• Home
  • About
    • PianoMorphosis
    • Bruce Brubaker
    • Contact
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

PianoMorphosis

Bruce Brubaker on all things piano

Stand-Up Guy

March 9, 2020 by Bruce Brubaker

My remarks at the beginning of the second of 13 concerts of Beethoven’s complete piano music played by New England Conservatory students during 2020. 


Let me tell you… I almost never do stand-up comedy on a Thursday night. 

Friday is better. Sometimes even Tuesday can be good. 

I mean not a Thursday though… tonight is a Thursday right — and you see what I mean. You can see how this is going, already. 

Tuesday night is particularly good in Cambridge, on the other side. You know, the other side of the Charles… the river. This guy here, he got it. Over there though, you seem confused sir. There’s a river? Yup, it separates Boston and Cambridge. Brah, take that Number 1 Bus, look out the window, get off your phone. There’s a big river! A big river. You need to get off your phone, get a boat!

My comedy is good in Cambridge, and over around Porter Square in particular. Over around Porter Square, that is if you can even find anybody who’s still awake there after 8 p.m. 

So, in truth, my comedy focuses on classical music — music like Beethoven’s. And I’m telling you, Beethoven gets a wrong spin in the classical music world. You know our statue out in the lobby. When they were making that thing the artist was going to portray Beethoven laughing, give him a big smile, even have the teeth showing. 

But then, they had a focus group. (Yes, they already had focus groups back in the 19th Century.) So, they asked a lot of people about it, people in the focus group, and it had to be — nope, no, no smile for Beethoven! Beethoven gets a scowl, or at least a frown. So there he is, for all time lookin’ serious. (But he is holding a copy of the “Ode to Joy” — in case you need a copy of that.) And that darn statue isn’t shiny anymore, by the way. Used to be shiny metal, bronze. Now it’s tastefully covered with elegant “patina”!

I am certain Beethoven was a funny guy. 

The evidence, the jokes are all over the music. We often focus on the C-minor Beethoven, the music of drama and power. 

But there’s that song by Beethoven, “The Flea.” In the piano part, Beethoven gives a fingering, as the notes go jumping down the keyboard. Thumb-thumb, thumb-thumb, thumb-thumb. It’s pretty clear — the pianist is killing a bug!

Beethoven: “The Flea”

So there’s physical comedy in Beethoven’s music. Think Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. 

In the Opus 54 Piano Sonata, the pianist’s right hand is playing melodically in the high register of the piano, and then makes comic leaps far down, just to play three notes. It’s silly!

Beethoven: Opus 54

In the Variations on a theme by Salieri, that you will hear tonight, the music keeps bumping up against the end of the piano, rising up to the last of the high notes that were available on Viennese pianos. The high F. That’s a game that Beethoven seems to love. Get up there, and then what?

In the Sonata, Opus 31, No. 1, there is a series of jokes. It’s a veritable stand-up routine that sonata. The piece begins with what might be a depiction of some musicians who can’t play together. The right hand is always early, or the left hand is always late. The conventions of music, and especially the conventions of opera are parodied. There are fast, run-on nonsense passages that go on, and on. And in the slow movement, there are melody trills that just won’t seem to end… at all, ever. I believe there was an old Victor Borge routine, the pianist-comedian Victor Borge — it was a routine in which Borge would play a trill on the piano, rapidly alternating two fingers, and then lift his hand into the air, fingers still trilling. He might put his hand back on the piano, and take it off again, a few times. 

The celebrated pianist Claudio Arrau, renowned for playing Beethoven’s music, said in an interview that there’s no humor in Beethoven’s music, no humor in any instrumental music. Only words can convey humor, Arrau said. 

Pianist Alfred Brendel, on the other hand, advised that when a pianist was performing some especially funny passages in Beethoven’s music, if the audience didn’t laugh out loud — well then the pianist should consider a new career… as an organist!

I do believe we could have settled this whole matter of humor in Beethoven’s music. If only Claudio Arrau had taken the Number 1 Bus with me and Mr. Brendel to Cambridge… on a Tuesday!

Tim Bruckner/Harkon72: Ode to Joy

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020, Alfred, Alfred Brendel, Arrau, Beethoven, Beethovenizing, Borge, Brendel, C-minor-seriousness, Cambridge, Claudio, Claudio Arrau, comedian, comedy, humor, humor in music, New England Conservatory, no. 1, Opus 31, Opus 54, Porter Square, sculpture, stand-up, The Flea, Victor, Victor Borge

Bruce Brubaker

Recordings like the new American piano music albums I make for ECM, InFiné, Bedroom Community, and Arabesque reach millions of listeners, and break through some old divisions of high culture/pop, or art/entertainment. My fans are listening to Billie Eilish, The Weeknd — even the occasional Mozart track! Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube are allowing music lovers to discover music they could not have found so easily before. Live performances begin to reflect what’s happening online. My performances occur in classical venues like the Philharmonie in Paris, the Barbican in London, at La Roque d’Anthéron, at festivals such as Barcelona’s Sónar and Nuits Sonores in Brussels, and such nightclubs as New York’s (le) Poisson Rouge. Read More…

View My Blog Posts

PianoMorphosis

Music is changing. Society's changing. Pianists, and piano music, and piano playing are changing too. That's PianoMorphosis. But we're not only reacting... From the piano -- at the piano, around the piano -- we are agents of change. We affect … [Read More...]

Archives

More Me

BB on the web

“Glassforms” with Max Cooper at Sónar

“Glass Etude” on YouTube

demi-cadratin review of Brubaker solo concert at La Roque d’Anthéron

“Classical music dead? Nico Muhly proves it isn’t” — The Telegraph‘s Lucy Jones on my Drones & Piano EP

Bachtrack review of Brubaker all-Glass concert

“Brubaker recital proves eclectic, hypnotic, and timeless” — Harlow Robinson’s Boston Globe review of my Jordan Hall recital

“Simulcast” with Francesco Tristano on Arte

Bruce Brubaker hosts 4 weeks of “Hammered!” on WQXR — “Something Borrowed,” “Drone,” “Portal,” “The Raw and the Cooked”

“Onstage, a grand piano and an iPod” — David Weininger’s story with video by Dina Rudick

“Bruce Brubaker on Breaking Down Boundaries” — extensive audio interview at PittsburghNewMusicNet.com

“Heavy on the Ivories” — Andrea Shea’s story for WBUR about Bruce Brubaker’s performances and recording of “The Time Curve Preludes” by William Duckworth

“Feeding Those Young and Curious Listeners” — Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times on the first anniversary of the Poisson Rouge

“The Jewel in the Fish” — Harry Rolnick on Bruce Brubaker at the Poisson Rouge

“The Post-Postmodern Pianist” — Damian Da Costa profiles Bruce Brubaker in The New York Observer

Bruce Brubaker questioned at NewYorkPianist.net

“Finding the keys to the heart of Jordan Hall” — Joan Anderman in the Boston Globe on the search for a new concert grand piano

“Hearing and Seeing” — Philip Glass speaks with Bruce Brubaker and Jon Magnussen, Princeton, Institute for Advanced Study

Bruce Brubaker about Messiaen’s bird music, NPR, “Here and Now”

“I Hear America: Gunther Schuller at 80” — notes and programs for concert series, New England Conservatory, Harvard University, Boston Symphony Orchestra

“A Conversation That Never Occurred About the Irene Diamond Concert,” Juilliard Journal

Bruce Brubaker plays music by Alvin Curran at (le) Poisson Rouge

Bruce Brubaker

Recordings such the new American piano music albums I make for ECM, InFiné, and Arabesque reach many listeners, and seem to break through some old divisions of high culture/pop, or art/entertainment. My fans are listening to Cardi B, Childish Gambino, Ariana Grande — even the occasional Mozart track! Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube are allowing music lovers to discover music they could not have encountered so easily in the past. Live performances begin to reflect what’s happening online: this year I play at the International Piano Festival at La Roque d’Anthéron, traditional concert venues in Los Angeles, and Boston — as well as nightclubs in Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, Lyon, Geneva, and New York’s (le) Poisson Rouge.

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in