piano performance reviews

justinsanner.com

Front Page

Piano Instruction

Bio

Article

Performing Arts

Listen to the Widor Toccata

E-mail Justin

(The following article has replaced "Piano Performance Reviews" for those who might be looking for that article. That article was posted for quite awhile and I may post it again in the future).

Should Piano Artists Still Be Required To Memorise?

By Justin Sanner

Over the years, I have attended performances in San Francisco by splendid, local classical pianists. In many of these performances, the artist had memory problems.

Memory slips are not just stressful for the artist but can make a performance much less enjoyable for the audience, if audience members know the piece(s) well. During these performances, my stomach turned flips and I got hot flashes when an artist was trying to recover from a memory problem, leaving me wondering when or if the artist was going to get back on track. It was as if I were having the memory slip myself and I felt sympathy for the artist. It was a rather stressful situation for me too. I know how some of the artists felt because some artists---while they're playing and when they take their bow---have difficulty not showing their complete disgust over memory problems. And dwelling on a previous memory slip during a performance can cause problems ahead in a piece because one�s concentration is not on the music where it should be. These performances left me asking: Why didn't the artist use his/her score?

There are many contradictions and inconsistencies in the classical music field tradition for piano artists in particular:

For example, it�s considered unacceptable by many concert managers for a piano artist to use his/her score in a solo performance or for a piano concerto. Unfortunately, some concert managers are under the misconception that playing with the score represents an artist who is unprepared. Now who came up with that nonsense thinking? Other musicians---including every member of a symphony orchestra---when they perform use their score and it's considered quite acceptable. Conductors usually use their score as well. Are those musicians "unprepared?" Hardly! And each player in a symphony orchestra, for example, is not playing a "handful" of notes either as compared to what a pianist plays (huge chords full of notes as in Rachmaninov, for example). Also, when performing four-hand piano music and chamber music it�s considered perfectly acceptable for the pianist to use his/her score. As some of my piano students have asked: Why on Earth is using the score acceptable in one situation and not in another?

(Don't get me started on that duplicity).

Of course when I trained at Shenandoah Conservatory it was required that all piano majors play all repertoire from memory for their juries and student recitals. And that is standard in all conservatories and music schools. However, it was acceptable and is today for organists to use their scores when performing, although some organists choose to perform from memory.

As far as memorisation is concerned, some people are more comfortable in a performance using their score while others prefer to not use the score because---as some pianists have told me--- they feel freer without it and not using their score makes them feel like they can get "beyond the score" because they say the score can interfere with them. There are advantages to memorising a piece. If one memorises a work well to begin with, the piece will likely stay with the artist and one will always have it. If one hasn't played the piece for years, one would likely have to re-prepare the piece to get the piece back in one's hands, so to speak. But the memory work should still be there if the piece was memorised well initially.

It seems to me that one's primary focus and concern should be on the music and artistry, and not on something as trivial as whether a piano artist has their music in front of them or not. With as many problems as we have on this planet, do we really have the luxury of concerning ourselves with something as inconsequential as whether an artist is using their music for a performance? I don't think so. And audience members I've spoken with after performances said they would have no problem with a piano artist using their score. So who does have a problem with it? Which leads me to the following:

The classical music field is a very uptight, stiff, slow-to-change traditional field with some rather outdated traditions which don't make much sense at all when one uses logic to analyse them. I propose that it�s long overdue to re-examine and update some of these outdated and non-applicable traditions, particularly for pianists, traditions that no longer have a realistic and pragmatic relevance to life today. The memorisation of piano repertoire for a performance is a perfect place to start this re-examination, without lowering or compromising artistic standards.

I know of one internationally-known pianist (John McCabe) who began using his score for piano concerti because of previous memory slips. He wrote that in one performance he got distracted from hearing an entrance by one of the instruments in the orchestra. He said he had not noticed the entrance of that instrument before. Well, it distracted him so that he missed his own piano entrance during the performance and this happened more than one time. So whenever he performs today he always requests a page turner, to the surprise of some concert managers who supposedly expected him to play solely from memory.

The memorisation of works should be at the discretion of the artist, and many pianists I've talked with locally have said the same. Whatever the artist feels the most comfortable with is what they should do. Memorisation for pianists should not be a blanket, rigid rule set from "on high" because this well-known pianist and that well-known pianist played all repertoire from memory generations ago.

Are the music schools, conservatories and concert managers listening or about to change their approach to memorisation for pianists? There are those who say that they don't believe it�s a good idea to allow piano students to perform with the score unless the piece is complicated contemporary music.

Really? Why make an exception for complicated contemporary music?

Are we right back where we started in this discussion?