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.