PianoMorphosis

"You were teaching that pianist like she was a college student" -- the complaint of an observer of one of the masterclasses I gave in Jerusalem. In my defense, the student pianist was 18 (I learned later), and playing one of Beethoven's Opus 10 Sonatas.

It seems to make sense that we have differing expectations of musicians -- according to their stage of development. More experienced players may have more musical or instrumental command, or more nuanced understanding.

Complex music can be looked at with simplicity, but I resist the idea that it can or should be "reduced" for the consumption or instruction of the young. "It's ok not to hold those difficult left-hand quarter notes now, but next year I'll expect it..." (Perhaps not what my critic meant.)

As time passes, and growth occurs, our essential questions and challenges will be answered with increasingly sophisticated performances in response.

I wonder if it is exactly our very youngest, most impressionable pianists that need our most subtle and detailed teaching? Not that we want to overwhelm them, or scare them off. But let's do involve them, with the big things that really matter -- that make music something worth a lifetime of attention.

The youngest pianist I heard in Jerusalem (a kid of really remarkable ability and imagination) followed everything I said. Even in my most far-fetched spontaneous experiments, he was right there. I might even say he lead the way. The talented provoke us to do our best -- playing, listening, teaching. This young pianist's talent seemed to challenge, to ask all of us to do our best for him, and, in so doing, to do our best for ourserlves too -- the best (as well as we know it) for the future of music in the world.

In big conservatories, there are competitions to select student soloists for particular piano concertos each concert season. The music is chosen far in advance by the piano faculty. Our normal procedure at New England Conservatory -- and we did the same at Juilliard -- is to hold a first round in which a jury hears each of the competitors play a 15-minute-long selection of designated excerpts from the chosen concerto. A day or two in advance of the competition, these cuts are announced.

In the first round, the selected material is played by each student without interruption. Usually three pianists are chosen who play again a few days later. In the final round, each pianist performs the entire concerto. All this is done with a second pianist playing a "reduction" of the orchestral parts as accompaniment on a second piano. Any long orchestral "tuttis" (material for the orchestra alone) are eliminated or truncated.

Because we had a lot of competitors for the concertos by Chopin that we programmed this year, each student played only about ten minutes of music in the first round. Much was omitted, but each competitor played the same designated excerpts... That must have been fair?

A piano concerto might have a few passages that are significantly more technically difficult to play than the rest of the piece. Maybe it would be sensible to hear such passages in a first round? Not infrequently, a player who makes a good first impression may turn out (in the second round) not to have carefully learned the entire work -- especially technically brilliant difficult licks that tend to appear near the end of the last movement of many concertos. If those things are included in the first round, such competitors can be eliminated early.

Of course, we might be hoping to find a performer who brings real distinction to the playing of the basic materials of the piece. Someone who might stir us with a poignant theme, or capture the ebullience of a rondo.

The jury (and audiences) may prefer a musically compelling performance that's not entirely commanding technically. Often, if a conductor is a member of the jury (and I like to include one), there will be some conversation about whether a less-than-technically-commanding player can deliver a performance with the orchestra, in a large hall, with a big audience, and the nervousness that will bring. And especially if the problems seem to have to do with rhythm...

In these competitions, can it be that excellent playing from the second-pianist, performing the orchestral parts, may distract from, or enhance the impression made by a competitor? The jury members are experts. But such niceties of accompaniment playing as balancing textures toward lower bass pitches (to interfere less with the soloist's melody playing), or orchestral-style rhythm from second pianist (with scant rubato), or rather dry pedalling of the accompaniments -- will cast a better light on the solo player, making the solo piano's sound seem more luxurious, the playing seem more emotional, spontaneous, and communicatively expressive.

After really beautiful second-piano playing -- perhaps too beautiful to help the cause of the soloist being accompanied -- it's surprising how frequently a competition juror will say: "That second-pianist should be our soloist!"

One contestant in the Naumburg Competition in New York offered a ramshackle account of a concerto by Beethoven. The second-piano accompaniment was shaky. I think the jury felt empathy for the suffering soloist. In the end, after hearing a lot more music, we selected this pianist as the winner of the entire competition.

Can it be that the cuts I make for the first round have a strong impact on who wins our competitions? If a high-functioning virtuoso demonstrates powerful command of all the difficulties, a more musically compelling player may not make it through to the final round.

As I listen to others play the piano, as I eat, or walk down the sidewalk -- all I think of is the passage of music I struggled with yesterday, a passage I have been playing at least for 25 years.

I consider it from many angles, rolling it over in my mind. To be completely cognizant and conscious of every detail in a complicated scripted piece that's played by memory is to be safe.

Is it after all a misguided act? To reprise these publications, these products crafted for the middle-class home-user? That we should toil to replay them for large audiences in large rooms? Again and again? What kind of flattery?

From Des Moines in 1910, Ferruccio Busoni wrote these lines:

"Considered from the viewpoint of a traveling virtuoso, the concert yesterday was very satisfying. -- The heat had reached the highest point of the year. I was dead tired. But, a beautiful piano, good acoustics, and the great expectations of the audience hypnotized me for the two hours I spent on the platform...

"At last, I have learned how to engage with the first movement of the 'Waldstein' Sonata that never quite blossomed before. And I have played it almost thirty years!!

"...From the viewpoint of a thinking artist, no longer young, it was an unpardonable and unrecoverable waste of energy, of time, and thought, to make an impression of no importance for a brief moment on an insignificant glob of people."

Busoni in Denver, 1910

Taupe. Dull ocher. Light gray. These are the exterior colors available in a new housing development I passed in the outer suburbs of Des Moines. The houses are attached and identically sized. There are slight, symmetrically-occurring variations in the facades. Some people covet these abodes. No chance the neighbors will decide to paint purple -- not allowed! No chance that someone will display a prized lawn gargoyle, or replace the standard-issue white enamel porch light with copper. ("Dear Association Member, please remove immediately.")

In the end-of-the-year-best-of lists, and best-of-the-decade lists, I was perplexed to see so many of the same recordings, same movies, same opinions. Of course, certain art is so wonderful, so powerful, that it will impress and speak to many people. But the sameness of opinion and the prevalence of received opinion that dominates classical music is killing. It makes us matter less. It makes music less alive and less powerful.

My father sometimes said: "If two people have exactly the same opinion, then there's no use for one of them." Let's include pianists. There's something to be said for learning the conventions and tastes of an era, or a repertoire, or a region. But that's the beginning of a life's work as a musician, not an end.

In the repertoires of aspiring classical pianists, the extreme prevalence of certain pieces (often pinnacles of technical difficulty) is almost unbelievable. Once again, Beethoven's "Appassionata," Chopin's Fourth Ballade, Liszt's Sonata... The impact on the listener is certain: It becomes increasingly hard even to hear this music. The mind and ear slip into recognition: "Oh, that's Beethoven's Opus 109." And then, the very particular, moment-by-moment hearing of what takes place in the music in every instant, what it says, feels like, even exactly how it sounds physically -- these specifics hardly register.

After hearing hundreds of young pianists play Beethoven's "Appassionata" in the last two years, I can't really remember any details of any of the performances, even performances I recall liking very much. In contrast, the sole student who played Beethoven's Opus 54 in an audition last year is clear in my mind. I remember the performance -- not just my reductive opinion of it -- in fairly vivid detail.

Many of the scions of American piano playing had trouble with alcohol. At school, I remember hidden bottles and little bars inside the official closets.

Piano playing is a solitary occupation, and often makes for a solitary life. As much as writers of fiction, pianists have been plagued by (susceptible to? predisposed to?) alcoholism.

In some way, intoxication may be a goal of music making -- but chemicals can be a dangerous consort.

In a large suitcase, I'm carrying most of the 400 prescreening CDs submitted by prospective students to New England Conservatory's piano department this year. These recordings come from applicants to the school's bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, and from applicants to the joint degree program the conservatory has with Harvard University.

When I started teaching at NEC five years ago there was no "prescreening" in advance of the spring auditions at the school. Any pianist could apply and be heard by the faculty committee. Things have changed fast!

Several of the most selective schools now have prescreenings by recording. When we started the process I intended to use the recordings to eliminate the weakest ten or twenty per cent of applicants, reducing our total days of live auditions and giving more consistency to what we heard.

By now, the total number of applicants has grown so much, that in order to fit into the seven days of live auditions we have scheduled in 2010, I will need to eliminate fifty per cent of the total pianists applying. It's not so easy to do.

Doctoral applicants are scrutinized most intensely. Their recordings will be heard by me and two other faculty pianists. In the end, we will eliminate many, many of them, inviting only four or five players to come to Boston for a live audition in February. Generally, we accept one pianist into the school's doctoral program each year, possibly two.

The quality of the world's piano playing is getting better fast. The scope of our applicant pool is also widening. This year, at my request, I have very little information about each student as I listen to their recordings. I do not know with whom they studied, or what teachers they are requesting. I don't know if they won competitions or played major concerts. I don't know where they live.

On each CD from bachelor's and master's degree applicants, there's one movement from a Classical sonata and one "Romantic" work. I'm hearing dozens of recorded performances of Beethoven's Opus 81a, this year's most frequently chosen sonata. There are many, performances of Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata, and Opus 109, and dozens of accounts of Chopin's Third and First Ballades. (Each year brings slight shifts in the popularity of what must be the most classic of the classics.) Some of the CDs include recordings of extra unrequested pieces.

These piles of CDs are a "sample" -- a cross-section of a tree trunk, a core sample, an air quality reading. My suitcase of recordings is a snapshot of the world's piano playing aspiration. A lot of young people are studying and learning to play the piano well. This annual collection of CDs is itself an art work -- an artifact of a large multilayered performance. By establishing our procedure and specifying repertory, we set up a frame for global action. All over the world, mostly during November (the prescreening recordings are due at New England Conservatory on December 1, as with most American conservatories that require them), aspiring pianists are playing for the microphone. Striving. Listening. Burning the CDs and labeling boxes and sleeves.

There's monetary investment too. The stacks of discs represent a lot of resources. And the recordings are colored by money. Pianos are expensive, and the sound of poorly-regulated, poorly-voiced, inferior instruments is notable in some of the submissions. In contrast, a few recordings are finely crafted sonically and elegantly packaged (with photos).

This big suitcase of CDs is heavy. After the listening is finished, the discs will go to a recycling center. Next year, we'll be accepting MP3s via the internet.

In the eighteenth century, there were no concert halls.

In 1750, no one would have asked: "Who will write the next great enduring symphony?"

Venues develop in response to art, or art and venues develop together in some not entirely explainable relationship (like instruments and music). Halls are instruments too.

Can anyone doubt that the 2,000-plus-seat Musikverein/Carnegie/Concertgebouw model is a period piece? It's a manifestation of a repertory and a society -- linked to a time, linked to time. This kind of concert space can survive, but not as a norm.

And we should not be waiting in Festival Hall or any such place to hear the next "big thing" in terms of new music. It may not be big, and certainly it will be happening elsewhere.

A composer in his twenties tells me he doesn't use "technology" in his music -- no samples, no interactive computer applications. To me, it's concerning.

At a recent Music with a View concert at the Flea Theater, there was new music by three composers using varying amounts and means of interaction between electronics and live performance. In the Q & A after the concert, Morton Subotnick mentioned that he had dreamed of this new world -- a world where technology becomes easy and accessible enough so that many and various artistic voices can be heard through it. Subotnick had thought it would take only 200 hundred years to achieve!

Evolving instrumental technology affected Beethoven. When he got a new Erard piano with added high pitches he used them right away in the "Waldstein" sonata. (The new notes seem to sneak in, ascending step by step, several pages into the first movement -- so as not to dissuade potential buyers of the printed music who might only take a glance before their purchase? Very few pianos in Vienna included these notes when they were written.) Later, a new piano with a low-bass E provoked Beethoven's Opus 101, with its climactic use of the new "contra E" as a dominant pedal tone. The new note motivated the entire sonata's multi-movement harmonic plan, it seems to me.

Schubert's music stays much more in the middle. Did he have less exposure to expensive new mechanical inventions, or was he less interested in "limits"? Was Schubert less temperamentally extreme, more attached to the piano as a vocal analogue, less an artistic mannerist?

Always there are some early adopters. Technology shapes the specific details of their work. But they have to encounter or even seek it out.

The pianist Fou Ts'ong played a solo concert in Jordan Hall including Chopin's Opus 35 Sonata. In the famous "Funeral March," he made an unbelievable racket with the left-hand trills. They were noisy, unpleasant, almost veering out of control. In a masterclass at New England Conservatory, during that same visit to Boston, Fou Ts'ong manifested such subtly refined attention to details of sound, and line, and phrase. Everything. But, those trills in his playing of the sonata were raucous and harsh.

Weeks later, Kristian Zimerman played in Jordan Hall. His program also included Chopin's Opus 35. Finely crafted, the whole performance was fastidious, with lovely sound and expert shaping. When it came to the "Funeral March" those trills were full-bodied, loud, and almost elegant. And, I found myself missing Fou Ts'ong! Missing the noise, missing the near loss of control, those horrible intrusions -- missing the sound of Death.

December 2, 2008: Tending Garden

December 3, 2008: Master

December 8, 2008: Chill

December 15, 2008: Tale of Two Cities

December 29, 2008: Pianoscape

February 7, 2009: Masterclass

February 16, 2009: Can we play too well?

February 16, 2009: Flatline

February 23, 2009: Bruce Brubaker's Guide to Alliterative Artists

February 26, 2009: Across a crowded room

March 3, 2009: Play Better

March 9, 2009: Global Warming

March 11, 2009: We're all composers now

March 16, 2009: I don't do Rachmaninoff

March 17, 2009: Dress like a banker -- Dress like a rockstar

March 19, 2009: Lights up

March 23, 2009: Concert Accident

March 25, 2009: Simple is difficult

March 30, 2009: Great teachers produce...

April 1, 2009: Piano Country

April 6, 2009: Tail wind

April 7, 2009: Humble pie

April 13, 2009: Soundtrack

April 16, 2009: Congratulations Marty!

April 20, 2009: Life and Death

April 21, 2009: I don't see red

April 27, 2009: Withdrawn

April 28, 2009: One note at a time

May 4, 2009: Where can artists learn?

May 11, 2009: Roll 

May 18, 2009: All feet

May 21, 2009: Interior Decorator

June 1, 2009: Chiff 

June 3, 2009: One day

June 8, 2009: Help Wanted 

June 10, 2009: Molecular Piano

June 16, 2009: Resolve 

June 22, 2009: First Glass 

June 29, 2009: Matter of opinion 

July 6, 2009: Brand

July 13, 2009: Piano Darwinism 

July 20, 2009: Triangle 

July 27, 2009: Lineage 

August 3, 2009: In one 

August 11, 2009: Art is long 

August 31, 2009: One Hand 

September 8, 2009: How many?

September 14, 2009: Beat It 

September 21, 2009: Precedent 

October 5, 2009: Ascent

October 19, 2009: Quality Control 

October 26, 2009: Recenter 

November 2, 2009: Iowa was the name of the Star 

November 5, 2009: Mr. Brendel, thank you  

November 9, 2009: Case Law  

November 16, 2009: Just before 8

November 23, 2009: Extempore

November 30, 2009: Tumbling down

December 7, 2009: Bachtrauma