It's
been a long time since we had one of these.
Yes,
I thought it was time for an update.
You
wanted to discuss the music you are currently working on and other
matters?
A
few matters connected with the future of what we do as serious
musicians.
OK,
so what are you practicing right now?
Well,
a few of the last piano sonatas of Franz Joseph Haydn.
What
attracted you to this music?
It
has always struck me that of all the classical masters, Haydn's
contributions seem to come from a sane mind – sound music from a
consciousness that was profoundly grounded in rational action, faith
and confidence. There's something profoundly wise in his ideas that
seems missing from the work of Mozart or Beethoven. Haydn doesn't
mind telling musical jokes. His sense of humor is more refined than
Beethoven's.
What
have you discovered about pianism and … ?
It's
a lot more difficult to interpret than either Mozart or Beethoven.
There's even a sense of improvisation within the finality of the
composed lines and harmonies. As if the music is unfinished or more
roughly drawn than the music of the other two masters. Above all,
even though Haydn is writing for a solo keyboard instrument with
perhaps half the dynamic range of a modern piano, he is still
thinking in symphonic terms. So as the various movements become more
familiar under my fingers, the stage I call “sculpting,” where I
make up my mind exactly how I want to interpret the music, I find
myself thinking of conducting a small symphonic orchestra as I play
the piano.
Is
this a new perspective for Haydn? I mean … ?
I
don't know if any of the other champions of this music ever thought
they were playing symphonies for piano or not, but more than the
others I've mentioned, it helps to consider the forms as belonging as
much to symphony as to sonata. But there's also internal balances
that have to be maintained so that accompanying figures don't
overcome the leading solo lines. The thing with Haydn is that he
uses extremely short figures or musical speech and manages to string
them along as though a conversation was going on. So whereas in
Beethoven, one encounters grand landscapes, and in Mozart the
preciousness of pure form and finished expression – you can think
of Mozart as a precursor to Chopin, whereas Haydn has no real
precedent nor any real following except for the forms he developed
which were used widely thereafter, but they don't sound anything like
Haydn.
I
suppose most think of Haydn as reserved, stodgy, old fashioned …
Nothing
could be further from the truth. The best performances of Haydn
should sound sparkling, fresh and timeless, as if they could have
been conceived and written just yesterday.
How
does a pianist accomplish this?
The
first order is to learn the music. That's harder than one can
imagine because the music itself is so obviously simple. You know,
much of Haydn fits right under the natural fingering. It's not where
the difficulty lies. So I learn the music first by playing it at
half or even a quarter of the intended speed. And most pianists play
him way too fast! What? Is Haydn taking us on a chase to a fire?
No, he's having polite and private conversations with us that are
about the very ordinary personal joys of everyday life. Occasionally
there's a kind of royal flourish, but he doesn't overuse any of that.
I also play everything without pedaling any of it as I doubt Haydn's
piano was particularly equipped with a good damper pedal and I expect
that the decay was greater and sustain shorter on his piano than on
ours. The advantage to us on modern instruments is that once we
learn the music thoroughly, we can apply the damper pedal very
judiciously to cause certain phrases to shine brilliantly for their
short duration.
You
spoke to me earlier of two brands of pianos that you would compare
when playing this music.
Yes,
oddly enough, it is worth asking just how much piano one needs to
play this music. I would think that any reasonably good parlor grand
piano would be sufficient. But in former posts, I made a distinction
between the sound and balance of a Steinway vs a Mason & Hamlin.
Now Mason & Hamlin, despite not having the same name recognition
of a Steinway, may be a superior scale and their smaller grand pianos
are spectacular in what I have called the orchestral rather than the
soloistic properties of a piano sound. The small Fazioli is even
more so. So for modern reconstructions of the pieces by Haydn or
anyone before him; Couperin, Rameau, Scarlatti, Bach, etc. it may be
that a Mason & Hamlin is superior to a Steinway, whereas for
Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, etc. a Steinway
reigns supreme. I'm sure the distinctions I'm making are very small.
I once played a rebuilt Mason & Hamlin BB (7' grand) that played
and sounded more like a Steinway. It was one of those pianos that
gave me a significant ache to want to own. But right now I have a
big tall American upright piano, a Kurtzmann from 1928, and it's
pinblock is still good and it has a nice scale and I am slowly making
improvements to it with the eventual intention of replacing the
hammers and improving the action as far as possible. After all, I
am neither very young nor very rich and must make do with what I
have.
So
what do you have to say about the future of this music?
There
are forces in play right now that can only be destructive to the
future of civilization as we know it. Generations are arriving who
know nothing about this music and may never find it. Attention is
drawn elsewhere. Few are interested in acquiring or building upon
natural skills. Where's the audience for this music? Who will
attend concerts in the very wonderful concert venues that have been
erected over the past few decades? Who would know what a good
interpretation sounds like compared to one that is frankly hackneyed?
With Haydn, you must preserve almost the idea that you are
improvising as you are playing, that the phrases are to appear fresh,
almost accidental, sparkling and glittering, on a background of grace
and mostly peaceful reserve. You notice that the other more romantic
composers – you know I regard romanticism as a cover for what I
have described as emotional realism, but that realism includes states
of feeling that Haydn only notices from some proper distance. He may
occasionally point to some unfortunate circumstance where the
romantics become that unfortunate circumstance in some deeply
sensuous or in the case of Scriabin, almost erotic emotion.
So
the real audience for such as Haydn presents may be limited?
May
be a sanctuary for those who are just plain tired of all the angst,
anger, trouble or other more raw emotions. For years I had occasion
to come back from work in an often harrowing and confused environment
to seek the ultimate in sanity and balance and Haydn never
disappointed me. Sound music from a sane mind. That's Haydn.
So
which sonatas?
Well,
I use the Hoboken numbering, so there are only 52 piano sonatas.
Number 52 in E Flat I learned many years ago, but I have returned to
it, polishing it up to get it up to my performance standards. The D
Major, the 51st
is a lovely two movement work. The first movement reminds me of
something vaguely French or pre-Schubertian. The second movement is
a magical jewel of a masterpiece. The 50th
in C Major is one of the more surprising works in this series – I
believe he took these to London with him to perform – it's first
movement is brilliant for its use of thematic material that all has a
smirking edge to it – full of clever musical puzzles and frank
slapstick elements. The second movement anticipates Schubert in the
use of phrases in octaves, which you want to play very softly and
surely, not heavy or pounding. The last movement is one of those
tight clever finales to be played with a quick and sure decisiveness
but again without either excessive speed or volume. I can still
remember when I was young, people would keep asking me to play
something fast and loud. So I learned the last movement of
Beethoven's Moonlight or some other equally fast pieces. These
usually got the most sure applause. But it's like a diet made up of
mostly meat, rather heavy. Oh yes, before I forget, I'm also working
on the 49th
also in E Flat. What a wonderful work that is too from start to
finish.
So
Haydn is like salad?
LOL,
well salad is known to be very nutritious and essential to a good
balanced diet.
As
I suppose would be Haydn to one's pianistic repertoire.
LOL,
I suppose so.
So
what of the future?
We
have to consider the implications of everything that's been going on
lately and its affects on music both being performed and being
listened to. What's the piano industry like right now? In a
downward spiral? How come fewer people wish to have their kids learn
to play a piano? You know that the piano is the gateway to all
music. There is no other instrument capable of giving the player an
immediate grasp of music in general. On a piano one can experience
melody, harmony, rhythm and form all at once. Of course an organ
might have some similar qualities, but real organs are really parts
of the buildings in which they are housed. The electronic varieties
of keyboard instruments can get as close as they please to the real
thing without really getting there. This frustration when perceived
by the performer is one of the chief drives among musicians
accustomed to playing electronic keyboards to eventually seek real
pianos, or organs.
So
you suppose that classical music may be in the same category of art
as legitimate theatre, poetry or dance?
We've
discussed these somewhat before. One could even add painting to this
list. Fewer people are really painting, dancing, holding poetry
readings – because poetry was always meant to be spoken and heard,
not just read in books – the same for legitimate theatre or ballet
or modern dance. Who cares but those who have bothered to educate
themselves concerning them and so much relies on memory. Where the
cultural memory is not reiterated, things, ideas, techniques,
instrumentation, everything, just fades away. A few years ago I was
in France. I decided to get a few pieces by Claude Debussy ready to
play in case I ran into a piano. Well, I did, a fine old Gaveau
upright. So I played them in some way better than ever and although
everyone liked what I played nobody knew that this was French music
by a French composer in France. Do you get what I mean?
Yes,
so what's the solution?
Well
the strongest human emotion, as Thomas Mann pointed out, is interest.
You're either interested or you're not. Boredom is absence of
interest or even an antagonism to that interest. Boredom, ennui,
deadness of feeling, has been heightened by the recent events of this
peculiar year, 2020. If anything survives, it is kept alive simply
by sheer interest; someone likes something, is attracted to it,
interested in it enough to find out more, sometimes developing into
an unquenchable curiosity, and without any of this, art gets
forgotten, in some cases never to be revived. For example, outside of New Years'
festivities in Vienna, who actually listens to Strauss waltzes
anymore? His music used to be world famous and widely recognized.
One almost never hears any of it anymore because something about it
might seem all too dated for these “progressive” days in which we
are living.
So
your advice is?
This
is for audiences as well as performers; improve your own life by
exposing yourself to the great arts and artists of the past which is
a treasure house of surprising and surpassing jewels. Want to know
what it means? Once, another lifetime ago, I was fortunate enough to
have met the Ibach brothers who ran the now defunct Ibach piano
company in Germany. I sat at one of their great grand pianos and
played the 2nd
impromptu from Op 90 of Schubert. Christian Ibach was standing close
by and as I concluded, tears streaming out of his eyes, he said,
“this is why we build pianos."
