WIN! A RECORDING STUDIO RETREAT IN WALES WORTH £550
6 1 0 2 Y A M L I R P A
OF 40 WITHFR EV E AU S ER DI H P Y E O IS A SU TR EE E AC T G KS E M & S O NL U IN S E IC LE
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No 89
Helping you become a better player
Your SUMMER guide to 2016 COURSES & FESTIVALS THE LIGHT TOUCH How to improve your leggiero playing
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Deciphering polyrhythms
BEGINNER TO ADVANCED
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3 STEP-BY-STEP LESSONS
Schumann Melodie Chopin Waltz in A minor Liszt Impromptu in F sharp
EMIL GILELS
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Pianist 89
CONTENTS
April-May 2016 The next issue of Pianist goes on sale 27 May 2016
80
WIN! A recording studio retreat in Wales
WORTH £550
67
84
12 4 Editor’s Note 6 Readers’ Letters 7 Reader Competition WIN a recording studio retreat in Wales worth £550! 8
News Lang Lang teaches the young, a Grade 1 challenge at Aldeburgh and Finchcocks Museum closes its doors
12 Lars Vogt He’s taken to conducting and loves football – but the German pianist’s heart still belongs to the piano, as Jessica Duchen finds out 16 How to Play Masterclass 1 Mark Tanner on leggiero touch 18 How to Play Masterclass 2 Graham Fitch on polyrhythms Don’t miss Graham’s online les sons!
20 How to Play 1 Melanie Spanswick on Schumann’s ‘Melodie’ (Scores page 31) 22 How to Play 2 Janet Newman on Chopin’s Waltz in A minor B150 (Scores page 49) 24 How to Play 3 Lucy Parham on Liszt’s Impromptu in F sharp (Scores page 60)
A pull-out section of 40 27 The pages Scores of sheet music for all levels
45 Beginner Keyboard Class Hans-Günter Heumann’s Lesson No 17: e D major scale 67
SUMMER COURSES & FESTIVALS 2016 Your 9-page guide to the best of summer courses and festivals in the UK and worldwide. All with detailed listings to help you find the perfect course or festival Courses Pages of courses for all tastes and levels, including an interview with pianist Jerome Rose, founder of New York’s long-established Keyboard Institute and Festival Festivals Listings plus an interview with Newbury Spring Festival’s artistic director Mark Eynon about its Sheepdrove Piano Competition, and a visit to the En Blanc et Noir festival set in a picturesque French village
78 Understanding Theory e second in a new series to help you build your knowledge of theory. is issue: More on scales and a look at modes
Cover image: © Giorgia Bertazzi. Clockwise from top left: © Emil Gilels Foundation (Gilels); © Andy Griffin Photography (Lang Lang); © Giorgia Bertazzi (Vogt). Notice: Every effort has been made to secure permission for copyrighted material in this magazine, however, should copyrighted material inadvertently have been used, copyright acknowledgement will be made in a later issue of the magazine.
8 the piano centenary 80 Emil Gilels of the birth of To thismark Russian legend, Maria Razumovskaya focuses on his piano studies to find out what made him such a phenomenon
84 Subscribe today for just £4.50 an issue by Direct Debit and choose two books from the ABRSM ‘Signature’ series for free! 86 CD Reviews Acclaim for Schubert and Beethoven from Grigory Sokolov and praise for Khatia Buniatishvili’s passionate recital, Artur Pizarro’s complete Rachmaninov solo music and Nadejda Vlaeva’s persuasive Bortkiewicz, a little-known Russian Romantic composer 88 Sheet Music Review Atmospheric Einaudi, elegant Ravel, French-style Bach, Eastern Preludes from Christopher Norton and more 89 Classifieds
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Editor’s note
I
f I could play like any pianist in the world, I would choose to play like Emil Gilels. He had everything: technique, tenderness, poise, drama, depth of feeling… it goes on and on. Te Russian legend would have been 100 years old this year, and on page 80, Maria Razumovskaya explores the background of this great artist. As a further tribute, I’ve placed one of his most famous encore pieces inside the Scores – the Bach arr. Siloti Prelude in B minor. I’ve played through it myself over the years (though it needs serious practice!). It’s irresistible. You can hear Gilels play it on Youube, but I urge you also to listen to our wonderful pianist Chenyin Li play it on this issue’s covermount CD. You’ll be in heaven. For more inspiration, turn our annual Summer Courses and Festivals 2016 Guide, which you will find directly after the Scores. I know that many readers enjoy delving into these pages to look for a new course, aiming to find the perfect one that will get them motivated and raring to go for the rest of the year. Flying off to attend a festival is popular too – there are some enticing ones where you can attend concerts, masterclasses and talks, with a backdrop of breath-taking scenery. On page 12, cover artist Lars Vogt talks about his own festival, Spannungen, and its unusual venue: a disused power station in Germany. Speaking of unusual places, we have a fantastic reader competition for you this issue: you can win a two-night stay in a romantic cottage in Wales. It’s not a typical weekend break we’re offering, rest assured – the cottage is just around the corner from a professional recording studio. Te winner of the competition will be able to record a piano piece of their choice, have it edited by the onsite sound engineer, and take it away on a CD. urn to page 7 to enter. Finally, have you visited the new Pianist website yet? It’s all moving and shaking! You’ll find up-to-theminute news, reviews, features and more, plus you can watch over 60 piano lessons (continually being added to, of course). Pianist favourite Graham Fitch offers up over 31 lessons for the intermediate to advanced player, and there are many beginner lessons as well. Watch Chenyin Li play a variety of pieces that have appeared in the Scores in past issues, direct from the Royal College of Music recording studios. What with all these summer courses, online piano lessons – not forgetting our ‘How to Play’ lessons and masterclasses that appear inside this issue and every issue – you’ll be well on your way to playing like Emil Gilels in no time! P.S. North America readers have often expressed concern as to how long it takes to receive their subscription copy of the magazine. ake a look at the below. Te wait is over! ERICA WORTH, EDITOR
Live in the USA or Canada?
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Readers’ Letters Get in touch WRITE TO:The Editor, Pianist, 6 Warrington Crescent, Lon don, W9 1EL, UK OR EMAIL:
[email protected] STAR LETTERwins a surprise CD. Letters may be edited.
STAR LETTER
Getting in gear e other day I was just finishing a lesson with my young pupil, and as I was writing in her notebook, she said, ‘Can I ask you something?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, wondering what she was going to say. ‘When do I start using the clutch?’ I looked up, realised what she meant, and said, ‘Do you mean those down there?’ pointing to the pedals. To which she responded, ‘Yes’. I was trying not to laugh and explained they’re called pedals, and we will use them soon. I did add we could try and drive the piano but may not get very far! It was a funny moment for both of us but I didn’t want to laugh too much as I didn’t want to embarrass her. Joscelin Watt, Essex
Your letter really made us smile. Learning to pedal does require a shift up! anks for sharing your story. A surprise CD is on its way to you.
Centring on the keys As I amand mainly self-taught, I find Fitch’sI articles videos to be useful andGraham informative. thought I’d share a personal discovery that I don’t recall reading or hearing anywhere, although I’m sure most people are aware of it subconsciously. We are advised, when practising, to aim for the centre of the keys. I try to practise scales or pieces (particularly the white not scales and arpeggios) while trying not to let my fingers (or thumbs) touch the side of the keys. It obviously only applies to the wider section of the white keys, where there is for most normal-sized fingers a good clearance. For the black keys you can feel with your fingers when you are centred on the key. is sounds kind of obvious but the point is to do it consciously. It not only improves accuracy, preventing smudged notes, but also makes playing feel more comfortable. I also find it seems to speed up the physical memory when learning a piece. So I recommend to anyone who doesn’t do this already to give it a try. It works a treat for me. Steve Langford, Essex
anks for your thoughts. You and other interested readers might want to read Mark Tanner’s article in issue 84 on black keys, as it explored similar ideas.
Collaborative music-making ank you for this wonderful magazine. I am an amateur pianist, and even though I chose a career in nursing to pay the bills, my passion and love is very much the piano. Your magazine inspires me to keep reaching for my potential, through your
educational articles, tutorials and interviews with professional pianists. Over the past couple of years, I have been delving into chamber music, specifically piano trio music. While I find it quite technically challenging, the joy of playing music with others is incredible. I spend one week of every summer attending Summertrios, a chamber music workshop located in Pennsylvania, not far from New York City, for amateur musicians. e programme is for pianists, strings and winds, but the bonus for pianists is that we get to choose our own repertoire, and then other instrumentalists are placed in groups with us. e coaching staff, all world-class professionals, meet us at our level, and inspire us to reach within ourselves to bring our music to the next level. I would love to see you devote a future issue to piano-centred chamber music. Mary Ann Rose, Ottawa, Canada
Many thanks for your letter. You will find our annual guide to summer courses and festivals in this issue after Scores, including chamber music courses such as Summertrios (www.summertrios.org).
More ‘right way’ I wantedthan to takeone a moment to tell you how much I enjoy and learn from Graham Fitch’s videos, gaining a wealth of both specific and general information. Often when I am working on a particular technical problem, I find that Graham has a video discussing it and he invariably introduces ideas I have not thought of at all that turn out to be very practical and helpful. Even if I already understand a concept, I enjoy his perspective. Other times I simply enjoy hearing him play and watching his technical execution. One of the concepts I have learned from Graham is the idea that there is often more than one valid technical approach to a specific problem, or to playing in general. I have struggled with technique so much that I felt if I could just find the ‘right way’ to play, I could get to work on it and be all set. But, everywhere I looked I found people who all believe they have the only right way and adamantly disagree with each other! en I learned from Graham that there is often more than one right, or best, approach and it is alright and maybe even desirable to explore various approaches and see what works for you. It relieved a lot of pressure and taught me that I have hope of learning to play even if I cannot find the elusive one-and-only perfect technique. I very much hope you and he will continue to produce these videos. I think his videos are a valuable contribution to the world of music and music education. David Wilson, Arizona, USA 6• Pianist 89
We have passed your comments on to Graham. He’d like to assure readers that he has no intention to stop producing these video lessons for Pianist!
Theory booster
I have taken Grades 1-8 in practical piano as well as recently passing Grade 8 in theory with ABRSM. Now I want to further my studies in connection to composing/theory. I noticed there’s a diploma in theory syllabus offered by Trinity, though it bears a striking resemblance to the Grade 8 eory offered by ABRSM, which I have already done. ABRSM does not offer anything higher than Grade 8 theory. Hence my dilemma! Are you aware of any place that I can go to further my studies, or of any self-study books that I can purchase that might help? P. A. Marston, Warwick
ABRSM Syllabus Director Nigel Scaife, who writes our new eory column, responds: Your request is a fairly unusual one as there are relatively few people who wish to continue with their study of composing/theory beyond the Grade 8 level. Among the various books available are two that supplement a textbook with useful workbook materials that you might finde of interest. First, there’s Steven Laitz’s Complete Musician: An Integrated Approach to Tonal eory, Analysis, and Listening. It covers the music fundamentals and, as the publisher writes, it ‘covers all the topics necessary for a thorough understanding of undergraduate music theory by focusing on music in context. e text links each of the tasks that comprise a tonal theory curriculum, explicitly connecting written theory (writing and analysis), skills (singing, playing, and dictation), and music-making outside the theory class.’ en there’s Robert Gauldin’sHarmonic Practice in Tonal Music. e publisher writes of this book, ‘Taking a linear functional approach, Professor Gauldin uses clear explanations and outstanding musical examples to show students how individual chords function in the overall structure of a piece, explaining how both harmonic and melodic forces contribute to the development of musical ideas.’ I would also recommend buying a copy of the classic Riemenschneider edition of Bach’s 371 Harmonized Chorales, playing through them, memorising passages, then writing out some of the melodies and trying to harmonize them yourself. ere is a lifetime’s work there! Arranging music is very helpful for learning compositional techniques, which is something best done with the help of a teacher. Perhaps a suitable teacher can be found at a nearby university or college? Your local music hub may also be a good point of contact. I hope this is helpful in giving you some possible lines of enquiry!
TAP HE R E TO ENTER
{
WIN! A TWO-NIGHT GETAWAY & RECORDING SESSION
WORTH £550
{ Pianist magazine is delighted to offer one lucky reader the chance to win a two-night stay for two people in a 5 star holiday cottage in Wales. The prize includes a recording session at the nearby recording studio.
About theRhyd5y star holiday cottage Gorlan 5 star holiday cottage is converted from an 18th century stone barn and retains many srcinal features. e ground floor is tiled in slate and has a beautiful, fully equipped oak kitchen with all the appliances one could wish for. ere’s a spacious dining area, a lounge, a games room and utility room. Upstairs there are three spacious bedrooms. ere’s a garden, complete with garden furniture, overlooking the tranquil landscape. Here you can relax to the sound of a little stream passing by below, enchanted by the chatter of birds harmonising all day long. Rhyd y Gorlan cottage is located in the county of Powys, one mile above Cemaes village, and seven miles from Machynlleth (the Ancient Capital of Wales). It offers a great base to explore Mid Wales, the golden sandy beaches of Aberdyfi and Ynys Las, southern Snowdonia and Cardigan Bay. e nearest shop and post office are two miles away, the nearest garage five miles, and many highly recommended restaurants nearby. ere’s even a traditional village pub within walking distance! More at www.bestofwales.co.uk
About Stiwdio Bing Studio is beautifully located studio, just around the corner from Rhyd y Gorlan cottage, offers audio recording and audio post production. You will have your own sound engineer at hand, and you will be able to record a piano piece of your choice – on the Bechstein W. Hoffmann piano – which will be edited on to CD to take away with you. e studio is built around an impressive GSR-24 Allen and Heath 24 track console, including professionally acoustically treated vocal booth, a control room, and a live room. ere is also a chill-out room if you need somewhere quiet to relax before or during the session. e view from the studio is just breathtaking too. More at www.saindyfisound.co.uk
e winner will be notified by Friday 10 June. e winner will be able to arrange dates of stay direct with the organisers. Partners can come too. Travel is not included.
Answer and the questi on below correctly you could be the lucky winner! Who is the famous opera singer from North Wales who recently celebrated his 50th birthday in the Albert Hall, London?
A: Placido Doming o B. Bryn Terfel C: Jonas Kauffman
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If you don’t end up being the winner, but you like the sound of this wonderful getaway of a 5 star holiday cottage with recording studio, the organisers are offering a similar package – exclusive to Pianist readers – for a discounted price of £495. Just email info@saindyfisound.co.uk or call 01650 511600 and quote ‘Pianist magazine’.
News
All the latest news from the world of the piano
FINCHCOCKS MUSICAL MUSEUM CLOSES ITS DOORS
70 historic keyboards go to auction on 11 May Finchcocks Musical Museum in Kent, which housed a remarkable collection of historic keyboard instruments, has closed its doors forever, leaving the Georgian manor house where it was based for the past 45 years. Some 70 instruments from the collection will be auctioned on 11 May, with proceeds to go to the Finchcocks Charity. Just last year, Pianist wrote about the wonderful collection in its Great Piano Composers of the Classical Era special issue (still available). e collection of harpsichords, clavichords, fortepianos, pianos,som organs other instruments square was launched e 50and years ago and the museum’s owners, Katrina and Richard Burnett, now in their seventies, were finding the upkeep to be diffi cult. Katrina Burnett told the Kent and Sussex Courier, ‘We no longer have a workshop of full-time staff to keep all the instruments tuned. If we can’t keep the instruments up properly we thought it was better to have a smaller collection somewhere else where we can keep them up.’ e Burnetts will keep a core of instruments in a new location, but 70 of the instruments will be auctioned by Dreweatts & Bloomsbury in London. e auctioneers highlight a chamber organ by John Byfield, 1766; a single-manual harpsichord by J.J. Antunes, 1785; a grand piano by Conrad Graf, c. 1820 and instruments by John Broadwood & Sons, Muzio Clementi and Sebastien Erard To find out more about the Finchcocks auction, go to www.dreweatts.com
) g n a L g n a (L y h p a r g to o h P in f if r
G y d n
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LANG LANG LAUNCHES PIANO METHOD FOR YOUNG PLAYERS A globe-trotting piano superstar he may be, but Lang Lang is also eager to share his passion for the piano with a younger generation of players through both education and inspiration. e energetic Chinese-born concert pianist (pictured here with local London schoolchildren) has just released, through Faber Music, the latest instalment of his piano method, which is aimed at ages 5-10. He’s also hosting a day at the Royal Albert Hall in London to inspire youngsters to play. e Lang Lang Piano Method , part of Faber Music’s new Lang Lang Piano Academy, takes the very youngest keyboard players frome total novice process to around Grade 1 level in cartoon a series of five books. learning is enlivened by the figure of Lang Lang guiding the player around the keyboard and through the earliest stages of musicianship. Alongside the series are online audio tracks, featuring performances by Lang Lang of the pieces in the book. Lang Lang said, ‘Learning an instrument can be a really important part of a child’s development and a great way to improve many things like concentration and focus.’ We know that Lang Lang can hold an adult audience in the palm of his hand, but can he also mesmerise an enormous concert hall full of excitable young children (and their parents)? On 17 April at the Royal Albert Hall in London, children 16 and under will find out. is event is being organised by the Lang Lang Foundation, which previously presented the ‘101 Pianists Project’ at Southbank Centre, which brought 100 young pianists together to perform. Go to www.langlangpianoacademy.com to find out more about the new Lang Lang tutorials, and visit www.royalal berthall.com for tickets and information about Exploring the Piano with Lang Lang and friends.
WINNER OF CLAVINOV A COMPETITI ON ANNOUNC ED Congratulations to Susan James from Essex, winner of the ‘Win a Clavinova’ competition in Pianist No 87. Pianist Editor Erica Worth phoned Susan to let her know she’d won – Susan was surprised and delighted: ‘I was thrilled to receive the exciting news. My sons are both musical and my grandsons show early signs of interest. is wonderful prize will be appreciated by many. ank you!’ Susan will soon be the proud owner of a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-545, worth between £1,714 and
£2,027, depending on the finish. As we go to press, we have just heard from Yamaha that Susan decided on the Polished Ebony finish, which will be delivered to her mid March. e competition attracted an impressive 1,355 entries. ‘It was an amazing response,’ says Worth. ‘We were delighted that Yamaha offered us another Clavinova to give away this winter. It just shows how popular these instruments are, and I’m so glad it’s gone to a good home’.
8. Pianist 89
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grandhybrid.co.uk 9• Pianist 89
News
All the latest news from the world of the piano
SCHIMMEL SHIMMERS IN NEW ALLIANCE
FIVE A SIDE
German maker links up with China’s Pearl River pianos
Martino Tirimo plays the famous piano quintets
One of the world’s oldest piano manufacturers, Schimmel, has joined with one of the world’s largest, Pearl River, in what’s being described as a strategic alliance to cooperate ‘in terms of capital, brand, technology and marketing to achieve better development in the future’. Based in China, the Pearl River Piano Group oversees an enormous factory in Guangzhou that produces some 100,000 instruments a year under its own brands as well as for overseas manufacturers. Te 130-year-old family-run Schimmel has been making instruments in Braunschweig and Kalisz in Germany. Te new alliance provides financial stability for Schimmel, as Pearl River will take a reported 90 per cent share of Schimmel’s share (Schimmel family members will still hold shares), along with access to the burgeoning Chinese market. For Pearl River, the addition of such a prestigious brand to its portfolio is an affirmation of its reputation for quality and efficiency. Meanwhile, there are still places available for the day trip to the Schimmel factory in Braunschweig on 21 April. If you are interested, contact Schimmel’s London dealer, Peregrine’s Pianos, as soon as possible on +44 20 7242 9865 or
[email protected].
TAKE THE GRADE ONE CHA LLENGE!
Aldeburgh project puts beginning pianists in the spotlight If you’re still at the early stages of your piano playing – or you know someone else who is just beginning or is only thinking about playing the piano – then consider taking Aldeburgh Music’s Grade 1 )s g in tl a M e p a n (S ly l Jo tt a M © ;) o irm i T ( o m i ir T o c s e c n ra F ©
Challenge. Suffolk-based music festival founded byAldeburgh, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, is reaching out to novice pianists in a challenge that culminates with a performance on 26 June. Should you sign up for the challenge online, you will get updates and learning tips from Aldeburgh Music, and be able to book practice space at Snape Maltings or the Red House in Aldeburgh. Buying the ABRSM or rinity syllabus, and finding a teacher and a piano remains your lookout, though! On the evening of 26 June, the final day of the Aldeburgh Festival, some Grade 1 challengers will be able to play their pieces on the stage of Snape Maltings Concert Hall (pictured), while others will play selections from Bartók’s Mikrokosmos , a featured work at the festival. Find out more about the Grade 1 challenge at blog.aldeburgh.co.uk/grade-1-challenge
Est
Piano plus string players: it’s a frequently encountered combination in chamber music, primarily in the form of duos, piano trios and piano quartets. But what happens when a pianist joins forces with a string quartet to make a piano quintet? Does the pianist stand a fighting chance? Composers including Brahms, Schumann, Elgar and Dvořák took on the challenge of writing for the piano quintet, showing how the combination can be huge and orchestral and also intimate and tender. Concert pianist Martino irimo is in the middle of a series at St John’s, Smith Square devoted to the great piano quintets. irimo’s project began in 2014 with a concert he gave with the Henschel Quartet to mark their 20th anniversary in which they played the Brahms Piano Quintet. Out of this a series was born, which comprises piano quintets by, among others, Brahms, Schnittke, Rihm, Schumann, Dvořák, Franck and Schubert’s ‘rout’ Quintet, which sees a change of personnel as violin, viola, cello and double bass take their seats next to the pianist. On 13 April, irimo joins the Minguet Quartet in the Dvořák and Schnittke piano quintets, and on 22 June, he plays the Franck piano quintet and the ‘rout’ Quintet with the Rosamunde rioSchubert and others. On 21 September, with the Fitzwilliam Quartet, he plays with Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet and an arrangement of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 2. On 16 November, collaborating with the Carducci Quartet, he plays the Fauré and Dvořák piano quintets. irimo is amazed that no one seems to have thought of the piano quintet series idea before: ‘As far as I am aware, no such series has ever taken place in London or elsewhere.’ For tickets and further information about the series go to www.sjss.org.uk
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11• Pianist 89
INTERVIEW
W
atching someone standing on a podium and conducting an orchestra when you’re more accustomed to seeing them at a piano playing a concerto can be rather bewildering. But that’s what I experienced recently when I saw Lars Vogt in concert. e celebrated German pianist has recently taken up the post of music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia (RNS) and I’ve come to their home base at the Sage, Gateshead, to see how he’s getting on. Rather well, from the look of it. While the concert contains an outstanding performance (conducted by Vogt from the keyboard) of the Mozart D minor Piano Concerto – lit from within by a light-footed approach to tempo and a gorgeously tender, singing tone – it also held a special treat in the form of Haydn’s Symphony No 103, the ‘Drumroll’. It’s a work requiring, like so much of Haydn’s music, a special mix of intelligence, freshness, clarity and wit. Early in his career Vogt showed a strong affinity with Haydn in his recordings of some of the piano sonatas (for EMI) and you can hear the same qualities in his conducting of this symphony. Vogt’s personality, indeed, has more than a little in common with the famous
e Sage, with its enviable location on the riverside and its unmistakable multi-bubblish design, makes a splendid home: ‘It’s one of the best halls – a wonderful performance and rehearsal space,’ Vogt says. ‘But it’s so funny that for me the life-changing moments always happen in the north of England.’ e first instance of that was, of course, the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1990, when Vogt won second prize. Artur Pizarro won first prize – ‘He’s a wonderful artist and a hilarious guy and we’ve been great friends ever since,’ Vogt enthuses. Vogt was very young at the time of that Leeds: ‘19 when the competition started, 20 when it finished’. But a prize in itself is useless without follow-up and it was a particularly special friendship which began there that helped to propel the young star into the limelight: Simon Rattle was conducting the competition final and soon musical sparks were flying between them. ‘It was one of the first times in my life that I felt such a total, immediate “click”,’ Vogt remembers. ‘ere was complete understanding. I was so young, but I sensed Simon felt this too and that he knew he could go quite far in the Schumann
‘My approach to the keys is quite “loving”, trying to be in tender contact with them, definitely not “vertical” – and even when it is vertical, I try to get the sound out of the keyboard rather than into it’
i z z a t r e B a i g r io G ©
Classical composer. Everything, for Vogt, is about friendship, humanity and sparkle – and his music making is filled with affectionate, genuine joie de vivre. How did he come to have the RNS job? ‘I sometimes wonder about that too,’ Vogt laughs. ‘In the last five years I’ve been conducting much more and I had a few experiences where I understood I love it so much that I just want to try, explore it and see what I can do with it. I remember calling my agent at Askonas Holt and saying that I’m happy to go anywhere to get the experience. After that, one of my first high-profile gigs was here at the Sage.’ Vogt had appeared previously as soloist with the RNS: ‘I knew how good they are and I was a bit nervous, but I thought that hopefully they might invite me again. But my agent came to the concert, went backstage and later told me, “ey like you. ey like you a lot. ey want you to be their music director!”’ A life-changing moment. Taking over the RNS from the previous incumbent, the violinist omas Zehetmair, was a tall order, Vogt adds. ‘He did a fantastic job here – it’s very hard to follow.’ His admiration and fondness for the orchestra knows no bounds. ‘What makes them so special is their total openness, an incredible stylistic awareness and real emotional involvement. I’ve come across so many world-class orchestras where everyone can play wonderfully, but which of them really feels the drama and joy of the music? Here it’s everybody. Literally everybody.’
Concerto with me, suggesting quite radical things – for instance, staying in tempo in the appassionato part of the first movement, rather than dropping the tempo as is usually done. I told him I could do that, I absolutely love it, but I might not be able to play all the right notes – and he said, “I’m so sick of all the right notes!” He was incredibly sweet and supportive; after the rehearsal, not even the performance, he said: “We’re going to do a lot of concerts together”. How lovely is that?’ Footie fan
By the time he reached the Leeds, Vogt had had to sacrifice another passion second only to music: football. He was born in Düren in Germany’s Rhineland area (‘not far from Beethoven,’ he says). His father was an engineer who as a youngster had funded his studies by playing football for the local Düren team, which reached the second division while he was there. ‘My elder brother and sister and I all did both sports and music,’ Vogt remembers. ‘My father took me to football matches and my mother took me to music. I loved playing football and it was really difficult to give it up.’ e issue, he adds, was not only that he had to be careful with his hands; also, when he became a student of the famous professor Karl-Heinz Kämmerling in ▲ Hanover, he would have a three-and-a-half-hour train
LISTEN Tap the play buttons below to hear our bonus tracks
▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲
BACH GOLDBERG VARIATIONS BWV 988, ARIA BACH GOLDBERG VARIATIONS BWV 988, VAR. 20 BACH GOLDBERG VARIATIONS BWV 988, VAR. 21 BACH GOLDBERG VARIATIONS BWV 988, VAR. 25 BACH GOLDBERG VARIATIONS BWV 988, VAR. 30 BACH GOLDBERG VARIATIONS BWV 988, ARIA DA CAPO
BUILDING BRIDGES
LARSVOGT The north of England, where he won the Leeds and now he conducts the Royal Northern Sinfonia, has been transformative for Lars Vogt – though his love of humanity, joy and football travels everywhere, Jessica Duchen finds out 13 Pianist88 as •
INTERVIEW
UP CLOSE If you could only play one piece from now on, what would it be? Bach’s Goldberg Variations. If you could only play one composer from now on, who would it be? Mozart. One pianist, dead or alive, whom you’d travel long and far to hear?
Martha Argerich. One concert hall you’d love to play in? I love the Sage! Any technical struggles? Loads. My hands are small, so anything by Rachmaninov is a major workout – it’s not written for my kind of hand. Which is a shame, because I LOVE Rachmaninov. What would be your advice to amateurs on how to improve? Learn to listen properly to yourself and others. If you weren’t a pianist, what would you be? A football coach. One person you’d love to play for? Carlos Kleiber. One composer you’re not quite ready to tackle? Ready or not, I’m doing them! What other kind of music do you like to listen to? Jazz, and some pop music of the 1980s.
journey in each direction on a Saturday, which meant he could not commit to football practice. Kämmerling, who died in 2012, was a towering presence among pianists and often served as a jury member in international competitions. He made a powerful impact on Vogt, though the course of his studies was far from easy. ‘I loved him,’ Vogt says. ‘We had a very close connection, even though he could sometimes give me a hard time and always really challenged me. ‘My first teacher was very artistic, but gave me less technical grounding, so when I went to Kämmerling he wanted me to develop that. He started giving me more challenging pieces, like the Schumann “Abegg” Variations. I remember coming to my second or third lesson on that piece, and he said to me: “is hasn’t developed very much and I don’t want to waste my time here.” at was grim! I couldn’t say that to a student. But you always knew he was really involved – and eventually this became not only a very strong artistic relationship but also a real friendship. ‘I had my last lesson with him only a few months before he died. We’d kept the working relationship and if anything he became even more strict towards me. He once said, “You have to excuse me, but when you’re getting older things become more urgent.” As so often, you only realise later how much you’ve learned.’ Today Vogt himself has a post in Hanover’s Hochschule für Musik, eater und Medien, and teaches in the same room that Kämmerling formerly used. One day when he was 18 and on his way to Hanover for his lesson with Kämmerling, Vogt
turbines that are there for museum purposes and we have the stage between them, so it creates a strong image of energy.’ Spannungen takes place every June and consists mostly of chamber music – played by a glowing array of top-level artists. Vogt may credit Tetzlaff with opening new worlds to him, but together they found an unexpected open door last year when a video of them went viral on the Internet – not so much because of the music, but because of their page-turner. A draught during a concert in Bremen blew pages off both their stands, but the violinist Anna Reszniak, who was on turning duty, retrieved them with such calm aplomb that the video proved irresistible and has had thousands upon thousands of views. Still, Vogt’s playing remains irresistible in its own right. e podium may beckon, but his first love remains the piano; he says he still divvies up his time 3-1 in favour of the instrument. And each art can help the other. ‘One of my big quests on the piano is to avoid too much that is “vertical”, because piano is so vertical, with the hammer going bang onto the string,’ he says. ‘e key transfer, for pianists, is to sing, to sound like a singer or string or wind player. My approach to the keys is anyway quite “loving”, trying to be in tender contact with them, definitely not vertical – and even when it is vertical, trying to get the sound out of the keyboard rather than into it.’ All of this, he says, benefits his conducting while also benefitting from it. It also describes the qualities that shine out of his recent recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations; released last year, it was a runaway hit, rather to Vogt’s own surprise. Aside from his recordings, there are plenty
found a seat on beside the train. then noticed that the young man himHe had a violin case. After a few minutes of chatting, he realised that his travelling companion was ‘no ordinary violin player’. It was, indeed, Christian Tetzlaff. Four years Vogt’s senior, Tetzlaff was already established as an exceptionally exciting young artist. A few years later they worked together for the first time – and they have been regular chamber music partners and friends ever since. ‘We did a couple of recitals for the first time around 1996,’ says Vogt. ‘I learned the Bartók Violin Sonata No 1 for that.’ is piece has one of the most notoriously difficult piano parts in the entire violin sonata repertoire: ‘It kept me busy for weeks and I still find it hard after all those years! But I love it. Christian has opened several musical worlds for me – and Bartók was one of them. ‘e next thing was the start of my festival in 1998: he was the first person I called up and asked if he’d play there. He said, in the spirit of adventure, “Sure, I’ll be there.” And he’s been there every year since.’
of opportunities to UK hearthis Vogt performing in person around the season. His series conducting the RNS at the Sage continues with a concert entitled ‘Mozart in Prague’ on 29 April and culminates on 10 June with his first performance of the Mozart Requiem; and as pianist he will be giving two recitals at the Wigmore Hall with the tenor Ian Bostridge (7 July), as well as performing the Goldberg Variations for a BBC Lunchtime Concert (broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, 6 June). It’s a busy year. But however packed his schedule, Vogt remains deliciously irrepressible: he somehow manages never to lose his fresh and passionate approach to the piano and to music. Catch him whenever you can. ■
LARS ON THE GOLDBERGS Hear what Lars Vogt has to say about playing the Goldberg Variations by going to pianistm.ag/larsvogtgoldberg LISTEN TO LARS Hear Lars Vogt play excerpts from Bach’s
Musical power station
Goldberg Variations on this issue’s covermount
Vogt’s Spannungen (‘excitements’) Festival takes place annually inside a power station that was built in 1904. ‘At that time people wanted to make even very functional buildings look beautiful,’ says Vogt, ‘and you can feel their pride in having something as radically new as electricity! It’s an amazing place. ere are still two old
CD. The tracks come from his Goldberg
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Variations CD on Ondine (ODE 1273-2). For further details about what Lars Vogt is up to, go to www.larsvogt.com
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HOW TO
A light touch
LEGGIERO PLAYING The great pianists understood the beauty and power of soft playing, says pianist and teacher Mark Tanner, who offers a gentle guide to improving your light touch and quiet inection ranz Reizenstein (1911-1968), the formidable GermanBritish composer, pianist and teacher, considered ‘technique’ to be merely another word for ‘control’. We would do well to keep Reizenstein’s observation in mind when gearing up to do our daily practice. Pianists tend to esteem the acquisition of speed more highly than the cultivation of dependable touch control; moreover, as a facet of technique, quiet playing usually ranks pretty low down the priority list. Te fact that pianists have so many more notes to play surely does not exempt us from working to improve the quality of sound we make. Whereas the crafting of a mellifluous, softer tone is seen as vital to the learning of the violin or clarinet, it all too often slips under the radar with those who are learning the piano.
you ‘tickle’ the keys, you will invariably produce a pallid, frail sound. In my experience the cause of this can to an extent be environmental. Pianists who regularly practise on a piano possessing a shallow action often relax into a default flat-fingered attack; in other words, they permit the limitations of the instrument to skew their technique, which can be hard to rectify later. Tis type of compromise may come off acceptably well on that particular instrument, but does not anticipate the requirement for a firmer approach when tackling pianos with a heavier action. Aim, in general, to play more decisively than instinct might suggest when playing an excessively light piano, even when practising pieces like Debussy’s ‘Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum’ (No 1, Children’s Suite). Tose who play on digital pianos – even those models that possess a well-designed weighted action – are at
Among the hardestafacets of piano playing is controlling lightness of attack, and when coupled with playing at a faster speed, a reliable leggiero touch must rank as among the most prized piano skills. Yet when preparing students for diplomas and recitals, I’ve often heard statements along the lines of, ‘I’d love to include that little piece by X, but I’m worried it’s too easy.’ Just because a composer or examination board chooses to label a piece as ‘intermediate’ doesn’t really tell us much about its potential attractiveness when performed by an expert pianist who has mastered touch control. For this reason, Schumann’s Träumerei might just as easily be considered an advanced FRSM-standard piano piece as a Grade 6 piece, dependent entirely on how sophisticated and artistic a performance is. Indeed, in times past, pianists such as Sviatoslav Richter thought nothing of threading short, poetic pieces into recitals – they certainly had no fear of being criticised for including something that was too ‘easy’. So, what can you do to improve this elusive ‘perfumed’ quality of sound on the piano? A good initial approach would be to take stock of what is currently happening when you attempt to play at a dynamic quieter than mf. If
risk of falling a falsetosense of at a security when into it comes playing more daringly quiet dynamic level. You may have overlooked an opportunity to adjust the touch setting built into the keyboard itself (I’d advise playing at the keyboard’s heaviest setting). Following a protracted period of playing on a keyboard with a flimsy action, you may find it necessary to have a wholesale
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TOP TIPS
PERFECTING THAT GENTLE TOUCH
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Controlling your quieter playing warrants as much attention as any other element of your technique.
2
Rethink your dynamic range to permit a decisive, solid tone at the softer extreme, avoiding an over-reliance on the una corda pedal.
3
Whether playing at speed or not, aim to be tension-free and responsive; your softer moments playing should be just as
Mark Tanner is a pianist, composer and writer. In 2016 he will adjudicate festivals and competitions in Chichester, Cardiff and Singapore, and will undertake examining and presenting tours for ABRSM to Japan, Korea, China and the USA. He performs on the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary 2, and judges the annual EPTA Composition Competition. Mark was recently guest editor of Piano Professional Magazine and is co-author of Teaching Notes, a book to accompany the upcoming ABRSM piano syllabus for 2017-18.
rethink of approach to graduating your touch control, so that your playing will translate effectively when you find yourself seated at an acoustic piano. Aim to play really crisply, whatever the dynamic curved, or moodactive of thefingers, music,and maintaining in general expect to hear yourself produce a much greater volume of sound when playing quietly. Tis tactic will help prepare you for playing in a larger performing space with greater bloom to the acoustic, where you can usually expect to be playing on a much larger, louder instrument. Headphone practice is particularly prone to giving a false reading on the dynamic level you are really producing, so it may be good to turn the volume down a notch or two to encourage you to project more clearly. Small in a big way
authoritative as your tempestuous explosions.
4
Don’t tickle – attack! Aim to play crisply when practising on light-actioned pianos or digital keyboards, and keep in mind how your lighter touch will project in a larger performing space.
5
Take written descriptions of technical matters with a pinch of salt – trust your ears and fingers to convey quieter leggiero passages effectively. 16• Pianist 89
Tere is a critical difference between playing quietly and making a ‘small’ sound. A ‘soloist’s piano ’ – by which I mean that a soloist must always project, even when operating within the confines of a score which happens to state p – still implies a degree of projection and intensity. A divinely nuanced sound is the opposite of one lacking control and decisiveness; alas, the latter will cause your audience’s attention to evaporate within seconds. Good piano playing has a tendency to appear overly projected in a small room – it’s in the very nature of the instrument’s percussive attack – but on
MASTERCLASS no account should you shrink back and resort to making a feeble, vapid sound. A more projected sound is not an option but a prerequisite in a larger performing space. Indeed, effective piano playing needs to be assertive and committed at all times, even when playing at a level of pp, which arises surprisingly commonly in music composed in the past hundred years or so. No composer ever wanted you to produce a wispy, thin sound, as distinct from the ‘veiled’ or ‘distant’ effects required by the so-called Impressionist composers. Take ‘Canope’ (No 10 from Debussy’s Préludes Book 2), which features on the current ABRSM Grade 7 syllabus [the piece appeared in Pianist No 67]. Remarkably, within the work’s 33 bars Debussy includes no fewer than 26 indications to play at either p or pp; moreover, nothing louder is marked in anywhere. From the opening static crotchet chords it is vital to sink to the bottom of the keys in a series of progressive, ‘caressing’ downward actions, allowing the wrist to return upwards unhurriedly after each, and resist the urge to ‘stab’ sharply as though the keys were red hot. Only then will you be able to link up the chords warmly and persuasively, aided of course by deft touches of pedal. As with all aspects of piano playing, listening is the key to success if we are to enter the composer’s soundworld and not become intimidated by the score markings – we must be our most critical
whole, we are not practising to match the space we are currently in, but in anticipation of the one in which we may ultimately find ourselves performing, be it a concert venue, church hall or examination room.
audience we areis to monitor and respond toif what actually emanating from the instrument. Debussy does hint, albeit obliquely, at places where he’d like a firmer attack ( p marqué ) to balance off the translucent effect he’s after elsewhere in ‘Canope’, so be bold with these, or you will flatten out the composer’s carefully constructed tapestry of effects. Another splendid example is Canción para dormir una muñeca by Antonio Estévez, on the current ABRSM Grade 4 syllabus. Not unlike the aforementioned Debussy piece, this lullaby inhabits a rather narrow dynamic range: pp-p throughout. e songlike mood nonetheless presupposes a clear contrast between tune and accompaniment (think along the lines of mp for the right hand and pp for the left) and a brave shaping of the right hand quavers to counter any possibility of non-speaking notes. An effective way to practise both the above examples would be to imagine they were marked f-ff , so that you overcome tension and frailty simultaneously. Once under control, you can gradually ease off the downward exertion from your upper body – you should be left with a beautifully radian t effect; soft, but still colourful. Bear in mind that, on the
arms arm weight is accommodated by the(i.e., shoulders and not permitted to transfer through to the fingers). is approach has a certain allure in that it can be applied, at will, to either a legato or a staccato touch as a ‘requisite for attaining velocity with a leggiero touch’. Tension quickly becomes an unintended consequence of attempting to play leggiero, so the importance of learning to relax can hardly be overstated. It is possible to play very fast and very loudly, especially if you have massive hands, but unless you happen to be Sergei Rachmaninov or John Ogdon, it is more pragmatic to accept a trade-off between speed and power. Paradoxically, when we practise fast running passages at a slower tempo, we may inadvertently adopt an inappropriate technique. It’s a bit like trying to practise sprinting but at a walking pace! Practising high finger action is definitely beneficial, whether to strengthen individuality and a more assertive attack for deployment in Baroque or Classical repertoire, or as a precursor to playing with hardly any visible finger movement, which is invaluable when playing filigree passages in Romantic or contemporary pieces. When practising scales, why n ot experiment more adventurously with
Quietly speedy
Let us take a brief look at so-called leggiero touch (Liszt’s Concert Etude Gnomenreigen is a splendid example), which to all intents and purposes can be interchanged with ‘legero’ and ‘leggeramente’, all of which crop up frequently in 19th-century piano scores. If you read the rather wordy descriptions of leggiero, alongside other facets of touch control (such as staccato , legato , non-legato , portato) by Walter Gieseking, Tobias Matthay or Denes Agay, you will doubtless find yourself reeling at the subtle variants in terminology, the sum of which may serve to confuse rather than clarify matters. e precise point at which, for example, legato turns into nonlegato is terribly hard to describe in words but comparatively easy to hear or demonstrate. en we have ‘jeu perlé’, a form of touch control sported magnificently by the likes of Alfred Cortot, and which remains the envy of many modern pianists. It involves playing lightly at high speed, but with an effect that sounds closer to nonlegato than legato. Some pedagogues, notably Agay, emphasise the concept of ‘weightless’
17• Pianist 89
LIGHTER AND FLIGHTIER Mark Tanner’s advice for improving your leggiero in 3 of the pieces in this issue’s Scores
1
Telemann Minuet [Scores page 29]: There’s a lot going on in this minuet. Straight away you will spot how the emphasis is different in the hands: a ‘fatter’ sound, involving the wri st for the second chord in the RH and the opposite in the left – surely a case for independent work to ensure the all -important rhythmic patterns do not become unduly di storted while finessing the articulation. The LH has a very melodic-sounding line in the second half – not a mere accompaniment – so let it ‘dance’ in a courtly, graceful manner. Mozart Adagio[Scores page 32]: This piece requires your subtlest shaping and just the right amount of weight in the fingers and wrists. Though it’s marked Adagio, don’t be lured i nto taking it too slowly on the basis of the opening two bars. The RH ‘sighs’, which heavily populate the pi ece (bar 2 presents the first clear example), involve applying more firmness to the first chord in each pair and an upward motion of the wrist to ensure the lightest possible placing of the second. The LH also has sighs, e.g. bars 8, 9 and 10, where you might imagine a violinist lifting the bow on each of the second, lighter notes.
2
3
Chopin Waltz[Scores page 49]: Bring your most poetic touch, systematic fingering and persuasive legato line to this charming miniature waltz. Though dynamics are conspicuously inconspicuous throughout, you have choices to make with regard to shaping the phrases and holding musical interest, especially during the more expansive-sounding second half, where the RH becomes rather more florid. Practise the LH on its own, keeping the wrist nicely light on the second and third crotchets of each bar and getting to the bottom of the bass notes with a fraction more solidity of tone. Its easy-going nature needs an unflustered, flexible view throughout.
aspects of touch dynamic levels: gauge for control yourselfatthealloptimum speed at which you can produce a forte dynamic, then piano , then combined with legato or non-legato. You might ultimately see if you can achieve something akin to Cortot’s dazzling leggiero effect, to really impress in an exam! A deft lateral movement of the hand and arm will, by necessity, prove critical in faster-moving music, which is immediately apparent if you watch videos of Horowitz, who seems to glide effortlessly up and down the keyboard, avoiding jerks and jolts. Finally, abstinence from una corda pedal is a good idea, at least while you recalibrate your dynamic palette in favour of a more focused and robust soft sound. Over-reliance on the una corda is a crutch, which can unfavourably affect the tone in many circumstances, though it does admittedly make quiet playing a whole lot easier as a quick fix. Aim to trust in the flexibility of your fingers and wrists, whether playing quickly or slowly at a quieter dynamic, and you will find yourself nearer to possessing Reizenstein’s cherished ‘control’. ■
In the next issue, Mark Tanner talks about how to achieve a musical overview in the pieces you learn.
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HOW TO
Against all odds
MASTERING POLYRHYTHMS Two beats in one hand, three in the other – how can you bring it all together? Don’t panic, just let teacher and performer Graham Fitch count the many ways you can polish your polyrhythms hat are polyrhythms, and why do they scare us? A polyrhythm (sometimes referred to as a cross rhythm) is the effect produced when two conflicting rhythms are played together. Te music requires one hand to divide the beat into two, for example, while the other hand has to divide the beat into three simultaneously. Tere are all sorts of possible ratios that a pianist might have to deal with, and (depending on the context) they can prove very challenging indeed! In this article, I will look at solutions for handling two of the most common polyrhythms – two against three, and three against four. Before you can hope to manage a polyrhythm, we need to be very adept at keeping a steady beat and subdividing it equally into twos, threes and fours (and so on). Clapping the beat (with or without a metronome) while counting out the various subdivisions is a very good way to develop the skill away from the piano. Be able to switch with no hesitation from one subdivision to another – at will, or on command. I recommend using this kind of scale practice to hone the skill (there are many ways to do it; take a look my video demonstration on the Pianist website for some suggestions). If you’ve studied Debussy’s Clair de lune , you may well have struggled to feel the changes from the default triplet subdivisio ns of the main beat (the time signature is 9/8) to the sneaky duplets that oppose the natural flow, especially the tied pairs:
W
not
diff- -i cult
not - - diff i cult
the other; when the LH plays in threes remember to start with the hands two octaves apart, to avoid the inevitable collision. Even though the two-against-three polyrhythm is simple to figure out, there are many passages with this kind of polyrhythm in the repertoire that cause a problem because of their speed. Tis example, from the development section of the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata No 10 opus 14 no 2 springs immediately to mind:
.
I recommend that when you begin to put this passage together at the correct tempo (Allegro), first block the RH as chords to come on the quaver beats, or just play the RH fifth finger notes together with the LH. Te next stage involves shaping finger movements into bigger arm gestures (using rotary and/or sculpted movements); this makes it very much easier for the two hands to work together interdependently (for a demonstration, please see my video on the Pianist website). Three Against Four
More often than not the second note of the duplet comes early, destabilisin g the pulse. A very good way to correct this kind of error is to count out loud as you practise. In the case of this Debussy work, I would suggest firstly speaking out loud words with three then two syllables, such as ‘trip-o-let, dup-let, dup-let ’, etc., as you practise the opening section, ensuring the underlying dotted crotchet pulse remains absolutely steady. Next, count only the three main beats in each bar.
We are often called upon to play a three-against-four (or four-against-three) polyrhythm, which is more of a challenge. Let’s look at the coda of the second movement of Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’Sonata (last beat of the first bar): Ad ag io ca nt ab il e
Two Against Three
Te simplest polyrhythm we have to deal with in piano playing is the two against three, or duplet against triplet (and vice versa). One hand plays in beat divisions of two while the other hand plays against it in divisions of three. Since the way the two rhythms fit together is precise – the second note of the duplet falls exactly halfway between the second and third notes of the triplet – it is not that difficult to master this skill. Te first thing for any polyrhythm is to drum it out on a table or on your knees, saying or thinking the words ‘not diff-i-cult’ rhythmically (i.e. ‘crotchet quaver-quaver crotchet’). If the triplet is in the RH, it fits together thus: ‘together-righ t, left, right; together-right, left, right’ (or ‘together-left, right, left’ if the triplet is in the LH [see example at top of next column]. Practising scales two against three is also a great way to develop this necessary skill. You will cover two octaves in one hand and three octaves in
A quick fix is to map the hands in a similar way to the two-against-three example earlier – in this case ‘together, right, left, right, left, right’ – but the group of three will not be even. o do the job properly you need to feel precisely where each note comes in one hand in relation to the other. Tere is an easy way to work out the mathematics so you can see at a glance the rhythmic placement of each note: multiply the two numbers together to find the lowest common multiple (this works for any polyrhythm). In a 3:4 polyrhythm, we multiply 3 by 4 and can then write out 12 numbers in two rows, as 3 groups of 4 (RH) and 4 groups of 3 (LH):
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MASTERCLASS
1 1
23412341234 23123123123
When we apply this at the piano, first do it slowly using a phrase such as ‘pass the gold-en butt-er’ to help fit the hands together. Tis phrase puts the emphasis on the threes, whereas a phrase such as ‘where do you work today?’ stresses the fours:
Pass
the
gol -den
hands together. Eventually, after many attempts, you will be able to play the polyrhythm successfully. Tis may not happen the first day, but persist and eventually you will be able to do it without thinking. Tis process will work beautifully with another famous example of a 3:4 cross rhythm – the Fantasie-Impromptu by Chopin opus 66: 2
1
2
4
5
3
5 1
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but ter
Practising the polyrhythm slowly is only somewhat useful. It’s a good first step, but it won’t necessarily enable you to play it in context at speed. As is always the case with rhythmic matters, it is essential to feel rhythm in your physical body, not just to know in your head the mathematics of a particular pattern. Clapping and counting aloud is excellent practice – try clapping in threes while counting in fours, making sure to do it the other way around too. Here is an exercise for three against four and four against three. For it to work, it is important to maintain a rock-steady pulse and to feel this pulse in your body rather than just drilling the fingers. Do the repeats as often as necessary to anchor the triplet versus the semiquaver divisions of the main beat, and don’t expect it to work perfectly first time. Needless to say, it can be played in any key (major or minor): Rhythmically
I would like to share a process that will help you play any polyrhythm smoothly, accurately and without the need for conscious thought in performance – but it might take a little time to acquire the knack. Tink back to when you learned to ride a bicycle; you probably wobbled around and fell off quite a number of times before you learned to ride easily and automatically. Mastering a tricky skill such as a polyrhythm relies on perseverance but after you acquire it, it remains with you. Here is the exercise applied to the ‘Pathétique’ example: Set the metronome to pulse in quavers (eighth notes) at the performance tempo you have chosen. We are going to confine ourselves only to the notes of the polyrhythm, stopping on the downbeat over the next bar line (the downbeat stop is most important as it gives us an end point to aim for). Play one hand and then the other hand in alternation many times in a row, listening carefully that you are playing evenly, and synchronising precisely with the metronome. Do this without stopping the rhythmic flow – literally without skipping a beat. After several repetitions, without thinking too much, attempt to play hands together (it is important not to stop or pause beforehand – keep with the metronome and with the beat!). Te chances are you will be unsuccessful on your first attempt; this is normal . Te temptation is to try it again immediately with both hands together, but go back to a few separate-hand alternations before trying again
We know that Chopin began his piano practice every day with preludes and fugues from Bach’sWell-Tempered Clavier. It is said this was the only score he took with him in 1838 to Majorca, where he completed his own set of 24 Préludes opus 28. I can’t help but wonder if the inspiration for the FantasieImpromptu might have come from the D major Prélude from Book 1:
I strongly suggest practising a skeleton version of the Fantasie-Impromptu , like this:
If you do this with no pedal and strictly in time, you will be synchronising the notes in the LH that fall on the beats with Bachian precision and clarity. Master it and make it sound great at a variety of speeds and dynamic levels – you will be laying a very firm foundation indeed for when you add the missing LH notes. Tese processes will work for any polyrhythm you might come across in piano music. Even though the difficulty lies in coordinating both hands together, there is no substitute for regular practice with each hand alone. If you want to build up your level of skill, you can practise exercises away from the piano based on the principles of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, a Swiss pianist who invented a method of learning and experiencing music through movement. When you are next out for a stroll, use your footsteps as a sort of metronome and make a cross rhythm against them either by clapping, snapping your fingers or using your voice. Walk (or run) the fours and clap (or speak) the threes, and make sure to do it the other way around too. n In the next issue, Graham discusses the subject of the thumb.
WATCH GRAHAM ONLINE
19• Pianist 89
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T O WAT CH GRAHAM’S T UT ORIAL VIDEO T HAT ACCOMPANIES T HIS ART ICLE
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WATCHCHENYINLIPLAYTHISPIECEATWW S W.PIANIST MAGAZINE.CO M ’T MI ’S DON EWMAN JANET NSSON E LENTHISGPEIEC O PA
Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-1849)
I NTER MEDI ATE
Waltz in AminorB150
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HOW TO
Ch o p i n wro te manywal tze s , al l o f wh i ch h ad ach armand vi g o u rmak (e ve n i ng i fth efing e rs are s e cu re ),s oth eh and d o e s n’tfre e ze .Ph ras i ng and ru b ato th e ms u i tab l e fo rth e co nce rth al l rath e rth an th e d ance flo o r. Tiare s wal e ve tzryth was i ng –al ways th i nk wh e re th e me l o d yi s l e ad i ng .Te RH fi l i g re e co mp o s e d ca.1847b u tno tp u b l i s h e d u nti l 1955. p as s ag e wo rkb e twe e nb ars 21-23i s tri ck yand s h o u l d b etak e no u t o fco nte xt, Playingtips:Wh i l e th e LH p l ays an acco mp ani me ntal ro l e i n th i s RH p i ealceo,ne i t ,wi th s l o wp racti ce .Li s te n to Ch e nyi n Li p l ayth i s p i e ce o n th e CD i s s ti l l th e fo u nd ati o n and i tne e d s to b e 100 p e rce nts e cu re . We and thno e retifocereh e rd ynami cs ;e ve n i f no tmark e d o n th e s co re (Ch o p i n i s k no wn ad vi s e yo u to s tu d yth e LH fi rs t, p racti s i ng i to n i ts o wn. Al s o no try‘b ttol i ncl nd ’u d ed ynami cs )i t’s ne ce s s arytoi nco rp o rateth e mi ntoyo u rp l ayi ng . p racti ce (no tl o o k i ng atth e k e yb o ard ),as th ats h o u l d re al l ys e cu re th Pedaltips o s e LH:Al l p e d al mark i ng s are o n th e s co re . j u mp s . Te ap ogg i atu ras i n th e RHs h o u l d b e l i g h t, k e e p i ngth e wriReadJanet s tfle xi b l eN ewman’s s tep-bys teples s o no nthis piece o npag e22.
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CHOPIN Waltz in A minor B150
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This modest little waltz offers technical challenges in the left hand but the greatest trick is bringing variety to the repeating phrases. Teacher and performer Janet Newman helps you out Ability rating Info Key: A minor empo: Allegretto Style: Romantic
Intermediate
Will improve your 3Pedalling 3
for waltz style Security of LH chord placement with repetitions
3Variety
Tis elegant and melancholy little waltz was written around 1843, and was one of many of Chopin’s works published posthumously. Chopin composed 36 waltzes over the course of his lifetime, the first when he was just 14 and the final just before his death in 1849. Many of his compositions pose enormous challenges technically – even among some of the shorter works from the sets of Mazurkas, Waltzes and Nocturnes – but this particular waltz, with its unassuming and almost modest melody and repetitious nature, offers the less-confident pianist a chance to explore the nuances of Chopin without placing too many obstacles in the way!
o ensure the security of the chord placement, practise moving to the chords by building them up from the bottom of the chord, adding a note each time. Let’s use the first bar of the piece as an example of how to do this. Start by playing the bass A on the first beat and then the A only of the chord on the second beat, followed by the bass A again; then the A and C of the second-beat chord and finally, the bass A followed by the complete chord, A, C and E. As you do this, you’ll probably discover that there will be an
Structurally, there are two main ideas. First, there’s the theme in A minor and then a smaller eight-barinidea which, when repeated bar at 33,bar has17, a slight variation to it, both melodically and harmonically, as it moves into the tonic major. When a piece that essentially lasts a little over two minutes has as much repetition within it as this waltz does, one of the first things to consider is how you decide to vary the material so that the performance steers clear of dullness. If you choose to play the repeats as well, then you must use a variety of dynamics and potentially articulation too, in order to keep the music buoyant and meaningful. Start your work with the left hand (LH) part. In my experience of teaching Chopin’s waltzes, the LH usually is the hardest thing to master. Te difficulty of keeping the LH chords balanced and sensitively placed, while at the same time making sure that every note sounds (especially the first-beat bass note) takes quite a lot of intelligent practice. Firstly and most importantly, make sure that when you play the first-beat note that you keep your hand open over the keys with your thumb placed on the octave above the actual note played – i.e., you must ‘ghost’ the octave. Tis helps you to find the bass note without looking as you can see the
thumb in the octave shape in your peripheral vision, and it also helps you when you move to the second-beat chord as by having the hand over the keys in the first place, the jump upwards to the chord is effectively reduced. Te thumb acts as a ‘marker’ and makes the accuracy of the bass part much more reliable. When you have the notes securely in your memory, practise this with your eyes closed – this helps your muscle memory to develop too.
uncertainty within the fingers in finding the chord shape which this method of practice will help to eliminate. When I watch my students playing this kind of piece, I often notice how their LH hovers uncertainly over the keys. Employing this technique really does help to strengthen the overall sense of geography and resulting tone control. If you still find that there is vulnerability in the LH part, then make it even more challenging for yourself by moving the second- and third-beat chords up a further octave – this is another incredibly helpful tool to getting accuracy and freedom of movement in chord work, as well as making you grateful for small mercies!
Janet Newman is Head of Keyboard at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford. In addition to her teaching, she is in demand as a freelance pianist and is an examiner for the ABRSM.
One final word of advice on the LH is to keep your fingers very gripped (or braced) when playing the chords. ry to shape the chord within the fingers but at the same time, relax within the wrist and pull down into the keys using your arm weight. I know that this sounds like a contradiction in terms, but being able to keep relaxed, ‘soft’ arms while at the same time having very strong, almost steely fingers is one of the key skills that makes for good piano playing (and one of the things that makes learning piano so demanding)! 22• Pianist 89
Te RH in this piece should prove less involved to learn. Always remember to adhere to the chosen fingering so that the best phrasing and melodic shaping can be consistently played. Tere should be a flowing movement throughout the line but try to avoid overdoing the rubato. Because of the repetition within the piece, if you employ too much rubato, it can feel sentimental rather than touching, and queasy rather than moving. Keep it simple! Start the piece quite matter-of-factly, using a positive dynamic and just allow the music to speak for itself. Use a little rit in bars 7-8 and perhaps a little more in the corresponding bars 15-16 so that you
Learning Tip Practise adding the pedal alone to the LH, taking great care to catch the first beat in the pedal. Don’t move to the second beat too soon!
enter the next section with a renewed sense of momentum and energy. Tere is a different quality in the new section at bar 17. I would allow the music to move ahead slightly now, as there is a feeling of trying to break free of the rather restrained and reined-in nature established within the first section. Consider adding a little more warmth to your dynamic too – especially in the repeat. Tere is an impassioned quality here which, although it doesn’t last for long, needs to be shown. However, die away at bars 23-24 and when you play the section for the second time, let the rit be quite a generous one. At bar 25, the returning theme could be played very quietly – almost hesitantly – as this will make the change of key at bar 33 much more contrasting and surprising. Tis is the point where you can let the music move as freely as you feel; all restraint is gone and the joyous quality which was hinted at in the earlier section can now come to the fore. Stay quite bold dynamically at bar 41 but gradually let the music subside. By the time you arrive at the codetta (bar 49), there should be a complete unwinding of the music, both in tempo and dynamic, so that it ends as it began, unassuming and with great simplicity. ■
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HOW TO
LISZT
Impromptu in F sharp S191
Concert pianist and teacher Lucy Parham shares a gem from her treasure trove of forgotten Liszt and tells how to master its tremendous power, ferce passion and undeniable lyricism Ability rating Info Key: F sharp empo: Animato, con passione Style: Romantic
Advanced
Will improve your 3Forearm 3
freedom Rallentando LH playing
3Fluid
I discovered this Impromptu when I was researching my Liszt words-andmusic programme, Odyssey of Love. Tis Impromptu was written later in Liszt’s life and encapsulates a romantic freedom within a new style of piano writing. It was at this time in his life that Liszt was striving to bring new sounds out of the piano, and some of the music from this period can be said to look forward to Debussy. Tis charming Impromptu is rarely played, and for that reason it is a forgotten gem in Liszt’s vast solo piano repertoire. Tere is an inherent lyricism in this piece that a player should be careful not overlook. In some editions, this Impromptu is given the subtitle ‘Nocturne’, but for me the tempo of the piece is too flowing be nocturnal. Liszt marks the pieceto‘Animato, con passione’ and this underlying passion is always at the heart of the work. Begin by looking at the left hand (LH). It is interesting how Liszt begins on the second beat of the bar, with a silent upbeat. It is almost a ‘Schumannesque’ cross rhythm, which will definitely throw the listener off guard. It can throw a player off guard too, as our instinct is always taking us to the first beat of the bar. Note how Liszt highlights the first quaver, then the sixth quaver on to the seventh quaver (which is also a crotchet). Tis forms a rocking style (almost like a barcarolle) and you need to try and point this out; highlight it so that we have a sense of fluidity and elasticity.
n i te s n r A n e v S ©
in both hands should be very pianistic and comfortable for the performer.
On 10 April Lucy Parham gives the first London performance of her new composer portrait,Elégie: Rachmaninoff – A Heart in Exile, with narrator Henry Goodman. This coffee concert version of the new show will be at Kings Place, London. Parham also presents Rêverie at the Ryedale Festival with Simon Russell Beale (3 April), and Nocturne at the Chipping Campden Festival with Alex Jennings and Harriet Walter (8 May) and at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, with Goodman and Walter (15 May). Her recording of Strauss’s melodrama, Enoch Arden, with actor Henry Goodman, was recently released. For more info, go to www.lucyparham.com
Notice Liszt’s marking of ‘dolcissimo’ (‘very gentle’) here. Te RH really needs to grip this chord as it has to project over the bass while never being too loud. Voice your top finger – almost with a steely fingertip. You also need to remember that this chord is repeated five times! Observe the different accents and portamento markings on each chord and try to make a difference in each one. Te luxurious spread chord at the beginning of bar 6 should sound almost harp-like and slightly ethereal.
these chords here unless you have a very large hand (which Liszt did). Make sure the chords are really luscious and try not to grab them. Also, it is vital to give them a sense of direction in order that they don’t all sound the same. Keep the LH wrist supple here; you want to have a sense you are travelling and you must try not to get jammed.
Learning Tip The most challenging part of the piece is the cadenza (from bar 61). It needs to shimmer! Learn it first, and build it up note by note.
Te LH at bar 6 has a slightly larger stretch. You need to prepare for this bottom D and not a grab at it. Just ‘sit’ on it and take an extra moment if needed. Sometimes giving yourself this space can get you over a tricky problem. Te RH G minim in bar 8 needs to really ring out. I would suggest playing this with a third finger and then changing it to a fifth. Te following
Crescendo through bars 18 and 19. Tere is a long line that runs from bar 18 to bar 25; try to keep a sense of unity and direction, and avoid stopping at the bar lines. We are looking for a flowing line here. Ease into the trill at bar 21 and let the cadenza run smoothly from the end of the trill so that there are no bumps. Te cadenza at bar 22 lies well under the hand if you stick to the
notes in bar 9accordingly. are portato Tey and need to be weighted should melt into the generous trill at bar 10. Keep your forearm free while you are trilling and try not to seize up. Start the trill a little slower and ease into it. Make sure there is a little bit of a rallentando at the end of the bar when you need to gently melt out of this trill into the pause on the A . It is a good idea to change the pedal on this note too.
5-4-3-2-1 pattern of fingering. Tink it in groups – almost like a bunch of of fingers, although retaining a clarity within each semiquaver. A small rit should ease you into bar 25.
When the theme returns at bar 14, notice how it is more embellished this time. You will need to spread all of
Bar 25 marks the start of the central section. Tis section has a short development of the themes we have already heard. Te next few bars form a duet: the lower part (played by the RH and marked ‘espressivo’) is in bars 26-29 and is then gently answered by the higher register (from bars 30-34), marked ‘languendo’ (languidly). Te LH remains constant while the RH should seamlessly float over the top of it, trying to avoid bumps at all costs. In this passage you will notice how Liszt has marked certain notes in the LH to be held or leaned into. Tese notes, seen in bar 27 to 32 and then continuing until bar 59, form an inner melody. Tis second melody is crucial and I would suggest practising it by playing it alone and omitting all the triplet figuration around it. Meanwhile, the RH needs to have two different qualities – one for the higher ‘soprano’ voice and one for the tenor voice. ry projecting your fifth finger in the higher register and give it a steely quality.
Leave the pedal down from the beginning until bar 6. You want to be bathed in the key of F sharp. I always think there is something a very soothing about the key of F sharp major; just think about Chopin’s famous Nocturne and Beethoven’s Sonata opus 78 that is also in this key to see exactly what I mean. F sharp major fits very well under the hand, so that when the right hand (RH) enters in bar 3, the feeling 24• Pianist 89
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ISS ’T M ’S DONPARHAM LUCY SONE SHI S PIEC LE TA GE ON P 24
Franz LISZ (1811-1886)
ADVANCED
Impromptu in F sharpS191
Inth e l ate rp art o fh i s l o ng l i fe ,th e Hu ng ari anco mp o s e rFranzLi o f psoztl weer, dpa as s i o n and l yri ci s mi n o rd e rto mas te rs u ch awo rk .As Lu cyp o i nts ‘th re e fo l d l i fe ’,d i vi d i ng h i s ti me b e twe e nRo me ,We i marand B u od u aptiet.Wh ns h e rli lees s o n, s tarto ff b ymas te ri ng th e cad e nzafirs t, wh i ch s tarts atb ar te ach i ng b e came mo re i mp o rtant,h e co nti nu e d to e xp e ri me ntwi61. th Itre fo rmand al l yne e d s to s h i mme r.O nce yo u h ave th i s u nd e r yo u rfing e rs ,yo u ’l l co l o u ri nh i s co mp o s i ti o ns ,as i nth i s Imp ro mp tu ,wh i ch d ate s fro b em1872. e xtramo ti vate d to tack l e th e re s to f th e p i e ce .Ti s g o rg e o u s wo rk i s o ne Pedalandplayingtips:Li s te n to Lu cy Parh am’s re co rd i ng o f th i s woo frkLiosnzt’s l e s s e r-k no wn wo rk s ,b u ti ti s we l l wo rth th e e ffo rt! o u rco ve rmo u ntCD and yo u wi l l i mme d i ate l yre al i s e th ato ne ne e d ReadLucy s p l ayi ng Parham’s les s o no nthis piece o npag e 24.
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I always think there is something very soothing about the key of F sharp major – it fits very well under the hand, so when the r ight hand enter s in bar 3, the feeling in both hands should be v ery pianistic and comfor table From bar 42 you need to move forward, as the directions indicate (‘poco a poco accel’). Feel the momentum that pushes towards the big climax at bars 57-59. Each bar is more passionate and powerful than the preceding one.
forearm free. rill for a generous bar and then melt into the cadenza. Tis should start strongly and gradually diminuendo as you descend. Note the instruction to put on the una corda as you merge and melt beautifully into the ppp.
Notice where the LH has accents and crotchets within the triplet figuration. Tis predominates at bars 42, 44 and 45 and then continues in the same pattern. It should always be your aim to let the whole section flow in one long line. You can also
Tempo 1 at the end of bar 62 is like a recalling of the main theme. You must, however, try to keep the tone ‘dolce’, always moulded and warm. I always like to think this is a voice from afar, as if you were recalling something beautiful. ry to capture
practise the in LHthe intriplets block chords rather than that they are written in. Block chords are always a good practice method for this type of figuration. Tis will be an advantageous way to learn this section as well, as you will get a good sense of the hand placement, which can be a little awkward here.
this sense of retrospective and change the mood from all the ‘appassionata’ that has preceded it.
By the time you reach bar 55, both hands should be at equal strength and power. Te three repeats of this RH phrase (C , B, C ) increase in intensity each time. Again, when you reach the trill in bar 60, keep your
Ensure that all the spread chords are beautifully rolled. Imagine the sound of a harp and try to imitate that. Sink into the beautiful deep bass F . From bar 77, the piece unwinds emotionally. In the final seven bars make sure you pedal with care. You don’t want too much overlap. Keep the pedal down for the last two chords and lift it up slowly before you lift your hands off calmly to keep a sense of repose. ■
More Liszt gems to try If you enjoyed learning this piece, and want to uncover more Liszt hidden gems, Lucy Parham suggests his Valse oubliée No 1, which appeared in issue 73 and on which Lucy also gave a lesson. Lucy also gave a lesson in issue 81 on Liszt’s arrangement of Schubert’s songDer Müller und der Bach. Other pieces to try are the Petrach SonnetNo 123, Au lac de Wallenstadt (this piece appeared in issue 58) and Les cloches de Genève– the latter two come from the Première année of his Années de pèlerinage. These pieces are of the same level, if not slightly easier, than the Impromptu featured here. Liszt wrote copious amounts of piano music – 99 CDs’ worth, in fact! If you are willing to invest in a set of all his piano music, we recommend Hyperion’s Liszt: Complete Piano Music – a 99-CD box set played by Leslie Howard (catalogue no CDS44501/98).
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7• Pianist 77
Pianist 89 April-May 2016
Scores Contents 28
SCHUBERT Ecossaise D977 no 5
29
TELEMANN Minuet from Overture in G
30
TÜRK Little Rondo in F
31
SCHUMANN Melodie, No 1 from Album for the Young op 68
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MOZART Adagio in C for Glass Harmonica K356/617A
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EXCITING NEWS!
Pianist has a new look website
HUMMEL Gigue in D
36
SPANSWICK Karma
38
HENSELT Romance in B flat minor op 10
www.pianistmagazine.com
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I am thrilled to announce the launch of our brand-new website. Our new look site features a completely updated design that improves the usability, navigation and overall customer experience. Now you can also enjoy browsing our site much more comfortably from your tablet or mobile, as it has been designed to be fully responsive. You will be able to watch our exclusive online piano lessons in a much more user-friendly way. e lessons are mapped out into clear sections, which means you will know exactly where to look for the lesson you want. ere are some 60 lessons to date (and forever growing) from Graham Fitch, Tim Stein and John Maul – from the most simple of topics as how to sit at the piano and easy scales to more advanced subjects such as voicing and ornaments.
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Enjoy the new experience! Erica Worth, Editor
Scores from past issues ofPianist are available at the Pianist Digital Store: http://pianistm.ag/digitalshop For back issues of the magazine, go to www.pianistmagazine.com
KEYBOARD CLASS D major scale
49
CHOPIN Waltz in A minor B150
52
BACH ARR. SILOTI Prelude in B minor
54
GRIEG
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LISZT
Prelude from Holberg Suite
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HANDEL Allemande from Suite No 8 in F minor HWV 433
Dear Reader
Impromptu in F sharp S191 Typesetting by Spartan Press Music Publishers Ltd
Quick guide to UK/North American note value terminology
semibreve /whole note minim/half note crotchet/quarter note quaver/eighth note semiquaver /16th note demisemiquaver /32nd note
Franz SCHUBER (1797-1828)
TRACK 1
BEGINNER
Ecossaise D977 no 5 Like Beethoven, Schubert wrote many sets of écossaises – the name means ‘Scottish’ and that may be where this quick dance srcinated. Tis écossaise, comes from a set of eight, that was not published until 1889. Playing tips: Tis needs to sound energetic. Keep the fingers close to the
keyboard and try to stay in strict time. Remember to lean into the notes with the accents (e.g. the first RH notes in bars 2 and 4). Notice all the changes of dynamics as well. No need for pedal. Take a look at the technical tips within the score.
The RH has its work cut out!The thumb has to move under the hand aot, l and there are also places with a wide-open hand position (e.g. bar 2). Be prepared.Also, take note of the accents.
Non allegro 3
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This is in the key of D major. However, in the second section, it reverts to the relative minor of D major – B minor.
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Start off relatively quietly.
Be prepared for the wide RH jump between bars 5 and 6. 5
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Change to forte dynamic now.
The RH chords need to be firm, with all the notes depressing at once! 9
Start out forte.
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Again, bring out the LH line.
Now the RH takes over again. 13
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Georg Philipp ELEMANN (1681-17 67)
TRACK 2
BEGINNER
Minuet from Ouverture in G WV 32:13 Te German composer Georg Philipp elemann was prolific in many genres and wrote many works for the harpischord, including this seven-movement suite. Tis minuet is the last movement of the suite. Playing tips: It’s really important to feel the pulse of this piece. We suggest
The notes need a detached quality in both hands.
Al le gr et to
that you silently count in the 3/4 pulse before you begin, for a couple of bars at the very least. Tere should be a feeling of elegance and poise – imagine courtiers dancing in their elegant and elaborate costumes. No need for pedal. Take a look at the technical tips within the score.
In the RH, always lean onto the accented minim. It will make for a syncopated feeling, as the usual accentis on the first beat of the bar,not the second.
The thumb should be prepared to move under the B (to the C)here. 1
2
3
1
1
1
Key of G major (F sharp in key signature).
In the LH, emphasis should be on the first beat of the bar (the minim)to achieve a ‘down/up’ feel.
4
2
1
On the repeat, play Now return to the opening this last bar marked and repeat the first 8 bars. 2. (not the 1. bar) 7
1.
1
1
2.
3
5
Move the hand position quickly, below, for the top G.
2
4
4
3
1
3
4
4
1
5
3
1
5
Keep the LH fingers close to the keyboard, always ready above the notes. 13 2
4
3
1
3
4
20
4
3
1
This is the only phrase, below (starting end of last bar), with quavers from beginning to end. Keep the line smooth and even. 1
3
3
1
1
5
2
2
3
3
Return to bar 9 and repeat the last 16 bars.
2 1
3
1
4
29• Pianist 89
1
1.
5
2.
2 3
Finish boldly!
3
Daniel Gottlob ÜRK (1756-1813)
TRACK 3
BEGINNER
Little Rondo in F, No 22 from120 Pieces for Aspiring Pianists Tis lively piece was written by German composer, theorist and pedagogue Daniel Gottlob ürk around 1792. Playing tips: Te RH has the melody, the LH the calm accompaniment. Make sure to tail off nicely at the end of every four-bar phrase. Te music will
come to life if you remember to take note of the dynamics. Te last eight bars present the biggest challenges due to the ornaments. Practise these extremely slowly, hands separately. Pedal is not required. Take a look at the technical tips within the score.
Though marked‘Poco presto’ (‘a little quick’), this should not sound rushed at all. Listen to Chenyin Li play it on our CD. Notice the four-bar phrase markings.Think in long question-and-answer phrases.
Poco presto 3
Key of F major (note B flat in key signature).
2
1 5
3
1
The LH should be even and subdued, with the emphasis always on the firstbeat of the bar.
The first four bars are repeated, but you must play forte this time instead of piano.
7
3
4
Tail off gently to the end of the bar.
2
5
3
For the mordent, on the D below, play D-E-D. The beat should fall on the last D.
This is where the piece ends (bar 16), when it is repeated. 13
Fine
4
5
5 3
Start out softly.
1
3
1
1
3
2 1
Something tricky for the LH, above.The fingers need to be prepared for the stretches.
A tricky bar below for the RH because of the accidentals. Learn the notes well!
Observe the fingering for the turn below and you won’t go wrong! 34321
Now play a resolute forte to the end.
19
2
D.C. al Fine
3
5
3
2
1
30• Pianist 89
D.C. al Fine means return to the beginning and end at the Fine.
3
1
2
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZAR (1756-1791)
TRACK 5
INTERMEDIATE
Adagio in C for Glass Harmonica K356/617A Have you ever tried to ‘play’ a drinking glass by moistening the rim and moving static or lumpy. A good idea is to practise the piece faster than Adagio (refer at the finger rapidly around it? Using this idea, the glass harmonica (or armonica) Graham Fitch’s masterclass in issue 78 in which he discusses practising pieces is made up of multiple concentric glasses; its design was refined by American at opposite tempos). ry to get the fingers to do all the legato work, rather polymath and politician Benjamin Franklin. Tis is an arrangement of a piece than cheat with the pedal. We’ve offered some good fingering as help for this. Mozart likely wrote after hearing the glass harmonica played in 1773. Once you’ve mastered it, you will really enjoy playing this poignant work. Pedal tips: Pay attention to the pedal markings. You will need to depress Playing tips: Notice the Adagio tempo. When you listen to Chenyin Li play this piece on the CD, you may well be shocked about the slow tempo, which the pedal a fraction after the fourth beat, and then lift it after the first beat means it may be a challenge to shape the phrases. You don’t want it to sound of the next bar.
Ad ag io 4 1
5 3
2
5
4 1
2 3
4 2
2
3 5 24
4
1
5
9
4 3
3 2 1
4 2
1 4
1 2 5
3
2
32• Pianist 89
1
1 2
1
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
TRACK 5
INTERMEDIATE
Adagio in C for Glass Harmonica K356/617A
13
4
4 2
1
1
2
2
1
1 3
17
1 3
1
1
1 5
1
1
2
3
1
2 4
3
1 1 4
4
4 2
3
4
5
2
4
2 4
4 2
21
2
5
3 3
25
1
2
3 5
33• Pianist 89
2 1
3
2
Johann Nepomuk HUMMEL (1778-1837)
TRACK 6
INTERMEDIATE
Gigue in D A prodigy who studied with Mozart and became one of the first touring concert pianists, Johann Nepomuk Hummel wrote much for the keyboard, and although he was influential in his day, his music is only recently being seriously revived again by the likes of Howard Shelley. Playing tips: Te rhythm in this piece has to be really precise and clipped. Experiment with clapping the rhythm first. Te crotchet-quaver timing has to be extremely accurate. ry to feel a bouncing sensation in the RH wrist
Al le g ro no n tr op po
in order to create a really detached even sound. Even if the three groups of quavers are slurred (e.g. beats 4, 5, 6 and 10, 11, 12 in the first bar), each note should nonetheless sound slightly detached. ry to imagine you’re at the typewriter (for those of you who remember the typewriter)! Make sure to observe all the different dynamic markings, and aim to create an air of cheerfulness that should preside throughout. Pedal tips: Pedal is not necessary for this light and articulated gigue.
= 110
5 2 2
5
1
1
2
1
3
3
1
1
3
4
4
4
1
5
2
3
5
5
5 2
4 1
cresc.
2
2
7
3
1
4
5 4 2
5
34• Pianist 89
2
4
3 1
Johann Nepomuk HUMMEL (1778-1837)
TRACK 6
INTERMEDIATE
Gigue in D
9
5
2
1
4
5
1
4
2
13
5 1
2
5
11
3
1
4
5
2
4
4 1
2
15 1
4
5 1
2
cresc.
3
2
2
35• Pianist 89
1
2
3
1
4
5 2
4 1
3 1
2
Melanie SPANSWICK
TRACK 7
INTERMEDIATE
Karma Notes from the composer: Tis piece was inspired by self-healing, and the sense of peace and happiness that manifests from positive thoughts. Te warm key of E major and tuneful melody felt appropriate for this sentiment. Composer’s playing tips: Hand positions will prove important, so aim to work through the piece by ‘blocking out’ patterns, locating notes and fingerings. Te repetitious movement will require an even touch. ry practising with strong fingers (both hands, but especially the LH), playing powerfully to start Con moto 2
3
with, and then pulling back and lightening your touch. Full cantabile will highlight the melodic material effectively. Endeavor to cushion your sound with the use of arm weight and a loose wrist. Pedal tips: ouches of pedal will add a resonant feel and quick footwork will achieve the best results! Karma features in Melanie Spanswick’s collection of five short pieces entitled Digressions. Te book was reviewed in issue 86.
= 132
4
3
5
2 4
9
4 1
2
3
13
4
2
4 2
4
5
17 1
3
3
4
36• Pianist 89
Melanie SPANSWICK
TRACK 7
INTERMEDIATE
Karma
21
1 4
25
29
2
2
3
4
2
1
4
4
2
5
2
4
2
3
33
rit.
37 1
2
5
5
2
1
37• Pianist 89
3
1
2
1
Adolf von HENSELT (1814-1889)
TRACK 8
INTERMEDIATE
Romance in B flat minor op 10
16
5 2 1
5
4 1
2
dim. 1
3
5 4 4
20
5
5
24 3
5
3
5
3 5
3
2 4
1
27
1 1
2
2
4 2 1
5 2 1 4 1
31
3
1 ( 4
1
39• Pianist 89
3
George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
TRACK 9
INTERMEDIATE
Allemande from Suite No 8 in F minor HWV 433 Te great Baroque composer George Frideric Handel wrote 16 suites for keyboard, most likely composing them for the harpischord. Te second suite in F major contains the famous ‘Harmonious Blacksmith.’ Tis Allemande, a very stylised dance with possible German srcins as the name indicates, is the third movement in the eighth suite, which was published in 1720. Playing tips: Finger dexterity is the key to success in playing this piece. One needs to hear every single note with clarity, played with the same type of
weight and evenness. We suggest extremely slow practice – and at first, hands separately. ry to work out where the melody is leading and where you can ‘breathe’. It’s often worth marking these types of observations in the score, too. In this kind of a piece, you may find that you encounter the tendency to speed up (or even slow down for the hard bits!), so we suggest that the use of the metronome might be of some help. Make sure to follow the dynamics. Pedal tips: No pedal required.
Al le g ro mo de ra to 5
3
2
3 3
3 2
5
1
5
2
1
5
1
1
2
4
5
3
2
4
2
1
2
3
1
4
3
1
5
4 1 5 2
2
3
2
3
3
2
2
cresc.
2
2
7
1
2
5
2
2
5
1
1
poco a poco dim.
2
3
2
1
42• Pianist 89
3
1
2
5
5
1
1
1
George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
TRACK 9
INTERMEDIATE
Allemande from Suite No 8 in F minor HWV 433 9
4
2
3
3
2
2
1
1
2
4
1
11
2
4
2
2
3
2
1
2
5
5
14
1
5
1
1
2
4
2
4
4
3
1
3
3
2
4
3
2 1
2
1
2
1 1 2
5 4 2
16
5
1
cresc.
4
2
1
4
2
5
1
4
5142
43• Pianist 89
2
2132
George Frideric HANDEL (1685-1759)
TRACK 9
INTERMEDIATE
Allemande from Suite No 8 in F minor HWV 433 18
5 1 4 2 5 2
3
5
5
5
3
4
11 5
2
2
4
1
1
21 4
2
3
4
1 2
4
4
2
1
2
4
3
1
2
5
2
2 1
3
cresc.
2
24
2 1
2
4
1
2 5 5 2
4
1 54 5
3
1
2
cresc.
dim.
4 2
4
5
27 2
3
5
4
4
5
3
1
1
2
2
4
4 2
4 2
1
1
dim.
5
3
4
1
44• Pianist 89
5
5 3
1
4 2 1
5
HANS-GÜNTER HEUMANN
AZE R TY
BEGINNERS zerty XXXX (XXXXX)
KEYBOARD CLASS LESSON 17: D MAJOR SCALE
On these four pages,Pianist covers the most basic stages of learning the piano through a series of lessons by Hans-Günter Heumann. Lesson No 17 covers the D major scale – with triads, cadences, exercises and pieces. Key: D major Accidentals: F sharp, C sharp
D major scale
D major triad/chord The D major triad consists of the first, second and fifth notes of the D major scale: D-F -A
D major triad with inversions Play these two exercises with each hand separately then with both hands together. Begin with the LH one octave lower, or two octaves lower for the broken chords.
Perfect cadence in D major with inversions
45• Pianist 89
PLAGE
HANS-GÜNTER HEUMANN
ZE Exercise for the key of A D major
KEYBOARD CLASS
R TY
XXXX (XXXXX)
PLAGE
An exercise to get your fingers used to D major.
zerty
A
du faux texte Bella terra et mari civilia externaque toto in orbeerrarum t saepe gessi, victorque omnibus veniam petentibus civibus peperci. Externas gentes, qui bus tuto ignosci potuit, conservare quam excidere malui. Millia civi um Romanorum sub sacramento meo fuerunt circiter quingenta. Ex quibus deduxi in colonias aut remisi in municipia sua stipendisemeritis millia aliquanto plura quam trecenta, etiis omnibus agros adsignavi autpecuniam pro praemiis militiae dedi. Naves cepi sescentas praeter eas, si quae minores quam triremes fuerunt.Bella terra et mari civilia ext ernaque toto in orbe terrarum saepe gessi, vict orque omnibus veniam petentibus civibus peperci. Externas gentes, quibus tuto ignosci potuit , conservare quam excidere malui. Millia civium Romanorum sub sacramento meo fuerunt circiter quingenta. Ex quibus deduxi in colonias aut remisi in municipia sua stipendis emeritis millia aliquanto plura quam trecenta, setomnibus ii agros adsignavi aut pecuniam pro praemiis militiae dedi. Naves cepi sescentas praeter eas, si qua e minores quam triremes fuerunt.Bella terra et mari civilia externaque tot.
46• Pianist 89
HANS-GÜNTER HEUMANN
KEYBOARD CLASS
A ZWoO E R Country Dance (Ländler) 11 T noY 4 XXXX (XXXXX) Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
zerty
A ländler is an Austro-Bavarian folk dance that dates from around 1800. A ländler consists of two repeated eight-bar phrases and is in 3/4 time. Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert adopted the ländler into their compositions. Beethoven published these dances (WoO = work without opus number) for orchestra as well as for piano solo. Turn the page for another piece in the key of D major – this time by JS Bach.
Hans-Günter Heumann continues his beginner series in the next issue. To find out more about Heumann, go to www.schott-music.com
47• Pianist 89
PLAGE
HANS-GÜNTER HEUMANN
KEYBOARD CLASS
ZE T Y for Anna Magdalena Musette BWV Anh.126A from the R Notebook XXXX (XXXXX)
PLAGE
J.S. Bach(1685-1750)
zerty
A
du faux texte Bella terra et mari civilia externaque toto in orbeerrarum t saepe gessi, victorque omnibus veniam petentibus civibus peperci. Externas gentes, qui bus tuto ignosci potuit, conservare quam excidere malui. Millia civi um Romanorum sub sacramento meo fuerunt circiter quingenta. Ex quibus deduxi in colonias aut remisi in municipia sua stipendisemeritis millia aliquanto plura quam trecenta, etiis omnibus agros adsignavi autpecuniam pro praemiis militiae dedi. Naves cepi sescentas praeter eas, si quae minores quam triremes fuerunt.Bella terra et mari civilia ext ernaque toto in orbe terrarum saepe gessi, vict orque omnibus veniam petentibus civibus peperci. Externas gentes, quibus tuto ignosci potuit , conservare quam excidere malui. Millia civium Romanorum sub sacramento meo fuerunt circiter quingenta. Ex quibus deduxi in colonias aut remisi in municipia sua stipendis emeritis millia aliquanto plura quam trecenta, setomnibus ii agros adsignavi aut pecuniam pro praemiis militiae dedi. Naves cepi sescentas praeter eas, si qua e minores quam triremes fuerunt.Bella terra et mari civilia externaque tot.
48• Pianist 89
TRACK 10
ISS ’T M AN’S DONNEWM
TAP HERETO WATCH CHENYIN LI PLAY THIS PIECE
JANET SONE SHIS PIEC LE ON T AGE
Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-1849)
INTERMEDIATE
Waltz in A minor B150
P 2 2
Chopin wrote many waltzes, all of which had a charm and vigour making them suitable for the concert hall rather than the dance floor. Tis waltz was composed ca. 1847 but not published until 1955. Playing tips: While the LH plays an accompanimental role in this piece, it is still the foundation and it needs to be 100 per cent secure. We therefore advise you to study the LH first, practising it on its own. Also try ‘blind’ practice (not looking at the keyboard), as that should really secure those LH jumps. Te apoggiaturas in the RH should be light, keeping the wrist flexible
(even if the fingers are secure), so the hand doesn’t freeze. Phrasing and rubato are everything – always think where the melody is leading. Te RH filigree passagework between bars 21-23 is tricky and should be taken out of context, RH alone, with slow practice. Listen to Chenyin Li play this piece on the CD and notice her dynamics; even if not marked on the score (Chopin is known not to include dynamics) it’s necessary to incorporate them into your playing. Pedal tips: All pedal markings are on the score. Read Janet Newman’s step-by-step lesson on this piece on page 22.
Al le g ret to 2
3 4
1
3
2
1 2 4
5
2 1
3
2
5
1
5
2
3
1 3
4
1
2
2
1 4 5
1 2 5
1 2 4
9
sim.
1
2
3
2
3
4
5
2
3
49• Pianist 89
2
1
3
1 2 4
5
2
sim.
13
1
1 4 5
1
5
4
2
1 2 5
4
3
4
2
1
TAP HERE TO WATCH CHENYIN LI PLAY THIS PIECE
Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-1849)
TRACK 10
INTERMEDIATE
Waltz in A minor B150 2
17
2
1
3 5
3
2
2
3
3
2
4 1
1
3 5
2
2
3
1
3
2
1 2 4
1 3 5
4
1
4
3
1
1 2 5
21
3 4
4
3
1
3
1
2
3 4
5
4
4
3
3 5
3
2
5
3 2
1
3
1
1
25
1 2 4
29
4
3
4
2
2
5
3
1 2 3
2
33
1
3
5
1 2 5
232 1
4
5 3
14 2
1 2 4 50• Pianist 89
5 3
2
1
3 4
5 3
2
1
4
TAP HERE TO WATCH CHENYIN LI PLAY THIS PIECE
Frédéric CHOPIN (1810-1849)
TRACK 10
INTERMEDIATE
Waltz in A minor B150 37
1 5
4
2
1
1 3 5
1 3
41
45
5
143
49
1
2
2
1
53
5
1 3 5
1 3 4
1 5
51• Pianist 89
1 2 5
1 3
BACH arr. SILOI (1863-1945)
TRACK 11
INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED
Prelude in B minor JS Bach’s keyboard works have enjoyed a further existence in arrangements by later composers, and one of the most famous of these is the arrangement of the E minor Prelude BWV 855a made by Ukranian-born pianist and composer Alexander Siloti. You may enjoy comparing the srcinal prelude, which appeared issue 69, to this one. For instance, the srcinal is in E minor while Siloti has B minor; Siloti also changed the voicing significantly.
Playing tips: See the learning tips from Maria Ramuzovsky that are dotted throughout the score. Pedal tips: Tere are markings on the score. Remember, though, that the markings are a guide – we always suggest that you use your ear to create the pedalling that works for you. Read Maria Razumovsky’s article on Emil Gilels on page 80.
= 38
se mpr e le gat o 1
2
3
4
3
1 2
1 2 3 5
1 2 5
4 5
3
1 2 2 1 2 5
2 5
5
1
3
4
5
2
3
sim.
3
2
Fingering note: using 3 followed by 2 in the LH (e.g.bar 5 etc) will help reduce hand tension and contribute to a more nuanced phrasing. As an alternative, both notes can be played by 3.
7
2
3
2 1 2 5
9
2 3 5
4 5
52• Pianist 89
1 2 3 5
Take time with this wider spacing. It will be easier to play and add expression to the high point at the start of bar 11!
BACH arr. SILO TI (1863-1 945)
TRACK 11
INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED
Prelude in B minor 11
Bar 11 is an important arrival point. Don’t rush into a diminuendo too soon. Instead,in the RH, sing out the D and match the B to what is left of its dying sonority.
3 5
13
3 5
3 5
2 5
1 2 3 5
3 5
3 5
Midde of bar 15 is the climax of the piece.
15 3
5
3
2
2
3
Again, take time for this wider spread to make space for the next arrival point (the climax of the piece).
5
Keep the sound broad without pre-empting the diminuendo..
3 5
3 5
3 5
sempre rit. e dim.
17
4
19
In the LH in bar 17, listen to the nostalgic drop in the line from E to A sharp, and hear its resolution to B in bar 18.
5
3 5
21
5
2
5
1
3
2
sempre più rit. al fine 4
1
2
4 3 4 3 1
2
3 5
1
1
53• Pianist 89
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907)
TRACK 12
INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED
Prelude from Holberg Suite
Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg composed theHolberg Suiteop 40 in 1884, one long continuous line. Notice that each group of four semiquavers is a to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig Holberg, an important broken chord – using this knowledge, you might try practising in chords, Danish-Norwegian playwright and philosopher. We have presented selections in order to feel the structure and general line. You need an air of musical from this five-movement work before, most recently the Gavotte in issue 81. confidence in order to make this wonderful prelude soar. Note: Bars 1-18 Playing tips: Tis piece requires you to think in long phrases, using the should be repeated, even our pianist has not done so on the CD. Pedal tips: Pedal markings have been placed on the score, but remember to accents on the notes to bring out the melody. Te hands should be relaxed and the wrist loose, but the fingers totally firm. When you pass the semiquavers use your ear at all times. oo much pedal will drown out the music; too little from one hand to the other, you must still think of the semiquavers as being will make it sound dry.
Al le gr o vi va ce
= 92
3
3
5
7
3
3
3
3
2
2
3
2
3
4
2
4
2
5
54• Pianist 89
2
3
3
2
2
3
2
3
3
2
3
2
2
1
2
2
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907)
TRACK 12
INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED
Prelude from Holberg Suite
9
2
2
5
cantabile
3
11
2
2
5
2
4
5
5
5
2
13
2
2
5
4 5
5
5
4
4
15 3
5
5
cresc.
molto
32
17 2
3
2
3
2
55• Pianist 89
3
2
1 3
2
3
2
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907)
TRACK 12
INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED
Prelude from Holberg Suite 4 2 4
19
4
2
4
2
3
2
4
5
5
4
2
2
4
2
3
4
1
2 2
5
4
22
2
5
5
2
2
4
2
2
2
4
4
4 2
3
4
2
4
2
4
2
3
1 2
4
25 5
2
2
2
2
2
2
4321
27 3
2 3
5
29
5 2
2
5
2
2
5
5
2
2 2
2
2
5
4
5
56• Pianist 89
2
2
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907)
TRACK 12
INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED
Prelude from Holberg Suite 5
2
32
5
2
4
34
5 2
5
2
1
3
4
5
1
2
2
2
5 2
5
2
36
2
1
1
più
5 2
5
2
2
1
5
1
4
1
2
1
38 2
2
2
2
molto
4 3
40
3
3
2
2
3 4
2
3
4
3
4
57• Pianist 89
4
3
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907)
TRACK 12
INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED
Prelude from Holberg Suite 42
4
4
3
3
2232
2
3 2
45
2 3
3 5
3
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poco rit.
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at e m p o 2
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tr an q u i llo 2
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2
Edvard GRIEG (1843-1907)
TRACK 12
INTERMEDIATE/ ADVANCED
Prelude from Holberg Suite 57 5
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più
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1
TRACK 13
ISS ’T M M’S RHA DON Y PA LUC ECE I P THIS ON PAGE
L ES
SON
Franz LISZ (1811-1886)
ADVANCED
Impromptu in F sharp S191
24
In the later part of his long life, the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt led a of power, passion and lyricism in order to master such a work. As Lucy points ‘threefold life’, dividing his time between Rome, Weimar and Budapest. While out in her lesson, start off by mastering the cadenza first, which starts at bar teaching became more important, he continued to experiment with form and 61. It really needs to shimmer. Once you have this under your fingers, you’ll colour in his compositions, as in this Impromptu, which dates from 1872. be extra motivated to tackle the rest of the piece. Tis gorgeous work is one Pedal and playing tips: Listen to Lucy Parham’s recording of this work on of Liszt’s lesser-known works, but it is well worth the effort! Read Lucy Parham’s lesson on this piece on page 24. our covermount CD and you will immediately realise that one needs playing
dolcissimo
An im at o, co n pa ss io ne
2
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60• Pianist 89
con grazia. 1
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R.H.
Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
TRACK 13
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Impromptu in F sharp S191
12
a tempo
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u np o c or i t . 2
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61• Pianist 89
2
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sempre legato molto e
Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
TRACK 13
ADVANCED
Impromptu in F sharp S191 poco a poco accel. 42
1
appassionato
poco a poco cresc.
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2
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45
appass.
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tre corde
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più rinforz.
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molto appassionato
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63• Pianist 89
1 3 2
5
Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
TRACK 13
ADVANCED
Impromptu in F sharp S191 1
57
3
2
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2 1 4
Quasi cadenza
61
3 1
2 3
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2 1 2
1
2 1 2
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una corda
Tempo I 21234
3
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espr.
2
64
dolce
68
64• Pianist 89
1
Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
TRACK 13
ADVANCED
Impromptu in F sharp S191
72
un poco rit.
76
perdendo
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86
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65• Pianist 89
2
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1
2
3
4
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SUMMER COURSES
& WORKSHOPS 2016
SUMMER COURSES & WORKSHOPS 2016 Where in the world do you want to study this summer? At a music course nearby or perhaps further away in a distant valley or mountainside? You won’t be short of inspiration with our listings here UK Benslow Music Trust Various dates throughout 2016 Location:Hitchin, Herts Tel:01462 459446 www.benslowmusic.org Residential and short courses throughout the year for all levels. Piano courses include Piano SightReading (1-13 April), Speed Dating Piano Duets (6-8 June), Advanced Pianists course (24-27 Oct). Cadenza International Summer Music School 16-23 July Location:Purcell School, London Tel:0121 446 4836 www.cadenzasummerschool.org.uk For professionals, students (from age 11) and amateurs. Solo and chamber. Faculty includes William Fong, Fali Pavri, Julian Jacobson
and John waites. Cambridge Suzuki Young Musicians, Summer School 25-28/29 July Location:Cambridge Tel:01223 264408 www.suzukipianocambridge.org.uk Introductory workshop on the Piano Suzuki Approach for piano teachers and students. is short course is led by Stephen Power, European Suzuki Association teacher-trainer, and can also act as the start of a longer-term teacher-training programme leading to qualified Suzuki teacher status. Chetham’s International Festival and Summer School for Pianists 12-18 & 18-24 August Location:Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester Tel:01625 266899 www.pianosummerschool.com Popular courses for professionals, adult amateurs and young players of all abilities. Murray McLachlan, artistic director. Faculty includes Philip Fowke, Peter Donohoe, Margaret Fingerhut, Leslie Howard, Seta Tanyel, Martino Tirimo and Steven Osborne.
City Lit Various dates throughout 2016 Location:London Tel:020 7492 2630 www.citylit.ac.uk Ongoing courses for all grades, ages and abilities in genres including classical, jazz, Latin and popular, with course in topics including keyboard harmony. Summer, weekends, weekdays and weeknights. CSSM at Sherborne Summer School of Music 23-30 July Location:Sherborne, Dorset Tel:01286 673401 www.cssm.org.uk Ages 18 and over. For both professionals and amateurs wishing to improve their playing in a supportive environment. Includes courses such as Masterclass for Accompanists (and Accompanists’ Repertoire), Alexander Technique
and Play More Notes! Dartington International Summer School 30 July-27 August Location:Dartington, Devon Tel:01803 847080 www.dartington.org/summer-school e well-established Dartington Summer School offers one month of courses for all types of musicians and genres in a creative environment. is year sees masterclasses from Joanna MacGregor and Hamish Milne, a talk by Alfred Brendel on late Beethoven and Woody Allen, and lots more. Encore Music Projects Third International Summer School 18-30 July Location:Well, Somerset Tel:07886 355952 www.encoremusic.com Courses for students in the beautiful historic setting of Wells Cathedral School. One-to-one lessons, masterclasses and opportunities to perform. Piano tutors include Olena Shvetsova, Katya Apekisheva, John Byrne and Vadim Gladkov. Residential and non-residential options available.
Murray McLachlan gives a lesson at Chetham’s International Summer School
Fantasia Music School Summer Courses for Young Musicians 15-26 August Location:West Sussex Tel:01243 586 068
Piano faculty: James Lisney and Simon Nicholls.
www.fantasiamusicschool.co.uk For all levels – beginners to Grade 8 – and for ages 6-18. Four one-week courses for all instrumentalists, focusing on ensemble playing.
Location: Purcell Tel:020 8947 5538School, Herts
Higham Hall March to September Location:Lake District, Cumbria Tel:01768 776276 www.highamhall.com Various courses on an array of subjects. ose with a musical theme include Piano Workshop (March), Romantic Music (April), Jazz Composition (April), Chamber Music for Strings and Piano (June) and lots more. Course fee includes meals and accommodation. Hindhead Music Centre July & August Location:Hindhead, Surrey Tel:01428 604941 www.hindheadmusiccentre.co.uk Piano courses, especially for adult amateurs, throughout the year, set in a Victorian country house with six acres of private gardens surrounded by hundreds of acres of National Trust land. Summer piano course Grade 7 plus (25-28 July) with workshops, masterclasses and more.
67• Pianist 89
Holiday Music at the Purcell School 31 March-3 April; 18-21 August
www.holidaymusiccourses.com All ages from 15 to 90. Residential courses for pianists (solo and ensemble) and other musicians, making music in any combination. Workshops in ensemble playing, technique and interpretation. Piano tutors: Muriel Levin, Danielle Salamon, Robyn Koh. Meals, accommodation, tuition and use of swimming pool included. Early booking fee reduction. International Musicians Seminar (IMS) Prussia Cove 20 March-10 April Location:Cornwall Tel:020 7921 0064 www.i-m-s.org.uk Chamber music classes and workshops for advanced pianists, ages 16-30. Faculty includes omas Adès, Ferenc Rados and Rita Wagner. Jackdaws Music Education Trust Various dates throughout 2016 Location:Somerset Tel:01373 812383 www.jackdaws.org.uk All types of courses to cater to all
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SUMMER COURSES
& WORKSHOPS2016
levels and tastes. Courses include Sharpen up your Chopin, e Complete Pianist, e Pianist Within. Tutors include Elena Riu, Julian Jacobson, Mark Tanner, Philip Fowke and Margaret Fingerhut. Lake District Summer Music International Summer Academy 30 July-12 August Location:Cumbria Tel:01539 742620 www.ldsm.org.uk e focus is on conservatoire
Music Makers Various dates, July and August Locations:Fordingbridge, Salisbury and Wimbledon Tel:01425 654819 www.musicmakers.co.uk London Masterclasses at the Five-day courses for ages 5-18 Royal Northern College (residential option for ages 8-18). 3-10 July Nelly Ben-Or Piano Courses Location:Royal Northern College of Music 20-25 July Tel:020 8346 7088 Location:London www.londonmasterclasses.com Tel:01923 822268 Piano masterclasses with concert www.pianocourseswithalexander pianist and teacher Norma Fisher. technique.com
students and young professionals. Residential. Coaching with international artists and tutors. Piano faculty: Rena Kellaway, Emiko Tadenuma, Andrew Brownell.
Bright lights, big festival Both participants and listeners will find something special at New York City’s irrepressible and irreplaceable International Keyboard Institute and Festival, as founder Jerome Rose tells Inge Kjemtrup Talk to Jerome Rose, pianist and founder of the International Keyboard Institute and Festival, and he will give it to you straight: ‘e festival is in its 18th year, and we’re a staple of New York City musical life.’ is might sound like brash New Yorker attitude, but he’s probably right: critics and audiences seem to have taken this two-week long festival of all things piano to their hearts. e International Keyboard Institute and Festival (IKIF) is a ‘perennial favorite among piano aficionados’ said the New York Times, while the New Yorker pointed up the IKIF’s ‘tantalizingly, innovative and robust concert programs from a variety of international virtuosos, up-and-
a h rs e d e K iJm ©
comers, and heroes.’a large part of the appeal Indeed, bylocal all reports, of the IKIF is this annual coming together of established performers, the young-and-up-andcoming (several recent competition winners, such as George Li, who was a laureate in the Tchaikovsky, will take part this year), amateurs and general piano nuts. e variety of ages helps too, ranging from 12 to 80, says festival director Julie Kedersha. It’s Kedersha’s challenging job to keep tabs on the 125 participants and 20-30 teaching staff, who collectively take over the music department of New York City’s Hunter College every July. Her task must be made harder by what Rose calls the ‘open door policy’ of the IKIF. ‘You’re not assigned to any teacher, you can study with anyone,’ he explains. ‘You can walk in and out of a room if you want.’ ough presumably not in the middle of your lesson. Rose claims his programming comes from telling the guest artists, ‘play better than you did at Carnegie Hall and play whatever you want’, an approach that does lead to some diversity – and some playfulness. Rose persuaded concert pianist Dmitry Rachmanov to present a programme about Sergei Rachmaninov (no relation) and he put together an orchestral ensemble for the festival and dubbed it the Jäger Meisters Chamber Orchestra (‘Jäger’ means ‘hunter’ in German). I’ll drink to that. More seriously though, Rose is keen to fête the great keyboard masters of the past and present, including those whose careers have, perhaps, deserved more attention. is year the IKIF features the
Jerome Rose (left) hosting a talk with David Dubal
French Philippe 75French years and basking pianist in the light of a Entremont, long career of music and Chopin. Rose also has tributes to past keyboard masters such as Paderewski and Gilels. Entremont’s recital (23 July) will be heavy on Chopin and French works, including Ravel’s Sonatine and ‘Alborada del gracioso’ from Miroirs . Geoffrey Burleson, who is recording Saint-Saëns’s piano music for Naxos offers a diverse recital with music by that composer. Other confirmed recitals so far are from Stanislav Khristenko, Jeffrey Swann and Magdalena Baczewska, with Rose himself on opening-night spot. Rose has had a distinguished teaching and performing career (as a youngster in California he studied with Adolph Baller, mainly recalled now as Menuhin’s pianist). He was a young man when the idea of the festival came to him: ‘When I was 17 going on 18, I had a transformative experience going to Marlboro [the famous Vermont chamber music festival], played with Casals and Sascha Schneider, and I wanted to create a similar thing in the piano world.’ Rose, it seems, is in his element with IKIF. If the concerts and classes aren’t enough, Rose adds, there are also the ‘beautiful acoustics’ of the Hunter College concert hall, the many available practice rooms, the Yamahas and Bösendorfers on tap, and the interesting lectures. By the end of my phone call with Rose, I’m nearly ready to reserve my place on his big city, big passion piano fest. e New York International Keyboard Institute and Festival runs 17-31 July. To apply as a participant or to attend concerts and events, go to www.ikif.org. 68• Pianist 89
Individual sessions at the piano and daily sessions in Alexander Technique. New ways of learning to memorise and develop physical freedom at the piano. Grade 8 plus, all ages. For performers, students and teachers. (ere is also a course in January.) Teacher: Nelly Ben-Or. Oxenfoord International Summer School 23 July-21 July Location:Outskirts of Edinburgh Tel:07720 773910 www.oxenfoordinternational.co.uk If you want to master the art of accompanying, this is the course for you! Malcolm Martineau heads the team of tutors for the piano accompaniment classes. A rare opportunity for singers and accompanists to learn together at this all-Steinway summer school. Open to amateurs as well as professionals and students. Accommodation provided. Oxford Philharmonic International Piano Festival and Summer Academy 2016 30 July-7 August Location:Oxford Tel:01865 987 222 www.oxfordphil.com Faculty and performers includes Ferenc Rados, Nikolai Lugansky, Marc-André Hamelin, Alexandre araud, Menachem Pressler.
Grade 8 plus. Public concerts, lectures andmasterclasses, pedagogy classes. Concerts by professional pianists also held during the Piano Festival (see Festival listings). Penelope Roskell’s Advanced London Piano Courses 22-24 April; 28-30 October Location:London Tel:020 8802 6258 www.peneloperoskell.co.uk ree-day intensive courses that include technique, repertoire and yoga. Nine students maximum per course. Ideal for preparation for performances and exams. All courses are presented by Penelope Roskell, international pianist and Professor of Piano, Trinity College of Music. e courses are open to all advanced pianists (amateur, student or professional). Piano Duet Courses 19 March (Rotherham); 6-8 June (Benslow); 15-17 July (Wells); 31 Oct-2 Nov (Benslow) Tel:01223 240418 www.piano-duet.co.uk Short courses, weekend and one-day courses; include repertoire performance, discussion, individual
SUMMER COURSES
& WORKSHOPS 2016
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Chenyin Li giving a masterclass at PianoWeek
tuition, tutor recitals/concerts. Grade 5 plus and age 18 plus. Course tutors are piano duettists Anne Applin and Geoffrey Pratley. Individuals willing to pair up at the time of the course are welcome as well as are pre-formed duos. Piano Week 17-24 July & 24-31 July Moreton Hall School, Shropshire Tel:07775 207066 www.pianoweek.com Recitals, masterclasses, talks and discussions by acclaimed pianists and tutors. All levels, beginner to advanced. One-to-one lessons and performance opportunities. Faculty: Samantha Ward, Maciej Raginia, Vesselina Tchakarova, Niel du Preez,
Alexander Karpeyev, Warren Mailley-Smith and Yuki Negishi. Stephen Kovacevich will be giving a Celebrity Recital again this year.
Ulverston International Music Festival April, October, November Location:Lake District Tel:07840 293448 www.ulverstonmusicfestival.co.uk Piano Masterclass with Murray McLachlan and Kathryn Page (16-17 Apr), Piano and Strings Masterclass with the Primrose Piano Quartet (8-9 Oct), Piano Masterclass with Martin Roscoe and Anthony Hewitt (Nov, exact date TBC). See Festival listings for the
June festival.
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www.benslowmusic.org 01462 459446 •
[email protected] Benslow Music, Benslow Lane, Hitchin, Hertfordshire SG4 9RB A company limited by guarantee. Registered in England no 408404. Reg Charity no 313663
XIX International Summer Music Course 14-26 July Location:Carmarthenshire, Wales Tel: 01454 419504 www.lmfl.org.uk
Intensive course for young musicians preparing for exams, auditions and competitions with some of the Sherborne Summer School of world’s leading tutors. Music 31 July-7 August; 7-14 August CANADA Location:Sherborne, Dorset Tel:01342 893963 www.sherbornemusicsummerschool. Calgary Piano Camp co.uk Location:Calgary, Alberta Age 18 plus; students and good Tel:+1 (403) 271-0418 amateurs. Courses include Solo www.calgaryartssummer.com Piano, Piano Accompaniment, Ages 10 to adult. Explore the many Alexander Technique, Score facets of piano playing in a Learning and General Musicianship. supportive, fun atmosphere that Faculty: Andrew Ball for piano, promotes a positive attitude towards and Nigel Hitchson for piano practising and performing. Students accompaniment. are coached in prepared solo repertoire and new ensemble pieces. Summer School for Pianists Students attend classes in musical 13-19 August style, interpretation, memorisation, Location:University of technique and performance anxiety. Wolverhampton Tel:0117 9852 726 FRANCE www.pianosummerschool.co.uk 18 plus and Grade 5 plus. Mature students encouraged. Tutors: Karl Lot Music Lutchmayer, James Lisney, Christine 9-16 July; 16-23 July Stevenson, Graham Fitch, Ann Location:Prayssac, Lot Valley Martin-Davis. Lessons, masterclasses, www.pianolotmusic.com ▲ student and faculty concerts. Intensive piano study in a 69• Pianist 89
Chetham’s International Summer School & Festival for Pianists Artistic Director: Murray McLachlan Part One: 12–18 August 2016 Part Two: 18–24 August 2016 The Friendliest Piano Summer School in the World! Faculty includes: Dmitri Alexeev, Elena Ashkenazy, Peter Donohoe, Christopher Elton, Margaret Fingerhut, Philip Fowke, Peter Frankl, Leslie Howard, Leon McCawley, Murray McLachlan, Noriko Ogawa,
Artur Pizarro, Martino Tirimo, Vladimir Tropp, Nelita True, Catherine Vickers
With daily concerts, lectures, improvisation, jazz, composition, intensive one-to-one coaching, duets, organ and harpsichord.
For further information call +44 (0)1625 266899 or email
[email protected] www.pianosummerschool.com
SUMMER COURSES
& WORKSHOPS 2016
beautiful setting. About nine pianists per course. First week tutor: Simon Nichols; second week tutor: Martin Cousin. Music at Albignac 3-11, 13-21 & 23-31 August Location:Tarn, Southwest France www.albignacmusic.com is summer school, formerly known as Music at Ambialet, offers two streams: amateur and advanced. Intense eight-day programme of masterclasses, private tuition, concerts and lectures in a magnificent rural setting. Faculty: Harold Gray, Paul Roberts (Director), Stefan Bojsten and Charles Owen. Summer Piano School at La Balie 12-19 May, 17-14 July, 21-28 August Location:South West France www.labalie.com For intermediate to advanced pianists (Grade 8 and above). Takes part in beautiful stone farm buildings with wonderful accommodation. ree one-week piano courses led by concert pianist James Lisney. Class numbers limited to eight. Students encouraged to play in the evening concerts.
GERMANY Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival & Masterclasses 11 July-30 August Location:Lübeck Tel:+49 451 389 570 www.shmf.de Masterclasses take place at the Musikhochschule Lübeck, with each course concluding with concerts given by the participants. For advanced students and young professionals. Two piano masterclass teachers this year: Andrzej Jasinski (23-27 July) and Anatol Ugorski (8-13 August).
) 1 7 e g a p , h g r u b e ld (A isc u M h g r u b e ld /A ly l o J tt a M ©
ITALY LMFL Summer Course 30 July-13 August Location:Florence www.lmfl.org.uk Specialist course given by wellknown faculty for advanced students (17+) or professionals. Music Holiday Italy February through to October Location:Appenine mountains www.musicholidayitaly.com Nine one-week courses throughout the year. Masterclasses by Gil Jetley, Murray McLachlan, Martin Roscoe. Maximum eight per course, for intermediate/advanced amateurs (around Grade 8, but no fixed standard). Performance opportunities.
Studying a score at Kinhaven Piano Workshop in Vermont
For adults with a good playing level. Audition required. Performance opportunities. Faculty includes Paul Epstein, Rui Shi, Donna Gill.
Aspen Music Festival and School 30 June-21 August JERSEY Location:Colorado Tel:+1 (970) 925-3254 Jersey International Festival www.aspenmusicfestival.com for Amateur Pianists Masterclasses, workshops, private 29 May-5 June instruction, and performance Location:Jersey Academy of Music opportunities for advanced students www.normandypianocourses.com and young musicians. Residential course for serious Golandsky Institute Summer amateur pianists, aged 18 plus. Symposium Introduction to Alfred Cortot method; raising level of playing and 9-17 July gaining freedom at the piano. Ample Location:Princeton University, practice facilities are available, with New Jersey one piano per person. Performance Tel:+1 (877) 343-3434 possibilities. Masterclasses from www.golandskyinstitute.org
Frédéric Aguessy.
Week-long immersiontoinpiano the playing Taubman Approach which includes private lessons, supervised practice times, techniques clinics, lectures, masterclasses and ArtsAhimsa Music Festival at evening concerts as part of its own Belvoir Terrace International Piano Festival. 23-30 August Location:Lenox, Massachusetts International Keyboard Institute and Festival www.artsahimsa.org www.belvoirterrace.com 17-31 July Set at a beautiful 19th-century estate, Location:Hunter College, ArtsAhimsa promotes non-violence New York City, New York throughout the arts. Chamber music Tel:+1 (212) 665 2446 classes for pianists and string players. www.ikif.org Intermediate to professional or talented amateur (audition required). Scholarships available. Concerts, masterclasses and lectures. Faculty and performers include David Dubal, Philippe Entremont, Dmitry Rachmanov, Alexander Kobrin, George Li. See feature on page 68 and festival listing on page 76.
USA
An engaged audience of participants at La Balie Summer School
International Music Camp Piano Program 10-16 July Location:Near Dunseith, North Dakota Tel:+1 (701) 838-8472 (Sep-May); +1 (701) 263-4211 (June-July) www.internationalmusiccamp.com 70• Pianist 89
Ages 10 to adult, with at least two years’ piano experience. Daily classes in technique, literature, musicianship, performance, keyboard harmony, theory and more. Kinhaven Adult Piano Workshop 31 May-5 June Location:Kinhaven, Vermont Tel:+1 (973) 378-5854 www.kinhaven.org Study four-hand and solo repertoire workshop in a non-competitive, supportive environment. Also Alexander Technique. Concert pianist and teacher Leander Bien is director of the course. Rocky Ridge Music Center End of May to end August Location:Estes Park, Colorado Tel:+1 (970) 586-4031
www.rockyridge.org Two adult piano seminars (28 May1 June; 1-5 June) in the inspiring setting of the Rocky Mountains. Faculty includes SoYoung Lee, Evelyn Chen, Sergio Gallo, Larry Graham. Summer Trios 5-12 June, 26 June-3 July, 1-5 June (Concerto Week) Location:Pennsylvania Tel:+1 (212) 222-1289 www.summertrios.org Providing the opportunity for amateur musicians to play chamber music together. Piano faculty includes Lily Friedman, Denise Kahn, Efi Hackmay. Includes Concerto Week, where attendees play through their concertos.
WEBSITES Hot Courses www.hotcourses.com Searchable databases of UK courses available throughout the year. Music Workshop Guide www.acmp.net/workshops Searchable database of worldwide chamber music courses.
MUSIC FESTIVALS 2016
MUSIC FESTIVALS2016 Which festival will you attend this year? From the bold and brash to the small but innovative, from the big names everywhere to talented lesser knowns, we have a festival that you’ll like UK Aldeburgh Festival 10-26 June Location:Suffolk Tel:01728 6871100 www.aldeburgh.co.uk e Snape Maltings Concert Hall and ancient Suffolk churches are the main venues for the festival founded by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears. Birdsong is a theme this year, with a an entire day devoted to Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux. Look also for intriguing programmes from Artistic Director Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Emanuel Ax, and several events on Bartók’s Mikrokosmos. Bath International Music Festival 20-29 May Location:Bath Tel:01225 463362 www.bathmusicfest.org.uk e beautiful Georgian city hosts a wide-ranging festival of musical styles. Richard Goode gives an
all-Schubert concert; writer and pianist Jay Rayner is also appearing. Full listings available in late March. Bath Mozartfest 11-19 November Location:Bath Tel:01225 429750 www.bathmozartfest.org.uk A popular festival set in venues in the beautiful and historic city. Details announced in the summer. BBC Proms 15 July-10 September Location:London Tel:0845 401 5040 www.bbc.co.uk/proms is amazing festival, centred at the Royal Albert Hall, features national and international soloists, ensembles and orchestras. Full programme details announced in April. Brighton Festival 7-29 May Location:Brighton Tel:01273 709 709 www.brightonfestival.org A lecture from Alfred Brendel, Leif Ove Andsnes plays Mozart, and lots of surprises at the annual festival of arts and music in this city by the sea.
Bristol International Piano Duo Festival 27-30 October Location:Bristol Tel:0845 4024001 www.pianoduofest.org.uk A tasty weekend of piano duos, founded by the well-known duo of Joseph Tong and Wake Hasegawa. Guest artists revealed so far are Katia and Marielle Labèque, and Duo Tal and Groethuysen (a transcription of Mendelssohn’s Octet is planned). Full details online in late spring. Cambridge Summer Music Festival 15-30 July Location:Cambridge Tel:01223 767125 www.cambridgesummermusic.com Full details about the programme on the website in early spring. Cheltenham Music Festival 1-17 July Location:Cheltenham Tel:0844 880 8094 www.cheltenhamfestivals.com
Edinburgh International Festival 5-29 August Location:Edinburgh Tel:0131 473 2000 www.eif.co.uk e Edinburgh International Festival is the distinguished older sibling of the capricious Fringe, but you can easily attend both in one visit. Full details announced in late April.
Tel:01539 742 621
www.ldsm.org.uk is year’s highlights include recitals from Andrew Brownell and from the Andrew Dunlop and Danny Driver duo, plus Sasha Grynyuk playing the srcinal Shostakovich piano score for the 1929 silent film New Babylon.
English Music Festival
Midsummer Music 24-26 June Location:Latimer, Bucks Tel:01494 783643
Satie’s 150th birthday is celebrated nine Keyboard Inventions, in whichin 20 composers commune with the eccentric French composer’s spirit using ‘avatars, wearable technology, early synthesizers, animation, an inside-out piano/pendulum, radiophonic toy pianos, narration and new scores for old films.’
27-30 May Dorchester-on-ames Location: www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk Set in splendid backdrops such as Dorchester Abbey and Radley College, the festival celebrates the George Butterworth centenary this year and includes much more of all things English.
www.midsummermusic.org.uk Pianist Paul Lewis and his cellist wife, Bjørg Lewis, are joint artistic directors of this small but potent chamber music festival based at St Mary Magdalene in Latimer. Lewis shares the keyboard spotlight this year with Aleksandar Madzar; guests include tenor Mark Padmore.
City of London Festival TBC Location:London Tel:0845 120 7502 www.colf.org Churches and historic buildings in the City of London are the setting for this popular festival. As we went to press, details of the dates and artists had not yet been confirmed, so look online for updates.
Hebden Bridge Piano Festival 22-24 April Location:Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire www.hebdenbridgepianofestival.com Concerts and masterclasses from the likes of Benjamin Frith, Leeds Competition winner Anna Tsybuleva and jazzer Jason Rebello.
Music at Paxton 15-24 July Location:Paxton, Scottish Borders Tel:0181 473 2000 www.musicatpaxton.co.uk Paxton House, a historic estate on the Scottish borders, provides a gorgeous setting for this intimate but engaging festival. Programme details available in early spring.
East Neuk Festival
22 June-3 July Location:East Neuk Tel:0131 473 2000 www.eastneukfestival.com e theme of Romantic composers and remembrance shapes this year’s programming. Look for Christian Zacharias playing Schumann and a recital from the young German pianist Joseph Moog.
King’s Lynn Festival 17-30 July Location:King’s Lynn Tel:01553 764864 www.kingslynnfestival.org.uk Classical, chorale and chamber music; this year’s offerings include a recital by Angela Hewitt of Bach, Scarlatti and Beethoven. Lake District Summer Music International Festival 30 July-12 August Location:Lake District
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Newbury Spring Festival 7-21 May Location:Newbury, Berks Tel:0845 5218 218 www.newburyspringfestival.org.uk Music by Ravel and other French composers is the theme this year for the Sheepdrove Piano Competition for young pianists that takes place concurrently with this festival, which also features many recitals. See story ▲ on page 72.
MUSIC FESTIVALS2016
Newbury Spring Festival Newbury Spring Festival artistic director Mark Eynon tellsErica Worth why a competition for young pianists is integral to his festival What is unique about Newbury Spring Festival, which runs this year from 7-21 May? All festivals are unique and are really determined by where they take place. Newbury Festival has not only the town of Newbury, but also the Corn Exchange – a well-equipped theatre with a Steinway Model D piano that we use every day throughout the festival. e wonderful Tudor-style St Nicolas Church Hall, which we use as the concert hall, has acoustics that really work. Every conductor and international orchestra has loved it. is year we have the City of Birmingham and Moscow State symphony orchestras as well as the Royal Philharmonic with Pinchas Zukerman as soloist and conductor.
Norfolk and Norwich Festival 13-29 May Location:Norfolk Tel:01603 766 400 www.nnfestival.org.uk Classical and jazz at this popular festival, including a rectial from pianist Hao Zi Yoh. Oxford Piano Festival and Summer Academy 26 July-3 August Location:Oxford Tel:01865 987 222 www.oxfordphil.com/piano Formerly the Oxford Philhomusica Festival, this festival is a deep well of exciting concerts and masterclasses with keyboard titans such as Marc-André Hamelin, Nikolai Lugansky, Alexandre araud, Ivo Pogorelich, Menahem Pressler and Ferenc Rados.
Does the piano play an important role in the Newbury Spring Festival? It always has done, while I’ve been director. [e festival is in its 38th year, and Eynon has been artistic director for the past 18.] Every year we have a major piano recital in the Corn Exchange. is year we have Benjamin Grosvenor, who is coming back for the third time, with a mini residency. Previously we had Peter Donohoe, Stephen Hough, Mikhail Pletnev, Emanual Ex, Yevgeny Sudbin – some amazingly high-profile international pianists.
Out of the 16 entrants in the first round, four go through to the final round. e final takes place as part of the festival. e audience can vote for their favourite pianist, which, as you might imagine, makes it a very popular event.
Tell me about the Sheepdrove Piano Competition. Alongside the international stars that appear, we have a policy of supporting young musicians and young
Why just four finalists? We want the opportunity for the audience to hear them properly. Each finalist will perform for 25
Ribble Valley International Piano Week 13-16 July Location:Ribble Valley, Lancs
pianists in particular. is competition, now in its eighth year, is an illustration of this.
minutes. I also have to fit this competition into a busy festival schedule!
Tel: 01229 861325 www.rvipw.org.uk
How did the competition come about? It all began when I saw the wonderful venue that Peter and Juliet Kindersley of the Sheepdrove Trust had created (Peter was co-founder of the publishing company Dorling Kindersley) at their Sheepdrove Organic Farm. ey created and built a conference centre there run on entirely organic lines. is centre, just outside Newbury, is stunning. It has a beautiful natural oak hall, which has the most perfect acoustic for piano. ere are many rehearsal rooms and a wonderful restaurant with organic food. I thought, ‘this would be fantastic for a setting for a piano competition’. I also wanted to create a competition where the competitors did not lose out financially. I persuaded the Kindersleys to waive all entrance fees and to accommodate and give free food to all of the participants.
What music do they have to play? Each year there is an emphasis on a composer, and it’s usually planned around an anniversary. We’ve had Chopin, Liszt, Debussy and Schumann. is year we had thought of Satie (because of his anniversary) but we felt this was too limited. So we came up with Ravel and any other 20th-century French music. Each entrant’s programme has to contain 50 per cent of that repertoire. Each entrant is required to have a full one hour’s recital programme prepared. e reason it works so well is that the heads of keyboard talk in advance about who the composer will be, and who would be the best pupils to put forward for this type of repertoire.
Who is eligible to enter the competition? Students up to the age of 26, from the eight major UK conservatories; that’s the Royal Scottish, Royal Northern, Birmingham, Cardiff, the four London colleges (Trinity, Guildhall, Royal College, Royal Academy). e head of keyboard at each conservatory pre-selects two students, which means there are 16 entrants in total. How many stages are there? e prelims take place in the colleges beforehand.
And the prize? e winner gets £2,000 and they also get a further £500 fee to perform the following day in the Corn Exchange. We’ve had some amazing past winners including Ju Liu, Dinara Klinton and Robertas Lozinskis. at’s not surprising, because the UK attracts so many talented students to its schools from all over the world. Some winners have gone on to play with top orchestras. ese youngsters need the opportunity. Let’s give them the chance! Go to www.newburyspringfestival.org.uk for further information on Newbury Spring Festival and the Sheepdrove Piano Competition. Listings are on page 71. 72• Pianist 89
Proms at St Jude’s Music & Literary Festival 25 June-3 July Location:London Tel:020 3322 8123 www.promsatstjudes.org.uk e lively summer festival hosts recitals from Martin Roscoe, Benjamin Grosvenor and Beau Pluto.
e line-up at Lancashire’s alwaysintriguing piano festival includes Martin Roscoe, Steven Osborne and Peter Donohoe. Ryedale Festival 15-31 July Location:Ryedale, North Yorkshire Tel:01751 475777 www.ryedalefestival.com Well-loved regional festival that attracts international artists. Full details available in April, with a warm-up weekend of concerts taking place on 1-3 April that features Pianist contributor Lucy Parham’s Rêverie programme. Spitalfields Festival 2-26 June Location:London Tel:020 7377 1362 www.spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk Variety is the spice of life at this festival; don’t miss the Schubert Ensemble playing the Schumann and Louise Farrenc piano quintets. Swaledale Festival 28 May-11 June Location:Yorkshire Dales
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www.swaledale-festival.org.uk is year’s festival serves up recitals from Benjamin Grosvenor and Richard Uttley. Thaxted Festival 24 June-17 July Location:axted, East Anglia Tel:01371 831 421 www.thaxtedfestival.org.uk Composer Gustav Holst organised the first festival, centred on the East Anglian town of axted and its 600-year-old church, taking place on three consecutive weekends. Details available in spring.
The Two Moors Festival 22-29 October Location:Devon Tel:01643 831006 www.thetwomoorsfestival.com ere’s always much to like in terms of both concerts and the convivial atmosphere at this Devon festival, which launched in 2001. Full programme details available in June.
Hike around the lovely Lake District when you aren’t attending concerts by festival founder and pianist Anthony Hewitt and friends.
Wales International Piano Festival 29 April-2 May Location:Caernarfon Tel:01286 685230 www.pianofestival.co.uk Ulverston International Music ‘Satie on the Sidewalk’, a concert Festival of new piano works by Welsh 8-19 June composers, Peter Donohoe in recital, Location:Lake District a piano competition and more, all in Tel:01229 587140 the beautiful Carcassone-like royal www.ulverstonmusicfestival.co.uk town overlooking the Menai Strait.
En Blanc et Noir Amanda Holloway visits an enterpris ing keyboard festival set in a picturesque French village with open air performances It must be a pianist’s dream holiday: staying in one of France’s most beautiful villages and enjoying free recitals from morning to midnight in the shade of the medieval timbered marketplace. Named after the Debussy piece, the En Blanc et Noir (EBEN) festival takes place in the Languedoc village of Lagrasse, with its historic abbey, rich winegrowing landscape and community of artists. An idyllic threeday break in July 2015 introduced me to new repertoire (Scriabin sonatas, anyone?) and some remarkable young pianists whose careers I will follow with interest – the Italian Simone Tavoni, François Moschetta from France and British-based duo James Kreiling and Janneke Brits,
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to EBEN name just a few. is not a showcase for established stars but a chance to see some of the most interesting, and in some cases breathtakingly talented young pianists coming out of the world’s conservatoires. ‘Europe has produced scores of gifted pianists eager to perform after many years of hard slog,’ says EBEN artistic director Robert Turnbull. ‘We want to help these dedicated young musicians achieve some of their musical goals in what can be a solitary and frustrating profession.’ Turnbull, a journalist and amateur pianist himself (he’s a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music), has been building up a regular roster of accomplished pianists, from the Catalan Néstor Bayona to American maverick Bobby Mitchell, who gave a electrifying performance of Frederic Rzewski’s Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues. James Kreiling and Janneke Brits created an orchestra on one keyboard, with arrangements of Holst’s e Planets Suite and Debussy’s La mer ending the 2015 festival with a flourish. I can confirm that there’s nothing like listening to e Planets as you lie back and gaze at real-life stars twinkling above you. Open-air festivals are always at the mercy of the elements, and although southern French summers are usually warm and dry, the winds can be fierce and unpredictable. Performers are protected by a roof held up by medieval carved beams – but that doesn’t stop gusts whipping the score from the piano or at least flapping the pages. ‘We’ve had to develop the technique of “extreme page turning”,’ says Turnbull. ‘e turner holds down the score with his forearm and tries to
AUSTRIA Grafenegg 19 August-11 September Location:Grafenegg Castle Tel:+43 (0)2735 5500 www.grafenegg.com Founded by pianist Rudolph Buchbinder, this festival boasts the magical setting of Grafenegg castle. Buchbinder himself plays in several concerts this year, while the Vienna Philharmonic pays a visit. Schubertiade Schwarzenberg Hohenems 4-22 May; 12-17 July; 3-7 September; 4-11 October (Hohenems); 18-26 June; 23-31 August (Schwarzenberg) Location:Schwarzenberg, Hohenems Tel:+43 (0)5576 72091 www.schubertiade.at One festival, two German towns, and a host of stellar pianists in both places such as Nicholas Angelich, David Fray, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Paul Lewis and András Schiff.
FRANCE En Blanc et Noir 2-7 July Location:Lagrasse Tel:+33 4 6843 1240
turn a page without obscuring the pianist’s view.’ Last year Néstor Bayona arrived with his iPad and a pedaloperated, wireless page-turner. In the first couple of years, Turnbull lent his own piano for performances, but last year he hired a Steinway Model B that had to be left in the market square for the duration of the festival. ‘One of the team offered to sleep by the piano every night, but we felt it really wasn’t necessary,’ he says. e pleasure of hearing music in the open air is enhanced by beautiful surroundings and a relaxed atmosphere. But what about the acoustic in an outdoor space? Turnbull thinks it’s generally good, though adds, ‘we do encourage pianists to play relatively powerful pieces – big Romantic or 20th-century repertoire.’ e 2016 festival has expanded to six days, with many returning artists and some new discoveries. e established Serbian pianist Ivan Ilić gives a special performance of Morton Feldman’s workFor Bunita Marcus (which features on his latest Feldman CD) and Turnbull has introduced a new feature – Piano à Volonté – ‘when we invite amateur musicians of all ages, including young piano students of the local Narbonne Conservatoire, to come and play a prepared piece on the Steinway B.’ Any reader tempted by a public performance in a sun-filled French marketplace, take note!
En Blanc et Noir runs 2-7 July. Further information at www.enblancetnoir.com. See listings at right. 74• Pianist 89
www.enblancetnoir.com e medieval village of Lagrasse, voted one of the most beautiful villages in France, hosts this new piano festival. Ivan Illic and British piano duo of James Kreiling and Janneke Brits are among the youthful performers. See article, left. Orpheus & Bacchus Piano Festival 17-25 September Location:Near Bordeaux Tel:+49 (0)30 2759 4175 www.orpheusandbacchus.com Enjoy a residential holiday at the piano-focused offshoot of this two-year-old festival. Offerings include concerts by Benjamin Frith and by the Gould Piano Trio. Roque D’Antheron 22 July-18 August Location:Aix en Provence Tel:+33 (0)4 42 50 51 15 www.festival-piano.com One of world’s powerhouse piano festivals. If you’re looking for a place to gain encyclopaedic knowledge of today’s pianists, Roque and the Klavier Festival Ruhr are your best bets. Full programme available online in late spring.
MUSIC FESTIVALS2016
PROKOFIEV SYMPHONIES NOS 4, 6 & 7 PIANO CONCERTOS NOS 4 & 5
ALEXEI VOLODIN SERGEI BABAYAN
GERMANY Klavier Festival Ruhr 15 April-10 July Location:Cities in the Ruhr Valley Tel:+49 (0)1806 500 803 www.klavierfestival.de Rivalled only by Roque D’Antheron in size and scope, this amazing piano festival presents recitals and concerts in cities throughout Germany’s industrial heartland. Major names abound, this year including Lang Lang, Arcadi Volodos, Grigory Sokolov, Alice Sara Ott, Igor Levit, Daniil Trifonov, Marc-André Hamelin and Krystian Zimerman.
Plus Martha(that Argerich andbe Daniel Barenboim one will popular, you can be sure). Mozart@Augsburg 3-17 September Location:Augsburg Tel:+49 (0)821 777 3410 www.mozartaugsburg.com Set in the charming Bavarian city of Augsburg, this festival boasts creative programming such as festival director Sebastian Knauer in a concert with Klaus Maria Brandauer. Rarities of Piano Music 19-27 August Location:Husum Tel:+49 (0)4841 89 73 130 www.piano-festival-husum.de An unmissable festival for the piano cognoscenti in which rare and (often unjustly) neglected piano repertoire takes pride of place, with some top-flight pianism to boot. Book early, it’s very popular! Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival 2 July-28 August Location:Schleswig-Holstein Tel:+49 (0)431 23 70 70 www.shmf.de
is festival takes place in different cities in this German region. Highlights include recitals by Grigory Sokolov and Ivo Pogorelich, plus András Schiff plays and talks about Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Spannungen 20-26 June Location:Heimbach www.spannungen.de is issue’s cover artist, Lars Vogt, directs an innovative festival located at a former power station. Expect electric performances from Vogt and colleagues. Details online in spring.
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IRELAND Dublin International Piano Festival & Summer Academy 23-31 July Location:Ireland Tel:+353 1 5555000 www.pianofestival.ie e fourth year of this academy and festival, founded by pianists Archie Chen and Rhona Gouldson, sees young stars tutored by the pros, who also give recitals. Full programme details online now; Frederic Rzewski is a special guest artist. New Ross Piano Festival 22-25 September Location:Ireland Tel:+353 (0)51 421255 www.newrosspianofestival.com With Finghin Collins as its artistic director, this is a short but potent festival of pianism.
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‘Never have I seen so many fast and furious hand-crossings, so many dizzying flights from top to bottom of the keyboard, all performed flawlessly (Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 5)…’ The Telegraph ‘Alexei Volodin made Piano Concerto No 4 sound effortless.’ Financial Times ‘Gergiev’s evident understanding of the structural and emotional intent of Symphony No 7 was communicated to the orchestra...’ MusicalCriticsm Available on 2SACD and download January 2016
ITALY Spoleto Festival 24 June-10 July Location:Spoleto, Italy Tel:+39 0743 77 64 44 www.festivaldispoleto.com
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Founded by composer Gian Carlo Menotti, this ‘Festival of Two Worlds’ continues in Spoleto, near Rome, and Charleston, South Carolina in the USA. Full details online in the spring. Trasimeno Music Festival
30 June-6 July Location:Near Lake Trasimeno www.trasimenomusicfestival.com Angela Hewitt plays the first concertos of Brahms and Shostakovich, and gives a duo recital with Jeffrey Tate at her festival in an Italian hillside town.
NORWAY
festival, with piano the star this year. Marc-André Hamelein and Nelson Freire are among the performers. Rosendal Festival
11-14 August Location:Rosendal Tel:+ 47 (0)53 48 29 99 www.rosendalfestival.com New chamber music festival directed by Leif Ove Andsnes set at a beautiful manor house – this year’s theme is the year 1828.
SWITZERLAND Verbier Festival
Lucerne Festival
12 August-11 September (Summer); 19-27 November (Piano Festival) Bergen International Festival Location:Lucerne 25 May-8 June Tel:+41 (0)41 226 44 80 www.lucernefestival.ch Location:Bergen Tel:+ 47 (0)55 21 06 30 Top international stars play in the www.fib.no Jean Nouvel-designed concert hall on A trend-setting annual multiLake Lucerne. Summer highlights disciplinary arts, theatre and music include Martha Argerich with the festival. Concerts and recitals from West-Eastern Divan Orchestra international stars such as András conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Schiff, Ihle Hadland, Leif Ove Andsnes, Mahan Esfahani, Louis Menuhin Gstaad Festival Lortie and more. 14 July-35 September Location:Gstaad International Music Festival Tel:+41 (0)33 748 83 38 Stavanger www.menuhinfestivalgstaad.ch 16-21 August In the centenary year of Yehudi Location:Stavanger Menuhin’s birth, the theme of ‘music www.icmf.no and family’ seems fitting: family
22 July-7 August Location:Verbier Tel:+41 (0)848 771 882 www.verbierfestival.com Concerts, masterclasses and more at this Swiss mountain festival, with major names performing including Daniil Trifonov, Yuja Wang, Grigory Sokolov and Alsseio Bax.
TURKEY Istanbul Music Festival
1-24 June Location:Istanbul Tel:+90 212 334 07 00
www.iksv.org/en Launched in 1973, the Istanbul Music Festival features Turkish musicians alongside musicians from
Top chamber music founded by clarinettist Martinfestival Fröst and pianist Christian Ihle Hadlandt. Details available in May.
performers (the Bach Labèques) theİdil globe – this composers (the family,and thefamily around including Biret and year Murray Schumanns and Brahms) . Perahia. is year’s theme is ‘If Music be the food of love, play on.’
Lofoten Festival
Project Martha Argerich Lugano
11-17 July
TBC June
Location:Lofoten Tel:+ 47 (0)9139 8640
Location:Lugano Tel:+41 (0)58 866 82 40
www.lofotenfestival.com Founded by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, this festival set on the Lofoten islands alternates years between being a piano and a chamber music
www.luganofestival.ch Martha Argerich’s festival with her friends, who have in the past included Nicholas Angelich, Lars Vogt and Gabriela Montero.
USA Aspen Music Festival
30 June-21 August Location:Aspen, Colorado Tel:+1 (970) 925-9042 www.aspenmusicfestival.com Energetic music and the fresh air of the Colorado Mountains explain why this festival has endured. is year’s keyboard soloists include Jonathan Biss, Marc-André Hamelin, Jeremy Denk and Daniil Trifonov. International Keyboard Institute and Festival
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Marlboro Music Festival
16 July-14 August Location:Marlboro, Vermont Tel:+1 (215) 569-4690 www.marlboromusic.org Artistic directors Mitsuko Uchida and Richard Goode maintain the Marlboro mystique in which established stars and up-and-coming youngsters work together for three weeks before performing and audiences only find out what’s on offer a week before each concert. Miami International Piano Festival
Year-round Location:Miami, Florida Tel:+1 (305) 935-5115
www.miamipianofest.com is year-long festival prides itself in spotting keyboard stars of the future. Music@Menlo
15 July-6 August Location:Menlo Park, California Tel:+1 (650) 330-2030 www.musicatmenlo.org Well-chosen programming, interesting lectures and dynamic performers explain this San Francisco Bay Area festival’s huge success. Full details in early spring. Spoleto Festival USA
27 May-12 June Location:Charleston, SC Tel:+1 (843) 579-3100 www.spoletousa.org Founded by composer Gian Carlo Menotti, this ‘Festival of Two Worlds’ continues in Charleston, South Carolina and Spoleto, Italy.
17-31 July
Tanglewood Festival
Location:New York City Tel:+1 (212) 665-2446
28 June-30 August Location:Lenox, Massachusetts Tel:+1 (888) 266-1200 www.bso.org Top keyboard names from around the world join the Boston Symphony at their country summer home in Lenox. is year’s roster includes Jonathan Biss, Daniil Trifonov, Yefim Bronfman and Nelson Freire.
www.ikif.org Piano-intensive concerts, recitals, lectures and masterclasses in this annual festival and course organised by American pianist Jerome Rose. Philippe Entremont, George Li and Jeffrey Swann are among the performers. See article, page 68. 76• Pianist 89
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EDUCATION
T
he first instalment of this series, presented in the last issue, focused on major and minor scales, and considered how the construction of scales relates to keys. We saw that the major scale can be divided into two, with the upper and lower tetrachords having a direct relationship to keys which are closely related. Looking at the various types of minor scale we discovered how the sixth and seventh degrees of the scale are often altered from the natural minor, depending on the musical context – harmonic or melodic. So now it’s time to delve into the world of other commonly used scales. If you travel to Asia, you will be surrounded by music derived from the pentatonic scale, especially if you hear the traditional music of countries such as China and Japan, where this scale is used all the time. But you can also hear ‘pentatonicism’ in all kinds of other music such as folk, rock and jazz, as well as in Western classical music from the 18th century onwards. A pentatonic scale has five notes within each octave. ere are two types of pentatonic scale – major and minor – which relate to each other, just like the major and relative minor scales. Here on is the C major scale in the treble clef, ending C (six notes pentatonic in all, as we’re going to include the starting C twice).and In relation to the C major scale, the two semitone-forming degrees – the fourth and the seventh – are missing, leaving minor third gaps. (We’ll be looking at intervals in the next issue.) It is this lack of semitones that gives the scale its special character: 1
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Nigel Scaife began his musical life as a chorister at Exeter Cathedral. He graduated from the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Yonty Solomon, receiving a Master’s in Performance Studies. He was awarded a doctorate from Oxford University and has subsequently had wide experience as a teacher, performer and writer on music. As ABRSM’s Syllabus Director he is responsible for the musical and educational content of all the Board’s exams.
was listed by UNESCO as one of the world’s top ten folk songs. Love Song of Kangding was even taken to outer space when NASA selected it as representative of the world’s most recorded songs during a satellite launch in theZuying 1990s. on YouYouTube, can hear and Langthere Langare play it with Placido Domingo and Song many other recorded arrangements. Because of its calming effect, the pentatonic scale is often used in music therapy. It is a good scale to use for improvisation as it is impossible to make a pentatonic tune sound dissonant with any surrounding chords, provided they are also based on the pentatonic scale. Another commonly used scale is the blues scale, which in a sense is a variant of the minor pentatonic, as it just adds one extra note– the sharpened fourth: Blues scale
minor 3rd
Here is the same scale paired with its relative minor – the A minor pentatonic scale. C Major pentatonic
A mi nor p entato nic
e minor pentatonic scale uses the same notes but starts a minor third lower – so the gaps come in different places in relation to the starting note, A. e black notes of the keyboard are the most straightfor ward way for pianists to form major and minor pentatonic scales. e major pentatonic scale is often found in folk music, especially that from America, Scotland, Ireland and China. A classic example is the Scottish tune Auld Lang Syne. e major pentatonic scale is also common in spirituals, such as Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. e minor pentatonic is often used in rock music, especially in guitar solos, as its pattern fits easily under guitarists’ fingers. An example of an Asian melody that uses the minor pentatonic is the beautifully lyrical Love Song of Kangding . One of the most famous of all Chinese folk melodies, it
Because it has six pitches, the blues scale is called a hexatonic scale. Although there are different types of blues scale, the one given above is the standard version which many jazz educators use with their beginner students. is is because it can be used as a single scale which works for the whole duration of a 12-bar blues. is can be seen if we take the chords used in a basic C blues – C 7, F7 and G7 – and look at how their notes relate to the scale: C
F
G
Unsurprisingly, the blues scale provides a useful starting point for exploration of the language of the blues, especially as it contains ‘blue notes’. ese are the expressive notes which are often not played at the precise pitch but instead are bent, on a guitar string for example, for expressive effect. In the C blues scale the notes E and F can both be considered as blue notes which can slide to the notes a semitone above.
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Modes
Music written before what is sometimes called the ‘common practice period’ (c.1600-1900) used a different set of scales to those we are familiar with today – called modes. ese scales formed the basis of the monophonic chants sung in the services of the early Christian church, the polyphonic music of the Renaissance, and folk music throughout Europe and beyond. Many classical composers in later times have drawn inspiration from modal music and the use of modes is also a common feature of contemporary jazz, folk and popular music. We saw in the last issue that if the major scale is started on the submediant (sixth) degree of the scale, then a natural minor scale is created. In C major, this A-A natural minor scale (see below) is also known as the Aeolian mode. While major and minor tonalities can be referred to generally as ‘modes’, the term ‘mode’ is more commonly used to describe one of the modal scales that have been used since medieval times. ese scales are most readily understood as a set of scales that can be formed by playing the white notes from different starting points. It is traditional to start with the major scale and then to find the modes within in by starting a new scale on each successive note. So in this example the C major scale (presented here as the Ionian mode) can be thought of as the ‘parent scale’ from which the other six modes are extracted:
Whole tone scales
and
As there are no perfect fourths or fifths in this scale it is not possible to create common chords from its pitches. It is this lack of tonality that gives the scale its mysterious and dream-like quality. Among composers who have used the whole-tone scale are Glinka, Liszt and Vaughan Williams. However, the composer most associated with its use is undoubtedly Debussy. His wonderfully evocative Prélude Voiles (‘Veils’ or ‘Sails’), composed in 1909, is a celebrated example. Here is the opening: Modéré
= 88
White notes of the keyboard only: più
très doux
Ionian
Dorian
Phrygian
expressif Lydian
Mixolydian
Aeolian
Locrian
e Ionian, Lydian and Mixolydian modes are known as ‘major modes’ because their tonic triads are major and they have a major quality. e Dorian, Phrygian and Aeolian modes are ‘minor modes’ because their tonic triads are minor and they have a minor quality. e odd one out is the Locrian mode , which is known as a ‘diminished mode’. Due to its awkward structure mode iscentury used less the others. By the this mid-17th the often modalthan system had generally been replaced by the tonal system as we know it today, which is based around just two modes: Ionian (major) and Aeolian (minor). With the introduction of sharps and flats these scales became transposable and so led to our standard diatonic system based on minor and major tonalities. e most commonly heard modes are the minor-sounding Dorian, used in Scarborough Fair (featured in Pianist No 87 in an arrangement by Derry Bertenshaw) and What shall we do with the drunken sailor?, and the majorsounding Mixolydian, used in the fiddle tune Old Joe Clarke and the folk song She moved through the fair. e latter was recorded by Fairport Convention in 1968 and has been recorded by dozens of artists since, including Sinéad O’Connor, a version used in the soundtrack of the film Michael Collins. While it is useful to understa nd the modes theoretically in relation to C major, this approach is limited in terms of understanding the different colours and intervallic characters of each scale. To really get inside the world of m odes, as jazz musicians do in order to speak the language of jazz, it is necessary to see them as distinct sounds in themselves and not just as offshoots of an existing ‘parent’ scale. To develop fluency in this requires a lot of dedication to the art! One of the most iconic uses of modes in the jazz context is on an album by the trumpeter Miles Davis. ere’s no better place to discover the world of modal jazz than Kind of Blue , thought to be the best-selling jazz album of all time. e track ‘So What’, for example, is based on two Dorian scales, the first on D and the second on E . It is also a notable tune for its use of ‘quartal harmony’ – that is chords made up of fourths, which you can hear played by Bill Evans as the ‘So What’ chords at the start. Well worth exploring if you are new to jazz.
toujours
e octatonic scale is theoretically any eight-note scale. However, the term is usually used to describe a symmetrical scale containing alternating intervals of a tone and a semitone, such as this: Octatonic scale
Because it has such a complex mixture of pitches which allow for a wide variety of chords to be produced, it can be used to create a sense of bitonality – the simultaneous combina tion of two keys. e octatonic scale was used in the late 19th century by Liszt and particularly by Russian composers such as Glinka, Rimsky-Korsakov and Scriabin. It became an important organisational device in 20th-century music and is found in music by Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartók and Messiaen. It’s not an easy scale to identify in terms of hearing when it is being used, as it tends to be more of a compositional tool than something which is immediately recognisable aurally. To explore it at the piano, take a look at the musical example below: An da nt e
= 134
1
2
4
dolce
1
2
4
Other common scales
is is the opening of No 109 from Bartók’s Mikrokosmos (Book 4), which he called ‘From the Island of Bali’ and is evocative of the Balinese gamelan. ■
As its name suggests, the whole-tone scale is built from notes which are a whole tone apart, dividing the octave into six equal steps. ere are only two whole-tone scales:
In the next issue Nigel will be looking at intervals and related topics, such as how we hear dissonance and consonance.
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LEGENDS
EMIL GILELS centenary celebration
Emil Gilels was born 100 years ago, and to mark the occasion, Maria Razumovskaya traces the musical journey that gave rise to this great Russian concert pianist. Plus, try the Bach-Siloti Prelude in this issue’s Scores, one of his most famous encores
T n io t a d n u o F s l e li G il m E © : s to o h p ll A
he 100th anniversary of an undisputed titan of 20th-century pianism, Emil Grigoryevich Gilels, is celebrated in 2016. Rarely has a pianist captivated the hearts of international audiences with such an infallible synthesis of emotional directness, profound musical vision and trailblazing technique. Gilels (1916-1985) was one of the most honoured musicians in the USSR and beyond. During World War II his playing was seen as a beacon of heroism and strength – his iconic performances were heard in concert halls, the radio, on the front lines and, as the war drew to a close, at the monumental Potsdam Conference in 1945. In 1955, in the midst of the politically charged atmosphere of the Cold War, he was entrusted to be the first Soviet artist after the war to perform in America. Despite the crippling travel restrictions for Soviet citizens, the furore of Gilels’s performances paved the way for an illustrious international career.
Tose who knew him personally are unanimous in their awe and respect for him. Tose for whom Gilels’s pianism lives on through his many recordings know a musician whose unique voice redefined the limits of the instrument and whose INSIDE artistic voice speaks as much to our time as THIS it did to his own. Tis article will look beyond Gilels’s well-known triumphs to ISSUE’S investigate that long journey of learning and practice that gave rise to one of the SCORES world’s greatest performers. Emil Gilels was born on 19 October Bach-Siloti Prelude in B minor, 1916 in the bustling city of Odessa. the piece that became an iconic Located on the shores of the Black Sea, Gilels encore piece. Odessa was at the time a unique place Includes learning tips by teeming with the sounds of music from Maria Razumovskaya. open windows and brass bands in the parks. From this atmosphere arose some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, including 80• Pianist 89
of the student. As she wrote later, ‘For a time I didn’t teach the student, but studied him… to be able to adapt [my] approach to his abilities and to open up his individuality.’ Reingbald patiently encouraged Gilels to open up a more lyrical side to his playing, developing the characteristic warmth, ‘velvet’ touch and breadth that would become a hallmark of his pianism. Isolating individual lines and textures she guided him through densely layered polyphonic writing in a manner that would add a sense of perspective and nuance to his technique and sound production. It was not that Gilels had lacked sensitivity – ‘lyrical music would make me shake and move me to tears. I loved this shaking and tears’ – the issue was that he restrained himself because ‘no one was meant to know. I was shy.’ Tus, among the first pieces Gilels studied with Reingbald were the deceptively simple Bach-Siloti Preludes: the famous B minor became an iconic encore piece in his repertoire [the score appears inside this issue]. Although Reingbald was not herself a concertising pianist, her outlook was much broader than kach’s. She was keen to encourage Gilels’s virtuosity, and where kach did this mainly through having him play rather dated salon pieces, Reingbald took her student to what, at the time, were the fringes of the piano repertoire. For instance, she introduced
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All this preparation was not in vain. In 1933 Gilels got his first big break at the All-Union Competition for Performing Musicians. Designed to showcase the achievements of the Soviet education system, this competition captured the imaginations of music lovers across the USSR. Audiences eagerly flocked to Moscow to hear the best young virtuoso-interpreters of the time. Favourites quickly emerged but these all fell by the wayside with the opening sounds of Gilels’s performance. With the final piece in his programme – the glittering Fantasia on Temes from Mozart’s ‘Marriage of Figaro’ by Liszt, arranged by Busoni – the mesmerised audience could scarcely believe that what they had just heard was humanly possible, let alone by the unassuming 16-year-old in front of them. As reported by the composer Kabalevsky, it was a moment that those present would remember for the rest of their lives. Winning the first prize changed Gilels’s career overnight. He became the darling of the music scene with invitations to perform across the Soviet Union. Yet, despite his critical acclaim and constant engagements, he decided to complete his studies with Reingbald and graduate from the Odessa Conservatory. In 1935, he enrolled as a ‘Meisterschule’ (advanced postgraduate) student of the legendary
Constantly adapting his learning process and attitudes to get closer to the inner meaning of a piece of music, Gilels warned that being an artist meant never being satisfied with your own achievement
him to the complex technical and emotional world of Liszt’s and Busoni’s piano transcriptions of Bach’s organ music, and it was under her tutelage that Gilels feel in love with the lush soundscapes of Impressionism. At a time when works by Debussy and Ravel were still a rarity in Russia, Gilels was so taken aback by these ‘new sounds and harmonies’ that he ‘literally fell asleep with their scores hugged in his arms’. Indeed these works were so hard to come by in Odessa that to quell Gilels’s impatience to learn them, his father and sister would copy out these intricate scores by hand from a copy borrowed overnight! Reingbald believed that it was imperative that Gilels learn by performing on stage. Unlike kach’s dictatorial approach to preparation, the decision whether or not a piece was ‘ready’ was often an issue discussed after public performances. She worked with her student to build up a phenomenal repertoire, much of which he continued to perform throughout his career. Reingbald was keen that Gilels become accustomed to the psychologica l pressures of performance – keeping nerves in check by developing a pre-concert routine, adjusting to acoustics, making ‘contact’ with the audience, and even being aware of such seemingly small issues as sleeves getting in the way and disrupting the concentration in the playing.
Heinrich Neuhaus at the Moscow Conservatory. Gilels was attracted by Neuhaus’s charisma and rich imagination: ‘a gifted and talented nature […] who was for many the symbol of high Art.’ Te move to Moscow did much to further Gilels’s renown both within Russia and internationally. At a time when international movement both in and out of the USSR was restricted he won second prize at the prestigious International Vienna Competition in 1936 (first prize: Yakov Flier), and when the great conductor Otto Klemperer came to Moscow he asked for Gilels to be the concerto soloist. In 1938 Gilels graduated from the ‘Meisterschule’ and won the Ysaÿe (now Queen Elisabeth) International Competition in Brussels which led to a flurry of high-profile invitations to perform abroad. oday it is easy to underestimate these achievements – at the time, however, music lovers fanatically followed the trail of news regarding competition rounds, and international competition laureates were greeted by huge crowds at railway stations like national heroes! Despite these successes, Gilels’s early years in Moscow were a time of doubt and isolation. With a bravura style of playing that contrasted to the majority of pianists at the Moscow Conservatory, Gilels saw himself as an ‘ugly duckling: I was different and they
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didn’t understand me’. Being used to the selfless attention which Reingbald was able to offer her students, Gilels found his lessons with Neuhaus to be completely different. Rather than being a ‘true teacher’, Neuhaus was, at the time, on the cusp of his own concert career. Frequently away and in charge of a huge number of piano students, Neuhaus expected Gilels to rely on his own intuition. o make matters more complicated Neuhaus was also known to slavishly spend hours with mediocre students over the smallest phrases – polishing them up to his exacting standards – yet, when it came to the most talented students it was altogether another matter. Tus, Gilels noticed: ‘I left his lessons feeling all alone. […] Sometimes if something wasn’t going the way he wanted, he would just say: “Ducky, you know what to do – do it yourself”.’ Yet, from another perspective, Neuhaus’s unwillingness to supplying his student with answers was in many ways the push to independence that Gilels knew he needed. In fact, Gilels had even resisted several suggestions that he did receive from his professor. Gilels was adamant to find his own individuality and voice, and refused ‘play from another’s experiences or emotions’, even
At a time when works by Debussy and Ravel were still a rarity in Russia, Gilels was so taken aback by these ‘new sounds and harmonies’ that he ‘literally fell asleep with their scores hugged in his arms’ dropping certain pieces of new repertoire given to him response. by Neuhaus unless he felt he was ready to express his own personal Although he was by then a star pianist, Gilels’s recollections of this time in his development are candid and humble: ‘I relied on my artistic intuition. I had successes, but also failures and mistakes.’ alking about his transition into a fully independent artist, Gilels said it was never a simple case of being in complete control of his artistic progress: ‘No, initially I went by touch, so to speak. You could compare it, if you like, to a dog which instinctively searches out a particular kind of grass to remedy a complaint, and starts to chew on it and is soothed…’ Tis path of experimenting – taking full responsibility and ownership of his practice – was not only confined to the private hours of practising. At the heart of this journey was also his contact with other musicians. In Neuhaus’s lessons, which were nearly always held as public masterclasses, Gilels considered he learned more listening to other students play, than in his own allotted time with his professor: ‘I thought a lot about what I had heard and tried to copy what I liked, but then to make it better. […] It is wonderful when a class for performers mirrors the fabled studios of great Italian artists, if it becomes like a “stadium” exhibiting the students’ achievements. […] Every artist, every composer must make use of this kind of opportunity to make observations and comparisons – it is how he learns.’ Tis kind of attentive listening became a lifelong characteristic and kept his recordings and performances fresh and in a state of constant re-invention and evolution: learning from colleagues through their recordings and concerts, through discussions, and through his contact with other instrumentalists, conductors and concert piano technicians. Te vital confidence in his own abilities, judgement, taste and convictions that is necessary in order to become an independent master-pianist was in Gilels’s case also underpinned by a genuine and rare humility. It was a humility not only before his colleagues, but perhaps even more importantly, before his Art. Constantly adapting his learning process and attitudes to get closer to the inner meaning of
Backstage after the First Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958, where Gilels (centre) was the chairman of the ury. j First prize (which was politically meant to go to a Soviet competitor) was awarded to Van Cliburn (left)
a piece of music, Gilels warned that being an artist meant never being satisfied with your own achievement. He knew that the quest for perfection was an arduous one that required the patience to accept it as a life-long commitment to discovery. Explaining this to his own students at the Moscow Conservatory he remarked: ‘Learning the piano is very changeable – like the weather.’ Maintaining a gruelling performance schedule throughout his life, often touring for a staggering ten months of the year, Gilels never rested on his laurels or allowed himself to be lulled by indifference or complacency. As he said, ‘Classical music is the greatest spiritual act. It requires the utmost purity to look a piece of music in the eyes (without any “veils”) and capture its features […] to open the score and try to understand what the composer thought and felt. Evidently, every time the decision will always be not quite right, and so you try again and again – all your life.’ n Dr Maria Razumovskaya performs internationally as a pianist, and is a teacher and lecturer. Having received her conservatoire training with Rustem Hayroudinoff and Dmitri Alexeev, she is passionate about investigating the Russian piano tradition.
ESSENTIAL LISTENING NEW
Emil Gilels: Te Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon A 24-CD box set to celebrate his 100th anniversary Deutsche Grammophon DG 479651 Emil Gilels Edition Brilliant Classics 92615 (10 discs) Emil Gilels Early Recordings Volume 3 Naxos Historical Great Pianists: 8111386 Brahms: Te Piano Concertos (with Berliner Philharmonic/ Eugen Jochum), Fantasies op 116 Deutsche Grammophon DG 4794877 Emil Gilels Recital: Works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Schumann Deutsche Grammophon DG 0734265 (DVD released 2007) Chopin: Sonata No 3, Polonaises Deutsche Grammophon DG 4779079 Grieg: Lyric Pieces Deutsche Grammophon DG 4497212
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REVIEW
CD reviews Marius Dawn hails another landmark Sokolov disc and praises a new Buniatishvili recital, Pizarro’s masterful Rachmaninov and a CD of a little-known Russian romantic’s music Pianist star ratings: ★★★★★Essential – go get it! ★★★★Really great ★★★A Buy these CDs from thePianist website.Visit pianistm.ag/cd-reviews
ALESSIO BAX
EDITOR’S CHOICE GRIGORY SOKOLOV
Lullabies for Mila: Solo works by Bach arr. Siloti, Brahms, Grieg, Rachmaninov, Scriabin and more; plus Mozart: Concerto K595 (slow movement) Signum Classics SIGCD439
Schubert: Impromptus D866; Three Pieces D946; Beethoven: ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata op 106; encores by Rameau and Brahms Deutsche Grammophon DG 479 5426 (2 discs)
★★★★
Alessio Bax and his pianist wife Lucille Chung had a baby girl. Congratulations! And how best for a piano dream team like this to celebrate? Of course: pick some sweet moments from previous releases and put them together onto a CD dedicated to baby Mila. A splendid idea! Here is a box of musical goodies, almost verging on the saccharine in terms of repertoire. But don’t let that deter you – the playing is of the highest calibre. Particularly moving are the Bach arr. Siloti and Bach arr. Petri pieces, as well as Rachmaninov’s Vocalise and other Rachmaninov preludes (Chung joins Bax in two engaging fourhand Brahms waltzes). If you are a Bax fan, and have most of his finescattered earlier releases, you’llIffind a lot of these works throughout. you don’t possess any of them, get this release – Bax has picked out the tastiest bon-bons for you.
fine release ★★Average ★Fair
★★★★★
Like his earlier Salzburg Recital disc, which was Sokolov’s debut recording for DG (reviewed in issue 83 and also given Editor’s Choice), this newest release is being hailed as a sensation, a long-awaited discovery, and so on. But it isn’t. e cognoscenti have known about Sokolov for many years, so he’s no sudden sensation. e only sensation here is that at last a major record company has come along to snap up such a special artist, which means this extraordinary artist can be effectively promoted to the general public. Now Sokolov is acclaimed as the greatest living pianist, but he’s been on this planet for 65 years and has always been the greatest. e Russian label Melodiya recorded him in his younger years, and then the small French label Opus 111 released over a dozen Sokolov discs. ey are precious jewels – every single one of them. So, what to say about his new release of Schubert and Beethoven? I suggest that you go out and get it – for the sake of the encores alone. at’s not to put the Schubert or the Beethoven down in any way, though. For this reviewer, the majestic Schubert works cannot be bettered, and the gigantic Beethoven ‘Hammerklavier’ puts all other recordings, every single one of them, in the shade. But it’s for the encores – the five Rameau pieces especially – that you should invest in this release. You might have recordings of the Schubert repertoire that you prefer, and the same could be said formarbles the ‘Hammerklavier’. But thedust Rameau! oseshades. five small pieces areare cast multicoloured coated with sparkling of rainbow ese pieces theinto sensation, the discovery, and worth all the hype. And they will never be bettered. Trust me!
KHATIA BUNIATISHVILI
LOUIS LORTIE & HÉLÈNE MERCIER
ARTUR PIZARRO
Kaleidoscope. Mussorgsky:Pictures at an Exhibition; Ravel: La valse; Stravinsky: Three Movements from Petrushka Sony Classical 88875170032
Poulenc: Concerto S146, Concerto for Two Pianos S61, Aubade; etc Chandos CHAN 10875
Rachmaninov: CompletePiano Works Odradek ODRBOX01 (7 discs)
★★★★
★★★★★
I have yet to hear a less-thanmagnificent release from Louis Lortie, with his elegant playing, glorious sound and straightforward musicality. Poulenc was himself a fine pianist and his works for piano and orchestra are well laid out, even if they might lack the final ounce of srcinality. Best is his Concerto for Two Pianos, and here Lortie has the perfect partner in Hélène Mercier. ey steal the limelight from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra (not a negative comment, I may add). e Aubade for piano and 18 instruments hasn’t aged well, but the three works for two pianos and four hands (Elégie , L’Embarquement pour Cythère and Sonata S8) are very srcinal. ey are played with charm – rounding off one of the finest Poulenc discs to date from Chandos. Note: this duo has recently recorded the Rachmaninov two-piano works – also highly recommended, and one of the best versions on the market.
What a gargantu an task: to record Rachmaninov’s complete solo piano music. It is best left for only the finest virtuoso pianists, not only because the technical challenges are monumental, but also the sheer magnitude of music is overwhelming. Artur Pizarro copes with all these challenges without ever sounding strained or out of steam. His preferred Yamaha piano is clearly recorded, and the whole production arrives in a sleek seven-CD box. Pizarro includes early sketches, plus the arrangements, and his set is the most complete to date. As an overall view of the Rachmaninov piano music, this should be your first choice, but naturally we cannot forget individual recordings, not least of the sonatas and the preludes where Pizarro is up against legendary performers. However, and this has to be underlined, for a complete set Pizarro is a master musician with enough technical power to make the music dance from score.
In this release’s booklet notes, there’s a somewhat pretentious interview with Buniatisvili where she talks about such things as ‘trees can reproduce, castles can’t’ in connection with the Mussorgsky Pictures. Well, she’s certainly not the biggest philosopher of all time, but who cares when she can make the piano speak so eloquently? Her performance of Pictures is full of contrast, colour and imagination. She produces a tone as soft as silk, but she can also hammer away at the instrument like a thundering steam engine, albeit without ever forcing the well-tuned Steinway beyond its limits. Ravel’s La valse is furious and technically stupendous, and if Stravinsky’sPetrushka ree Movements borders on the insane, it is nevertheless fabulous piano playing. Not a recording for everyone’s taste – it’s a clenched fist in your face that you will not easily forget. Be prepared!
86 • •Pianist Pianist 89 83 86
★★★★★
BEATRICE RANA Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No 2; Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No 1 With Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/Antonio Pappano (con) Warner Classics0825646009091
YEVGENY SUDBIN Medtner: Fairy Tales (selection),Sonata Tragica op 39 no 5, Sonata-Reminiscenza op 38 no 1, etc; Rachmaninov: preludes from op 23 and 32 BIS RecordsBIS-1848
NADEJDA VLAEVA Bortkiewicz: Piano Sonata No 2 op 60; Fantasiestücke op 61; Jugoslavische Suite op 58; Lyrica nova op 59; etc HyperionCDA68118
★★★★
★★★★★
★★★★
Yevgeny Sudbin has already recorded Medtner’s three piano concertos, so it comes as a pleasure to hear him in the solo piano works, where his razor-sharp articulation and rhythmic stamina comes brilliantly to the fore. He is no sentimentalist, though. Other pianists have milked the SonataReminiscenza , yet none has a better sense of proportion. e selection of six Rachmaninov preludes are up against very stiff competition, however Sudbin has his own idea about each one and he is free of exaggeration or idiosyncrasies. I especially enjoyed his gutsy unsentimental way with the G minor opus 23 no 5 and the D flat opus 32 no 12. And they come as a nice contrast to the opening Medtner work, the Prologue from Stimmungsbilder opus 1, which shows Sudbin’s more, introverted side. All in all, a well thoughtout selection of two Russian romantics.
Some five years back, Hyperion released its first disc by Bulgarian pianist Nadejda Vlaeva, featuring Bach Transcriptions. It was a great success and I am delighted to see her back for this second recording. e five stars are for both the repertoire and the gentle persuasive way Vlaeva plays this sadly way-too-little-known late-Romantic Russian. e sound of the piano is not up to five stars, but this concern is outweighed by the musicality and the convincing playing. If you like Rachmaninov, or you just love big lush romantic harmonies in general (think of Korngold and Hollywood movies of the 1930s), you will adore these confectionary cakes with over-decorated icing that Bortkiewicz indulges you with. is is a disc to return to, and every time with more and more joy. More Bortkiewicz, Hyperion – we can’t get enough!
Goodness! Beatrice Rana is just 22, and for her first concerto disc she is playing two of the most mammoth concertos. Just to play all the notes in the Prokofiev, not least the enormous first-movement cadenza, is a behemoth task. But Rana is fearless. If her approach is on the lighter side – such as in the first movement, where her elegant Baroque phrasing adds some sparkle to the gruff Prokofiev – her powerful partner in Antonio Pappano pushes the concerto forward with force. In the Tchaikovsky, Pappano lets his orchestra take a lead role, but Rana feels no threat from the strong brass section and can easily make her voice heard without ever making harsh sounds. Most successful is the tender second movement where one hears her more tender side. Let’s hope we get to hear more of that in her next release.
87• Pianist 89
BOOKS MARKED WITH AN * ARE AVAILABLE AT THE PIANIST DIGITAL STORE pianistm.ag/digitalshop
REVIEW
Sheet music Elegant new Ravel editions, Einaudi film music, minor-key mysteries from Breitkopf, Norton’s Eastern Preludes volume and more in Michael McMillan’s round-up EINAUDI Elements; Film Music Chester Music ISBN: 978-1-78558-084-0 (CH84205) (Elements); -78305-977-5 (CH83677) (Film)
e mysterious illustration s on the rather sinister front cover of Einaudi’s Elements turn out upon closer inspection to be an assortment of musical, mathematical and chemical symbols integrated into a natural landscape. Drawn by the composer, it is a pictorial representation of the ideas Einaudi has sought to express in the 12 pieces in the book. Almost all the pieces benefit from instrumental backing on the CD of the same name, and although the hypnotic music will appeal to Einaudi fans, the solo items (e.g. Song for Gavin ) will naturally sound the best at the piano. Einaudi’s minimalist style is well suited to films, and 17 of his pieces from films as diverse as Intouchables , Insidious and is is England have been collected into the Film Music volume. An ideal gift for a film buff pianist, but note that all the pieces except e Water Diviner have also been published in other volumes. RAVEL
Pavane pour une infante défunte; Sonatine Henle ISMN: 979-0-20181260-1 (HN1260) (Pavane); -1018-8 (HN1018)
ese are Henle’s first editions of two of Ravel’s most popular piano works. e Pavane, often heard in its orchestral form, was srcinally composed for piano solo in 1899. It sounds simple but turns out to be deceptively tricky to play. It is laid out over five pages in this edition, and helpful fingering and hand distributions by the celebrated French pianist Pascal Rogé are included. e three-movement Sonatine, written a few years after the Pavane, was conceived for a competition that required entrants to ‘compose the first movement of a piano sonata in F sharp minor’. It is presented here on 15 oversized pages; Ravel’s fingerings are printed and translations of the French terms are noted at the back. RAVEL*
Valses nobles et sentimentales BärenreiterISMN: 979-0006-52586-7 (BA10826)
Ravel’s intention to write a succession of waltzes after Schubert’s example resulted in the eight pieces that make up his Valses nobles et sentimentales (a name that pays homage to Schubert’s Valses
nobles and Valses sentimentales).is new Urtext edition has been prepared by Nicolas Southon (a co-editor of Bärenreiter’s Complete Works of Fauré), whose impressively detailed research is apparent in the critical commentary. You will also find golden nuggets of performance suggestions gleaned from pianists closely associated with the composer, such as Lucien Garban, Vlado Perlmutter and Henriette Fauré. Fingerings and performance notes are provided by Alexandre araud, the French pianist who has recorded Ravel’s complete piano works, and page turns are ideally located. Bärenreiter’s characteristi cally clear layout and a glossary on the back page of all the French terms round off a superlative package.
Steingräber publishing house. Bischoff’s helpful footnotes and editorial markings (dynamics, fingerings, articulations) have been carried over and suspected omissions have been added in square brackets. ese are all advanced works (several of the Toccatas and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue appear on diploma lists), so some may find the editorial additions distracting and might prefer Henle or Bärenreiter’s Urtext editions. For those who would appreciate a little assistance, however, these inexpensive editions will appeal.
PIANO MIX BOOKS 1, 2 & 3*
Breitkopf has published One Hand Piano and 21 Amazingly Easy Pieces by Barbara Arens (b.1960). is newest volume, Piano Misterioso , contains 28 pieces in minor keys, ranging in diffi culty from Grade 1 to Grade 4; most of them are one page long. e composer’s experience as a piano teacher is reflected in her sympathetic writing for students with small hands, and the Latin titles of all the pieces (e.g. Insula in nubibus ‘island in a cloud’)
Compiled and edited by David Blackwell ABRSM ISBN: 978-1-84849-864-8 (1); -865-5 (2); -866-2 (3)
ere was a time not so long ago that the ABRSM’s piano exam syllabuses didn’t include arrangements of music written for other instruments. Now theythat do,are because people have created arrangements pianistic, have pedagogic value and don’t sound like cheap imitations of the srcinal. ese three books, each containing about 25 pieces, underline the ABRSM’s endorsement of the genre. No fewer than 19 arrangers have written music for the volume that sounds good, fits comfortably under the hand and matches the level for which it is written. A selection of these pieces will surely make their way into the ABRSM’s exam syllabuses in time. e only slight disappointment is that these books don’t include music from films or musicals, but let this not detract from an excellent series.
PIANO MISTERIOSO Barbara Arens Breitkopf ISMN: 979-0-004-18473-8
will to a student’s imagination. All with but two appeal of the pieces are marked to be played pedal, and the music is easy to grasp and listen to, but many pieces will require a sensitive performer to bring out the music’s character successfully. Seven of the pieces are available to sample at www.breitkopf.com. EASTERN PRELUDES Christopher Norton Boosey & Hawkes ISMN: 979-0-060-13083-0 (BH13083)
Christopher Norton is best known as a composer and educationalist with his Microjazz series, but J S BACH* his two Concert Collections and contributions Seven Toccatas; Overture to the Boosey & Hawkes Solo Piano Collection in French Style; Chromatic demonstrate his excellence as an arranger. Fantasy and Fugue Eastern Preludes contains 14 arrangements of AlfredISBN: 978-1native themes from the East, most of which are 4706-2282-4 (Toccatas); three or four pages long and around Grade 6-7. -1789-9 (Overture); e Japanese tune, Sakura, may be known to -2279-4 (Chromatic) some Western piano students, but I doubt the Hans Bischoff (1852-1889) other tunes (such as Samalindang from Brunei or was a German pianist, teacher and editor. He Bang Chhun-hong from Taiwan) will be familiar. studied piano with eodor Kullak, taught the No matter, because Norton has a knack of piano and theory at Kullak’s school, and was a writing in a distinctive style an d attractive respected music editor – Grove describes his harmonic language, and students will surely editions as ‘exemplary for their time’. e three find it diffi cult to resist the lyricism of Arirang books reviewed here contain newly engraved (from Korea) or the dynamism of Ya, Ya, Maya, Ya (from India). e enclosed CD features extracts from the seven volumes of Bach’s keyboard works that Bischoff edited for the exemplary performances by Iain Farrington. 88 • •Pianist 88 Pianist 89 83
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