pianist's wit

In addition to his concert tours, Paderewski was a popular speaker who was renowned for his wit, and was often quoted. He was once introduced to a polo player with the words: "You are both leaders in your spheres, though the spheres are very different." "Not so very different," Paderewski replied. "You are a dear soul who plays polo, and I am a poor Pole who plays solo."

Congratulations to my pupil!

Sincere congratulations to my pupil Abhinav Tivari on gaining Distinction (92 out of 100 marks) in his LTCL Diploma recital! Abhinav played Beethoven Pathetique Sonata, Chopin Fantaisie Impromptu, Faure Barcarolle in A minor, Rachmaninov Polichinelle and Scarlatti sonata in B minor. Great job, forwards and upwards! Next stop, Rachmaninoff 2nd concerto with orchestra next year.

Chopin online manuscripts

 I must share with you an amazing website I have just come across:

www.ocve.org.uk
or click here: Chopin Manuscripts online

which contains Chopin's mnuscripts and shows variants among first editions.
What a tremendous resource, kudos to the authors, editors, designers and investors!

I read about this at the British Library last month in
"Interpreter Chopin, actes du colloque, 25 Mai 2005", organised by Eigeldinger, in the chapter by John Rink entitled Chopin: Work in Progress. Great job!

Click here for my YouTube video

Have uploaded my most recent performance on YouTube of Janacek. Enjoy!

Please check out my new teaching video!

Its about the latest 2015-2016 Grade 8 syllabus, Beethoven sonata first movement Op 14.2
I perform the work and then discuss suggested fingerings, and stylistic comments, plus recommended listening and editions. More vidoes coming soon!

The cat's pyjamas

Exquisite, quintessential French sensitivity in Faure, sung by Pierre Bernac accompanied at the piano by Poulenc.

 
French musical perfume in a jar!

Click here for the words in french and english:
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=3163

Me and Jo-chieh playing Percy Grainger duet on YouTube

 Country Gardens, recorded 19th May 2014 at my teaching studio in Tienmu, Taipei.

Scaramuzza, teacher of Argerich and Gelber

"Raw pasta is like overly tense fingers. So...it's no good. Nor is overcooked pasta!" Some great analogies from Scaramuzza, teacher of Martha Argerich and Leonardo Gelber. "Rhythmic clarity and accents are necessary to organize virtuoso passages, but not for cantabile (singing) phrases. Otherwise the singer becomes a drummer!"

Quoted in an interesting and free PhD dissertation about Scaramuzza, 

The Pedagogical Legacy of Vicente Scaramuzza: The Relationship Between Anatomy of the Hand, Tone Production, and Musical Goals
Marcelo G. Lian University of Nebraska-Lincoln, mglian@hotmail.com

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Congratulations to my (former) students!

Congratulations to my former students Emmy and Mike Huang on their recent successes in Southampton (UK)!

Emmy Huang came 1st place in the Chappell Challenge and also won a medal in the Baroque or Classical Junior Piano, 14 years and under class, Mike Huang won the Southampton Piano Teachers’ Challenge Cup, and the Whitwam Trophy, awarded to him for being the most promising junior pianist.

www.kes.hants.sch.uk/news-stories/creative-arts/southampton-music-festival

Bruno Leonardo Gelber

Bruno Leonardo Gelber - definitely one of the top ten pianists alive. He may bear a certain resemblance to the late Michael Jackson, but sadly Gelber suffered from polio as a child. However, he plays the piano like a classical piano God. If you have not heard him before, please listen to him on YouTube playing Chopin Sonata 2, or on the videos performing Rachmaninoff concerto 3 (which I heard him perform in London around 1980). Soul, passion and technical wizardry - awe-inspiring. His nearest comparisons would be the late Roberto Szidon, or Nelson Freire, or Martha Argerich, all also from South America, but perhaps overall out of the four my money would be on Bruno. He lives in Monte Carlo and judging from his photos has a taste for very natty shirts. Bruno - please come to perform in Taiwan! 10/10

Piano lessons for Pianists Recovering from injury

Pianists with Injuries Retraining Lessons

I am now offering Consultation lessons via the internet (in English, French, Italian or Mandarin) for pianists anywehre in the world recovering from injuries, including RSI (repetitive strain injury), tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Having suffered from Repetitive Strain Injury around 1990, I have patiently retrained over the past 25 years, with much help from Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, my piano teachers in Paris and London, and have done extensive reading on the subject.

I am now in a position to assist others looking for a more healthy and comfortable way to recover and play music at the piano. I can guide you as you retrain at your own pace, and as you learn underlying principles behind playing musically, with suppleness, while avoiding injuries in the future.

Background Reading For You
1. “What every pianist needs to know about the body” by Thomas Mark.
2.  “Artistic Piano Playing as Taught by Ludwig Deppe”, by Elisabeth Caland, translated by Evelyn Sutherland Stevenson
3. “Chopin: Pianist and Teacher, as seen by his pupils”, by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger.
4. The Potent Self by Moshe Feldenkrais

Your Technical requirements
Unless you can visit me in my Taipei studio, we will need to set up simple and reliable channels for exchange. Don't panic, the following list may seem long, but you may have most of it in place already. If not, most teenagers could help you set up the following in less than an hour (probably less time than it would take you to travel to a piano lesson in most major cities)!

• A Skype account (for our conversations)
• A YouTube channel (to upload short videos, these can easily be set to 'private' so that only you and I can see them )
• A PayPal account (to pay me securely, knowing that you will be fully refunded if you do not get what was promised)
• Smart phone, or Camera, to record very short videos of you playing the piano.
• Tripod to support your camera (optional)
• Technical know-how to upload your videos to YouTube, so I can view them.

How to proceed
Please email me at matthewkoumis@gmail.com  and we will make an appointment to have a Skype telephone conversation, at which time you can explain to me your situation.

Once we have agreed a plan of action together that meets your needs, we will exchange videos. My teaching video will be uploaded to YouTube (private channel, only you can watch it) within 4 working days of my receiving your video. You will receive a 5 minute personalised coaching video containing demonstrations, simple exercises and instructions on how you should practice them, together with a short email giving you instructions plus page reference(s) to the above book(s).

Meanwhile you can check out my own videos on YouTube recorded in the past 12 months.YT link, Rachmaninoff played by Matthew Koumis

I look forward to the opportunity of being able to help you play comfortably and safely again!

Chopin, Frostbite, his Nose

"Fraulein Heinefetter is almost completely lacking in feeling; everything sung well, every note accurately performed; purity, flexibility, portamenta; but so cold that I almost got frostbite on my nose, sitting in the front row near the stage".
Chopin, letter to Jan Matuszynski, 26 Dec 1830 (p130, Dover Edition, Chopin's Letters)

Ha! Luckily, this would not happen had Chopin had the pleasure to listen to the legendary pianist Samson Francois (1924-1970).

In this video clip, he is shown with habitual cigarette in hand, at first in rehearsal and then in concert. The attentive piano student will admire the way in which the back of his hand is kept "light as a feather", with his fingers dropping down without effort to the keys. The arms are in constant movement to carry the hands above the notes, with fluidity. (Some resemblance to the technique of Sergio Fiorentino, and indeed Francois studied in Italy for a time). The technical ease enables the spontaneous flow of emotions and of the music, giving overall a warm and fluid impression.
"Music is for me a quest, something mysterious", says Francois. Chopin would definitely have agreed!

Sophie Menter and Liszt Un Sospiro

Sophie Menter (1846-1918) was an awesome pianist, and probably Liszt's favourite female piano pupil.
You can here her perform Liszt Un Sospiro here:

Interestingly she adds a few bars of music in the middle, and changes the timing at the end. The first time I heard it I thought "Ah yes these 19th century pianists were so free". But it turns out it was the composer himself who authorised the changes to his score, and Ms Menter was being a good student, embracing the changing, developing music. 

For more information, let's turn to Rachmaninoff's teacher and cousin, Alexander Siloti. Siloti like Sophie Menter was a pupil of Liszt. In Siloti's edition of this piece (publ Carl Fischer), Siloti notates many extra notes and tweaks which coincide with what Menter plays. Siloti writes p186 "Franz Liszt's playing of this Etude differed greatly from the published version. In fact he changed it so greatly and added so much that was new that I found it impossible to mark every individual change..."

We so often think that music must be a thing, like a statue, static, which we read on the music page and then try to interpret. But it's not like that. It's essence is liquid, like a flowing river. It takes alchemy to conjure up a living interpretation, and courage to depart from the block of ice which is the standard score.

Dutilleux and Piano technique

The other day I was in the library at Normal University in Shida. Great library! Anyway I was reading through a stack of books including Dutilleux and Benjamin Britten. Someone said something like: it's like you have the horse saddled up, but you should be comfortable in the saddle. That's it! You have to figure out all the bits and pieces of technique, the finger, hand, wrist arm, shoulder...But then you have to be comfortable and journey comfortably. Now I just have to go back and find where exactly did I read that!..

Meanwhile anyone wishing for a great piano composer, look no further than Dutilleux! What a star! More humane than Boulez, more selective in his output than the verbose Messiaen, he is definitely my favourite French composer from the second half of the 20th century. (Actually he passed away only last year). Snubbed by the french government and status quo, he ignored this, and quietly continued with his precise refined compositions. It did him no harm that his wife Genevieve Joy was such a fine pianist!
Benjamin Britten, meanwhile, didn't actually like the piano sound, so he favoured words with music, inspired by his partner Peter Pears. In some ways this cultured, literary musician was parallel to Francois Poulenc, who was so very enamoured of the poetry of Eluard, Apollinaire et al, whose poetry he set to voice and accompanied Pierre Bernac. Such hidden cultural riches!

Body Mapping

Reading a very good book "What every pianist needs to know about the body" by Thomas Mark, which I'd recommend warmly to every pianist and teacher. But there is one thing not right, I think: "The concept of the body map and the power of Body Mapping in improving movement and curing injury among musicians were the joint discovery of Barbara and William Conable" (Preface, p X).
I believe many people discovered the concept of body mapping before then.
Moshe Feldenkrais, to name but one, in his 1964 article Aspects d'une technique:l'expression corporelle, translated into English in 1988 as Bodily Expressions by Thomas Hanna, editor of Somatics magazine [and quoted in full in the book: Embodied Wisdom: Collected Papers of Moshe Feldenkrais, publ. North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA, 2010].

"The behaviour of human beings is firmly based on the self-image they have made for themselves. Accordingly, if one wishes to change one's behaviour, it will be necessary to change this image. What is a self-image? It is a body image; namely, it is the shape and relationship of the bodily parts, which means the spatial and temporal relationships, as well as the kinesthetic feelings..."

Yehudi Menuhin was an enthusiastic advocate of Feldenkrais, but admittedly the teachings are not specifically for musicians, who will need to apply them to their individual instrument.
An earlier book (1903), specifically for musicians is Artistic Piano Playing as taught by Ludwig Deppe, by Elisabeth Caland. Page 29 of the 1903 edition refers to "a mental map of the entire route from brain to finger tips". 

The edition I bought is printed by amazon.co.uk - yes, printed by amazon. You can decide for yourself whether the presentation is competent, or not. There is no vol. 2, btw.

 

Ignaz Friedman (above) gave some valuable advice to Australian pianist Mack JOst:

"The way you create it is to hear the sound in the heavens, then try to reproduce it in your arm. The only way is to free them [the arms], and I can always remember him saying 'draw out the sound on the last one... think of drawing out the tone.' Not hitting the key. You're really thinking of hauling it out."

Indian dance

Just returned to Taipei after a 9 day trip to southern India. We watched a lot of Indian classical dance at the Mamallapuram dance festival.

The complexity of the dance steps, the arm and hand motions, the facial expressions, were impressive. But most of all, the very good dancers unify it all and convey a sincerity of expression that is very moving.
In piano performances these days, while the fingers, arms and pedalling are energetic and have a surface appearance of being difficult, nevertheless a sense of meaningful, sincere, expressive effect is often quite absent.
Why does Rachmaninoff write in octaves? He is expressing warm-heartedness and passionate sincerity. It is no good just playing octaves to be loud or to show off skill if there is no warmth.
There needs to be a connection between the outward expression of a thing, and the inner essence which is being expressed.
Piano recitals these days are like a digital image of the fruit peel, without any taste of juice, pulp or seed.