She Is Someone, For Me, I Cannot Imagine As 62 Years Old. But I Am Glad. And Does She Deserve A Place

She is someone, for me, I cannot imagine as 62 years old. But I am glad. And does she deserve a place on Players+Pianos? Well, it's a stretch, I'll admit, but Wikipedia gives me leave, per this, so I'm doing it:

"The box set Enchanted, was released to acclaim on April 28, 1998 with liner notes from Nicks, as well as exclusive rare photographs, and pages from her journals. Featuring successful solo hits, Nicks also included b-sides, rare soundtrack contributions, duets, covers, demos, live recordings, and a solo piano rendition of "Rhiannon" recorded for the set. The box set was supported with a successful US tour with a more varied set list incorporating rare material such as "Rose Garden", "Garbo" and "Sleeping Angel". The set sold 56,000 units in its first week and was certified Gold."

thingsiatethatilove:

Happy 62nd birthday, Stevie Nicks!  I tried to think of a joke but they were all dumb.  “Edge of 62”?  Nah.

Today is an auspicious day.  Tickets are still available for the First Kiss event.

The other day I was listening to Alfred Cortot play the Franck Prelude Chorale & Fugue (from 1929, I think; my mother and father were 3) and I immediately posted to Twitter that I thought it was overwrought, the composition that is. I received some gentle feedback suggesting perhaps I was wrong in my estimation of the composition, and this led me to recall the first time I heard this composition, when I was perhaps 8 or 9 years old. It was Rubinstein who played it. I too tried to play it a few years later in some child's pedagogy where it was watered down appropriately for my technique. The melody of the chorale theme has stayed with me all these years, vaguely, but I can't recall whether I really liked it or not. (I liked everything Rubinstein did, so the answer is doubtless yes.) Listening to it now, however, I really felt it was much ado.

But it pays to give everything a chance and so I am revisiting it via Rubinstein, my original master. An excerpt is posted above. Rubinstein gives almost everything from the 19th century a coherency that is remarkable (and so much richer than a player such as Horowitz). If something is overwrought, he has the ability to wring it into something real. And I love him for that.

Here is the Cortot for comparison, which I continue to find inferior, but then I never much cared for Cortot anyway. (Maybe I should have considered that before judging Franck? Let's not get too carried away.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPRRZwnq-6E

If you have any favorite recordings of the Franck, I would love to know about them and why.

84 (and one-half)

Yes, you're right, technically speaking it's not 85, it's 84. Cameron Carpenter is an organist. I'll have more to say about that once we get to talking about op. 10 no. 12, the "Revolutionary".

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.

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

Schumannology

I am going through an intensive Schumann phase and I don't know why. I have never, never been a Schumann fan, from my earliest days learning the piano. (I do not recall him at all in the days before that, in my single digits, when I was reading the lives of "the composers" and listening to their music.) With the exception of op. 21 (the Novelletten, perhaps his least played major work for piano), I just never felt the connection that piano players are supposed to feel for this music. Thanks to Pletnev, however, I discovered a heart for the op. 99 pieces. Thanks to Richter, for the op. 7 Toccata. And now my mind is filling with the sounds of op. 20 (the Humoreske for piano), the op. 38 1st Symphony, and the op. 41 string quartets. Mind: I don't expect ever to have anything like fellow feeling with the op. 26 (Faschingsschwank aus Wien) or the Papillons or Album für die Jugend, but I've opened up my head.