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“If you can’t sing it, you can’t hear it. And that means we [the audience] can’t hear it either.”

This is what my teacher said to me at my recent lesson, during which we worked on Chopin’s Nocturne, Opus 62 no. 2, the last Nocturne published in his lifetime. In bars 20-22 the left hand plays descending sustained minims, achieved by silently changing from a thumb to a fifth finger. I’d got the fingering right, but I could not sing those sustained notes. As a result, they were lost amid all the other sounds and textures in this passage. Once I’d sung the notes, I found I could sound them easily, and a little extra weight in the finger added a warmth and resonance which was obvious, but not overpowering, under the gorgeous treble line.

It sounds obvious, that we should listen all the time when we are playing, whether in practice or performance, but it is quite common for us not to listen, and to allow the mind – and ears – to wander as we work, and thus not take in fully what we are doing at the keyboard. As pianist Murray McLachlan said at a recent EPTA event I attended, “use your ears: they are your fiercest critic and your best teacher”.

My piano lesson last week was mostly concerned with listening as both pieces I presented have a strong melodic line which needs to sing out over the bass (the other piece was the slow movement from Bach’s D minor Concerto after Marcello, BWV 947). As I listened to myself playing, striving always for the most beautiful cantabile sound, I learnt to adjust my arm weight, lightening it to produce a better sound. In the Chopin, even where a passage is marked crescendo, leading to forte (for example, from bar 12), one should not allow the arm to become heavy: the sound one is aiming for here is increased warmth rather than volume. At this point, my teacher and I paused to discuss first-hand accounts of Chopin playing: it is said that he never played louder than mezzo-forte (even if he had written forte in the score). ‘Warming up’ the sound can create the effect of an increase in volume, without losing a beautiful tone.

I find it hard to persuade my students to listen. Too often they want to gallop through their pieces, get the notes right and not bother too much about producing a good tone. Yet, the production of beautiful tone is what pianists strive for above anything else: even the most spiky passages of Prokofiev or Stockhausen should be played with careful attention to tone. Be critical as you play: listen all the time and if you don’t like the sound you are hearing, find ways to adjust it to make it better by experimenting with arm weight (lightening the arm will usually produce a better tone), and by ‘visualising’ the sound you want to achieve before you play it (it’s amazing how different your tone will be if you spend a few moments before you play imagining the sound). We should keep our ears open and attuned to what we are doing, to allow us to make minor adjustments to our playing and sound production. If you like the sound you are producing in a particular passage, try and remember that sound for next time, and what it felt like as you were playing it. Were your arms light, your wrists soft? What else were you doing with your body to create that sound?

Recording yourself playing is another invaluable aspect of listening: I have routinely started recording my students, especially those who have exams fairly imminently, and sending them a soundclip to listen to. I ask them to listen critically, not for errors and slips, but for an ‘overview’ of the sound. I ask them to make notes (to bring to the next lesson for discussion with me) about what they liked and disliked about the sound, and to think about how they can improve it or change it.

If you do record yourself playing, don’t listen to the recording as soon as you’ve made it. You are likely to be far more critical at this point and may not listen in the right way. Leave it a few days, and then listen to your recording. Review it carefully and note what you like and dislike about your playing. Compare recordings of the same piece, made at different times and in different circumstances (for example, in practice, in performance, on a different instrument etc.).

Another aspect of listening is of course hearing other people play, live and on disc. Go to concerts, listen to recordings and note what you enjoy about the sounds other pianists make. Remember that they are probably employing the same techniques as you to create that sound!

Chopin – Opus 62 no.2

Here is Richter

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A recent search thread which led someone to my blog – “classical music you should be practising” – set me thinking: what are the “must plays” of the standard repertoire, and why?

Please feel free to join the discussion and leave your comments and suggestions. I will then compile a proper blog post.

To get the conversation going, I have so far:

Bach – Partitas, WTC and Italian Concertos

Chopin – Etudes

Use the comment box to leave your suggestions, or contact me via Twitter @crosseyedpiano.

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by Madelaine Jones

Say the name Balakirev to a musician and the first word to pass their lips will most probably be Islamey, the terrifyingly difficult Oriental Fantasy that the composer is most renowned for. Try Wagner, and Tristan and Isolde or Tannhäuser will closely follow suit. Dare to mutter the name Schoenberg, and horror at the thought of yet another piece of serialist, ‘plinky-plonky’ atonal music will turn them pale. And yet Balakirev has over 100 published works (and a great deal many more surviving manuscripts), Wagner wrote symphonies, piano sonatas and choral works as well as his operas, and Schoenberg didn’t write any atonal music at all until 1908, when he was 34 years old. It’s the same for almost any composer: we have a set handful of things that we most associate them with, and we mentally fill in the blanks from there, meaning that there is a whole catalogue’s worth of music that musicians don’t play, explore or programme because they simply don’t look beyond the obvious choices.

I decided last year that I was going try something a little different, so over the past 6 months, I have purposefully searched for some pieces I had never heard of before by (fairly) well-known composers and set out to learn them. As a result, I have had the pleasure of studying some fantastic pieces of music I would never have been exposed to had I not ventured a little off the traditional path. Here is a selection of pieces I’ve come across on my hunt for new repertoire:

Saint-Saëns: Mazurka in G minor, Op. 21

We all know Chopin was a prolific mazurka writer, but it turns out Saint-Saëns actually wrote a small handful of them too. Three separately published mazurkas written by Saint-Saëns exist, the earliest (the op. 21 in G minor) written in 1862, 13 years after Chopin’s death. The G minor Mazurka is full of cheekiness and wit, from the repeated ‘ping’ of the bass line to the waltz-like lyrical middle section. The whole thing sparkles with charm, and makes a great little character piece, or alternatively, the three in a set make an interesting item for any programme (the other two mazurkas, op. 24 and op. 66, are also both full of character and rhythmic intrigue). The link I’ve included is not necessarily the best recording of the work I’ve heard, but it’s a recording by Saint-Saëns himself, which I personally found remarkably interesting to listen to.

Balakirev: Scherzo No. 1 in B Minor

As I mentioned earlier, we tend to know Balakirev for his Islamey and nothing else, but he was in fact a prolific writer for piano and a far greater figure in Russian music history than we frequently credit him for. After listening to a BBC podcast about Balakirev last year, I heard a short clip of the B Minor Scherzo and became determined to learn it, despite having to have the music shipped in from Russia (and finding only one recording on Amazon!). The piece was written in 1856, and juxtaposes a fierce, majestic opening with a beautifully poignant, lyrical middle section. Dainty filigree in the right hand is then followed again by rich, virulent chords, the calm of the middle succeeded by a drama and passion with a triumphant coda to finish. In my opinion, the piece easily rivals the famous Chopin Scherzos for its dramatic outbursts, twists and turns, though with a distinctly Russian feel to the harmony. Learning-wise, it’s not an easy piece: the octaves are an absolute killer (a struggle for anyone with small hands, definitely!) but it is well worth struggling through for the sake of learning such a wonderful piece of music.

Shostakovich: Aphorisms, Op. 13

While pianists probably know Shostakovich best for his Preludes and Fugues, a modern take on the Bach Well-Tempered Clavier, there are some delightful (yet slightly more experimental!) sets of pieces by Shostakovich out there. His Aphorisms, Op. 13, was written in 1927, and consists of 10 short ‘character’ pieces which are, interestingly, far more atonal that some of his later works. The work is kicked off with the Recitative, a contrapuntal yet lyrical introduction, with the set going on to include a Nocturne (in free-time, very improvisatory), an 8-bar Elegy, a Dance Of Death (the initially child-like tune mixed with the Dies Irae theme proves to be very macabre) and a Lullaby (surprisingly soothing despite the innovative choices of harmony). The set really shines a different light on Shostakovich, allowing us to see how his remarkable nature for innovation developed from his artistic experiments as a 21-year-old, and the set is a wonderful work to play, being both technically challenging and stretching the imagination with regard to interpreting the titles.

Madelaine Jones is currently a student at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, studying piano and harpsichord with Penelope Roskell and James Johnstone respectively. Her ensemble experience as a pianist has included working alongside the BBC Singers, the Medway Singers and the Walderslade Primary School Choir, and she has performed as a harpsichordist and chamber organist in the Greenwich International Early Music Festival alongside Trinity Laban’s various Early Music Ensembles. Madelaine is a recent recipient of an LCM London Music Schools and Teachers Award, and is also a keen writer in her spare time.

Twitter: @madelainemusic

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Franz Schubert's eyeglasses on the manuscript of the song "Gretchen am Spinnrad", Schubert Museum, Vienna

 

Music journalist and author Jessica Duchen makes a passionate case for the music of Franz Schubert in a recent article on her blog.

I’ve had a lifelong fascination with Schubert’s music, from an LP of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony in my parents’ record collection to hearing my father playing ‘The Shepherd on the Rock’ on his clarinet, and my own early explorations with the Impromptus as a teenage piano student, explorations which continue to fascinate me today. I think Jessica says it all – read her article here.

Michael Collins (clarinet) – Der Hirt Auf Dem Felsen (The Shepherd On The Rock)