Maria Yudina and Stalin

The pianist Maria Yudina was an outspoken critic of Stalin, and was woken at night by the police who ordered her to come with them. She feared the worst; but the reason for the summons was that Stalin had heard her playing a Mozart concerto on the radio, and right now demanded to hear it again, at once, without delay. Unfortunately, what he had heard was a live radio broadcast, of which no recording had been made. So Stalin's henchmen assembled Yudina plus a motley group of musicians for a nocturnal recording session, not the most relaxing of circumstances in which to play Mozart! You can hear the performance on Youtube, that amazing free source of rare classical music. Her playing is free from the slightest trace of self-interest, as is the playing of her class-mate Sofronitsky - both are strangers to any concept of musical or personal safety. If you listen to Yudina playing the Schubert A-flat major Impromptu, again you hear someone racing toward beauty without wearing a seat-belt, or as the Americans might say, playing by the seat of her pants! A moth toward the flame...

Those interested in modern examples might be interested to check out the website of the pianist Andrei Gavrilov, while Ivo Pogorelich has some interesting political tales to tell on the political circumstances surrounding his appearance at the Tchaikovsky competition in the 1980s. Whether any modern pianist can match the golden age pianists is debatable; perhaps the concept of the sublime is being airbrushed out of contemporary vocabulary in our materialistic age, where the modern equivalent of the medieval cathedral is the shopping mall at Dubai. But at the very least these amazing musicians/technicians offer some interesting parallels of personal danger and courageous piano playing (in addition to huge piano techniques). Among the younger generation Konstantin Lifschitz is able to mine a sublime seam of Bach, as is the blind French pianist Bernard D'Ascoli. And the young Japanese pianist Aimi Kobayashi certainly looks like an inspired angel. If you copy and paste this in your browser she is playing a Chopin Impromptu.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvcMSGbKGo4&feature=PlayList&p=0635480989206E9C&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=13

Communications from the dispossessed: part 1

I was reading a history of Hungary - it is a sad tale of many defeats. The only country to be surrounded by itself - in other words which is surrounded by land which previously belonged to it but which it lost in war. The history must have cast a deep spell on its inhabitants.

It made me reflect on the lives of many of the great composers and pianists of the past. National and personal tragedies seem to combine in so many of the stories of the great artists. We tend to take these stories for granted as being just dry histories, without easily identifying with the lifestyles (probably!). The impoverished artist is almost a cliche. Anyone reading the lives of Rachmaninoff, Nyiereghazy, Lipatti, Modigliani, Van Gogh, Beethoven, Schumann, Clara Haskil, Maria Yudina, to name just a few, may be shocked at the intensity of the human suffering and loss. As someone once said, "to be born an artist is to be born in enemy territory"

We can understand the difference between
a) composing / performing when one has nothing else to live for.
b) composing / performing AS IF one has nothing else to live for. (pretend)
A) is going to lead to a more intense experience.

Type A experiences would include: you are dying / have bad health; critics hate you; you were kicked out of music college; your parents warned you against a career in music; your relationships are up the spout; your country is at war; you belong to the 'wrong' religion; you just lost all your house/land; you can only pay rent thanks to a loan from friends; you come from a part of the world which is often being invaded/kicked around; you are probably anti-social partly because you spent your childhood practising (not always by choice - child prodigies were/are often exploited by parents). Elements of nationality / gender / religion / sexuality / prejudice sometimes thrown in the melting pot too.

Perhaps there is an inverse relationship between life and music - the more sublime and astonishing the performance, the worse the conditions of the performer. The better the conditions, the ‘safer’ the music making. The safer the music-making, the less sublime the communication. Sublime communication is not safe; and tends not to be performed by the establishment darlings.

Nina Koshetz - Wonderful Russian voice from the past

I have been reading a fascinating biography about the wonderful musician Alexander Siloti, who was a cousin of Rachmaninoff's, and a favourite pupil of Liszt's. The biography mentions Nina Koshetz, a pianist and singer, who counted Horowitz and Rachmaninoff among her accompanists. For more information about her life click here

Koshetz went to America appearing in a few hollywood movies, and even opened a Russian restaurant.
Meanwhile click here to listen to her singing, and sharing a beautiful flavour of Old Russia that goes straight to the soul

Wonderful Brazilian Pianist

Guiomar Novaes (1895 - 1979) was considered the finest lady pianist of her day, and every bit the equal of Hofmann and Rachmaninoff. She was "A musician by the grace of God" according to the New York Times.

Just listen to a minute or two and you will become converted to the warm charms of this veritable Queen of piano playing, who sprinkles gold dust with every note.

Enjoy!

(for more information about this remarkable pianist click here)



Standchen, song by Strauss, transcribed for piano by Godowsky
(another version exists transcribed by Walter Gieseking)
"Sit down! The darkness is mysterious here / Under the lime trees"

Albeniz Tango, transcirbed by Godowsky

funny piano comedy sketch

I was just looking at Alkan's Concerto played by Marc Andre Hamelin, which in some ways is quite a depressing experience.
Then by the kind of randomness in which Youtube excels, I came across Denmark's most famous pianist.

I must admit I laughed a lot...

Today's top 3 pianists

Enthusiasts of Golden Age pianism are perhaps at a disadvantage when it comes to listening to modern day pianists - there has been such a large change of taste, parallelled by the large change in the world's culture and society over the past half century. But there are many many wonderful pianists out there, not all of them in the limelight. Here are three first class living pianists on the stage- may they live long and prosper!:

Grigory Sokolov
plays wonderful Baroque (among other wonderful things).

Radu Lupu
In recent recitals Mr Lupu looks every bit the reincarnation of Brahms.
Not much out therre in the way of interviews, but there is a good interview in "Great pianists and Pedagogues (interviews with Carola Grindea)" published by EPTA
If you click here you should get Schubert's Fantasia for two pianos, performed by Lupu with Murray Perahia

Nelson Freire plays Saint Saens concerto 2.
What wonderful flexibility, lightness, relaxation during a live performance! Hat's off!

Sofronitsky and Rachmaninoff

I cannot resist sharing more comments by these wonderful artists about the nature of musical inspiration and soufulness:

First of all, a performance requires a will. A will- meaning to want a lot, to want more than you have now, more than you can give. For me the entire effort is strengthening the will. Here is all: rhythm, sound, emotion. Rhythm should be soulful. The whole piece should live, breathe, move as protoplasm. I play-and one part is alive, full of breath, and another part nearby may be dead because the live rhythmic flow is broken. Rachmaninoff, for instance, could create a rhythmic pulse that was unfailingly alive. He had the enormous artistic will of a genius. He had a greater will than any of the modern pianists. The same with Anton Rubinstein... [who] had an enormous will for hearing, for rhythmic life. And another point, most important: the more emotionally you play, the better, but this emotionality should be hidden, hidden as in a shell. When I come on stage now, I have «seven shells» under my tuxedo, and despite this I feel naked. So, I need fourteen shells. I have to wish to play so well, live so fully, as to die and still feel as if I have not played. I have nothing to do with this.

http://www.sofronitsky.com/publications/publication-03.html

Rachmaninoff said:
"Real inspiration must come from within: nothing from outside can help. The best in poetry, the greatest of painting, the sublimest of nature cannot produce any worthwhile result if the divine spark of creative faculty is lacking within the artist….
[the listener] should] “paint for themselves what the music most suggests"

Inspiration.

This Monday I had the pleasure of enjoying a drink with my daughter Poppy on a red double decker bus, which has been converted into a vegan restaurant, situated on Brewer Street, Soho. This is very handy for my partner Jo-chieh to buy Japanese noodles at the store down the road.
Meanwhile at the British Library that day I came across some very interesting comments about inspiration by Plato:
"The muse inspires men herself, and then by means of these inspired persons the inspiration spreads to others... For not by art do they utter these things, but by divine influence... the poets are merely the interpreters of the gods."
Beethoven echoes this when he says: "A Rhythm of the spirit is needed to grasp the essence of music... What we attain from art comes from God... Music grants us inspiration of celestial sciences, and that part of it which the mind grasps through the senses is the embodiment of mental cognition".
Relating this to pianists, Schnabel writes: "Creativity is inspiration filtered by artistic conscience". Rachmaninoff too favoured an element of discrimination in his music making, as opposed to the musician delivering him or herself entirely to the wildness of the moment.
Should pianists be totally wild and inspired (like Nyireghazy), or cool and controlled (like Michelangeli), or wild in a calculating way (like Horowitz)? Or simply divine like Dinu Lipatti? Here's what mysterious Sofronitsky had to say (www.sofronitsky.com) :
" the more emotionally you play, the better, but this emotionality should be hidden, hidden as in a shell. When I come on stage now, I have «seven shells» under my tuxedo, and despite this I feel naked. So, I need fourteen shells. I have to wish to play so well, live so fully, as to die and still feel as if I have not played."

Myra Hess

Martha Argerich's third husband, Stephen Kovacevich recalls that when he studied with the British pianist Myra Hess, she told him to play melodies 'as if coming from his back'. In this way, the musical phrase or line is longer. Whereas, playing from the hands or fingers, the pianist feels music in 'micro-units', dot by dot, and the long line is interrupted. As Rachmaninoff said: "Big line - big musician. Little line - little musician". (Never a man to waste words!) Schnabel once received a review of a recital which said: "Mr Schnabel plays semi-quavers like a convict counting peas"!
I think we should take Myra Hess's example seriously, and try playing from the back. Also, from an anatomical point of view, this brings strong muscles into play.

To inspire you while you experiment, here are some wonderful performances of Hess' for you to enjoy.

And for anyone wishing to hear a performance of Chopin's Nocturne in C minor op 48, which is sombre and powerful, here's the link

Solomon

On Mondays I often visit the National Sound Archive at the British Library in London. It's a great resource for pianophiles! You can listen to such an array of great performances from the past. Also you can consult books from their archive of literally millions of books. I had a look at Solo, a Biography of Solomon Cutner, perhaps the greatest British pianist of the 20th century. Solomon's first teacher was a pupil of Clara Schumann, and his next teacher a pupil of Leschetizky. Solomon wrote:
In teaching technic, I avoid excessively high finger action. Some teachers make so much of the up-motion: I make more of the down. The first aim is to teach a pure legato. Many think they are playing legato when they are not. And no doubt the effort to lift the fingers high is the cause of much of the strain that prevents a pure legato... (p151, Solo, by Bryan Crimp).
And what a peerless pearly legato his playing has!

Another matchless legato I admired this week is a rare recording from the BBC archive of Dinu Lipatti playing Liszt's La Leggierezza. Wow! It reminds me of Mozart's dictum: 'the notes should flow like oil'...

More prize winning performances

Best newcomer
Aimi Kobayashi plays Chopin Impromptu In A Flat, Op. 29
She appears very inspired, and as a consequence so is the listener. Way to go Aimi!

Most visually alarming left hand playing
Warning: do not show this to young children before they go to bed.
Evgeny Kissin playing Rachmaninoff Prelude in B flat Op 23 (at 1.14)

Best Hair (male category)(1.10)
But Not Enthusiastic about the piano playing of one of Radu Lupu's teacher.

Best Shirt (male category) (1.28)
Joseph Villa Liszt Valse-Impromptu in A-flat major
And the jacket is pretty good to. And with lovely supple and musical playing. A very fine post-war pianist whose life was all too short.