What Is Wrong With Classical Music?

What is Wrong with Classical Music?

Classical music. That horrible term we're doubtless stuck with forever. What is the matter with its soul, if anything? From a business perspective I do not know. Oh I know all the easy answers but I'm not sure if any of them are enough to bring audiences and relevance back, if that matters to anyone in the big picture. But on a different level, an ethical level, if that is possible, or if it makes any sense to you, I think I do know. I know what is wrong and the way to fix it. (!)

The problem is we have a canon. Not the problem per se, but the foundation of the problem. The canon is now based on long, in human terms, experience and is settled like handprints in Grauman's cement. If this were the 19th century, or even the beginning of the 20th, it might make sense for that canon to be essayed season after season, on every continent, because the public had no way, in the main, to hear the music in between live performances except in the confines of their imaginations. As recording became more widespread, however, one might have thought the tendency to program more variously, more widely, even more eccentrically, would increase. It did not. (Indeed, some of the most radical experiments in live performance occurred early in the 20th century. But then the radical is by definition not what we're examining in terms of musical consumption.) So why the never-ending safety net? Generation after generation hearing another cycle of the same symphonies, the same concerti, the same quartets, the same sonatas. And not just in live performance, but in recording after recording after recording.

So the problem, or the foundation, is we have a canon. And great as it is, varied as it is, we have to ask ourselves if we need to continue to develop it as enthusiastically as if it were just out of the composer's pen. (Do we demand multiple yearly editions of Moby Dick? Or that it be read aloud by all our greatest actors before they are legitimate?) And the realization of the problem, or the ethical aspect anyway, is that performers continue to perform the canon over and over and over again, when there is very little reason to do so. The number of recordings, in every which author's/pianist's/orchestra's/maestro's version, is truly staggering. An embarrassment of riches, yes, but also in a way just an embarrassment.

And this is where the notion of ethics comes in. If you are a piano player at the beginning of his or her career, what are you going to make for your first recording? What are you going to make for the bulk of your performing repertoire?

Of course there are piano players out there, and ensembles too, fighting a different fight. (We will examine many of them in the course of this ongoing tumble.) Exploring new music, recording it, playing it live. Does this mean they do not allow themselves to play a Bach toccata? a Beethoven sonata? a Mozart quintet? Of course not. But there must be a reason for doing it in a new way. Of course they, the players, know the canon. They studied it growing up, played it, developed it, loved it, but I pray you: have the courage NOT to perform it, and most especially NOT to record it, unless you have something new to say about it, something deeply convincing and personal to contribute beyond what has been given a hundred times before.

This is where not only courage but great discernment comes in. The ego of a performer is such that, quite naturally, even unfortunately, they will feel themselves to be special. This must be resisted. I urge it. Develop the "voice", develop what is original. Then, and only then, dare to lay it down. In the meantime, program the canon in your performances but look to moderation, indeed thrift. There is a great deal of music out there the public should like to hear. And if the forces of orthodoxy push you toward their beliefs about what an audience "wants", fight back. Hard. The future of classical music (that horrible term) is at stake.

The Beginning

As a matter of honor, this first post really should in some way involve Glenn Gould. So I'm going to briefly take on a philosophical point of order, in the hopes that it not only satisfies honor but also sets forth some principle of approach so you can tell whether or not this is going to be something you're going to want to read going forward.

The philosophical point concerns the idea of "greatness" in created work, and since this is specifically about piano players and music, greatness qua such. I'll try to keep it simple for my own sake, so here: I don't think much of the idea.

Less simply, here's why. If we stack up 5 artists of any sort and set some categorical context, some criteria and so forth, that's all a bunch of muddle to me and misses what I consider most satisfying in many cases: not the historical moment but what a player means to ME. And in this regard, some unknown or some so-called minor work or some eccentric trajectory of a career may prove to be the most fascinating, the deepest creation of a moment. And as we all well know, having once upon a time been children, a moment can last your whole life. 

So you won't, I hope, find me arguing much for Greatness around these parts, but rather for things of substance and positive provocation. And as a substitute, if one is needed, I would say what is more meaningful is to put forward artists of tremendous insight, unique in the je ne sais quoi and sine qua non of their approach and execution. For if there is one thing the 20th and 21st centuries do not need, it is more of the vanilla perfection of what is churned out by the piano academies and too much of the concert world. How many of these will we miss? Do we need more and more and ever more of the more or less same Chopin waltzes, Brahms intermezzi, Tchaikovsky concerti, and [substitute your own overplayed repertoire]?

Well, yes, it might be argued, we need more and more and infinitely more because you never know (and the artist him/herself surely does not know) when something unusual or remembrance-worthy is going to occur. But this is precisely where judgment enters the picture. Precisely where maturity and an editorial decision along the lines of: "Yes I will study that work, yes I will play it, but no I will not record it, no I will not concertize with it, unless I am firmly convinced that my voice is one that must be heard". Do current piano players make this conscious statement? Of course they do, alas.

Which brings me back round to Gould. Glenn Gould is my favorite piano player of all I've heard because his is the loss I would feel most (and have most felt since his death), his is the hole that would leave piano playing with a gap that would change it inconceivably had he never been. That he is Great is not the point, for we will speak of many things in these posts that are Great. I would not like to rank anyone with anything other than subjectivity, so that's all you'll find here. People I cannot do without, the objects of their making I cannot do without, or the people and their objects I can do without and why.

Much about much to come.

All (85) Piano Players Considered

In case you're interested in who I listened to for this set, here is the full list (ordered alpha FIRST name, just to keep you on your toes):

Abbey Simon

Alain Planés

Alexander Brailowsky

Alfred Cortot

Anatol Ugorski

Andrei Gavrilov

Anna Malikova

Artur Rubinstein

Aube Tzerko

Augustin Anievas

Belina Kostadinova

Benno Moiseiwitsch

Boris Berezovsky

Bronika Kushkuley

Cameron Carpenter

Christian Ihle Hadland

Claudio Arrau

Daniel Del Pino

Dinara Nadzhafova

Dinu Lipatti

Dmitry Paperno

Dong-Hyek Lim

Dubravka Tomsic

Earl Wild

Erika Haase

Eugene Mursky

Freddy Kempf

Frederic Chiu

Fujiko Hemming

Gergely Bogányi

Glenn Gould

Guiomar Novaes

Gwon Sun Hwon

Géza Anda

Henry Neighaus

Hsia-Jung Chang

Idil Biret

Ignace Jan Paderewski

Istvan Szekely

Ivo Pogorelich

James Rhodes

Janina Fialkowska

Joanna Jimin Lee

Joel Hastings

John Bingham

John Browning

Konstantin Lifschitz

Krzysztof Jablonski

Lazar Berman

Leif Ove Andsnes

Leszek Mozdzer

Louis Lortie

Madeleine Forte

Martha Argerich

Maurizio Mastrini

Maurizio Pollini

Mikhail Pletnev

Milos Mihajlovic

Mindru Katz

Mitsuko Uchida

Murray Perahia

Mélodie Zhao

Nobuyuki Tsujii

Peter Schmalfuss

Philippe Entremont

Philippe Giusiano

Ragna Schirmer

Rem Urasin

Ren Zhang

Samson François

Serge Romanchak

Shura Cherkassky

Sona Shaboyan

Sviatoslav Richter

Van Cliburn

Vardan Mamikonian

Vitalij Margulis

Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Horowitz

Vlado Perlemuter

Walter Klein

Warren Mailley-Smith

Wilhelm Backhaus

Youri Egorov

Yuki Matsuzawa

Opus 25

Continuing... you'll have already noted, from the previous post, my tendencies toward speed and a certain violence in the Etudes. Even the slow ones, truth be told. But take it with a grain of salt and the pepper will come later.

Wilhelm Backhaus

Ren Zhang (?!)

Vladimir Ashkenazy (?)

Nelson Freire

Dinu Lipatti

Mikhail Pletnev

Dubravka Tomsic

Lazar Berman

Andrei Gavrilov

Maurizio Pollini (?)

Andrei Gavrilov (!)

Grigory Sokolov

Something interesting coming tomorrow, in honor of Chopin. I think this could be a lot of fun.

[Image source unknown, but found courtesy of foreverswedish.org]

Jazz Just Died

I couldn't help feeling, sitting in the audience in Carnegie Hall last night, that jazz was dying right in front of my eyes and ears. Of course, it was an illusion because all jazz or any jazz or any piece or subset of jazz is just nonsense: a placeholder for the experience I was having in that moment and nothing more. But let me just put it this way: Carnegie Hall isn't, for me, the ideal place to audition a jazz trio. It may be fine for orchestra, or even small ensemble, but jazz trio?

Well, let's bring the players into it. The ensemble in question is the Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette "Standards" Trio. The trio that has recorded a hundred albums or so and still plays live for the millionth time "Someday My Prince Will Come", "My Funny Valentine", "Answer Me, My Love". What was I expecting? More o' the same? Of course. But I had never heard Jarrett live in an ensemble setting before so I decided to try anything once.

There were moments of "beautiful" playing, of course. Especially in the ballads. Their attempts at up-tempo were strangely subdued. Everything felt like it was on crutches. OK so I didn't need to be there, but let's not allow that prejudice to get in the way any further. Most of the audience were anointed, faithful, and true to their god(s). Let me instead just say that the sound itself was oddly attuned, echoey and globular in a way I'm not used to in Carnegie. It often sounded as though it were being played in a natatorium, or at the far end of a long Holiday Inn hall. Like audio from the past. Like audio from The Shining. Creepy.

And then all of us sitting there in the audience respectfully watching the guys do their things. Ugh. This doesn't feel like jazz to me, or music, or anything. Forced to watch a funeral. And keep the tempo up. And tune the bass. And your high-hat too. Not for me. Jazz is about proximity, no matter the real size of the venue, you have to feel intimacy. Whatever the opposite of intimacy is, that's what I felt.