classical music had a certain prestige, it was a way of sort of arising in society, and we were encouraged by our parents, and, you know, "my son, the pianist," or, instead of saying "my son the doctor" or "my son the nuclear physicist." And so that was a help. And that basically, there was, this is important, I think, for people to understand-- there was a whole transference of the European tradition not just in music but in everything: in nuclear physics, in mathematics. I mean, after 19...after Hitler, after 1938 and the Russian Revolution, there was an enormous transference, migration, of intellectuals from Europe into America. And I know American musicology was created at that time, and American pianism of a very special kind. Otherwise, before that, Americans had to go to Europe and study. Now, the European professors came and taught, and taught us here, and that was a big thing.
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