Both musicians emphasized the importance of practice methods as essential to performance. Mr Sugar used the example of a basic scale to illustrate the number of paths available to inject creativity into practice. How many tools does it take to build a house? Hundreds. We must have dozens of ways to practice. We must find ways to make practice creative. Ms Korcsolan mentioned the value of practicing without the instrument in order to help with memorization. She also brought laughs to the audience when she followed up Do you own a metronome? with Do you use it? Or do you rent it out?
-Orsolya Korcsolan (violin) and Gergely Sugar (french horn)
Friday, June 05, 2009
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Two-fingers-each-hand pianist
I told Jennifer, I will not complain about my small hands/short fingers anymore:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FSnalrPYpc&eurl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FSnalrPYpc&eurl
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Angela Hewitt talks about her JS Bach
Alan Rusbridger: Some pianists would think, "It's enough for me to play this, without having to explain." Do you have an instinct as a teacher?
Angela Hewitt: I do, although I don't teach regularly. I refuse all private lessons, simply as a matter of time. I hardly have time to do my own work. But yes, I think I've always liked to put words to music, whether it's writing about the pieces as I do in my notes, or giving pre-concert talks, or explaining in the masterclass why I take such-and-such a decision for interpretation. I did have some excellent teachers who gave me that. I think that if you are an interpreter and also can explain what you are doing, it helps people an awful lot. You can get a lot from just listening to someone but to have them explain to you "Why?", that is another thing entirely.
AR: Has being forced to articulate what you are doing taken you to a different level in your playing?
AH: I think so. Having to really explain rhythmic alterations in Baroque music - why you double dot, where you double dot, and not just because you feel like it, but to have the reasons for it. To really have a think about keys in Bach and what keys express a certain feeling and if there are indeed keys that seem to express certain emotions for Bach, which I think there are. It made me think about things more consciously. That has helped my interpretation, for sure. I think the two work together – the vast knowledge I gain by the performing, and also the thinking about it and the wanting to articulate it.
AR: Where have you learnt from, if there are so few written sources?
AH: A combination. I admire the people who go into all the libraries and gather up all the original information. I haven't done that, I must say, although I try to keep abreast of all the recent biographies – the Christoph Wolf biography of Bach and all the new publications, certainly. Basically it comes from the experience with his music, combined with reading. For instance, I'm always saying that I was glad that when I did the recordings, that I did the partitas and the French suites first before I got into the fugues. I learnt so much about the dances in Bach. There are so many pieces in the Well-Tempered Clavier that are dances, but you have to recognise them and then you have to know what to do with them. So that was a help… I learnt from books, from experience, not so much from pianists, I must say. I listened to harpsichordists, to orchestras, to people like John Eliot Gardiner and the early music crowd.
AR: Why harpsichordists?
AH: Pianists often annoy me! A lot of them, I feel, don't play it in a true Baroque style. I still listen to them of course. I still listen to Edwin Fischer and admire the wonderful architecture he can build in a fugue. Schiff also. I think in many ways his playing is the closest to mine. I do think there's a way of playing Bach at the piano that is still stylistically correct and that's what I'm looking for.
AR: Do you practice a trill very regularly and then break it down into sixteen notes and then try and forget it and do it naturally?
AH: That's one way of doing it. And I think probably at first for a lot of kids that's the best way. Of course it's much harder to play it freer and keep the other hand steady. What I found in the end, is that you have to think of the other hand, not the trill. You have to think of shaping the more singing notes and let the trill go. But that's a very difficult thing to do. But sometimes, a measured trill, there is a place for that.
AR: What are the most controversial things about playing Bach?
AH: I think the issue of timing, of rubato. I've had so many comments about that. In Singapore, the head piano teacher at the Conservatory came to me and said, "You don't know what a great gift you've given us. The attitude here is that Bach has to be strict and unbending and rigid and you can't take any time, and yours was so wonderful and free and expressive and singing. It's just been a revelation."
If there's one thing I can get across to people is that Bach does not have to be rigid and strict and that taking time is allowed. Of course, it has to be done intelligently. Usually it's used to highlight the architecture or the harmonies and not just because you feel like taking a bit of time in that bar. You have to have a reason for it.
I also think that using the Fazioli piano has really made a difference too. You can get so many different colours in it, so many tiny variations of colour, of touch, that it's really added so much to my musical imagination.
It's funny, when I go back on this tour, to playing with, shall we say, a piano beginning with S, I have to play a lot more, you know, every note. Especially when I'm playing lightly and maybe quick, it has to be much more every note emphasised. I don't like that. It's not how I play anymore. I'm much more tired at the end too. But I think in combination with the Fazioli I've become more creative with my colour and sound and phrasing.
AR: Just talk a bit about what it's like living with Bach.
AH: Well, he's a pretty good friend. He's a demanding friend, I tell you! He gives me sore muscles in my neck! But every minute I spend in his company is worthwhile. I don't think that there's any other repertoire that I could have repeated so often as I'm doing on this world tour and absolutely never get tired of it. It's still a challenge. It's still growing. I'm still perfecting it. He is demanding. He demands great discipline and co-ordination and heart. I feel so much that it's worth it.
Certainly, all the time you put into learning Bach, it helps you so much with all the other composers afterwards. Things like developing finger legato. So many times in masterclasses kids play Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin, and they have no finger legato at all. All the legato just on the pedal, it's not the same at all.
Just being able to play different voices, with different colours, that helps you with Beethoven too. The fluency you get in Bach, you apply to Mozart, Brahms as well. So I know that all the time I spend with Bach will make it easier with other things too.
He has been quite demanding. I couldn't have done, as I often say, the complete Bach and had four kids at the same time, no.
When I began the tour, I couldn't do all 48 from memory, but soon I took the score away from Book One, and in March, went for the whole thing. But it took me that length of time to really have it all safely in my memory.
I think it's a hundred times more work to play from memory than to play with a score.
AR: Why does it matter?
AH: A lot of people would say that it doesn't matter, that nobody would care, but it matters to me. Firstly, I feel that the audience's concentration is at a higher pitch when I'm doing it from memory, perhaps because they see the concentration on my face and it's translated to them. Plus there's no fooling with pages between prelude and fugue. And I didn't want anyone else sitting there. You demand so much concentration that you don't even want anyone sitting there, turning the pages.
AR: You've been playing this programme for six, seven, eight months. How much does the music continue to reveal itself to you while you're living with it?
AH: Up until a month ago it was changing. I'd find different things to do. I don't think now it's going to change dramatically. Just that it will become more part of me each time, which translates into being more authoritative.
AR: Is part of the pleasure of playing live feeling that you suddenly have a different kind of connection with the audience?
AH: You're usually hugely influenced by piano and hall and audience, but the two most important things are the piano and the acoustic in the hall. Also the audience. The greatest gift they can give me is silence. I have decided that coughing or not coughing is a matter totally of discipline and respect for the artist and for the music. In Tokyo, there were people with the face masks on who made no noise at all during the whole 48! But in other halls it's just constant and it can drive you crazy. Especially when you're playing fugues.
A combination of the audience, the piano and the silence in the hall. That's when you give your best and most colourful performances.
AR: Can Baroque music simultaneously be romantic?
AH: It's not romantic like Schumann, no, but if you use "romantic" to mean "very expressive", then, yes, I think so. Pieces like the B flat minor prelude, which is very tragic and romantic. Or the Variation 25 of the Goldberg. It's very intense. You can't get much more romantic than that. It's romantic for his time.
As a kid, I was often criticised for making things too romantic, but I think what they meant was too expressive.
AR: You mentioned Edwin Fischer. Are there other people of that generation that you get inspiration from?
AH: Kempff. You know that marvellous record of transcriptions? You want something romantic - that's romantic - Bach. The joy, the sorrow. He came from a family of organists and evidently could transpose any of the 48, which I certainly couldn't do!
Who else is there? Gould I listen to, but I could never imitate him. It was too much him, and not enough Bach, for me.
Rosalyn Tureck of course, I grew up on – The Well-Tempered Clavier - although I did always find it a bit lugubrious, not lively enough for me.
AR: Of the 48, what are the ones that you have grown to love most?
AH: The C sharp minor, Book One, that wonderful fugue. It comes so early on too, you have to be ready for it, but it's marvellous. Oh my God, there are so many! The G minor, from Book Two, which is a real organ fugue, a fantastic prelude too. Book Two is much more demanding on you in a way.
Book One is more extrovert, more easily accessible. The preludes in Book Two are much bigger pieces. The fugues in Book Two tend to be more dense, more complicated to understand. Book Two is Bach writing for himself, I feel.
The second half of Book Two is the most difficult to make your way through, but it is the richest. You have to save yourself for it. It's the most demanding.
Book One we have in manuscript. Book Two we don't. All the copies we had of Book Two were copies his students made and sometimes there are annotations by Bach in the margin, but there are a lot more variants, little tiny variants in notes or ornamentations that he added at a later date. So there are more decisions to make about textual things.
AR: What's the secret of pedalling Bach?
AH: What's the secret? The secret is to figure it out with the fingers first – is to do all the articulation, all legato, whatever you want to do, do it all with the fingers first and then bring in the pedal if there's something you really can't join and want to have joined. That's the secret, I think, to use it only when required. How beautiful it can sound without pedal in the B flat minor. It's very difficult to do and takes great, great control.
In a drier hall, I would use a little bit more pedal, but never to blur a passage. For instance, at the end of Book One, the big B minor fugue, I might use it on every sixteenth note. I would pedal each note to give it a bit more resonance.
Soft pedal can be very useful. On the Steinway in Singapore it was best to avoid it. But on the Fazioli you can really use it to great effect, to get just a little bit more. Or you could use the fourth pedal too, if you like, if you're playing something very rapid. On the 308, and also on my [Fazioli model] 278, he puts on a fourth pedal. It lowers the keyboard and at the same time the hammer comes closer to the keys so you don't get so much attack. For Beethoven I use it, you know the end of Opus 10, No. 2? You put that fourth pedal down and it's a breeze.
AR: What is it about the Fazioli that you've come to love so much?
AH: It's the response. It's the clarity. It lives under my fingers. I think that's the main thing. I hold those long chords in the D major fugue – and I hold and hold and hold that chord because of the resonance and the harmonics. On other pianos you don't want to hold it that long because it sounds flat, but not on the Fazioli. I really do notice the difference in my muscles when I have to play Steinway rather than Fazioli. I'm much more tired physically with Steinway than I am with a Fazioli.
AR: What are the mistakes that pianists make when they play Bach, in your view?
AH: Lack of colour. They just play it all too much on the same level. When they play a six-page fugue and it's all on the same level it's awful! It's terrible.
AR: How much do you bring out individual voices?
AH: One of the true trademarks of a good Bach player is that you can do that. You should be able to play any passage in Bach in as many different ways as there are voices. To think horizontally. Everybody thinks vertically in Bach. I try to always think horizontally.
· Angela Hewitt's DVD, Bach Performance on the Piano: An Illustrated Lecture, is out now from Hyperion
Angela Hewitt: I do, although I don't teach regularly. I refuse all private lessons, simply as a matter of time. I hardly have time to do my own work. But yes, I think I've always liked to put words to music, whether it's writing about the pieces as I do in my notes, or giving pre-concert talks, or explaining in the masterclass why I take such-and-such a decision for interpretation. I did have some excellent teachers who gave me that. I think that if you are an interpreter and also can explain what you are doing, it helps people an awful lot. You can get a lot from just listening to someone but to have them explain to you "Why?", that is another thing entirely.
AR: Has being forced to articulate what you are doing taken you to a different level in your playing?
AH: I think so. Having to really explain rhythmic alterations in Baroque music - why you double dot, where you double dot, and not just because you feel like it, but to have the reasons for it. To really have a think about keys in Bach and what keys express a certain feeling and if there are indeed keys that seem to express certain emotions for Bach, which I think there are. It made me think about things more consciously. That has helped my interpretation, for sure. I think the two work together – the vast knowledge I gain by the performing, and also the thinking about it and the wanting to articulate it.
AR: Where have you learnt from, if there are so few written sources?
AH: A combination. I admire the people who go into all the libraries and gather up all the original information. I haven't done that, I must say, although I try to keep abreast of all the recent biographies – the Christoph Wolf biography of Bach and all the new publications, certainly. Basically it comes from the experience with his music, combined with reading. For instance, I'm always saying that I was glad that when I did the recordings, that I did the partitas and the French suites first before I got into the fugues. I learnt so much about the dances in Bach. There are so many pieces in the Well-Tempered Clavier that are dances, but you have to recognise them and then you have to know what to do with them. So that was a help… I learnt from books, from experience, not so much from pianists, I must say. I listened to harpsichordists, to orchestras, to people like John Eliot Gardiner and the early music crowd.
AR: Why harpsichordists?
AH: Pianists often annoy me! A lot of them, I feel, don't play it in a true Baroque style. I still listen to them of course. I still listen to Edwin Fischer and admire the wonderful architecture he can build in a fugue. Schiff also. I think in many ways his playing is the closest to mine. I do think there's a way of playing Bach at the piano that is still stylistically correct and that's what I'm looking for.
AR: Do you practice a trill very regularly and then break it down into sixteen notes and then try and forget it and do it naturally?
AH: That's one way of doing it. And I think probably at first for a lot of kids that's the best way. Of course it's much harder to play it freer and keep the other hand steady. What I found in the end, is that you have to think of the other hand, not the trill. You have to think of shaping the more singing notes and let the trill go. But that's a very difficult thing to do. But sometimes, a measured trill, there is a place for that.
AR: What are the most controversial things about playing Bach?
AH: I think the issue of timing, of rubato. I've had so many comments about that. In Singapore, the head piano teacher at the Conservatory came to me and said, "You don't know what a great gift you've given us. The attitude here is that Bach has to be strict and unbending and rigid and you can't take any time, and yours was so wonderful and free and expressive and singing. It's just been a revelation."
If there's one thing I can get across to people is that Bach does not have to be rigid and strict and that taking time is allowed. Of course, it has to be done intelligently. Usually it's used to highlight the architecture or the harmonies and not just because you feel like taking a bit of time in that bar. You have to have a reason for it.
I also think that using the Fazioli piano has really made a difference too. You can get so many different colours in it, so many tiny variations of colour, of touch, that it's really added so much to my musical imagination.
It's funny, when I go back on this tour, to playing with, shall we say, a piano beginning with S, I have to play a lot more, you know, every note. Especially when I'm playing lightly and maybe quick, it has to be much more every note emphasised. I don't like that. It's not how I play anymore. I'm much more tired at the end too. But I think in combination with the Fazioli I've become more creative with my colour and sound and phrasing.
AR: Just talk a bit about what it's like living with Bach.
AH: Well, he's a pretty good friend. He's a demanding friend, I tell you! He gives me sore muscles in my neck! But every minute I spend in his company is worthwhile. I don't think that there's any other repertoire that I could have repeated so often as I'm doing on this world tour and absolutely never get tired of it. It's still a challenge. It's still growing. I'm still perfecting it. He is demanding. He demands great discipline and co-ordination and heart. I feel so much that it's worth it.
Certainly, all the time you put into learning Bach, it helps you so much with all the other composers afterwards. Things like developing finger legato. So many times in masterclasses kids play Schubert, Beethoven, Chopin, and they have no finger legato at all. All the legato just on the pedal, it's not the same at all.
Just being able to play different voices, with different colours, that helps you with Beethoven too. The fluency you get in Bach, you apply to Mozart, Brahms as well. So I know that all the time I spend with Bach will make it easier with other things too.
He has been quite demanding. I couldn't have done, as I often say, the complete Bach and had four kids at the same time, no.
When I began the tour, I couldn't do all 48 from memory, but soon I took the score away from Book One, and in March, went for the whole thing. But it took me that length of time to really have it all safely in my memory.
I think it's a hundred times more work to play from memory than to play with a score.
AR: Why does it matter?
AH: A lot of people would say that it doesn't matter, that nobody would care, but it matters to me. Firstly, I feel that the audience's concentration is at a higher pitch when I'm doing it from memory, perhaps because they see the concentration on my face and it's translated to them. Plus there's no fooling with pages between prelude and fugue. And I didn't want anyone else sitting there. You demand so much concentration that you don't even want anyone sitting there, turning the pages.
AR: You've been playing this programme for six, seven, eight months. How much does the music continue to reveal itself to you while you're living with it?
AH: Up until a month ago it was changing. I'd find different things to do. I don't think now it's going to change dramatically. Just that it will become more part of me each time, which translates into being more authoritative.
AR: Is part of the pleasure of playing live feeling that you suddenly have a different kind of connection with the audience?
AH: You're usually hugely influenced by piano and hall and audience, but the two most important things are the piano and the acoustic in the hall. Also the audience. The greatest gift they can give me is silence. I have decided that coughing or not coughing is a matter totally of discipline and respect for the artist and for the music. In Tokyo, there were people with the face masks on who made no noise at all during the whole 48! But in other halls it's just constant and it can drive you crazy. Especially when you're playing fugues.
A combination of the audience, the piano and the silence in the hall. That's when you give your best and most colourful performances.
AR: Can Baroque music simultaneously be romantic?
AH: It's not romantic like Schumann, no, but if you use "romantic" to mean "very expressive", then, yes, I think so. Pieces like the B flat minor prelude, which is very tragic and romantic. Or the Variation 25 of the Goldberg. It's very intense. You can't get much more romantic than that. It's romantic for his time.
As a kid, I was often criticised for making things too romantic, but I think what they meant was too expressive.
AR: You mentioned Edwin Fischer. Are there other people of that generation that you get inspiration from?
AH: Kempff. You know that marvellous record of transcriptions? You want something romantic - that's romantic - Bach. The joy, the sorrow. He came from a family of organists and evidently could transpose any of the 48, which I certainly couldn't do!
Who else is there? Gould I listen to, but I could never imitate him. It was too much him, and not enough Bach, for me.
Rosalyn Tureck of course, I grew up on – The Well-Tempered Clavier - although I did always find it a bit lugubrious, not lively enough for me.
AR: Of the 48, what are the ones that you have grown to love most?
AH: The C sharp minor, Book One, that wonderful fugue. It comes so early on too, you have to be ready for it, but it's marvellous. Oh my God, there are so many! The G minor, from Book Two, which is a real organ fugue, a fantastic prelude too. Book Two is much more demanding on you in a way.
Book One is more extrovert, more easily accessible. The preludes in Book Two are much bigger pieces. The fugues in Book Two tend to be more dense, more complicated to understand. Book Two is Bach writing for himself, I feel.
The second half of Book Two is the most difficult to make your way through, but it is the richest. You have to save yourself for it. It's the most demanding.
Book One we have in manuscript. Book Two we don't. All the copies we had of Book Two were copies his students made and sometimes there are annotations by Bach in the margin, but there are a lot more variants, little tiny variants in notes or ornamentations that he added at a later date. So there are more decisions to make about textual things.
AR: What's the secret of pedalling Bach?
AH: What's the secret? The secret is to figure it out with the fingers first – is to do all the articulation, all legato, whatever you want to do, do it all with the fingers first and then bring in the pedal if there's something you really can't join and want to have joined. That's the secret, I think, to use it only when required. How beautiful it can sound without pedal in the B flat minor. It's very difficult to do and takes great, great control.
In a drier hall, I would use a little bit more pedal, but never to blur a passage. For instance, at the end of Book One, the big B minor fugue, I might use it on every sixteenth note. I would pedal each note to give it a bit more resonance.
Soft pedal can be very useful. On the Steinway in Singapore it was best to avoid it. But on the Fazioli you can really use it to great effect, to get just a little bit more. Or you could use the fourth pedal too, if you like, if you're playing something very rapid. On the 308, and also on my [Fazioli model] 278, he puts on a fourth pedal. It lowers the keyboard and at the same time the hammer comes closer to the keys so you don't get so much attack. For Beethoven I use it, you know the end of Opus 10, No. 2? You put that fourth pedal down and it's a breeze.
AR: What is it about the Fazioli that you've come to love so much?
AH: It's the response. It's the clarity. It lives under my fingers. I think that's the main thing. I hold those long chords in the D major fugue – and I hold and hold and hold that chord because of the resonance and the harmonics. On other pianos you don't want to hold it that long because it sounds flat, but not on the Fazioli. I really do notice the difference in my muscles when I have to play Steinway rather than Fazioli. I'm much more tired physically with Steinway than I am with a Fazioli.
AR: What are the mistakes that pianists make when they play Bach, in your view?
AH: Lack of colour. They just play it all too much on the same level. When they play a six-page fugue and it's all on the same level it's awful! It's terrible.
AR: How much do you bring out individual voices?
AH: One of the true trademarks of a good Bach player is that you can do that. You should be able to play any passage in Bach in as many different ways as there are voices. To think horizontally. Everybody thinks vertically in Bach. I try to always think horizontally.
· Angela Hewitt's DVD, Bach Performance on the Piano: An Illustrated Lecture, is out now from Hyperion
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Artur Schnabel: 2 kinds of audiences
When I am asked, "What do you think of our audience?" , I answer " I know two kinds of audiences only - one coughing and one not coughing".
That is the simplest answer. What else can I say?
That disappoints the people who ask me, for they want to hear me say,
"I have never had an audience like the one in your city here"'
That is the simplest answer. What else can I say?
That disappoints the people who ask me, for they want to hear me say,
"I have never had an audience like the one in your city here"'
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Peter Cincotti
Went for Peter Cincotti's concert today, in conjunction with the Sun Festival.
I came home entertained and with a very important lesson on Performance.
People always say that when you perform, you must be confident. But what exactly does that mean?
Does it mean you walk gingerly to the piano, and as if you're asking permission to play the piano?
Heck no! You walk to the piano, as if you have every right to, and play it like it's your favourite toy and the music notes are your friends.
I think this type of thinking is a key ingredient in a performance.
As Sano Izumi says, "Hard work pays off. All that is left is to believe in yourself."
I came home entertained and with a very important lesson on Performance.
People always say that when you perform, you must be confident. But what exactly does that mean?
Does it mean you walk gingerly to the piano, and as if you're asking permission to play the piano?
Heck no! You walk to the piano, as if you have every right to, and play it like it's your favourite toy and the music notes are your friends.
I think this type of thinking is a key ingredient in a performance.
As Sano Izumi says, "Hard work pays off. All that is left is to believe in yourself."
Friday, August 29, 2008
Teacher's Day 2008
It has been a LOOONG day... I don't recollect ever being this tired after a workday... my muscles doesn't seem to be responding to my will very well.... :P
But yet I am so deeply touched today that I must put down in words what I feel today.
It's Teacher's Day on Monday and since this week, presents have been coming in. While I can't deny that I am thrilled to receive such lovely presents, but what is actually meaningful to me is the reminder about the Human Touch in teaching, that teaching is really not about getting them to play scales or pieces etc... It's about treating them with respect and touching their lives and making a difference, no matter how small.
No matter how "hopeless" that student seems to be, you really should still treat them with respect and be patient with them. That's a teacher's duty. Remember that everyone is unique.
When people say that, sometimes it is the teacher that learns from the student, i can now vouch that this is true, not necessarily them giving me insights about music (which they certainly do!) but now they teach me how to be a human being, how to treat people. Today they make me realise, Everyone Is My Teacher. This is now my new motto. I remember last time Ven Hue Can also said something along those lines. She thanked us, her devotees, cos she said that we are her teachers too, that she is learning from us as well. Truly words of wisdom.
Getting a card from Joyce, who has since moved on to NAFA, really touched my heart. Aww I'm still remembered.
And the Swatch watch from Christina,.. I shall wear it like a badge of honour, not only that, but also to serve as a reminder that Everyone Is My Teacher :)
Ok the "paralysis" is affecting my flow of thought as well...
To be continued...........
But yet I am so deeply touched today that I must put down in words what I feel today.
It's Teacher's Day on Monday and since this week, presents have been coming in. While I can't deny that I am thrilled to receive such lovely presents, but what is actually meaningful to me is the reminder about the Human Touch in teaching, that teaching is really not about getting them to play scales or pieces etc... It's about treating them with respect and touching their lives and making a difference, no matter how small.
No matter how "hopeless" that student seems to be, you really should still treat them with respect and be patient with them. That's a teacher's duty. Remember that everyone is unique.
When people say that, sometimes it is the teacher that learns from the student, i can now vouch that this is true, not necessarily them giving me insights about music (which they certainly do!) but now they teach me how to be a human being, how to treat people. Today they make me realise, Everyone Is My Teacher. This is now my new motto. I remember last time Ven Hue Can also said something along those lines. She thanked us, her devotees, cos she said that we are her teachers too, that she is learning from us as well. Truly words of wisdom.
Getting a card from Joyce, who has since moved on to NAFA, really touched my heart. Aww I'm still remembered.
And the Swatch watch from Christina,.. I shall wear it like a badge of honour, not only that, but also to serve as a reminder that Everyone Is My Teacher :)
Ok the "paralysis" is affecting my flow of thought as well...
To be continued...........
Monday, August 25, 2008
Claudio Arrau: Insecurity and Dreams
=========================
The troubles that kept me from giving everything I had had to do with vanity. I wanted to please. And I was afraid not to please. Abrahamsohn worked continuously on that idea. How right he was. The less vain you become, the more creative you are. One gets to the point where one is courageous enough to displease, if it's called for by the composer. There are certain places in Beethoven, for example where he is almost brutal.
JH: The word vanity usually suggests arrogance or excessive self confidence. But I think you're talking about a type of shyness- vanity in the sense of worrying what others will think of you,and therefore not expressing yourself in a way that might antagonise or confuse.
CA: I don't mean vanity in the sense of being conceited, but of wanting to please. And that is of course due to insecurity.
JH: Would you say that , as a result of conquering this impulse to please , your piano sound changed?
CA: It becamse richer, more assertive. Everything had more meaning.
================================
JH: One of the things you've mentioned in writing about this period is learning to interpret your dreams.
CA: Oh yes. I kept a notebook. And I trained myself, when I had an important dream, to wake up and write it down. I developed this capacity to wake up and when I felt my subconscious wanted to tell me something.
The troubles that kept me from giving everything I had had to do with vanity. I wanted to please. And I was afraid not to please. Abrahamsohn worked continuously on that idea. How right he was. The less vain you become, the more creative you are. One gets to the point where one is courageous enough to displease, if it's called for by the composer. There are certain places in Beethoven, for example where he is almost brutal.
JH: The word vanity usually suggests arrogance or excessive self confidence. But I think you're talking about a type of shyness- vanity in the sense of worrying what others will think of you,and therefore not expressing yourself in a way that might antagonise or confuse.
CA: I don't mean vanity in the sense of being conceited, but of wanting to please. And that is of course due to insecurity.
JH: Would you say that , as a result of conquering this impulse to please , your piano sound changed?
CA: It becamse richer, more assertive. Everything had more meaning.
================================
JH: One of the things you've mentioned in writing about this period is learning to interpret your dreams.
CA: Oh yes. I kept a notebook. And I trained myself, when I had an important dream, to wake up and write it down. I developed this capacity to wake up and when I felt my subconscious wanted to tell me something.
Arrau : of his teacher Martin Krause
Krause inculcated a reverence for music, and for music as a calling. He accepted no payment from the Arraus (an example Arrau has followed later in life - he teaches without a fee) . Mindful of his own venerated teachers, Liszt and Carl Reinecke, he taught as one bequeathing a tradition, his students comprised a sort of guild apprenticeship.
Q: Did Krause have any special teaching methods?
A: He believed in practising difficult passages at different speeds, and in different rhythms and in different keys. And then staccato, leggiero, martellato- all sorts of combinations. In fact he always told us that you shouldn't perform a work in public unless you were able to play it ten times as fast and ten times as loud as it would have to be in performance 0 that you only gave the feeling of mastery to an audience if you had tremendous reserves of technique, so that it seemed you could play much faster if you wished, or much louder.
Q: When you began working with Krause, his most famous pupil was Edwin Fischer. Yet Fischer's attitude tward textual fidelity was much different from yours. And he wasn't as polished a technician. Krause must not have stamped his students from a mould.
A: He encouraged thenm to develop their own approach. one thing I remember about him is that he hated people who just played, senselessly. "Klimpern" [tinkling] he called it. And he always said that one should have a general culture base.
==========================
He had heard Brahms, Clara Schumann, Carreno, Busoni, Sophie Menter. And of course Liszt. He would speak of Liszt's way of breaking chords, and of trilling. He taught us several ways to break a chord: to start slowly, and then accelerate toward the highest note; or to make a crescendo to the highest note; or to make a diminuendo; or to do it freely, with rubato. but always so that broken chords would have a meaning coming from what went before.
==========================
Q: You have said that Krause had you play all the preludes and fugues from the WTC in different keys.
A: Yes in front of all the pupils in the conservatory, he would test whether one could play in another key - usually one very far away, not just one tone or one half-tone. He also insisted on having us memorize single voices. Bach in general was one of the bases of his teaching. In those days, of course, there was no doubt it was correct to play Bach on the piano.
Q: Did Krause have any special teaching methods?
A: He believed in practising difficult passages at different speeds, and in different rhythms and in different keys. And then staccato, leggiero, martellato- all sorts of combinations. In fact he always told us that you shouldn't perform a work in public unless you were able to play it ten times as fast and ten times as loud as it would have to be in performance 0 that you only gave the feeling of mastery to an audience if you had tremendous reserves of technique, so that it seemed you could play much faster if you wished, or much louder.
Q: When you began working with Krause, his most famous pupil was Edwin Fischer. Yet Fischer's attitude tward textual fidelity was much different from yours. And he wasn't as polished a technician. Krause must not have stamped his students from a mould.
A: He encouraged thenm to develop their own approach. one thing I remember about him is that he hated people who just played, senselessly. "Klimpern" [tinkling] he called it. And he always said that one should have a general culture base.
==========================
He had heard Brahms, Clara Schumann, Carreno, Busoni, Sophie Menter. And of course Liszt. He would speak of Liszt's way of breaking chords, and of trilling. He taught us several ways to break a chord: to start slowly, and then accelerate toward the highest note; or to make a crescendo to the highest note; or to make a diminuendo; or to do it freely, with rubato. but always so that broken chords would have a meaning coming from what went before.
==========================
Q: You have said that Krause had you play all the preludes and fugues from the WTC in different keys.
A: Yes in front of all the pupils in the conservatory, he would test whether one could play in another key - usually one very far away, not just one tone or one half-tone. He also insisted on having us memorize single voices. Bach in general was one of the bases of his teaching. In those days, of course, there was no doubt it was correct to play Bach on the piano.
Prodigy
Q: When Mozart was being shown off, he would identify chords on the piano from the other room. Would you perform tricks as well?
A: Yes they did that with me too. Someone would play bunches of notes, almost like modern music, and I could name every note from another room. And i would transpose preludes by Bach.
Q: A striking characteristic of the young Mozart was his complete immersion in music. Andres Schachtner wrote of Mozart:" No sooner had he begun to busy himself with music than his interest in every other occupation was as dead, and even children's games had to have a musical accompaniment if they were to interest him; if we, he and I were carrying his playthings from one room to another, the one of us who went empty handed always had to sing or fiddle a march the while. Were you that single-minded as a child:
A: I think so. All I wanted was music. I was even fed at the piano. Otherwise it seems, I wouldn't eat. I used to play with my mouth open, and my mother used to put food in it. I was so preoccupied with the music I hardly noticed. Whenever food was put in my mouth, I chewed it so I could get rid of it.
Q: Schlichtegroll's necrology says of Mozart that "in general he was full of enthusiasm and was very easily attracted to any subject. " There are these stories of Mozart being taught arithmetic and making his calculations all over the floors and walls, writing numbers everyplace. Every activity he undertook consumed him. Were you like that?
A: I concentrated on what I was doing. Still today, whatever it is, even something very unimportant, I am totally there.
A: Yes they did that with me too. Someone would play bunches of notes, almost like modern music, and I could name every note from another room. And i would transpose preludes by Bach.
Q: A striking characteristic of the young Mozart was his complete immersion in music. Andres Schachtner wrote of Mozart:" No sooner had he begun to busy himself with music than his interest in every other occupation was as dead, and even children's games had to have a musical accompaniment if they were to interest him; if we, he and I were carrying his playthings from one room to another, the one of us who went empty handed always had to sing or fiddle a march the while. Were you that single-minded as a child:
A: I think so. All I wanted was music. I was even fed at the piano. Otherwise it seems, I wouldn't eat. I used to play with my mouth open, and my mother used to put food in it. I was so preoccupied with the music I hardly noticed. Whenever food was put in my mouth, I chewed it so I could get rid of it.
Q: Schlichtegroll's necrology says of Mozart that "in general he was full of enthusiasm and was very easily attracted to any subject. " There are these stories of Mozart being taught arithmetic and making his calculations all over the floors and walls, writing numbers everyplace. Every activity he undertook consumed him. Were you like that?
A: I concentrated on what I was doing. Still today, whatever it is, even something very unimportant, I am totally there.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Freedom to Fail
The freedom to fail
Shawn Johnson's coach permits mistakes, leading to success
By Alan Abrahamson
Posted Thursday, August 7, 2008 10:09 AM ET
Shawn Johnson candidly acknowledges that she can feel nervous when the spotlight turns to her at major gymnastics events.
As she says, who wouldn't feel nerves when everyone's watching?
But you wouldn't know it watching the 16-year-old from West Des Moines, Iowa, who is widely considered a favorite to win the women's individual all-around competition at the Beijing Games.
And here's why:
Shawn has the express permission of her coach, Liang Chow, to make mistakes.
And, in one of those great twists, it's precisely because she feels the freedom to make mistakes that she rarely makes big ones.
Before the U.S. Olympic Trials, in June in Philadelphia, for instance, Chow told Shawn, as her mother, Teri recalled, just two things:
Perform like a champion.
And don't be afraid to make a mistake.
After which Shawn went out and, just as she did at the 2007 world championships in the individual all-around, came out on top -- finishing with the best overall score at the 2008 U.S. Trials.
"I remember him telling me that," Shawn said. "It is almost just a relief. You're just trying to please the person who has taught you eveyrthing; you want to show them that you can be just as perfect as they've trained you to be. You're afraid to make mistakes. You're afraid to let them down -- even though you wouldn't.
"For him to have told me that, that as long as I went out there and did my best and he knew I had done my best, no matter what happened, he would have been happy -- it made me have a lot more confidence in myself because I knew if I went out there and made mistakes it wouldn't be the end of the world."
"I think that is so helpful to her, that he gives her permission to be imperfect, to be human," Shawn's mother, Teri Johnson, said, adding, "It's as simple as, 'Go do your best.' And, truthfully, that's all anybody can do."
In high-level sport, the mental edge often can -- and does -- make the difference.
Only the bounds of human ingenuity limit the ways in which coaches, trainers and others in the camp of an elite athlete seek that edge.
Chow's way is refreshingly simple.
It is based, he says, on a humanistic approach to the sport and to his athletes.
It is based, he says, on the idea of love.
Love? In gymnastics, perhaps the most rigorous of all competitive sports?
Growing up in China -- his return to the Beijing Games marks one of the most enchanting stories of the 2008 Olympics -- Chow said, "I had a very loving environment." So, at the gym that he and his wife, Liwen Zhuang, run in West Des Moines, they are committed to what he called a "fun, loving and supportive environment."
He said, "As many times as I talk to the girls -- I have eight or 10 girls in my group -- I tell them, 'You are all like sisters.'
Which means, he said: "It's not necessarily that I like you more than I like her, or whatever. And [one of the girls] might like, or might not like, sister one better than sister two. But we all have to help each other and enjoy each other."
That sort of approach resonates deeply with Shawn, who is -- for 16 -- keenly aware of her emotional environment. During the Trials, when she wasn't practicing or competing, she was reading; she read at least three books cover to cover during the Trials, noting her affinity for works by Dan Millman, perhaps best known for the best-seller first published in 1980, "Way of the Peaceful Warrior."
"In competition," Chow said of Shawn, "she knows I care about her seeking perfection. I care about how she hits her routines beautifully. But there is no pressure if she is making mistakes, from me or Li.
"We are just there to help prepare her so she can perform beautiful routines. She's a human being -- we have to realize that."
It is in the vault, in particular, that this approach is most easily seen for those who don't have a technical eye for gymnastics.
Shawn performs an extraordinarily difficult vault called a Yurchenko 2 1/2; she is the only American woman who even attempts it. Instead of sticking the landing, it's not uncommon to see her take a little step.
On purpose.
Better, Chow reasons, that Shawn should give in and allow that small step, if she feels she needs to, than obsess over the perfection of sticking it.
"She absolutely is allowed to make some mistakes," he said, adding, "She has a great personality ... she enjoys herself on the floor -- and in the gym, also. I can't say enough words, enough great things, about this kid. She is a loving person and very respectful.
"She is the world champion, the all-around champion. She is a huge star. But she is also like a normal kid, helping the younger kids, moving the mats, just like all the little things the other kids are doing. There are no exceptions for her.
"I'm very proud of what she does on the floor," he said. "But I am also very proud of her for who she is, as a real person."
Shawn Johnson's coach permits mistakes, leading to success
By Alan Abrahamson
Posted Thursday, August 7, 2008 10:09 AM ET
Shawn Johnson candidly acknowledges that she can feel nervous when the spotlight turns to her at major gymnastics events.
As she says, who wouldn't feel nerves when everyone's watching?
But you wouldn't know it watching the 16-year-old from West Des Moines, Iowa, who is widely considered a favorite to win the women's individual all-around competition at the Beijing Games.
And here's why:
Shawn has the express permission of her coach, Liang Chow, to make mistakes.
And, in one of those great twists, it's precisely because she feels the freedom to make mistakes that she rarely makes big ones.
Before the U.S. Olympic Trials, in June in Philadelphia, for instance, Chow told Shawn, as her mother, Teri recalled, just two things:
Perform like a champion.
And don't be afraid to make a mistake.
After which Shawn went out and, just as she did at the 2007 world championships in the individual all-around, came out on top -- finishing with the best overall score at the 2008 U.S. Trials.
"I remember him telling me that," Shawn said. "It is almost just a relief. You're just trying to please the person who has taught you eveyrthing; you want to show them that you can be just as perfect as they've trained you to be. You're afraid to make mistakes. You're afraid to let them down -- even though you wouldn't.
"For him to have told me that, that as long as I went out there and did my best and he knew I had done my best, no matter what happened, he would have been happy -- it made me have a lot more confidence in myself because I knew if I went out there and made mistakes it wouldn't be the end of the world."
"I think that is so helpful to her, that he gives her permission to be imperfect, to be human," Shawn's mother, Teri Johnson, said, adding, "It's as simple as, 'Go do your best.' And, truthfully, that's all anybody can do."
In high-level sport, the mental edge often can -- and does -- make the difference.
Only the bounds of human ingenuity limit the ways in which coaches, trainers and others in the camp of an elite athlete seek that edge.
Chow's way is refreshingly simple.
It is based, he says, on a humanistic approach to the sport and to his athletes.
It is based, he says, on the idea of love.
Love? In gymnastics, perhaps the most rigorous of all competitive sports?
Growing up in China -- his return to the Beijing Games marks one of the most enchanting stories of the 2008 Olympics -- Chow said, "I had a very loving environment." So, at the gym that he and his wife, Liwen Zhuang, run in West Des Moines, they are committed to what he called a "fun, loving and supportive environment."
He said, "As many times as I talk to the girls -- I have eight or 10 girls in my group -- I tell them, 'You are all like sisters.'
Which means, he said: "It's not necessarily that I like you more than I like her, or whatever. And [one of the girls] might like, or might not like, sister one better than sister two. But we all have to help each other and enjoy each other."
That sort of approach resonates deeply with Shawn, who is -- for 16 -- keenly aware of her emotional environment. During the Trials, when she wasn't practicing or competing, she was reading; she read at least three books cover to cover during the Trials, noting her affinity for works by Dan Millman, perhaps best known for the best-seller first published in 1980, "Way of the Peaceful Warrior."
"In competition," Chow said of Shawn, "she knows I care about her seeking perfection. I care about how she hits her routines beautifully. But there is no pressure if she is making mistakes, from me or Li.
"We are just there to help prepare her so she can perform beautiful routines. She's a human being -- we have to realize that."
It is in the vault, in particular, that this approach is most easily seen for those who don't have a technical eye for gymnastics.
Shawn performs an extraordinarily difficult vault called a Yurchenko 2 1/2; she is the only American woman who even attempts it. Instead of sticking the landing, it's not uncommon to see her take a little step.
On purpose.
Better, Chow reasons, that Shawn should give in and allow that small step, if she feels she needs to, than obsess over the perfection of sticking it.
"She absolutely is allowed to make some mistakes," he said, adding, "She has a great personality ... she enjoys herself on the floor -- and in the gym, also. I can't say enough words, enough great things, about this kid. She is a loving person and very respectful.
"She is the world champion, the all-around champion. She is a huge star. But she is also like a normal kid, helping the younger kids, moving the mats, just like all the little things the other kids are doing. There are no exceptions for her.
"I'm very proud of what she does on the floor," he said. "But I am also very proud of her for who she is, as a real person."
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Wyatt Earp
"Fast is fine. Accuracy is final. You must learn to be slow in a hurry."
-Wyatt Earp
I found this on a website on shooting... it applies to piano playing as well!
1. Safety- before speed or accuracy there must be safety. You'd be surprised at the dangerous / unsafe things untrained shooters do every day at the range or in the woods. When there is a shootingaccident all shooters suffer as the anti-gun nuts try and place more restrictions on those of us who use firearms safely.
2. Accuracy- If you can't hit what you are aiming at there is no useowning or using a firearm. One needs to train how to hit one or more targets multiple times from different shooting positions, preferably with some low light shooting thrown in as well since many defensive shootings occur during periods of low-lighting.
3. Speed will come naturally as you build up muscle memory. Trainingwith someone else who is proficient or training at one of the many fine training schools is a great way to realize your full potential for bothaccuracy and speed.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Artur Schnabel: Memorising & Composing
Q: Some teachers seem to feel that if a person memorizes easily and naturally without thinking about it a great deal, he should be made to think about it a great deal. And some teachers believe that only those truly memorize who write out all the music they learn.
A: That is really very advisable. But not for the purpose of memorizing, rather to establish more and more intimacy with music. I would definitely recommend that everybody who studies music should spend at least half an hour a day copying some music. Eventually, he would do it very quickly.
Q: Do it from memory?
A: Compositions he learned, he could write out from memory. But I thought really more of copying from music. Once a gifted music student has, for instance, copied on of the string quartets of Beethoven or, let me say, the first movement of a symphony, he will have benefited much morethan he ever divined. I think this is actually the quickest way to get into music. Of course, it should not only be a graphic activity. He should hear the music while he is writing it, should enjoy its beauty and greatness, and stop sometimes to delight fully in the happiness of having discovered something he had not noticed when he read or played it. He will notice much more when he writes it.
Today, I wish to recommend the copying of music strongly. And I also think that every musician should try to compose, even if he is so disgusted with the results that he destroys every composition immediately after he has written it. That does not matter. It is the activity and not the result which is so important
I never perform my own compositions, because when I have finished a composition my urge is to start the next composition. I cannot spend time practising my own compositions - and they are not too easy to play. I hardly know them: a composer does not know his own compositions. He only knows his next composition - which is forming and working in him.
I am sure Beethoven did not know his sonatas as well as we know them. After he had composed a sonata, it was finished - for him.
A: That is really very advisable. But not for the purpose of memorizing, rather to establish more and more intimacy with music. I would definitely recommend that everybody who studies music should spend at least half an hour a day copying some music. Eventually, he would do it very quickly.
Q: Do it from memory?
A: Compositions he learned, he could write out from memory. But I thought really more of copying from music. Once a gifted music student has, for instance, copied on of the string quartets of Beethoven or, let me say, the first movement of a symphony, he will have benefited much morethan he ever divined. I think this is actually the quickest way to get into music. Of course, it should not only be a graphic activity. He should hear the music while he is writing it, should enjoy its beauty and greatness, and stop sometimes to delight fully in the happiness of having discovered something he had not noticed when he read or played it. He will notice much more when he writes it.
Today, I wish to recommend the copying of music strongly. And I also think that every musician should try to compose, even if he is so disgusted with the results that he destroys every composition immediately after he has written it. That does not matter. It is the activity and not the result which is so important
I never perform my own compositions, because when I have finished a composition my urge is to start the next composition. I cannot spend time practising my own compositions - and they are not too easy to play. I hardly know them: a composer does not know his own compositions. He only knows his next composition - which is forming and working in him.
I am sure Beethoven did not know his sonatas as well as we know them. After he had composed a sonata, it was finished - for him.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Artur Schnabel : Bach
Q: Do you agree that in playing Bach one should try to imitate the harpsichord, that is, its dynamic qualities, playing on different dynamic levels rather than with any crescendo or diminuendos?
A: I know; a war has been going on between musicologists for a long time over the issue as to whether crescendo and diminuendo is permissible in Bach's music, the Mannheim School having invented the expressions crescendo and diminuendo after Bach's time. But crescendo and diminuendo are not only expressions; they are elements of articulation and modulation, and if Bach's music were performed without articulation and modulation - or inflection, as in language - it would be unbearable, it would not be music. The same applies to legato and staccato. I am absolutely against the exclusive non-legato in performances of Bach's music.
There is no necessity to imitate the sonority of old instruments, for we have to assume that Bach chose those instruments only because better ones were not available. It is known that he wrote for four different instruments and that each time an improved instrument appeared he wanted even those of his works which were written for the previous instrument to be played on the improved instrument. These are facts.
Did you know taht the pianoforte was invented during Bach's lifetime? The first ones were built around 1710 in Padua, Italy. Some musicians hailed it with great enthusiasm, but the inventor was not succesful and few of these instruments were built. Bach saw an apparently poor imitation, the first one built in Germany in 1726, and found it unsatisfactory. In the last years of his life, Bach then saw a much improved model. So I think it is most important that Bach, during a substantial part of his life, knew about the invention and existence of the pianoforte and even played on it.
A: I know; a war has been going on between musicologists for a long time over the issue as to whether crescendo and diminuendo is permissible in Bach's music, the Mannheim School having invented the expressions crescendo and diminuendo after Bach's time. But crescendo and diminuendo are not only expressions; they are elements of articulation and modulation, and if Bach's music were performed without articulation and modulation - or inflection, as in language - it would be unbearable, it would not be music. The same applies to legato and staccato. I am absolutely against the exclusive non-legato in performances of Bach's music.
There is no necessity to imitate the sonority of old instruments, for we have to assume that Bach chose those instruments only because better ones were not available. It is known that he wrote for four different instruments and that each time an improved instrument appeared he wanted even those of his works which were written for the previous instrument to be played on the improved instrument. These are facts.
Did you know taht the pianoforte was invented during Bach's lifetime? The first ones were built around 1710 in Padua, Italy. Some musicians hailed it with great enthusiasm, but the inventor was not succesful and few of these instruments were built. Bach saw an apparently poor imitation, the first one built in Germany in 1726, and found it unsatisfactory. In the last years of his life, Bach then saw a much improved model. So I think it is most important that Bach, during a substantial part of his life, knew about the invention and existence of the pianoforte and even played on it.
Artur Schnabel: Russian vs German Techniquea
Q: I often hear the expression 'German Technique' and 'Russian Technique'. Would you explain what you think of that.
A: You ought to ask your teachers who use these expressions. I don't know to what they refer. Do they use four fingers only in the one school and in the other, five - or what? Or do they play with their knuckles? What are they doing? I have never heard of it. I would be very interested to hear from you as to what the difference is.
Q: I have come across it in studying with Russian teachers. They speak of their approach being the Russian approach to piano playing, and they refer to playing with straighter and flatter fingers instead of round ones, resulting in more metallic or brittle playing than they associate with the German technique.
A: I cannot accept that there is anything specifically Russian about playing with straight and flat fingers. I lived in 30 years in Germany and even so I would not be able to say what the 'German technique' is. For in Germany all kinds of piano technique were taught - flat or round fingers, stretched out or drawn in, elbows fixed or waving, glued to the hips or far out, like a washerwoman's. Some put the tip of their nose on the keys, others looked at the ceiling. Which one was the 'German technique'?
In my opinion these unfrotunate distinctions and simplifications are really absurd. There is only one good technique, whether you ride a bicycle or swim or whatever else you do, and that is to attain a maximum of achievement with a minimum of effort. That applies to all physical activity.
A: You ought to ask your teachers who use these expressions. I don't know to what they refer. Do they use four fingers only in the one school and in the other, five - or what? Or do they play with their knuckles? What are they doing? I have never heard of it. I would be very interested to hear from you as to what the difference is.
Q: I have come across it in studying with Russian teachers. They speak of their approach being the Russian approach to piano playing, and they refer to playing with straighter and flatter fingers instead of round ones, resulting in more metallic or brittle playing than they associate with the German technique.
A: I cannot accept that there is anything specifically Russian about playing with straight and flat fingers. I lived in 30 years in Germany and even so I would not be able to say what the 'German technique' is. For in Germany all kinds of piano technique were taught - flat or round fingers, stretched out or drawn in, elbows fixed or waving, glued to the hips or far out, like a washerwoman's. Some put the tip of their nose on the keys, others looked at the ceiling. Which one was the 'German technique'?
In my opinion these unfrotunate distinctions and simplifications are really absurd. There is only one good technique, whether you ride a bicycle or swim or whatever else you do, and that is to attain a maximum of achievement with a minimum of effort. That applies to all physical activity.
Artur Schnabel: Amateur Musicians
Those who are professional musicians became professional, I would say, from necessity and not from choice. Some seem to be undecided, in spite of their sufficiently strong desire, because of specific conditions or their particular situation, when for instance their parents are not in favour of their becoming professional musicians.
I have known cases of amateur musicians who, up to their thirty-fifth or even fortieth year, were lawyers or doctors and then gave it up finally to become professional musicians - an activity in which they earned much less than they did as doctors or lawyers. Now they had no reputation at all but they were professional musicians and for the first time in their lives they were happy.
I have known cases of amateur musicians who, up to their thirty-fifth or even fortieth year, were lawyers or doctors and then gave it up finally to become professional musicians - an activity in which they earned much less than they did as doctors or lawyers. Now they had no reputation at all but they were professional musicians and for the first time in their lives they were happy.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Artur Schnabel: Misc
Do you know that the teacher of Beethoven was Mr Christian Neefe? I don't think he was a great man. He was jsut available in Bonn. If all good musicians required a great man as a teacher, in order to be good musicians, there wouldn't be too many of them, I am afraid. That applies to all branches of teaching.
[PC: that's true, food for thought. while the teacher has the responsibility to teach well, you shouldn't put all "blame and responsibility" on the teacher, the student has the responsibility to "think for themselves" too]
========================================
You might live in a small place where only 3 or 4 people agree with you on artistic values. Then you should neither think poorly of yourself nor of the people who do not share your insight. There is no reason for being arrogant, just a reason for being grateful and happy to have the privilege of understanding.
=========================================
Q: Do you plan to go back to Germany, and if not what is your reason?
A: A very simple reason. I don't want to go to a country to which I am only admitted because it has lost a war.
By not returning I don't punish the Germans, not at all. Moreover, the Germans are completely irrelevent. For my decision it does not matter how they feel, but rather how I feel.
===========================================
Q: Do you feel that ht playing of Beethoven is a touchstone by which any pianist should be judged?
A: No. I Think a pianist should be judged by whatever he plays.
[PC: that's true, food for thought. while the teacher has the responsibility to teach well, you shouldn't put all "blame and responsibility" on the teacher, the student has the responsibility to "think for themselves" too]
========================================
You might live in a small place where only 3 or 4 people agree with you on artistic values. Then you should neither think poorly of yourself nor of the people who do not share your insight. There is no reason for being arrogant, just a reason for being grateful and happy to have the privilege of understanding.
=========================================
Q: Do you plan to go back to Germany, and if not what is your reason?
A: A very simple reason. I don't want to go to a country to which I am only admitted because it has lost a war.
By not returning I don't punish the Germans, not at all. Moreover, the Germans are completely irrelevent. For my decision it does not matter how they feel, but rather how I feel.
===========================================
Q: Do you feel that ht playing of Beethoven is a touchstone by which any pianist should be judged?
A: No. I Think a pianist should be judged by whatever he plays.
Artur Schnabel: C major scale
C major scale on the piano, which is adhered to with greatest reverance - uses the RH thumb, the strongest finger, on the subdominant, with the LH on the dominant. This RH movement, 3-4-3, is certainly ingenious. But musical only for the LH; musical by accident. As it is built the LH start with the 5th finger, which in the case of C major scale is a 'priority'. The RH should compensate its disadvantage with only 4 fingers, thumb on 'G'. If played as ordered, RH alone - or worse, in unison with LH, the subdominant, touched with the strongest finger, might easily get a musically unintended accent on it, and thus lead to a crime against the harmonic system of centuries and make music the victim of standardization. Not ingenious, but just silly, is the order never to use your thumb on a black key. Why not, if the position of the hand makes it by far the best fingering?
Artur Schnabel: Bravura vs Musicality
Chopin's lovely studies are for some performers fascinating because of the opportunities they give for showing how they master the keyboard. Another type of performer is less interested in the keyboard as such. His desire is to project music purely - to let the mediator disappear. To succeed he must, needless to say, have full command of his instrument. There are performers who are almost equally gifted in both directions, and attracted to both. If it comes to the one-sided ones, it should not be a problem to decide who has got the better part.
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Q: In one of your books you say that you feel technical problems in piano playing should not be attached as such, that they should be worked out as you come to them in the music.
A: Yes, one should never make any music, not even sound one musical tone, without a musical intention preceding it.
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Q: In one of your books you say that you feel technical problems in piano playing should not be attached as such, that they should be worked out as you come to them in the music.
A: Yes, one should never make any music, not even sound one musical tone, without a musical intention preceding it.
Artur Schnabel: Perfect pitch
Q: Do you think having perfect pitch is an advantage or disadvantage?
A: It is an advantage, but no indispensable. Relative pitch is, however, sufficient and even more important. If you know with what tones a piece of music starts, you ought to know also all relations and modulations which follow. To have absolute pitch is, I repeat, a musical asset, but by no means the sign of a good musician.
A: It is an advantage, but no indispensable. Relative pitch is, however, sufficient and even more important. If you know with what tones a piece of music starts, you ought to know also all relations and modulations which follow. To have absolute pitch is, I repeat, a musical asset, but by no means the sign of a good musician.
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