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Bruce Brubaker on all things piano

Everest

July 6, 2020 by Bruce Brubaker

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climb Mount Everest, 1953

excerpts from my remarks as part of the webinar “ResiliArt: Classical Music’s New World” presented by the Global Foundation for the Performing Arts and UNESCO, June 22, 2020

“…Now, we need to be living music so that it matters, so that it’s useful. We are in an intense period of artistic interaction — technologically enabled. Music is a group activity. 

“Music and technology, that’s a long story. The piano is a technology. The violin. When sound recording came along at the end of the 19th century, a musical product became physical, and then transmissible. The earliest recordings were not treated seriously. Recording was almost like a toy. We have two very short cylinder recordings of Brahms playing the piano. Perhaps that’s a bit like the sonically flawed webcasts of the last few weeks. Timo Andres or Igor Levit in his living room. It’s the beginning of something… 

“The internet gives us the ‘music of all time — all of the time,’ on our devices, in our pocket. The word ‘music’ has come to mean sound recordings of music. That’s the global experience: constant unstoppable listening to recorded sound. 

“Of course, classical musicians begin as children. And was it your choice when you were 3 years old? But now — before it’s too late — we must answer! What motivates us to play Beethoven? Too often, my middle-aged friends, pianists, have come to me with a great new idea. They say: ‘I am going to record all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.’ I’m afraid I compare that to a wealthy person who decides to climb Mount Everest. It may be a great, personally fulfilling life experience. (Of course, you can die up there too.) But will anything be added to our collective knowledge? Is it really useful to make that expensive trek? Truthfully, it’s a fancy hobby. 

“If we are experts in music we need to know about now. Imagine a scientist who said: ‘You know I only repeat the experiments of the 19th century. I’ve really worked at them. I get fantastic results.’ But is that science? That ‘scientist’ is perhaps a historian. And some believe classical music is a museum. But useful museums undergo renovation, they undergo remodeling. 

“A lot of classical music is ‘authorial.’ Some might say it’s authoritarian. It’s top-down organization. The composer is fully in charge, giving us beginnings and endings. It reflects an old power structure. God told the king. The king told everybody else. Men told women. Adults told children — or beat them. Can I retain or cherish these artifacts, the symphonies, but reject their social underpinnings? 

“In our businesses and sometimes in our governments we try to move toward more balanced participatory structures. And then, there’s a further generational shift… One of my piano students turned out to be a gifted conductor, after a very short period of studying conducting. I heard him lead a good performance of Schubert’s Fifth Symphony with one of the Harvard Orchestras after he became their principal conductor. I told him, ‘You could really be a conductor.’ He said: ‘I don’t want to be a conductor because I don’t like telling other people what to do.’ 

“In classical music education we still hear: ‘It’s a meritocracy — we only accept the best students.’ Can we believe that now? How do we assess talent? How can we be sure that when we love the playing of a prospective student, some of our reaction isn’t really: ‘Oh, that’s just like me!’”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: BBC Music Magazine, Beethoven, Bernard Lanskey, China Conservatory, expert, expertise, GFPF, Global Foundation for the Performing Arts, hobby, hobbyist, iDagio, Jasper Parrott, Liguang Wang, Matías Tarnopolsky, Mount Everest, music lessons, New England Conservatory, Oliver Condy, Philadelphia Orchestra, piano, professional, ResiliArt, sonatas, Till Janczukowicz, UNESCO, UNITAR, United Nations, Violin Channel, virtuosity, virtuoso

Comments

  1. Ariel says

    July 6, 2020 at 8:49 pm

    Thank you!! For continuing to ask these questions. There may not be easy answers, but the process of inquiry and openness to change is key!

  2. ปั้มไลค์ says

    July 11, 2020 at 9:25 am

    Like!! Really appreciate you sharing this blog post.Really thank you! Keep writing.

Trackbacks

  1. Everest | Meisner Acting Tips says:
    July 7, 2020 at 6:24 am

    […] If we are experts in music, we need to know about now. Imagine a scientist who said: ‘You know I only repeat the experiments of the 19th century. I’ve really worked at them. I get fantastic results.’ But is that science? – Bruce Brubaker […]

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…

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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...]

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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.

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