Sunday, February 28, 2010

Chowan Pianofest 2010


This weekend was our third Pianofest here at Chowan and it fulfilled my hopes, as well as surprising me a bit.

The primary purposes of Pianofest, as I see them, are to refresh our enthusiasm here about pianistic work and to inspire us. Hopefully, the various events being open to the public also results in a general growth of interest in the art of piano-playing.

Our first concert involved my colleague, Paula Pressnell, playing the four impromptus of Schubert's Op. 90 in order. Between nos. 1 and 2, Mark Puckett played Chopin's preludes in e, b, D flat, and g. Between nos. 3 and 4, Josiah Antill played Liszt's B Minor Ballade. Mark, Josiah, and I experimented with designing powerpoint shows to enhance the audience experience of these pieces. Mark's show started with a few sentences about the context in which Chopin composed his pieces, followed by images inspired by the pianist von Bulow's poetic titles for those four preludes: Suffocation, Tolling Bells, Raindrop, and Impatience. Josiah's powerpoint presented the association of Liszt's piece with Byron's "The Prisoner of Chillon" and the subsequent slides led us through the phases of the poem as we listened to the piece.

We learned from this concert that Mrs. Pressnell is a particularly good Schubert player and that Schubert sounds especially good on the Grotrian. The first impromptu put us in just the right mood to experience the unique phenomena known as the classical piano recital.

While I'm interested in innovation and feel it is my responsibility to provide my students some introduction to basic skills in a variety of styles, it was good to be reminded that the piano recital is its own unique art form and was perfected some years ago in Europe. The piano recital can be, and often is, an experience of reflection, bordering on the sacred. It creates a container or clears a space for contemplating great Western and human values: the work of the mind and the soul, the the experience of longing, and the search for peace. Again, Paula's playing, as well as the student's powerpoints and pianistic efforts, directed us to such beautiful and lofty ruminations. And I don't think I'm just describing my experience as the sense of calm and engagement was palpable in the hall throughout the concert.

Special thanks to Terrell Batten for the great work with the spotlight, in particular at the close of the concert when he noticed that there was no other light left for Mrs. Pressnell's final bow and quickly remedied the problem!

I played our second concert, which was a concert built around the sixth Beatitude of Jesus: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. I chose various works to express the idea of purity through musical means from a pure experience of the sound of the instrument in Jahn Adams's "China Gates" to the pure quality of the transcription of Bach's Chaconne (originally for violin) for piano, left hand alone, by Brahms. I also played Haydn's Sonata No. 48, which took me back to my childhood, and managed to play it without mishap. (It was the first piece I had a memory slip in on my first solo recital around 25 years ago!)

The main message I got from preparing and performing this recital was to strive for musical purity in my work. By that I mean to keep my feet planted on the earth and to focus a little more on musical fundamentals like knowing the mood that is to be created, establishing and maintaining a tempo, analyze and plan to highlight the relationships of tones melodically and harmonically (phrasing and balance). . . If I want to add in something more imaginative or creative, it's probably safest to think of it in just those terms - something added into the basic work of musicianship, not something to completely and instantaneously transform my approach.

Along these same lines, as I worked on the Chaconne and looked for a convincing way to pace and inflect the music, my faith, which I sometimes practice, was affirmed - the answer was in the score. For me, the slur and phrase markings were a major key to interpreting this work. The breakthrough came when I started to think of them more like bowings. The longer the marking, the more energy went into the line and the less energy went into the individual notes. The shorter the marking, the less energy went into the line, and more energy into the individual notes.

Thank you, Taylor Yandell, for the photos of my first performance of the Chaconne.

I concluded the evening with Gottschalk's Berceuse. This piece is based on a song he wrote in which a mother sings to her baby while the father is away. I assume the father is away fighting in the Civil War. I had been wondering how the low bass octaves figured into this scene, and I had been trying to keep them in the background. During the concert, I realized that they might be thought of as the distant rumbling of the cannons of war.

On Saturday, I held a masterclass that was attended by a diverse audience including music majors, music appreciation students, several students from a studio in the next town, and a few interested folks from the community. I like teaching before an audience like this as it gives people who are not musicians some insight into the discipline of music. The young students played well, and it's always inspiring to hear the results of the hard work that developing pianists are doing.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Fulfillment

Last Wednesday, I went to church to practice organ. When I sit down in the choir loft to put on my organ shoes, I am always reminded to pray, even if I have not been praying much lately. I think it has something to do with the nature of the sanctuary, my role in shaping worship there, and my relationship with that house of worship.

On this particular occasion, I also thought of the fact that I've been playing piano for over thirty years now. It's odd to be old enough to have been doing something for over thirty years. Everyone who has been there must know that. But it can also be good.

It dawned on me that the deepening sense of fulfillment I get from musical work has something to do with the fact that I had many early childhood experiences with music. It seems to me that our early exposure must be a major factor in developing our potential for personal fulfillment. It would be hard to find a much better argument for a diverse education for the young.

Monday, February 01, 2010

January 2010


We've been enjoying a beautiful and much-needed, snow-induced sabbath these last few days. There are at least four inches, and some places, seven inches of snow in our region, plus layers of ice. It's a quiet time and great for eating homemade muffins and drinking coffee.

Last weekend I played two recitals with my good friend Jeremy McEntire at University of Richmond and Randolph Macon. I hadn't played at Randolph Macon before and enjoyed St. Anne's Hall, which is a small timbered church building with a nicely responsive Steinway and a warm acoustic.

One of the works we played was Rachmaninoff's Vocalise. I've played the piece many times with various instruments and voice. I always wonder at its falling lines, especially the long descent at the beginning. This aspect of falling is one of the things about Russian music that has mystified and depressed me by turns.

One of the lectionary passages for the day was Psalm 130 which begins, "Out of the depths I cry to thee, O thou Eternal." As I thought about that reading and Vocalise, I thought of a new way to understand those falling lines. I can hear them not as our sinking down but Christ's coming to be with us in the depths of our human experience. This removes the desolation and replaces it with hope, strength, and empathy.