The Collaborative Pianist

     

Readers have asked about The Collaborative Pianist's Guide to Practical Technique. What, for example, makes it practical? Well, here's the thing. Collaborative pianists as a group have been neglected when it comes to studying technical matters. Collaborators must, of course, have all the basic technical skills as soloists and be able to apply them from mezzo forte and under. Collaborators, too, will have studied solo repertoire on their way up the ladder to excellent pianism, to the place where they feel the calling to collaborate with other artists. But what then? If we don't recommend exercises by Czerny and

Carl Czerny

Hanon and their ilk, and we don't, then how is the collaborator to continue to advance in a logical fashion? Well, I'm glad you asked. Instead of wasting time on mindless exercises or taking up precious practice hours on solo etudes by Chopin or Rachmaninoff (not that that would be a bad thing, only time-consuming), studying technical excerpts from the collaborator's repertoire would be time well-spent. These are

Charles-Louis Hanon

passages that will be needed at some point in the collaborative pianist's career. Better to get a head-start because that emergency call may come tonight for a concert tomorrow that includes the Kreuzer Sonata. (I'm not kidding.) Say "no" once and they don't call again.

Bach Sinfonias for String Trio

     

     Yes, I know this is a piano blog. But many of us also have an unfathomable love for string instruments and the playing of same. So, let it be known that, in an effort to add to the repertoire for this combination, I have transcribed Bach's keyboard Sinfonias. I did this originally for my own use, but after some persuasion, I've decided to make them available for others at Amazon.      

     When I play Bach’s music, I can’t help thinking of a quote from his son, Carl Philip 

Carl Philip Emanuel Bach

Emanuel. In his Essay on the True Art of Keyboard Playing, Bach the younger begins his explanation of style “my late father told me...” This gives me goose bumps even now. One of the things his late father told him—this also appears in papa’s preface to the Inventions and Sinfonias—is that we should work above all to “achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition.”  It’s this endeavor to achieve a singing style that gave me the idea to transcribe these little gems, part of the pianist’s catechism, for literal “singing” instruments—that and my desire to have more repertoire to play as a cellist in a string trio.

     

J.S. Bach

     Often referred to as three-part inventions, Bach’s Sinfonias (Sinfonien) reflect the master’s continuing concern for the complete education of musicians. They were indeed conceived originally for keyboard—and are rather more difficult to play than the two-part Inventions—but as always in Bach’s keyboard works, their probative value reaches far beyond the mere pressing down of keys in the proper order. Bach sought to teach the complete musician in his Clavier Übung, of which the Sinfonias are a part. Übung is translated for our purposes not just as practice in the general sense of learning keyboard technique. It also means emersion in the professional essence of the art, as in the practice of medicine or law. These pieces are about learning composition and style, and, in short, how to bring music to life.

String trio.
Notice how colorful music can be.

     We know that Bach transcribed not only his own works for different combinations of instruments, but also the works of other composers, particularly those of Vivaldi. It

Harpsichord

has been speculated that this was for him a method of study or an effort to make rare compositions more generally available to the public. Possibly. I am more moved, however, by A. Schweitzer’s assertion that “this was his way and it gave him pleasure.” It is in the latter spirit that I offer up these tasty morsels.

Clavichord

     My urtext soul at first balked at the many edits I’ve included. My justification is that students sometimes need guidelines, though professionals may curse me. All markings can of course be ignored, including metronome and expression indications, but they are an outgrowth of many years of study. Even so, when I play these on the piano I often take exaggeratedly different expressive approaches, including tempos. To quote again from Bach the younger in his passage on performance, “If it doesn’t sound good, don’t do it.”

Hélène Grimaud Playing Brahms' Burly D Minor Concerto

     

Helene Grimaud

     Well, okay, in an earlier post about the little lady and Brahms' concerto, I left my gentle readers hanging. Regular readers will know what I was getting at, that it takes rather little physical strength to play the piano. This is another way of saying that efficiency is more useful than exaggerated movements, efficiency being the key word. It would  be more efficient to move by some natural means than it would be to stretch the hand to an extreme, which is not a natural thing to do. By that I mean that even though the hand can be forced to extend, it doesn't like it because that is not in sync with its design.

     This brings me to another point, that what we are able to see in

Tobias Matthay

the technique is not necessarily the whole story. As you know from an earlier post, I am particularly intrigued by the title of Matthay's book, The Visible and Invisible in Piano Technique. I can't know what Grimaud is thinking when she plays this piece, but I can see that, although she allows her hands to open as needed, they never stay that way and they don't appear to be locked into an extreme position. But what is underneath, what invisible resource gives her so much power? If you close your eyes and listen, you might suppose that she would need to come down into the keys from some extreme height. But logic dictates that, in speed, there wouldn't be time for that. Open your eyes and notice that she is rather close to the keys. Whether the passage is lyrical and spread out beyond the octave, or whether she plays chords or crashing octaves, her hands remain more or less in contact with the keyboard.

No Hammering.

     The answer, of course, is that her power comes from discrete use of the forearm as described by Matthay, and she achieves speed by allowing the forearm's natural movement to propel her. This natural movement of the forearm, of course, is called forearm rotation. It underlies all that we do at the keyboard, particularly in speed, and is virtually invisible. Not to put too fine a point in it, I feel the need to add that octaves or chords in speed will not succeed if the forearm is employed in an up and down, hammer-like movement. This is not an efficient movement in speed.

     

The Collaborative Pianist's Guide to Practical Technique

You can now have a look inside at Amazon! 

From the introduction:

"Collaborative pianists need all the same technical skills required of soloists, and some would argue that they need to be able to play mezzo forte and under. If you doubt this, look at cello sonatas of Rachmaninoff and Chopin, violin and cello sonatas of Brahms and songs by Strauss and Wolf, all of which are contained in this volume along with all the other major composers of duo repertoire...

     I advise all pianists, including collaborative pianists, to put away Czerny and Hanon exercises and, regardless of technical approach, apply themselves to these passages from music they intend to play—collaborative works by master composers—as building blocks for technique and musicianship. Lessons learned here on the relationship of song text to expressive pianism are applicable to not just art song but to both instrumental duos and solo repertoire."

The Collaborative Pianist's Guide to Practical Technique

     

   At last! A collection of studies extracted from the collaborative pianist's repertoire—sonatas and art songs—to replace all those mindless Czerny and Hanon exercises.                               

      Collaborative pianists need all the same technical skills required of soloists, and some would argue that they need to be able to play mezzo forte and under. If you doubt this, look at cello sonatas of Rachmaninoff and Chopin, violin and cello sonatas of Brahms and songs by Strauss and Wolf, all of which are contained in this volume along with all the other major composers of duo repertoire. 

     In the past, much confusion swirled about regarding the best avenues for achieving a reliable piano technique. Exercises of diverse and sometimes destructive patterns were readily available, and for many pianists they were considered indispensable. Despite the research—also readily available—of physiologist Otto Ortmann ("The Physiological Mechanics of Piano Technique," 1962) and others, teachers continued to dish out Czerny and Hanon exercises to naive students eager to develop "strong and "independent" fingers. They were barking up the wrong tree. (For more on this topic see "Piano Technique Demystified: Insights into Problem Solving," 2nd Ed.) 

     I advise pianists to put away Czerny and Hanon exercises and, regardless of technical approach, apply themselves to these passages from music they intend to play—collaborative works by master composers—as building blocks for technique and musicianship. Lessons learned here on the relationship of song text to expressive pianism are applicable not just to art song but to both instrumental duos and solo repertoire.

The Little Lady Conquers the Burly Brahms D Minor

 I happened upon a video of Hélène Grimaud playing Brahms' meaty 1st concerto (Grimaud Plays Brahms) and was reminded of Spencer Tracy's observation of Katherine Hepburn: "There ain't much meat on her, but what there is is choice." In the case of Grimaud, not only is she lovely to look at, but she is inspiring to hear. That tiny frame produces an enormous sound and supreme virtuosity with no apparent effort. What could be the source of her power, I wonder? Hmmm...