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PianoMorphosis

Bruce Brubaker on all things piano

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Circuitry

April 21, 2015 by Bruce Brubaker

We truly learn so much by reading music performance treatises; yet we make a mistake if we read them too simply. Many useful keyboard how-to-books grow from Enlightenment sensibilities: treatises penned by the keyboardists C. P. E. Bach, Daniel Gottlob Türk, Carl Czerny, Ignaz Moscheles. I'm not suggesting that these authors were practicing "esoteric writing" -- the deliberate making of paradoxes and puzzles of meaning. I'm suggesting that … [Read more...]

Ensemble

February 9, 2015 by Bruce Brubaker

Nantes, 2015 It's the last week of January, and I'm in France for the yearly mega-festival La Folle Journée. During 5 days, 330 concerts are being presented! (I play 5.) Folle Journée is the work of many people -- especially René Martin, founder and artistic director of Folle Journée. Recently, talking with Tim Page, I realized just what significant influences the ideas of a few concert presenters, a few producers (and critics) have been on … [Read more...]

Immeasurable

August 13, 2013 by Bruce Brubaker

If they throw stones upon the roof While you practice arpeggios, It is because they carry down the stairs A body in rags. Be seated at the piano. ... Wallace Stevens: "Mozart, 1935" I ask many young pianists to play un-measured preludes by French composers Louis Couperin, Gaspard Le Roux, or Rameau. These are written pieces in which pitches are specified but rhythm is not. I offer no instruction, no advice. Louis Couperin: Prelude You … [Read more...]

Unhinged

December 12, 2011 by Bruce Brubaker

C. P. E. Bach writes in his treatise: "A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved. He must of necessity feel all of the affects that he hopes to arouse in his audience, for the revealing of his own humor will stimulate a like humor in the listener. In languishing, sad passages, the performer must languish and grow sad. Thus will the expression of the piece be more clearly perceived by the listeners...." It's an old and ongoing … [Read more...]

Sic transit pianisti

October 25, 2011 by Bruce Brubaker

I return to Rotterdam, and it's as if no time has passed. Four years ago, I left very early in the morning, down a street with wood planks instead of a sidewalk. The construction is long finished, but I return to the thrill of that morning. It was October then too. I did a 2-day seminar in Rotterdam, at Codarts. Following that, something slightly crazy was on my schedule. I'd agreed to play, with several other pianists (Robert Levin, … [Read more...]

Voice Mis-Leading

April 18, 2011 by Bruce Brubaker

Some solo piano music has part-writing that seems to correspond directly to music for string quartet. In such keyboard music, there are a constant number of "voices" tracing coherent individual lines. Beethoven: Opus 110 These voice-parts have integrity. We can follow tenor or bass, alto or soprano (viola or cello, second violin or first violin). This is a modern practice in keyboard music, I believe. The earliest keyboard pieces -- … [Read more...]

Departure

February 24, 2011 by Bruce Brubaker

In J. S. Bach's Capriccio, BWV 992 I noticed strongly emotional content in an unusually repetitious passage -- a place where as the keyboardist's right hand stays in place repeating a simple figure the left hand incrementally departs physically, signifying departure, descending step by step lower and lower. Something similar occurs in Schubert's G-flat-Major Impromptu: … [Read more...]

Overwhelmed

March 8, 2010 by Bruce Brubaker

There it is. Suddenly without warning. In the midst of hearing a performance of J. S. Bach's D-sharp Minor Fugue, I'm swept by a wave of emotion. Tears come. It's not quite because of the playing -- good, but not a lot more -- though this playing is the vehicle for the transmission of whatever it is that affects me. This bottled time, this music, this careful script of actions that lead to experience... Is this feeling I have, regret for what … [Read more...]

Bachtrauma

December 7, 2009 by Bruce Brubaker

Gerhard Richter: Bach (1992)   In my dream, J. S. Bach arrives to play on the clavier some of the pieces he's written down, but as he plays, the strangeness of the temperament and lowness of pitch, the flexibility of beat and rhythmic declamation yields some of the things he plays unrecognized, for moments, or even a long while. This music that we own, this familiar canon, under his fingers it is so strange, so far from the received … [Read more...]

Roll

May 11, 2009 by Bruce Brubaker

Some elaborate preparations to long notes in piano music are attempts to mimic the ways singers can begin a sound. The many shadings and extensions of initial consonants may get translated into piano music as multiple short notes, usually notated in small print. Though often marked with a slur, this kind of writing can still be confusing. The articulateness of the keyboard is certainly what's not wanted -- these are compound sounds. I … [Read more...]

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...]

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.

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