Should we play the piano strictly in time?

 

Liszt 'Au bord d'une source' played by Eugen d'Albert

Should we play the piano strictly in time? Not according to contemporaries of Beethoven and Liszt. This is what von Bulow writes. He was a concert pianist celebrated in USA and Europe; married to Liszt' s daughter, was considered one of the leading piano pupils of Liszt.

"The time (tempo) should not be a tyrannically restraining or driving mill-hammer, but should be to the musical composition what pulsation is to human life. There is no slow  tempo in which places do not occur requiring a more rapid movement, in order to avoid the feeling of dragging, just as there is no presto that does not, on the contrary, demand in many places a quiet delivery, in order not to take away, through over-haste, the means of expression. Both however, the accelerando as well as the ritardando, must never give the impression of being pushed, jerked or forced: it must always only be employed by the periods and phrases". [from Bulow's influential edition of  Beethoven Piano Sonata Op 110, movement 1.]

On a slightly different tack, William Blake writes: "Improvement makes strait roads; but the crooked roads without Improvement are roads of Genius".  (Proverb of Hell).  

Why has so much piano playing become boring lately? Because students are trained to pass their exams and win competitions, which is different from playing the piano in order to express what the composer wants to express.  In order to pass an exam you can play correctly: in order to express deep emotions, you have to abandon yourself, to some extent, to the emotion, which results in slight distortions of pulse - playing 'between the notes'. 

Please enjoy listening to the fluid, flexible, outpouring of watery notes performed by another pupil of Liszt, d'Albert who shows us how to play the piano. If you as the listener are not breathing more deeply by the end of the performance, please ring your doctor!

 

 

Anton Rubinstein

A transcription of words by (possibly) the greatest pianist after Liszt:
"the purpose of art is to uplift and spiritualise, not necessarily to entertain... art is aristocratic, not democratic... music demands a consecration, a cultus in the temple to which only the initiated are admitted: she demands to be the chosen of the elect, to possess somewhat of the mysterious".
Rubinstein demanded that pupils learn to sing, for without an understanding of breathing and phrasing, piano playing degenerates into mere fingerwork.

acknowledgements to Larry Sitsky, "Anton Rubinstein" pp18-22

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"