The Grand Days

I just recently saw a TV-documentation on the great pianists of this Century like Paderewsky, Moiseiwich, Rubinstein, Rachmaninov, etc.

It was very interresting and i thought to myself "What made those musicians so outstanding?". i browsed the net and eventually found some answers that i´d like to share for i think it can be applied for any instrument - therefore also for the guitar.

Critics occasionally compliment a pianist by saying that he plays in the grand style. Exactly what do they mean by that phrase? In the broadest sense, they mean a style of playing which penetrates deeper than the physical conquering of the piano. It concerns itself with the release of music. The "grand style" moved listeners through interpretation. If today's young pianist is to achieve similar results, he, too, must turn to interpretive values. So the next question is, how does one learn to interpret?
In the "grand" days of Anton Rubinstein, Rachmaninoff and Paderewski, it was impossible to learn musical meaning through recordings. Learning music meant digging deep into the score itself, training the inward hearing to grasp what is there and also what is not there. By concentrated and devoted thinking about music, the artist built himself a solid foundation. Any artist worth his salt thinks music far more than he practices. Practice divides the mind between music and the mechanics of managing hands and feet. Inward hearing has its roots in musical thought.

The problem facing the young pianist is not how to play faster and louder, but how to play music in moving and musicianly fashion. This he can accomplish by breaking away from a preoccupation with mechanics, and by concentrating earnestly, devotedly, independently upon musical thought- as was the habit in the "grand" days.
(excerpts taken from http://www.arbiterrecords.com)

Exactly. Although the musician is not the interpreter, the listener is. The musician of the grand days aimed his music to influence what the listener would interpret. The excerpts here seem to inform the listener on how this was accomplished rather than the musician. The musician who can play in this grand style knew one thing. Humans see the world in two main ways, what they see and what they hear. The musician creates in the world in sound, and he uses this craft to give the listener a certain sensation or sense that tells the listener's subconscious what is going on in the world at that particular moment. The musician is only doing one thing and that is creating a new world in the fourth dimension. So when you hear the music of a composer you hear a new world as he/she created through sound and time. The listener is then left to interpret what the world is, sometimes directly sometime indirectly.

This is still practiced and it is no more apparent than in Film scores. The music in films directly portray what is happening in the movie, Even if you close your eyes and just listen to the music you can tell what is going on. Take the Jaws theme, you know something is going happen and you know it isn't going to be good just by the way the music is played.

As a composer the foremost goal when writing music is to transform a experience in everyday life into music. The problem with musicians of intelligent nature is they try to create a perfect composition in their style, usually by trying to make it more technical and mind-blowing. The truth is the effect of music can be done with two notes playing back and forth, like the Jaws theme.

That's my interpretation of the "grand style" and what made the great composers so great.

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 08-19-2003 at 10:42 AM]

nono.. not the listener - the musician! i´m talking about performance - about how to play a given piece from the heart. the interpret is the musician!

Yeah your right. I was speaking from the composer's point of view rather than the performer. Everyone who experiences the music after the composer interprets it. And during the classical periods, the music was written very strictly on how to play it so the musician would interpret it as close as possible to the composer's idea. Sorry I got off topic. :)

I think this is very interesting! I can also see that you are both correct in your interpretations (which in turn is depending upon your perspective).

Example (yes I am a fence sitting git !!!)

An artist or musician plays a piece of music a particular way. That interpretation (by the musician) will mean different things to different members of the audience due to the different ways they interpret what they are listening to !

The only really external factors in music are the printed indications, and even these are far from absolute. Dont trust the score too much - to be REAL precise you need to know more than that - plus reprinted score is inacurate - see if you can get the copy of the original handwritings.
Take, for instance, the famous Chopin rubati . The tempo indication is rubato - but how much? What shall the actual notedurations be? To approximate anything resembling accuracy, one needs a sound knowledge of Chopin's life, his moods; what he was experiencing and feeling when he wrote that particular work; its relation to his work as a whole, etc. One tries to reconstruct all this, and then to apply it. Interpretation does not mean borrowing "effects" to round out the rendition of a given work. It means learning how to think musically in approaching all works.

This requires preparation.

I think that’s way beyond interpretation. One, no matter how much he/she knows about the music, can never interpret it absolutely. I’m not saying it wouldn’t help because it would definitely, but that could be an overly obsessive way to play music. It may even be hindering if you go to play a piece and think, “oh how would Chopin play this piece.” Truth is, no one will ever be able to reproduce the piece like Chopin did. However you think Chopin would have played it is in truth how you would play it. All one can do is play it from their own heart, music is in the soul not the brain. My music teacher introduced me to this by playing two different versions of Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor”. Each one was different but both were equally expressive. The point is to put your heart into the music, rather than trying to put someone else’s. The works of Chopin were great enough to leave room for the performer’s own heart. And if you put your heart into playing a piece your subconscious will answer questions like how fast is the piece, how long do you hold a note, and how stressful you play the note. It’s all in the soul my friend. And trust me the second you try to think about this stuff while playing the piece will be the second you lose it. These “grand players” are able to see and go into the world the music lives in and just play it without question. It’s sort of like hypnosis, and someone posted something like it, “when you let go and you feel like the music is playing you”. That’s when you know you have escaped into the world of music.

On the performing side. Everyone who has performed in front of an audience knows this, the audience will have a dramatic effect on the performer. And this will even effect the musical performance of the performer, I think the saying is “I feed off the vibe of the audience”. So yeah this will effect the way you play the music. A great performer doesn’t feel the audience, he/she controls it. He/she makes the audience feel what he/she feels and ultimately controls how the music will effect the audience. This is the skill of the entertainer or performer, the one that determines if they are just good or GREAT. A winner makes the world into what he/she wants, the world does not control them. My favorite thing to say is "when the world f@#ks with me, I f@#k it back twice as hard.” My point is to be a “grand” performer, you must be in control not controlled.

Example (yes I am a fence sitting git !!!)

Doesn’t that hurt??? :)

Some people call it pain........

I do it just to show 'em I can take it !!

hmmm... 'gives a hole new meaning to the term 'picket line'...

i was not saying that you completely forget about yourself and become chopin when playing. but those players had a vast knowledge about the composers who wrote the piece. you cant just leave them away and play it completely different. of cousre you play the music from the heart - no question. and thats what the masters of the grand days did.
and thats the reason why you learn so much history when studying music. studens always wonder why they have to learn what mozart did all day long. i mean ok.. it can be a pain in the ass, but when its your goal to play realy good, then you should have some knowledge of this.

however - basically what i was goin to say with this thread is, that the technical side of the instrument is only the first step on your way to become a good musician. i think the basics of that extreme dedication to music as in those grand days, are very important. just take jeff beck for instance - thats what i call music. you cant get that by just practicing scales till you reach 400 bpm

My friend, a classical pianist, just played for me a Fantasie by Chopin which involves playing a steady 6 note left hand melody while the right hand plays 19 notes... something like that, at least. He said that you basically just concentrate on keeping the six notes going while making the 19 notes sound as even as possible. Apparently, if he concentrates on the two hands working together, it's impossible ot play. I can see how this lends itself to multiple interpretations.

Wasn't Chopin at the beginning of the Romantic period, which basically was when musicians discovered freedom within music, as opposed to the composers during, say, the Renaissance? And Rachmaninoff was definitely a Romantic composer/pianist.

As a side note, Rachmaninoff (my favourite composer, BTW) is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the largest hand span; apparently, he could play a chord which no other human could (I don't have the book in front of me now, but I think it was 12 white keys with either hand; I'll check and repost).

thats cool but.. this thread is not about the playin technique - its about what lies beyond - about what makes one player that is technical perfect more outstanding than another player with the same technical skills. and what i wrote in my first post is what i read about it - and i think thats the truth - i can feel it.

Good point and I agree Az. But I don’t think that's what the author meant by thinking musically. Knowing about the composer’s state of mind, lifestyle and time period is more like thinking historically or telepathic. Yes beneficial to the musician if he/she is playing a piece, knowing will undoubtively improve the interpretation of how to play the piece. But thinking musically is being able to look at a piece of written music and understand how to play it. I think the author is trying to say that musicians after the invention of pre-recorded music don’t have to think “musically”. All we have to do now is pop in a CD and listen to how it is played, and we rely on that and maybe too much. The skill most have lost is being able to just look at a piece of music and understand it, thinking musically. Back then terms like Presto and Affannato "to play stressful" meant a lot to the musician because it told how to play the music. Of course every musician will have a different idea of how fast presto is, maybe it’s 160 to one guy and 172 to another. The idea is you play the part quickly. Thinking on how Chopin would have played it is good, but an obsessive look at it this will probably only stress the mind. Because we just don't know exactly how he played it, what his mood was (we have a good idea because oif the manner of the music), or even what it was truly like living in his lifetime. We don't have any recording vinyl of Chopin, although that would be sweet. :)

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 08-20-2003 at 11:28 AM]

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
hmmm... 'gives a hole new meaning to the term 'picket line'...

HAHA. Yes it does, but I think all that drinking has numbed Doc head. Haha ;)

The Doc's got a spike up his arse!!!!!

Originally posted by noticingthemistake
Good point and I agree Az. But I don’t think that's what the author meant by thinking musically. Knowing about the composer’s state of mind, lifestyle and time period is more like thinking historically or telepathic. Yes beneficial to the musician if he/she is playing a piece, knowing will undoubtively improve the interpretation of how to play the piece.
[Edited by noticingthemistake on 08-20-2003 at 11:28 AM]

wat i was goin to say is, that when playing a piece from someone like mozart or chopin or whomever ,it IS esential to know what the composer was goin to say and why. of course you can just say "screw him - he´s dead anyway" and play it the way YOU feel its right, but that is pretty selfish. that way you take away the freedom of the composer to serve your own freedom. i mean - i sometimes also feel like goin on the street and punch an old lady in the face so that she swallows her teeth - she cannot realy defend herself. aswell as a dead composer cannot defend himself. there are things in music that are meant to be performed in a certain way, and you cannot simply ignore it. that was what i meant by knowing about a certain composer and his ambitions.
we all know that the note-system is far from beeing accurate and perfect. it leaves alot of room for interpretation and thats what makes the difference in performance. but be sure to keep it within the limits.

think about it.. what if you composed a piece and you know how it should sound like and write it down. then someone comes and plays it completely different cuz he feels like it. i personally would not be too happy about it.

Originally posted by Azrael
thats cool but.. this thread is not about the playin technique - its about what lies beyond - about what makes one player that is technical perfect more outstanding than another player with the same technical skills. and what i wrote in my first post is what i read about it - and i think thats the truth - i can feel it.

Actually, Az, if you read the first paragraph, you would have noticed that what I described will never be played the same by two different people, just because of the very nature of the composition.

Who knows how Chopin originally played it? It's up to each performer to put in his own interpretation and feelings into the rendition. And perhaps even he will play it differently each time!

i dont see where i wrote something contrary to what you just said.

Peforming anothers work while trying to capture what the original peformer strived for or achieved is impossible.It dosnt mean the peformer can't play the piece with heart/conviction/soul though.The possible objection the writer may have had to the present musicians interpretation is selfish...not the other way around.

later! \m/

Az-

I believe we know what each other means, on your half I think your taking what I’m saying and over exaggerating it. I’m not saying change the piece in any way because you feel like it, like “oh that’s a G there well I think it should be a G#”. No I’m not saying that, nor am I saying you should play the piece how you feel because it’s what you feel. If you get a good score of a piece still written in Italian, it should tell you how to play each part the way the original composer would like it. Like if you playing a Requiem, it will probably say Addolorato (which means play mournfully) somewhere on the paper. That right there tells you how to play it and what the composer is saying. That’s all you really need to be aware of when playing a piece from a dead guy. “L” They usually tell you in the piece how they wish the piece to be played, especially back then cause written music was strictly defined. But how exactly we will play the piece mournfully is our interpetation, just as long as it's played in a mournful manner. That's the best we can do.