Sonntag, 31. Januar 2016

Playing by Heart, With or Without a Score


It would seem that the filmmaker Michael Haneke, who wrote and directed the wrenching and poignantly acted new French movie “Amour,” is swept away by the mystique of a pianist, alone onstage, conveying mastery and utter oneness with music by playing a great piece from memory. The drama of playing from memory is at the crux of a scene involving the elegant French pianist Alexandre Tharaud, who, portraying himself, has a small but crucial role.
The story revolves around an elderly Parisian couple, Georges and Anne, retired music teachers, as they cope with the stroke that has paralyzed Anne’s right side. In one scene Mr. Tharaud, in the role of a former student of Anne’s who has gone on to a significant career, makes an unannounced visit to his old teacher to see how she is faring. He can barely contain his shock at her condition. Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) asks a favor: Would Alexandre play a piece she made him learn when he was 12? It is Beethoven’s Bagatelle in G minor, the second of the Six Bagatelles (Op. 126), Beethoven’s last published piano work.


Photo

Alexandre Tharaud performing, with a score, at Le Poisson Rouge. Credit Ruby Washington/The New York Times

At first Mr. Tharaud demurs. He has not played the piece for years, he explains, and is not sure he can remember it. Then, saying he will try, he proceeds to play the stormy bagatelle flawlessly, at least as much as we hear before the film cuts to the next scene. I suppose it would have been too pedestrian a touch if, when Alexandre said he was not sure he could remember the bagatelle, Anne had said, “Oh, I have the score, of course, right there on the shelf.”
Over the years I have observed that the rigid protocol in classical music whereby solo performers, especially pianists, are expected to play from memory seems finally, thank goodness, to be loosening its hold. What matters, or should matter, is the quality of the music making, not the means by which an artist renders a fine performance.
Increasingly, major pianists like Peter Serkin and Olli Mustonen have sometimes chosen to play a solo work using the printed score. The pianist Gilbert Kalish, best known as an exemplary chamber music performer and champion of contemporary music, has long played all repertory, including solo pieces (Haydn sonatas, Brahms intermezzos), using scores. As a faculty member of the excellent music department at Stony Brook University, Mr. Kalish spearheaded a change in the degree requirements in the 1980s, so that student pianists could play any work in their official recitals, from memory or not, whichever resulted in the best, most confident performance.
Yet there is still widespread and, to me, surprising, adherence in the field to the protocol of playing solo repertory from memory. This season Mr. Tharaud took a little flak for performing recitals in New York using printed scores.
In October at the Greenwich Village music club Le Poisson Rouge he played excerpts from his delightful new Virgin Classics recording “Le Boeuf sur le Toit,” taken from the name of the club that became a haven for Parisian cabaret during the Jazz Age. The next night Mr. Tharaud played a standard program at Weill Recital Hall with works by Scarlatti, Ravel, Chopin and Liszt. At each concert, rather than performing from memory, he used scores, something that Steve Smith, who reviewed Mr. Tharaud’s Weill recital for The New York Times, did not even mention. It was not worth commenting on. The news, as Mr. Smith made clear, was Mr. Tharaud’s absorbing and mercurial performances.


Photo

Andras Schiff at the 92nd Street Y. Credit Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Yet the photo of Mr. Tharaud that accompanied the review clearly showed him playing from a score, and some readers were quick to react on social media. Somehow the idea persists that for a pianist to use a score in a performance suggests a lack of mastery or sufficient preparation.
Not necessarily. Though it is exciting and even magical to see a pianist giving a triumphant performance of the demonically difficult Liszt Piano Sonata, or any work, from memory, there are different kinds of talents. The towering Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter, by the time he reached his 60s, found it increasingly hard to play from memory. He started using scores in performances. No one questioned him. This was, after all, Richter, a titan of the keyboard. Yet if a Juilliard student can give brilliant and personal accounts of works like Elliott Carter’s daunting Piano Sonata or Chopin’s 24 Preludes but needs the scores on the music stand to do so, why should that matter?
The superb pianist Stephen Hough, in an article in The Telegraph of London last year, presented both sides of the case well. As he pointed out, it goes against history to perform works of early eras from memory. It was only when Liszt, partly out of showmanship, began playing everything, including monumental Beethoven sonatas, from memory that the mystique took hold.
In earlier eras there was composed music, which was always played from the score, and there was improvised music. Since performers were almost always composers as well, as Mr. Hough explained, for a pianist to play, say, a Chopin ballade from memory would have been considered the height of arrogance, as if the pianist were suggesting that he had composed the piece.
At major performing institutions attitudes toward playing from memory have opened up. Today the artistic staff at Carnegie Hall would never think of compelling any artist to play from memory. This is a personal artistic choice. But organizations that foster student musicians still mostly insist on standard protocols. Young Concert Artists, which presents exceptional emerging artists in concert, hews to standard practice for its competitive auditions. The requirements state: “Concertos and solo repertoire for all instruments and voice must be performed by memory. Scores may be used only in chamber music, sonatas with accompaniment and contemporary works.”


Photo

Emanuel Ax playing with musicians from the New York Philharmonic. Credit Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

It has always amused me that contemporary music is exempted from the memorization requirement. I think some pianists might find the Ligeti études, which are so technically challenging that by the time you learn them you usually know them cold, a lot easier to play from memory than Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations.
This fall, in two programs just five days apart at the 92nd Street Y, the pianist Andras Schiff played Bach’s complete “Well-Tempered Clavier,” all 48 preludes and fugues, containing some of the most intricate contrapuntal music ever written. He played both recitals from memory, an astonishing achievement.
Yet Mr. Schiff, a masterly Bach interpreter, has played this music for 50 years, since his childhood. In interviews he has said that playing from memory is not the hardest part for him in performing Bach’s keyboard works, and I believe him.
Around the same time at Alice Tully Hall, as part of Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, the pianist Emanuel Ax took part in an intriguing program, whose main work was Schoenberg’s arrangement (later completed by the composer Rainer Riehn) of Mahler’s “Lied von der Erde” for chamber ensemble, played by members of the New York Philharmonic with Mr. Ax at the piano. But he set the mood by opening the program with two solo works: Bach’s Prelude and Fugue No. 8 from “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” Book 1; and Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces (Op. 19). He played the Bach work using the printed score and the Schoenberg from memory.
Now no one who has heard Mr. Ax over the years could possibly think he has any difficulty playing anything from memory. But this was a collaborative program. It was inspiring to see Mr. Ax taking part as just one of 15 dedicated players in the arrangement of “Das Lied.” So beginning the program with the pensive Bach work was a musical gesture, not a time to showcase memorization.
For me there was something touching about seeing a great pianist play a Bach prelude and fugue using the score. Every wondrous element of this complex music is right on the page. It looks almost as beautiful as it sounds.

Montag, 25. Januar 2016

Zaragoza suspends Singing Competition Montserrat Caballé following his conviction (forever)


Zaragoza City Council has decided to suspend the International Singing Competition Montserrat Caballé, celebrated in the city since 2007, following the conviction of the soprano for tax fraud.

The town councilor of Economy and Culture, Fernando Rivares, said that "no one euro of public money" of the City of Zaragoza, while Zaragoza rule in Common (ZEC) to "persons or entities convicted of tax fraud as much as musically is unquestionably "the artist.This decision was taken after the soprano recently accepted a sentence of six months imprisonment, a fine of 254,231 euros for tax fraud and the prohibition of receiving government subsidies and enjoy benefits or tax incentives for a year and a half.Rivares said that this contest is suspended "primarily" for the conviction of the artist, but also for economic reasons, considering the cost of this event for the City, which contributed 80,000 euros, plus 40,000 which involved maintenance and Opening the Auditorium, the Mozart Hall, where the contest is held every year.As he explained, the "media impact of competition have been more than relative", because although local press itself echoes this event was, the projection outside Spain "was zero." In 2015, for example the average people on the concerts organized under this contest were 125, explained.In the finals, where the winners act and assisting Montserrat Caballe without acting, in 2015 they sold a total of 667 entries, of which only 62 were paid and the remaining invitations.In all, the direct economic returns at the box office was 535 euros.Therefore, as explained Rivares, the Council has considered better to devote these resources to new projects, including a symphonic musical project to give opportunity to young talents of the city and another for new educational concerts to attract new audiences.He has also revealed that the main sponsor of this concert will put the same amount of money which gave the competition and seek new sponsors


Zaragoza suspende el Concurso de Canto Montserrat Caballé tras su condena


El Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza ha decidido suspender el Concurso Internacional de Canto Montserrat Caballé, que se celebraba en la ciudad desde el año 2007, tras la condena de la soprano por fraude fiscal.
El consejero municipal de Economía y Cultura, Fernando Rivarés, ha asegurado que “no habrá un euro de dinero público” del Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, mientras gobierne Zaragoza en Común (ZeC), para “personas o entidades condenadas por delito fiscal por mucho que musicalmente sea incuestionable” la artista.
Esta decisión se adopta después de que la soprano aceptara recientemente una condena de medio año de prisión, una multa de 254.231 euros por fraude fiscal y la prohibición de recibir subvenciones públicas y gozar de beneficios o incentivos fiscales durante un año y medio.
Rivarés ha dicho que este concurso se suspende “fundamentalmente” por la condena de la artista, pero también por razones económicas, teniendo en cuenta el coste que supone este certamen para el Ayuntamiento, que aportaba 80.000 euros, más los 40.000 que suponía el mantenimiento y apertura del Auditorio, la Sala Mozart, donde se celebra este concurso todos los años.
Según ha explicado, los “impactos mediáticos del concurso han sido más que relativos”, ya que si bien la prensa local sí se hacía eco de este certamen, la proyección en el exterior de España “era cero”. Por ejemplo, en 2015, la media de personas que iban a los conciertos organizados en virtud de este certamen fueron 125, ha explicado.
En la final del concurso, en el que actúan los ganadores y al que asiste Montserrat Caballé sin actuar, se vendieron en 2015 un total de 667 entradas, de las que únicamente 62 fueron de pago y el resto invitaciones.
Con todo ello, el retorno económico directo en taquillas fue de 535 euros.
Por todo ello, según ha explicado Rivarés, el Ayuntamiento ha considerado mejor dedicar estos recursos a nuevos proyectos, entre ellos, un proyecto musical sinfónico para dar oportunidad a jóvenes talentos de la ciudad y otro para nuevos conciertos pedagógicos que atraigan público nuevo.
Además ha desvelado que el patrocinador fundamental de este concierto pondrá la misma cantidad de dinero que otorgaba al certamen y se buscarán nuevos patrocinios