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“What do you actually do?” and “What is your day job?” are all-too familiar questions to musicians. People are also endlessly fascinated about practising – “so how much practising do you actually do?” – and imagine we spend most of our days closeted inside grim practise rooms, cut off from the real world. Others believe we spend our days lying on a chaise-longue in a Lisztian salon, smoking cigars and pondering the higher things in life.

In reality, the musician’s life is busy, varied and by necessity very peripatetic. Musicians are masters of multi-tasking and the “portfolio career”, and many juggle several roles – performer, teacher, administrator, promoter….and some of us even have jobs outside the profession to supplement meagre teaching or performing fees. Few live by concertising alone and a very tiny handful enjoy celebrity status (deserved or otherwise) and the trappings and sponsorship deals which come with that.

Day-to-day, most of us follow a fairly similar regime of practising (which can occupy a large part of the day – four or five hours – but never done in a single session), teaching (and preparing for teaching), and admin, which can include the business of everyday life, contacting potential venues and promoters, marketing and social media, liaising with others, filling in forms to applying for funding and replying to fan mail. In addition, for those who work with ensembles and orchestras there is rehearsing and meetings with colleagues, publicists, promoters. In the evening there may be concerts or other rehearsals. Some teach in schools, universities and conservatoires, others run outreach and other educational programmes, courses and summer schools. All these activities need to be planned and prepared for, and therefore generate a lot of admin which consumes precious time. Email and the internet undoubtedly make these activities easier, but one still has to set aside time. Admin gets in the way of practising, which can set up feelings of resentment and frustration.

The sheer job of playing notes also tends to mitigate against further sitting at a [computer] keyboard – neither activity can be good for our health. 

The working hours can be very unsociable indeed: concerts generally take place in the evening and afterwards one may face a long trip home on a late night tube or train. More extensive traveling can be very tiring and interrupts both one’s normal working day and sleep pattern which can in turn have a detrimental effect on one’s health. To counteract this, most of the musicians I know make time to do exercise – from the pianist friend who regularly runs half-marathons to the bass player who meditates, this “time out” from the busy, sometimes punishing schedule is important for one’s physical and mental health.

What musicians certainly don’t do is exist in ivory towers, separated from real life. Many have families, mortgages or rent to pay, cars to be serviced and MOT’d, just like everyone else. But weekends are not like other people’s – many musicians work over the weekend, and there is often little differentiation between weekdays and Saturday and Sunday, when others may be enjoying time off.

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That we do something highly artistic or creative does not make us immune to the exigencies of real life – nor ignorant of them. Many of us feel frustrated that our work is often not properly respected nor understood – the “what is your real job?” question comes up all too frequently, and explaining or justifying what we do to people outside the profession can feel like a Sisyphean task: how can doing something we love be regarded as “a proper job”?

To justify our existence, I feel we have a responsibility to ourselves and to our colleagues and others in the industry to conduct ourselves with professionalism at all times. If we do not respect ourselves we cannot expect respect from others and our professionalism demonstrates to others that we believe our role has value and importance in society, whether teaching small people Bach’s first Kleine Prelude or playing to a full house at Carnegie Hall.

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There has been a lively response to this article in The Guardian and I was happy to add my name to a list of signatories on an open letter in response written by pianist and musicologist Ian Pace (who is still collecting names – as I write, I understand Sir Simon Rattle has asked to be added to the list).

I share the author of The Guardian article’s concerns about the provision – or lack thereof – of music education in the UK, particularly in the state sector, and I, along with many music teacher colleagues, are fearful that with cuts in funding, music education (along with art and drama) will become the exclusive preserve of the private sector.

Observing the gradual dismantling of music teaching in our state schools from my, admittedly privileged, position as a private piano teacher working in one of the most affluent suburbs of SW London, I’ve come to appreciate that my own introduction to and study of music in the state education system in the 1970s and 80s was truly exceptional – both in terms of provision and quality of teaching – and a lot of what I learnt then, specifically at O and A-level, remains useful in my day-to-day teaching activities. I was indeed very fortunate.

What has really upset many of us about The Guardian article is the author’s assertion that musical notation – the dots, lines and signs on the printed or handwritten page of a musical score – is “a cryptic, tricky language (…) that can only be read by a small number of people“. She infers that the ability to read music is elitist because notation is unintelligible except to those who are privately educated.

In fact, the ability to read music is no more elitist than the ability to read English or Spanish or comprehend simple HTML coding. All skills which can be taught, and taught well, so that students learn and absorb them. Music is a language, with its own grammar and punctuation marks, which can be and is taught in a way not dissimilar to the teaching of, say, French or Latin.

I can’t remember when I first learnt to read music. I must have been around 5 or 6, as that is when I first started piano lessons, and at that time (early 1970s) I was probably taught in a very traditional way (I did music theory homework every week alongside my piano practise). But the method clearly worked as by the time I reached Grade 5 at the age of about 10, I was sufficiently confident in my music reading to start exploring beyond the confines of the piano grade syllabus. I was also a proficient and voracious sight-reader (a skill which I have fortunately retained, but one which must be practised regularly). Being able to read well unlocked an amazing door into a world of adventure and exploration – just as being able to read and understand English well did too (well, hello Chaucer!). As my pianistic skills advanced, so did my reading and pretty soon great thickets of notes or music written across three staves (such as in Debussy’s Preludes – pieces I played regularly as a teenager) became something with which I could engage and enjoy.

The young people, and adults, whom I teach and have taught will all say that one of the primary motivations for learning the piano is also learning to read music. One of my students really put his finger on it recently when he said “I want to be able to read music well enough so that I can open a book of music and play anything I want to” (observe his piano teacher whooping inwardly for joy – because this is my aim too!). This student could appreciate that the ability to read music offers the possibility for independent learning and exploration.

Learning to read music really isn’t that difficult: musical notation certainly has fewer quirks and anomalies than the English language and its “rules” and “grammar” are largely unchanging, which makes it a language which is pretty universal, in my humble opinion. For example, last year, I worked with an orchestra made up of musicians from the former Yugoslavia. My Croatian language skills don’t extend much further than “Zdravo” (Hello, how are you?) or “Doviđenja” (Goodbye), picked up on an exchange trip to Zagreb in my O-level year, but I and the other musicians all had the same score (Bach’s Double Concerto) on the music desks and we were able to “converse” through that: the notes on the pages became our common language. This may sound rather romantic, but musical notation also allows us to transcribe – or translate, if you will – music from other cultures, thus giving us the opportunity to experience this music within a more familiar set of symbols and parameters.

Bachlut1As my experience with the No Borders Orchestra illustrates, notation is not pure “theory” – it’s practical. Those dots, squiggles and numbers on the page are the directions to us, the musicians, which enable us to translate the composer’s intentions into sounds. Notation is also an important tool in understanding the structure, architecture and narrative of the music. It means we can look at original scores by composers like Bach or Mozart and understand them. The ability to read music enables us to play together in orchestras and bands, sing in choirs, read a jazz lead sheet – and the end result is……music. It’s not elitist; it’s simply the way music works – and it’s an efficient system understood by many, used across genres from rock and pop to jazz and classical music.

 

notation is a beautiful thing in its own right, a way of communicating ideas based on a common understanding and not something just for the privileged (I use myself as the example here, being from a working class, south London background with a very incomplete education)

– Marc Yeats, composer

In teaching notation, I think we need to dispel “the myth of difficult” – that is, if we tell children or indeed adults that something is difficult before they begin, the difficulty is inculcated in them from the outset and the task seems that much more onerous/impossible. Many people can’t read music because they don’t believe they can, that it is simply too difficult for them to grasp: they have been peddled the idea that it is “difficult” by peers, parents, teachers and such a negative, defeatist attitude convinces them that they won’t be able to do it. But good, intelligent, and positive teaching can turn learning to read music into a valuable and practical tool which gives access to a common language, develops fully rounded musicians, and sets us on a wonderful voyage of discovery.

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Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and pursue a career in music?

Leonard Bernstein. I grew up with music; my mother was always singing or playing the piano, so it wasn’t until I was maybe 9 or 10 that I had my first revelatory experience with music. At the time Bernstein’s “Young Peoples’ Concerts” were being aired in syndication and it was through those concerts that I started to feel a passion for music.

Taking up the piano was more or less serendipity. We had a piano in the house and I would occasionally improvise little tone poems. Eventually, around age 11, my mother asked if I would want to take piano lessons. I said I did, and that was the start of it.

From the beginning I always saw it as a path to being a conductor. Then about half way through my undergraduate work I considered music history and even received a bachelor’s degree in it. Graduate school set my focus on piano, though not after much deliberation on other career paths.

Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?

This really comes down to the things that led to my decision to specialize, I think.

I visited a friend who was attending graduate school at Bowling Green University and had the opportunity to spend the weekend with composers and new music performers my own age (mid-twenties).

Around that time I also became friends with Paavali Jumppanen. In many ways he’s been a mentor throughout the years. He had a lot to do with my gravitating towards by niche, and he was the whole reason I first took up Boulez’s third piano sonata.

Reading John Cage’s “Silence” and engaging with the philosophy of aesthetics changed my understanding and the way I approach music generally.

This is, of course, at the exclusion of several professors, colleagues, and friends that have had no small part in me being who I am and doing what I’m doing. I owe a great deal to a great many people.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

As a pianist who’s never played in a competition, I would say just getting noticed (I’m not interested in music-as-sport). The wonders of the internet are making this easier, of course, and I owe my fledgling career to it.

Having started studying piano relatively late I might also say that I went through a period of intense technical insecurity—not that my technique was poor, but I felt that it was to the extent that I spent the better part of two years working mostly on technique.

It’s also no easy thing to be a specialist in 20th and 21st century music. As a performer the music itself is taxing. It’s also difficult to overcome the intensely visceral reactions people can have (the invective that can be deployed is occasionally overwhelming!).

When people aren’t reacting negatively there’s a bit of a challenge to being taken seriously—I can’t tell you how many time I hear some version of “no one call tell if you make mistakes.” I usually confess to whomever is saying it that I played some wrong notes and assure them that people who study this sort of music can tell the difference.

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

An audience member once told me that my performance of Brahms (op.117) made them cry—that’s pretty hard to top.

I’m proud of my debut album as it marks the culmination of some 6 years of work and research. I’m humbled that I had the privilege of being the first pianist to record Gilbert Amy’s rather obscure piano sonata and that I got to work (via correspondence) with the composer in preparation for the recording.

Which particular works do you think you play best?

I would say Webern’s Variations op.27 and Boulez’s Third Piano Sonata. These are both works I play frequently and have recorded, more importantly I feel they’re works I connect with—I understand them—and I think that comes out in my performances of them.

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

It depends on what works I happen to be obsessed with at the time and whether I can build them around either continuity or contrast. That’s if I’m not playing a work that’s program-length like Feldman’s “For Bunita Marcus.”

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

At this point it would have to be the Calderwood Hall in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It makes you hear the piano in a completely different way.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

I’m crazy about Josquin. The motets are my Sunday listening. Also Hildegard von Bingen absolutely blows my mind.

One of my favourite pieces to perform is Stockhausen’s Klavierstück XI—famous for its variable form. Playing it is like discovering it. I’m always fascinated by the differences between the readings I give of it.

Who are your favourite musicians?

Geza Anda, I don’t think I ever truly heard Chopin until I heard his recordings. Anatol Ugorsk’s Scriabin is an absolute revelation and the care he gives to the balance and counterpoint is unmatched. Samson Francois—especially his Ravel—I don’t always agree with his interpretive choices, but I’m always convinced.

Barbara Hannigan, she’s such a compelling performer. I admire her daring (and find myself somewhat frustrated that classical music is so conservative that what she does can be seen as daring). Yuja Wang, not only for being an incredible pianist, but also giving-no-fucks about the onslaught of sexism she faces.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Hearing Paavali Jumppanen play William Duckworth’s Time Curve Preludes at the composer’s retirement party is a concert I won’t soon forget.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

Don’t take shortcuts. Playing the piano is hard, and shortcuts don’t make it any easier.

James Iman’s debut recording of music by works by Pierre Boulez, Gilbert Amy, Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern is released on 1 April 2017 on the ZeD Classics label.

American pianist James W. Iman has distinguished himself as a specialist in 20th and 21st century repertoire and frequently performs music of the Second Viennese, Darmstadt, and New York schools. His playing has been called “direct,” “incisive,” “thoughtful,” and “compelling.”

In 2015 he joined the artist roster of ZeD Classics and 2017 saw the release of his debut album which includes the World Premier Recording of Gilbert Amy’s Sonate pour Piano alongside Pierre Boulez’s Troisième Sonate, and works by Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern.

Mr. Iman has given World and United States Premieres, including the recent United States Premiere of Gilbert Amy’s labyrinthine Sonate pour Piano, collaborating with the composer in preparation for recording the work. In 2015 he commissioned a large-scale solo work from American composer Lowell Fuchs, to be premiered in 2017.

In June of 2015 he participated in the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at Boston’s New England Conservatory where he studied with Steve Drury and performed in the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum.

A graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Music, Mr. Iman holds an MA in Piano Performance and a BA in Music History and Piano Performance from the university. While at IUP he studied piano with Judith Radell and James Staples.

www.jameswiman.net

(Photo: Christopher Ruth)

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Guest review by Patrick, a musicologist residing in the Midwest

img_0058Daniil Trifonov was annoyed. He walked out on stage with a pained expression, the cheery look of his youth victim of the trials, presumably, of a professional career. After two cursorily rude bows to the audience (which wrapped around the stage entirely), he jumped straight onto the bench, staring – grimacing – at the keys. Kinderszenen contained all of his trademark complexity of line and texture brought about by Trifonov’s utterly unique use of microdislocations – employed continuously throughout the whole set. This technique is the heart of his genius, allowing him to achieve extreme contrasts in texture, voicing, and phrasing of line. Can you think of any other pianist that developed the dislocation to such a degree? While it may seem like a product of his Russian education, is there another Russian pianist today that pursues the same innovation in performance technique? I doubt Trifonov learned in America either – I was certainly never allowed by my teacher to engage in such excesses. Neither can it be said that he is reviving some past performance practice – older Soviet pianists certainly employed dislocation to add emphasis to moments of arrival, but not in the pervasive manner employed here. Furthermore, the traditional type of dislocation – pressing the bass notes before the treble to create a sense of arrival – is decidedly not what one typically hears at a Trifonov concert. He must be taking a lesson from chamber music and vocal accompanying practice. After all, it is somewhat common among good accompanists to delay the bass arrivals until after the attack of the vocal notes fades into resonance. And this type of dislocation, with the bass (and also middle voices) delayed until after the treble, is what makes Trifonov’s artistry so special.

Back to the program: Kinderszenen was a feast to the ears of line and color. Dramatic passages were dispatched with great energy and aplomb. It must be said, however, that Trifonov’s typical lyricism seemed to be dulled this evening – perhaps a result of whatever annoyance was bothering him. The slower passages did not quite have that feeling of magical cessation of time, often miraculously whipped up by the pianist through an ingenious combination of tempo manipulation and textural contrasts. While these techniques were still very much present, there was the deadly feeling of impatience imposed over them. Notwithstanding, I cannot register a complaint, as what may have been lacking in the slower passages were more than made up for by the fire and drama brought to the climactic passages, especially as the recital progressed. The next piece, Schumann’s Toccata, testifies to Trifonov’s brilliance in program construction – after the lapidary miniatures of Kinderszenen, the audience was ready to be whipped into a frenzy, and the ploy worked – numerous people gave a standing ovation to the second piece on the program. The sound world of the Toccata (and of the Schumann in general) is very interesting. It seems to me that Trifonov has entered into a new phase of his career where he is exploring the mid-range of the piano. The Toccata was a great illustration of this, as the soprano and bass voices were hardly ever brought out in favor of a gritty voicing of the middle voice chords filling out the texture (another thing I would never have been allowed to do). This technique robs the Toccata of its flair as a dramatic showpiece with a thundering bass, but gives it a new lease on life by revealing its wacky side (I cannot help but now see a connection to Stravinsky’s Petrushka, occupying the place of finale in the other half of the program). As for the Kreisleriana, the masterwork of the first half, I can firmly declare that Trifonov is peerless in this work. No one other recording or performance that I have ever heard contains even half of his kaleidoscopic conception and range of texture, timbre, and tempo: my companion at the concert (a violinist herself) said that at several points she forgot that she was listening to the piano (an instrument she never took to that much) and instead thought there was a chamber ensemble on stage! Can you think of higher praise for a pianist than that?

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Cartoon of Trifonov by @pianistswkitten

After a massive standing ovation for the first half and the pause, Trifonov sprints back out the bench and dives into his selections from Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues. These selections were not chosen in their original order, but arranged for maximum effect – the creepily gorgeous opening prelude leads us through a luscious set of figural fragrances and fabrics before ending with a fugue containing a stormy finish. After this piece, the audience not only stood up to clap, but starting to yell bravos as well – something I have never heard before in the middle of a program – obscuring even the start of the Stravinsky! Even more so than the Schumann works, Shostakovich provided a canvas for Trifonov’s deeply original creativity – the range of sounds coming from the piano was tremendous, but equally matched by a phenomenal sense of dramatic pacing and climactic energy. The metaphor of Trifonov as a chamber ensemble with independent-minded players never seemed more apt. The final work on the program – Stravinsky’s Petrushka and the highlight of the concert – must be heard to be believed. No longer can Petrushka be considered an empty virtuoso vehicle, indeed so much life was added to it that many parts simply did not resemble what we are used to hearing. On top of all the qualities emphasized above (including some marvelously voiced chords and textures), it was Trifonov’s undeniable genius at rhythmic shaping that brought the piece to life. In short, the rhythms were so powerful, the syncopations so strong, the polyrhythms so present, that one could hardly avoid falling out of your seat – indeed Trifonov seemed perilously close falling off the bench has he was what could only be called dancing on the bench. And the music was dancing too, in every nook and cranny of the piece Stravinsky’s vision of the Russian countryside came to life. For the first time, that old wild smile began to appear on Trifonov’s face.

After tremendous applause that began before the piece even finished, the audience was treated to two encores (desperate attempts to garner a third through yelling at the pianist proved unsuccessful). The first was Nikolay Medtner’s Op. 38/8 “Alla Reminiscenza” played at a breakneck speed, building up to a tremendous flourish. Let it be known that I would graciously donate an arm and a leg to hear Trifonov perform the whole set. The second encore was a delightful piece by Prokofiev bringing the nearly 3-hour concert to a close. The concert showed once again that Trifonov is the premier recitalist of the age – it was only marred by a phone endlessly ringing during the Kreisleriana, which, after being supposedly shut off, went on to ring again exactly 30 seconds later.

Concert date: 26 March 2017, CSO Chicago

PROGRAM

Schumann – Kinderszenen

Schumann – Toccata, Op. 7

Schumann – Kreisleriana

Shostakovich – Selections from 24 Preludes and Fugues

Stravinsky – Three Movements from Petrushka

Medtner – Alla Reminiscenza from Forgotten Melodies [ENCORE]

Prokofiev – Gavotte from Cinderella [ENCORE]