Possibly My Favorite Work Of Schoenberg's, Certainly Right Up There, And Perfection In Every Way. I Didn't

Possibly my favorite work of Schoenberg's, certainly right up there, and perfection in every way. I didn't altogether appreciate GG's performance when I first heard it 30 yrs ago or so. I was at that time under the spell of Charles Rosen's complete works performances. (And if I still had my copy of that out-of-print gem, I could talk more intelligently about it.) But I like this very much now, to say the least. Irrespective who you listen to, or play it yourself, this is 12-tone's apotheosis. Worth living for.

atonalitydotnet:

Glenn Gould - Schoenberg, suite Op. 25

Complete playlist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMhNcmmMn0A&feature=PlayList&p=B7EA5853D24983FF&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1

The interesting Rihm, not often programmed (to my knowledge) in the US. I am unsure of the significance of his piano works in his overall body of work, but worth further exploration.

atonalitydotnet:

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/no/album/wolfgang-rihm-samtliche-klavierwerke/id339117899

Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/5bP89P99fQrtVTAsTD39pX

Wolfgang Rihm: Piano works 1966 - 2000

Back in 1963 a wonderful book of music was published: New Music for the Piano, and it covered a tremendous variety of mid-century composers. I first came across, not the book, the recording of all the pieces in the book by the indefatigable champion of living composers: Robert Helps. I found it in my local public library at some point in the 1960s when I was a boy. I checked it out, took it home, played it over and over. I was especially taken by Leo Kraft’s Allegro Giocoso and Ernst Bacon’s The Pig-Town Fling. I’ve since come to love not only those but many other pieces in the book. I ordered the score through a local music store way back then (it took weeks and weeks to arrive) and tried to learn the pieces, though they were a bit too much for my tiny technique of the time. I've since found many, many other wonderful miniatures in this book. I lost my original copy, I do not know how, and the book seems to be out of print. However, of all places, B+N stocked it and at the original price! So here it is back in my paws. Wonderful.

I have a Nord too. I confess I like it.

thepianoblog:

I’m sick to death of every band that has a synth player using Nord keyboards. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! I mean obviously they are good if people use them but it would be nice to see some diversity. At least Enter Shikari used Korgs.

A couple of new Henle editions today. My old edition of the Nocturnes (Poland 1951) did not include the posthumous c# minor so there's my excuse.

Deaf at the Piano

Is it possible to play the piano when you're deaf? I mean with something like satisfaction and accomplishment. The question is rhetorical, in part, because I'm thinking at the moment about my own experience on two occasions where I performed gigs that limited my ability to hear. Well, "limited" is perhaps too limited a word. I was essentially incapable in the circumstances of hearing myself. On both occasions I was not playing a "real", or acoustic, piano but rather one with a direct connection to an amplifier. And other instruments, in combination with the venue, the crowd, inadequate monitoring, etc, added to my inability to hear myself play.

A couple of things. First, I'm not primarily thinking about a situation where a deaf person sits at a piano, a real piano, and starts pressing the keys. In this situation acoustical vibrations would transfer through the soundboard, the frame, the keys and so forth to the person's fingertips and there would be some kind of feedback, I guess, depending on the sensitivity of the player. Second, even if we're not talking about total deafness, in the sense that you cannot hear yourself at all — zero realtime feedback — but rather in the sense that your ability to hear the sound you're making is significantly reduced, say 70+%, what effect that has on the possibility of playing. A relative deafness, if you will.

OK. So. Here's my experience.

Playing the piano, one is trained on a number of levels. There is a kinetic component, in which muscle memory combines with tactility to move the limbs and digits through space and time to strike keys. This is the gymnastics element of piano playing, hurtling through the air to stick the landing and score the perfect 10. (Ouch! Wrong note.) And of course there is the component that tells us whether we are playing what we want to be playing: the mind-bone connected to the ear-bone connected to the heart-bone. These two components, broadly speaking, come together to form the piano player we are at any given moment.

So if we remove one of these components, the latter — or more precisely if we interfere with the ear-part of the chain on that latter component — what is the result? After all, we still have the mind working, in its aural capacity I mean, not just the kinetic. We still have the heartsoul working. What effect does a compromised ear have? For me, the result has been fascinating and annoying. Musica interruptus. I find that the ear has an enormous, an essential, influence upon the kinetic element. I'm not a robot, I guess this shouldn't be a revelation. But, again for me, without the ear to guide my thinking, I find that my physical technique breaks down. Yes I'm still able to move through spacetime in such a way that I'm going to the right places, more or less, on the keyboard. But without satisfaction, without feedback, without that sense of rightness that, micromoment to micromoment, says Yes, proceed, you're doing the right thing, it all sounds great.

A different player may deal with all this differently. Their technique may well be much more independent, advanced, and able to handle the severe limitation of the auditory component. But this all led me to think what it might be for an ordinary, well-eared piano player to at some point during their career go deaf. (Beethoven, poor devil...) How would it affect their technique? (I think I already know how it would affect their satisfaction, in large part.) Would a listener be forced to note a sea change in ability?