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.