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More virtuosity?
Why does there seem to be such a significant increase in technical proficiency among young pianists (NYT)? Better diet and training (like athletes)? Growing population (more chances for genetics to provide outliers)? Greater wealth enabling more and better study and practice?
I was floored by Yuja Wang’s combination of flawless technique (at age 20) and sensitive, expressive interpretations when I saw one of her first major performances. And though I think she is near the top of her class, she is not alone.
Musical expression and the brain
There’s been interesting work for several years on the importance of expectation — and foiling expectation — in musical expression. This article in the New York Times seems to think the idea is newer than it is, but it does a reasonable job of making the point, including interviews and examples from significant musicians and researchers.
Tagged emotion, expression, performanceOtomata: cellular automata music generator
Batuhan Bozkurt has created a simple cellular automata music generator that runs in Flash in a browser window: Otomata. You don’t need to understand cellular automata to play with it, and it generates fascinating, lovely music (he chose an interesting scale, and shapes the tones very nicely).
Bozkurt has a lot of other interesting computer generated music, based on tools he writes. He wrote a very interesting effort (with code and audio examples) to recreate the THX audio logo (which you hear at the beginning of any THX movie). Reminds me of the famous crescendo in the Beatles’ “Day in the Life”.
Sonatina in Laugh Major
As my friend and occasional teacher Polly vanderLinde pointed out, the sonatina form is not correct, but one wouldn’t want to take this *too* seriously.
Kathy Jensen of Hornheads performing Unaccompanied Laugh Sonatina for Soprano Op.99.2.
Schiff on Beethoven
Over the past two years, Andras Schiff played the entire Beethoven sonata cycle in a series of concerts. As I recall, he played them only in Chicago, Ann Arbor, and New York (Carnegie Hall, natch). I attended all of the Ann Arbor performances. They were delightful: Schiff brought a different, very thoughtful and warm sensibility to the pieces, emphasizing interpretation over tempo and dazzling technique (though, nonetheless, his playing was always clean and respectful of the score — so much so that he played the first movement of the Moonlight with the pedal down the entire time: go check your score).
A friend just alerted me to a wonderful resource: Schiff gave a series of lecture – demonstrations on the entire cycle, which has been published online by The Guardian. I just listened to him play and talk through the entire Op 10 No 2, F Major, which I have recently been playing and performing. His comments are like his playing: thoughtful, restrained, but admiring and warm. I got several new ideas, and really enjoyed detailed discussion. Not as scholarly as Robert Greenberg’s well known (Learning Company) lectures on the Beethoven sonatas, but very informative to a performer.
Pianos are more fun than climbing stairs
The Fun Theory (from VW!)
Music in the heart
I just read The Song is You
The story focuses on Julian, a young middle-aged director of commercials who loves his iPod, and Cait, a much younger Irish rock singer about to break through big. Julian and Cait fall for each other, but have one of the most unusual love relationships I’ve ever read. Passionate, heart-wrenching.
Phillips is a wizard with words, and a remarkably perceptive ear and eye. His characters are strongly drawn, and the dialogue zings. He is passionate about passion, and especially about the power of yearning.
Tagged books, inspiration, performersYuja Wang coming into her own
A year and a half ago I was effusive after seeing 21 year old Yuja Wang in her debut recital in Ann Arbor. This year, she has been getting glowing to ectstatic reviews from around the world during her major tour. This one is from the SF Gate, after her Wed 20 May 2009 concert at Symphony Hall:
Tagged performers“In the short term, the applause that filled Davies Symphony Hall at the end of the San Francisco Symphony’s concert Wednesday night – tumultuous, exuberant, seemingly endless – was meant for the extraordinary young pianist Yuja Wang, who had just played the stuffing out of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto. But the response had actually been building throughout one of the most exciting programs of the season….
It wasn’t just the presence of Wang, whose combination of steely technical prowess and lyrical imagination continues to astonish….Wang’s fearless romp through the Prokofiev Second – the most dazzling and downright finger-busting of the composer’s five piano concertos – would have been a headline event in its own right. The stunning thing about this 22-year-old virtuoso is not merely the ferocious precision she brings to even the most technically daunting material, but the ease with which she makes it sing, soar and pirouette.”
Writing about writing about writing…
I like reading books about pianos and pianists. I sometimes write about them here. Turns out Joe Queenan likes doing both (the reading and the writing about it) as well (though he doesn’t write here). He seems to feel more strongly about it than I do.
Tagged books