PIano Playing Awards 2009

Piano music is " An international language that every nation knows and feels. Schumann calls it the language of soul to soul"
(Simon Barere, radio interview, New Zealand, 1947).
Here are a few highlights for you to enjoy. In the next couple of months I will turn this into a competition for you to vote on your favourite item in different categories.

Best Composer's Piano Playing

First Prize: The Master of Twentieth Century Piano Playing
Rachmaninoff performs his own Elegie Op3:3. Genius Comes Into Your Living Room

Grieg plays his own PIano Sonata. Such naturalness of heartfelt expression, such alive phrasing.

Best Live Performance
Josef Hofmann, Chopin G Minor Ballade, Carnegie Hall 50th Birthday recital.
"There is a technique which liberates and a technique which represses the artistic self. All technique should be a means of expression". (Hofmann, "Piano Playing' 1909, publ. Doubleday).

Best piano playing
Vladimir Sofronitzky plays Scriabin. Married to the daughter of Scriabin after the composer's death. It sounds as if the music is being revealed for the first time, spun out by some mysterious alchemy.

Best transcription performance, three entries:
Josef Lhevinne plays Schulz-Evler's transciption of Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz. Such flawless and musical virtuosity. Those who claim the modern pianist is superior technically to the golden age pianists should study Josef Lhevinne.

Myra Hess plays Bach
A world war 2 legend: while england was at war, London's cultural activity immediately ceased; but pianist Myra Hess persuaded the National Gallery to open its doors to allow weekly lunchtime recitals of music.

Percy Grainger plays Tchaikovksy "Sugar plum fairy". Wonderful playing from the pianist beloved by Grieg.
When on tour, he used to jog from one american city to the next. Didn't he even care about air miles?

How to Play the Piano
Such freedom of the upper arm! Such naturalness! Such breath! Such lovely printed fabric! We bow.
Magda Tagliaferro Saint Saens Concerto 5

Most disturbing recorded fragment
Bela Bartok playing Chopin Nocturne in C sharp minor
Did a minor key ever sound this spooky? Did the bogeyman abduct the musician?

Loveliest tone award: after 0.50.
Alexander Siloti's was a favourite pupil of Liszt. Some said he was more than equal to the great Rachmaninoff, and this playing has such a warm, living tone, like the golden voice of a tenor, characteristic of the finest Russian-school pianism.

Erwin Nyiereghazy (at 6.53) Liszt Legend 2. I believe this is how Liszt himself performed - free, full of imagination, wild, strong, passionate, individual, spiritual, heartfelt, with never a care for the judgemental bourgeoisie.

Best virtuoso playing: (three contestants)
Alfred Cortot playing Saint-Saens Etude en forme de Valse
Horowitz went to him for a lesson but Cortot would not reveal the secrets of his lightness within power!

Ignaz Friedman playing Chopin Etude in C at 3.05

Dinu Lipatti making light work of Liszt

Best Chopin Nocturne
Moriz Rosenthal Chopin D flat major. Rosenthal studied with Liszt AND with a favourite pupil of Chopin's; so his style deserves to be treated with the greatest respect, even though it may appear too personal for the modern ear.
Ideal for the moonlit reverie with your beloved (and/or hot water bottle).

Best Folk-Style Playing
Ignaz Friedman Chopin Mazurka
Such rhythm and mood! Spot on! 100%. Now if this spirit and lifetime's learning could be sold in a bottle...

Bela Bartok plays his own Rumanian Folk Dances
How wonderful! How humble! How truly civilised! Such musical phrasing! Bravo Hungary! (And Rumania).

Best 2-piano Playing: Arensky, Waltz from Suite, played by Harold Bauer and Ossip Gabrilowitsch. Wow! Did you know that Ravel dedicated Ondine from Gaspard de la Nuit to Harold Bauer?

Best Left Hand
Simon Barere plays Blumenfeld's Etude for the Left Hand in A flat major opus 36 at 2.45

Summary of disconnectnetdness

I would like to summarise the current state of dislocation between the Golden Age of pianism and our own 21st century pianism.
1) Golden Age pianists were pupils or grand-pupils (pupils of pupils) of Liszt and Chopin. This regal lineage rather died out around the second world war.
2) Golden Age pianists learnt to improvise and compose, and perform their compositions, in the lineage of their teachers. With very few exceptions this again died out by the second world war.
3) Golden age pianists often played with their arms extended, in the style visible on photographs of Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Grieg, Debussy and others (Radu Lupu these days does the same). Also with free arm weight. In modern pianism this is out of vogue, and elbows are often pinned to the side, leading to a degree of stiffness which is anathema to freedom.
4) For Golden Age pianists, the strength of spontaneous expression in the playing is paramount, so that the listener experiences a recreative force, perhaps equal in strength to the inspiration experienced by the composer at the moment of composition. Todays conservatoire teaches an altogether more controlled study and execution, the word execution meaning both realisation and death, as in the expression 'the operation was successful but the patient died'! If the listener does not come away from a piano recital having felt a powerful stream of inspiration, something has gone badly wrong.
5) The Golden Age pianist was frequently religious, looking on their pianism as a grave vocation, frequently compared to the priesthood or monasticism: Liszt was not the only pianist to take holy orders. Many moderns pianist have become more commercially motivated, as has the industry as a whole. The ultimate intentions of a performer affect the source to which one looks for inspiration, and consequently the nature of the outcome.
6) Many though not all Golden Age pianists explicitly preferred the sound of Bosendorfer pianos, which are in general rather lighter than the more assertive sound of the Steinway piano, which is now in use by the modern pianist in almost all major concert halls. With the Bosendorfer, sound was cloaked more delicacately, and the poetry of emotions was suggested rather than stated.
7) The Golden Age pianist often limited the amount of time spent practising, Chopin and Rosental recommending two hours a day, Hoffman recommending a generous 4 hours a day to his pupil Cherkassky. The modern pianist may often be practising 6-8 hours, which may make the ear less sensitive, and harden the natural suppleness of the arm. It may also result in boredom, as reported by Richter, (and occasionally some of his audience members!)
8) In consequence of 7), Golden Age pianists often made time to be polymaths, of wide ranging cultural learning (Moriz Rosental being a shining example). Many modern pianists are spending so long in repetitive practise and travel that they have no time for cultural research, resulting in a narrowness of context in their appreciation of the music, and if the performer does not fully appreciate the music, then the audience certainly will not.
In short, in order to go forwards, we now need to go backwards in time, with some urgency.

Urspirit

Dinu Lipatti once said, very wisely, that it is more important to interpret music in the correct spirit than to spend time worrying about the historically correct musical text ('Urspirit not Urtext). The authentic original musical text does not really exist: Chopin, for example, would send his manuscripts to three different publishers, each one receiving a different version from the composer, who would be frequently revising his music, and amending his pupils' scores with yet another variant of the same piece. How can one even think about a definitive score? The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.

In modern conservatoires pupils are trained to play the correct notes. This is, sadly, a grave misinterpretation and trivialization of the intentions of classical composers.
Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt, to name but three, would all perform their music spontaneously, with strong feeling, leaving an indelible impression on their listener. It was not uncommon for audience members to faint during a performance by Liszt, as did Anton Rubinstein. Wrong notes were of no consequence - the strength of feeling, a spell cast on the audience, now that is worth going for.

Chopin's advice to pianists was not to practise for more than two hours; to listen to opera in order to develop a singing tone at the keyboard; and in between times to view works of inspiring beauty, such as paintings in art galleries.

The modern pianist, who has often been misled by conservatoires and betrayed by the whole system which seeks to 'commoditise' music, is practising 8 hours a day, worried silly about hitting a wrong note (why 'hit' any note at all?), playing Beethoven's Tempest Sonata without ever viewing Shakespeare's play of the same name which inspired it. And we are wondering why audiences are feeling unmoved?!

Schumann wrote about the Philistines who were controlling and commoditising art, and saw his role as the little man, David, who could stand up to them, and speak out for genuine contemporary art, if only for a small group of fellow believers. He could this group the 'Davidsbundler', and wrote a piece called Davidsbundlertanze for them.

Play piano in the manner of the Greats, part 1: self-expression

Dear Pianist,

To play in the style of a great pianist, you need to learn to express yourself freely at the piano.
As Nyiregyhazy said: " I'm not trying to impress anyone, I just want to express myself".

On youtube you can hear Albeniz in 1903 improvising at the keyboard, just as Mozart, Chopin, Liszt and others have done before him. Some say the dryness that some find in modern pianism stems from the rupture of this tradition of performer/composer during the 20th century.

Two paths forward:

Path 1. Learn to express yourself more freely when playing compositions by other composers. Here are a few hints.

A) Separate your playing from your practising. Your playing will be freely experimental, with no one to rap you on the knuckles. You can be indulgent and even overindulgent. Whatever you are feeling, express it in the music.

B) Choose expressive miniatures - early Chopin, early Debussy, early Scriabin, early Rachmaninoff...

C) play with flat finger tips, with the expressive pads of the fingers. Cortot would say: draw your arms toward the body, as if you are embracing someone you love.

D) many people find it easiest to play first thing in the morning, or late at night, try it with the lights dimmed, take your glasses off, or keep your eyes half shut... any emotion in your heart wants to travel to the piano strings via your finger tips without any censorship or commentary from the brain.

E) If others can overhear you, you might feel self conscious. To get round this, either play when the building is empty, or buy an electronic keyboard and headphones, so that noone can hear you.

To take things to the next level:

2. Learn to compose and/or improvise. You might consider a few lessons on keyboard harmony/harmony to get you started if you haven't developed this skill until now. As a spin-off, this will make it much easier for you to memorise and penetrate music in general.

You could read the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron for general inspiration on following a creative path.

Good luck and enjoy!

Manifesto

From the heart, to the heart' as Beethoven said. And classical piano playing had real life and emotional communicative power in the 1920's, 30s and 40s. Since then, pianists appear to have become judge and jury in their own demise, and for many listeners, rather than being a life changing experience of higher revelation, piano music has become reduced to the sort of anodyne background music you hear in the hotel lift. Let us first diagnose this downfall, and then point to some positives.

Four elements conspired to alter public taste: recordings, competitions, modern instruments, and larger halls.

Aided by the increasing interest in higher fidelity commercial recordings, a different aesthetic of piano performance was gradually forming in the 1950s, 60s and onwards, which now favoured a clean sound, rather antiseptic, free of smudges, free of irrational individuality. For repeated listening at home, many people would rather have an LP which was straightforward, rather than an LP which was revelatory and demanding to listen to! So producers of record companies wielded more and more power, and projects became defined by convenience - 'there's a gap in the market for complete Satie, which pianist can be relied on to learn quickly, play cleanly and not have tantrums in the studio?And he/she must look good on the front cover'. Rather than preserving the voice of a lone genius. Pianists, with a monkey sitting on their shoulder, that fearful knowledge that audiences are able to compare recordings carefully at home on CD ("O, he's slower than Michelangeli at bar 54"), seem to have cultivated a zone of self preservation, an unwillingness to take risks, including that greatest of human risks: expressing deep-felt emotions. Late 20th century pianists - the cultivation of artificial pearls.

International jurors are also responsible for shaping the product that emerges before the public. Contestants have been rewarded for playing conservatively, since a straightforward interpretation which is accurate, loud, fast and crowd pleasing is more likely to gain the winning vote in the gladiatorial colisseum. Do the maths: if the choice is between two pianists, with seven jurors, the pianist who plays straight may be marked 7 out of ten by all jurors, total 49; whereas one who plays in a 'visionary / mad / genius' style may be marked say 10 out of 10 by two jurors who are sympathetic, and 5 out of 10 by the others who don't believe the public will accept him/her, total 45. In brief, individual artistry is out, and accurate sportsmanship is in. This process has shaped (or maimed) the taste of a generation of concert goers (not to mention the damage done to the ears, hearts and fingers of aspiring pianists who have played Liszt's Sonata one billion times in a quest for technical perfection).

While record companies and competition juries have shaped a less colourful product, the piano manufacturers and concert hall managers have too played their part. Instruments have become heavier, halls bigger; with so many seats to fill, the managers again are more likely to play safe in favour of artists who will hit all the right notes night after night.

This background has a consequence on the technical production of piano music. In matters of tone quality, older pianists (such as Anton Rubinstein) favoured a fuller sound through 'free fall' technique, whereby the weight of gravity is used in falling on the keys with grandeur; this technique, however, came at the risk of hitting adjacent wrong notes (since the hands were falling from a dangerous height - hard to control). The modern pianist, being risk averse, prefers to play the keys from closer distance, thus ensuring accuracy, at the cost of tone or timbre. The modern audience, listening at home on a CD, appreciates the clean sound, and gradually the appreciation of the aesthetic and emotional advantages of the older, richer sound, has been lost. The depth of raw emotional communication has been sacrificed for a pre-packaged cleanliness.

So it seems, gone are the longer, resonating sounds and the grandeur of emotion of a bygone era. For an echo of a distant era try listening to Ervin Nyiregyhazi's account of Liszt's Legend no. 2, or, to view this pianist's technique in action, try Blanchet's In the Old Turkish Harem Garden' on youtube. Warning: pianistic adult content!!

Will an appreciation of the older aesthetic ever return? Or is this a futile wish, like harking back to the days of the horse and cart? Should we return to candle-lit soirees in intimate venues, an age of patronage? Instruments which are slightly lighter and capable of Chopinesque poetry as well as Lisztian strength? Is the world ready for a reinterpretation of the piano recital?

This blog and my web site, matthewkoumis/com, will be posting detailed appreciation of such masters of the golden age of pianism as Josef Hofmann, Yves Nat, Sofronitszky, Alfred Cortot, Josef Lhevinne, Ignaz Friedman, Dinu Lipatti, Annie Fischer etc referring to specific technical elements as described by pianists in their memoirs, and as visible in recordings and videos on youtube. My posts will include recommended reading and listening, and recommended repertoire for those pianists wanting a kind of 'Great Pianists Boot Camp', in the comfort of your own home! Points will include: hand position, position of the thumb, pedalling, phrasing, repertoire, concert suggestions, and useful links. It is hoped this will stimulate discussion and inform my older and younger colleagues in the international community of pianists, and enable a reawakening of appreciation of genuine pianism, as it was so to speak in the days 'before the flood'!

With best wishes to fellow enthusiastic pianophiles, and also to those who may yet be converted! 'From the heart to the heart'.