{"id":5737,"date":"2024-12-31T08:33:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-31T13:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/?p=5737"},"modified":"2024-12-30T18:10:23","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T23:10:23","slug":"russell-sherman-1930-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/2024\/12\/russell-sherman-1930-2023.html","title":{"rendered":"Russell Sherman (1930-2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At a memorial event in Jordan Hall in Boston on September 29, 2024, these were my remarks:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This concert hall,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

this space,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the vibrating air in here,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the music that\u2019s been heard,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

those sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The piano playing done on this stage…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1907, Ferruccio Busoni played the piano right about … here. Arthur Rubinstein\u2019s first Boston concert, right here in 1904. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Russell Sherman, pianist, many, many times. He played here, imore than 30 solo recitals over four decades in this space. He played music by Ludwig Beethoven, and Schubert, and Brahms, and Gunther Schuller and Arnold Schoenberg, and Ralph Shapey, and Johann Sebastian Bach, and Haydn, and Debussy, and Gershwin, and he played music by Edward Steuermann… Edward Steuermann, Mr. Sherman\u2019s piano teacher. Edward Steuermann, the first performer of Schoenberg\u2019s piano music. And Steuermann \u2014 a student of Busoni who played right here in 1907.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The air here it vibrates, always, there is music\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a place of oratory also. Of speaking, The pianist Ignaz Paderewski spoke words here in 1917, during a war. As Evgeny Kissin did in 2022. Carl Phillipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Sebastian\u2019s son, wrote that: \u201cThe keyboardist alone<\/em>, can make excellently, the quickly surprising \u2014 the change in speech \u2014 between one character and another…\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I say, that\u2019s oratory, that\u2019s speaking through wordless music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly Russell Sherman was an orator, a speaker, and then a writer of words too. But just in the music-making itself \u2014 he conveyed ideas, he expressed opinions. How his playing of a quizzical phrase of Beethoven\u2019s Op. 28 could change what you thought you knew. How Brahms\u2019 “Paganini Variations” became a tone poem. How a mysterious wash of pedaled piano sound could make spirits or specters come forth from the black box. After hearing Russell play Liszt\u2019s Funerailles,<\/em> I understood Busoni\u2019s description of the piano\u2019s pedal: \u201ca photograph of the sky \u2014 a ray of moonlight,\u201d said Busoni.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sherman did not so much play<\/em> the piano as use the piano. It was a tool for conveying delicate, or provocative thought \u2014 a disruptive questioning of many assumptions of ordinary classical-music culture. His repeated performances of a piece might vary a lot, evolving through his conscious work, or sometimes changing quixotically, unexplainably. Mr. Sherman\u2019s playing was not generic. He liked very much the sentiment of Baudelaire: \u201cLe beau est toujours bizarre\u2026<\/em>\u201d (“The beautiful is always strange.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About half way back in the balcony up there, I sat one night in this room, with tears streaming down my face, as Mr Sherman conjured Liszt\u2019s Fountains at the Villa d\u2019Este.<\/em> Before he played, Mr. Sherman told the audience that the piece combines two verities of 19th-century music \u2014 water and faith. Something about his playing of the rhythm that night, the sustained plangent melody notes in the middle register, something slightly hesitating in the high notes, quivering even, yet unstoppable. Water and Faith, he said. I was crying. How was this transmission<\/em>, this transfer of emotion accomplished? I don\u2019t know. Those vibrations in this room, passing through this air, to the skin, to the ear of a listener\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truly, the course of my life was changed by Russell Sherman. I never had a piano lesson with him, but he offered us all many lessons, of many kinds. I\u2019m sure I would not be at New England Conservatory without his thought, and work. When my own teacher died in New York City, Mr. Sherman was among the very first to call me. \u201cI know how deeply you felt about him,\u201d Russell said, \u201chow deeply the death of a teacher can hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The preeminence of the New England Conservatory piano faculty today in the world \u2014 this magnificent group of musicians of whom I am very proud, very proud \u2014 this all traces to the earlier work of Mr. Sherman, and then to Wha Kyung Byun. Let\u2019s not underestimate it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems coincidental to me now, that in the first weeks I lived in New York, I walked by Lincoln Center and there was one of those big three-sheet posters, 80 inches high: “Russell Sherman will play Franz Liszt\u2019s Transcendental Etudes.” I got a ticket and went to one of my first big-city concerts, a memorable performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later, Russell told me, that following that same concert, two well known Juilliard piano faculty members came to him backstage. One of them asked, \u201cHow can you play like that?\u2019 (And he meant how can you play that well<\/em>, it was a compliment.) Russell answered, \u201cI have no professional standards.\u201d And what did that mean? We live in a world where well-paid symphony orchestra players are esteemed, not really because they play music very well (they do), but because they work fast. They can handle a different concert program each week for many weeks and achieve a \u201cprofessional\u201d level of playing. A pianist can be praised today, for playing five demanding virtuoso piano concertos in a single night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe Mr. Sherman didn\u2019t count the hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much attention to pay to a detail \u2014 to a turn of phrase? How much time to practice it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How much time to spend preparing a meal, how much time to spend preparing an offering…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no limit. Professional speed, professional efficiency might not<\/em> be a virtue.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russell Sherman had an international reputation, but he was a Boston hero. When I contemplate the roaring ovations that we witnessed in this room, the fervor of those crowds, the intense praise of esteemed Boston music critics, Mr. Sherman stepping in for Maurizio Pollini to play a concerto by Beethoven at the very last minute, with the Boston Symphony across the street \u2014 that\u2019s a hero<\/em>! Mr. Sherman was \u2014 the Red Sox. (Although, I know he preferred the Dodgers.) I\u2019m not sure such heroes can exist now. It was a remarkable time. And we hear that in his playing, we hear that in his wordless oratory, in his conjuring, in these offerings. You will hear it, you are about to hear it now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(At the event on September 29, these remarks were followed by the showing of several archival films.<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a memorial event in Jordan Hall in Boston on September 29, 2024, these were my remarks: This concert hall, this space, the vibrating air in here, the music that\u2019s been heard, those sounds. The piano playing done on this stage… In 1907, Ferruccio Busoni played the piano right about … here. Arthur Rubinstein\u2019s first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1607,789,265,1600,889,1608,296,1602,1606,26,1603,1277,205,183,404,282,499,498,500,1604,1599,990,1605,1601],"class_list":{"0":"post-5737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-alice-tully-hall","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-busoni","11":"tag-edward-steuermann","12":"tag-franz","13":"tag-gunther-schuller","14":"tag-jordan-hall","15":"tag-lim","16":"tag-lincoln-center","17":"tag-liszt","18":"tag-minsoo","19":"tag-nec","20":"tag-new-england-conservatory","21":"tag-new-york-city","22":"tag-piano","23":"tag-piano-playing","24":"tag-russell","25":"tag-russell-sherman","26":"tag-sherman","27":"tag-sohn","28":"tag-steuermann","29":"tag-virtuoso","30":"tag-wha-kyung-byun","31":"tag-yunchan","32":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5737"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5761,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5737\/revisions\/5761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}