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One of the world’s best pianists, Sir András Schiff, joins the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to perform some of world’s best piano music.

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Written 22 years apart, Brahms’ only piano concertos are snapshots of his life. The first is youthful, raw and expressive; the second is mature, structured and wiser. Both embody radical ideas of the 19th century, when revolution was in the air and artists joined political movements to overturn the old order.

The OAE performs these blockbuster piano concertos over two nights with Sir András Schiff, an extraordinary pianist and one of the world’s finest musicians. To complement the piano concertos, they also delve into music by Brahm’s mentor and inspiration, Robert Schumann exploring the complex interplay between political turmoil and personal anguish in composer’s life.

Pre-concert talks, Level 5 Function Room, Royal Festival Hall 6pm

New to Brahms? Enjoy an introduction to Brahms’ Piano Concertos at a free pre-concert talk by presenter Katy Hamilton.

On the second night, Dr Robert Samuels of the Open University will explore Brahms’ relationship with Schumann in a pre-concert talk

Brahms Piano Concertos with Sir András Schiff

Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 March 2019, Royal Festival Hall, 7pm

Further information and tickets

source: OAE press

(Photo: Yutaka Suzuki/Askonas Holt)

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Guest post by Simon Danell

Memorizing has, for years, been very fascinating to me. I think that’s partly due to the fact that it was such a struggle for me in the beginning, whereas now it seems like a very natural thing to do. It’s something most of us haven’t really been taught, but expected to figure out by ourselves – if we don’t learn the piece by heart, we’re usually just told to practice more.

I find it interesting how such a crucial part is just left for fate do decide.

When starting to play piano, memorizing is usually not such a big problem. The songs or pieces are short enough to learn just by playing them through a couple of times per day. But once we enter even slightly more advanced repertoire, that way of learning is suddenly of no use, and we tend to find ourselves fiddling around on the keys with an increased heart rate, and with the words “Oh, sh*t” repeating in our heads.

I was no different. I easily came through the harmonically simple and motorically repetitive pieces without any difficulty, and putting my head on auto pilot was my idea of a perfect concert – I’d get up on stage, bow, sit down and start to play. Things would then turn black, and I would come out of the darkness a few minutes later once the last note is played. “How did it go? Oh, just amazing, I didn’t even have to think!” Then it came….. I went up on stage, bowed, sat down and things turned black. “But what was that note again?“, and it all changed. I came out of the darkness, but I wasn’t even half -way through the piece. Desperately I tried to find the right notes to play, my heart rate increased and “Oh, sh*t!” was on repeat in my mind.

Luckily, it was on a sort of bad piano, and the audience was a bunch of classmates who just wanted to go home. They were probably coughing and yawning a lot, so it was surely because of that, and nothing I had done wrong. All I had to do was to practice some more and just focus a bit more next time.

The next concert came – I went up, bowed, sat down.. all just routine by now. The only difference was that this time, I’d be Focused! “Focus, focus focus focus… fo.. f…. oh, sh*t!”

These slips went on. I could play the music perfectly at home, and almost as good in the lesson room, but once on stage, it all just fell apart. I went on to practice 8-10 hours per day, but still with the same result in concert.

I got some tricks from my teacher, like “Think of the harmonies” or “Practice more slowly, and with separate hands!“, but that rarely made any actual difference.

The real difference came when I started studying at actual music school, when I was about 18, where other students also had to practice. The rooms quite quickly became full, and there was a lot of time spent just waiting. As the pieces had to be learned anyway, I started by just reading the score, and tried to imagine what it looked like. I read a line, or a phrase, closed my eyes, and tried to play it in my head. Not only was I unable to remember the notes, I barely remembered what it sounded like! It was such an epiphany that I knew it would change my musical life. I finally started thinking about practicing. How would I ever be able to play anything if I had no idea what I was actually playing? From then on I started practicing away from the instruments at least an hour every day. I tried to not allow myself to practice at a piano before I had a very clear idea in my mind of how it was going to sound once I started playing.

It became clear to me that the motoric memory (or muscle memory, as some call it), the thing I had used for so long, was actually very unsafe and unstable. I found that the other senses have an impact on our memory too – the aural and visual, and the intellectual part – and how they, unlike the motoric memory, really needed to be worked on properly and won’t just come by themselves.

I started analyzing my performances, and what I was thinking during my playing. As it turned out, I was thinking almost exactly the same things when I was performing as when I was practicing, and once the muscle memory turned off, I had no safety-net since I didn’t make one when I was practicing. In some aspects, practicing shouldn’t really be that different from performing.

Once I started practicing everything I had to know on the stage, all the memory slips disappeared almost over night. I finally realized not only to focus, but on what I should focus. If I noticed that my mind was drifting on a certain spot, I practiced to know what to think on that spot (the notes, the character, to sing the melody…) to train myself to think about the same thing during the performance. Or if I noticed that I worried about remembering the notes in a certain phrase, I practiced every voice carefully in my mind, both the notes and the music, before I played them, and followed each of them very attentively when I played. Then I would have created a safety net, in case I would need it in public.

I practiced very attentively like this for some time, to make sure I would cover the full piece – I remember once when I was performing the Symphonic Etudes by Schumann and, with full focus, was able to follow everything, down to pretty much every single note – but then got into the next problem….

You. Can’t. Make. Music. If. It. Never. Ever. Flows. … Which is what happens if you think on a note-to-note basis.

It was an obvious improvement from being neither detailed nor attentive, but it was a few steps too far. I tried to alternate between being in constant control, with often playing through to put everything in a certain perspective.

Now I feel that I can be both while performing. If I feel I am under control, I can let go and let the music flow by itself, and can just as easily go back to regain my focus if it’s starting to fall apart.

This article first appeared on the website of pianist Simon Danell.

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Diehard classical music fans look away now – this futuristic bluetooth speaker is not for you. Designed to appeal to teens, SciFi fans and lovers of films like Star Wars and War of the Worlds, the Zoeao ‘Gravastar’ bluetooth speaker prides itself on its unusual design and a deep punchy bass sound.

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It may look as if it’s about to scurry across the room like a metallic robot spider, but the Gravastar is perfectly benign and very easy to use. Once I’d paired it with my iPhone (no need to presss the bluetooth button for very long to achieve this), a message from the device confirmed pairing had taken place and I was away with a selection of music ranging from late Brahms piano music to Chick Corea, a pianist friend’s own Indian-inspired compositions, and the debut album by experimental electronic 1990s group Enigma, which is where the speaker really came into its own, filling the room with sound, clean and resonant. And yes, the bass is impressive.

Unaccompanied Bach Cello Suites (Yo Yo Ma’s recent recording) also fared pretty well – the device’s rich bass sound suits the warm voice of the cello, but you need the volume turned down to avoid hiss. The volume control on the device is a simple swipe of the finger across its domed head – or adjust it via your smartphone.  My Reggae mix came across particularly well via the Gravastar, and I also relived my 50th birthday party with this playlist. This device is definitely best suited to jazz, pop and rock music; the serious classical music afficionado is not necessarily going to find the breadth or detail of sound from the Gravastar.

Technical info:

  • shock-absorbent zinc alloy shell houses a 20W speaker
  • tripod design gives stability so that bluetooth connection and playback quality is not compromised, even at maximum power/sound output
  • two Gravastar devices can be paired for an even bigger surround sound
  • Touch-sensitive volume control
  • Futuristic ambient lighting effects
  • TWS Bluetooth V5.0 technology
  • 30-hour battery life
  • Comes with charging cable and connector cable for non-wireless playback
  • RRP $129 (launch price)

More information

 

 

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prodigy
ˈprɒdɪdʒi/
noun
noun: prodigy; plural noun: prodigies
1. a young person with exceptional qualities or abilities.
“a Russian pianist who was a child prodigy in his day”
synonyms: child genius, genius, wonder child, wunderkind

We’ve all seen them on YouTube – the tiny child at the vast piano playing technically and musically advanced repertoire. We marvel at their prowess, their facility and, more often than not, the extraordinary fleetness of their little fingers, as they rattle off Chopin’s most challenging Etudes or entire piano concertos.

Musical prodigies are not a new phenomenon – Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Mendelssohn were all described as prodigies – and so these modern “mini Mozarts” are following in a long tradition.

Daniel Barenboim, himself often described as a “child prodigy”, has suggested that these remarkable children are only prodigies in the eyes of their parents, and it’s true that some parents regard a special aptitude in a particularly young child as a sign of “giftedness”. This is in part due to a certain “Olympics syndrome” – a competitiveness amongst parents to push their children to greater things and to compete against other children, and their parents (having lived in an affluent and high achieiving area of SW London for 25 years, I encountered this behaviour quite frequently; one of the more unpleasant recent manifestations of this can be seen in the British tv series Child Genius, a competition for “highly gifted” children aged 7 to 12 in which rote learning and the ability to regurgitate memorized information are regarded as indicators of “genius” and exceptional ability.)

Why do prodigies, and specifically musical prodigies, fascinate us and provoke so much awed attention? Fundamentally, it’s the incongruity of seeing a child, especially a very young child, engaging in what is generally regarded as an adult activity for which substance, maturity, emotional depth and artistry are essential ingredients. True prodigies are able to function at an advanced adult level in a facility such as music, maths or chess before the age of 12, and so we marvel at these talented young people who seem to demonstrate, at their tender age, the heights of human achievement.

Meanwhile, others may display a cynicism towards prodigous children: the critic Philip Hensher has commented that “serious art music could never be written by a child”, and some point to the fact that young children lack the requisite knowledge, emotional intelligence or life experience to bring interpretative depth, meaning or insight to the complex music they play; that they simply imitate others. For some, the parading of prodigous children on chat shows and talent contests, where they might be required to perform “tricks” such as improvisation on random notes pulled out of hat, is akin to watching a circus act.

Whatever one’s view, there is no question that prodigies and gifted children are different. Many are home schooled, which immediately sets them apart from other “normal” children (whatever that means). For some, the school system simply cannot fulfil their needs: exceptionally gifted children need specialist support just as children with learning difficulties such as dyslexia or dyspraxia do, and some child prodigies also have Attention Deficit Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Asperger’s. A heavy responsibility may thus fall upon the parents of prodigious children to ensure they thrive, are supported, allowed as normal a childhood as possible, and avoid burnout. Equally, parents who do not support their child’s talent may deprive that child of the life he or she craves and is happiest in, which can lead to problems later on.

The latest “new Mozart” is Alma Deutscher, an apparently very bright and sweet British girl, who plays the piano and violin to a high level, and who, more remarkably, has by the age of just 12 composed concertos for violin and piano, a full-length opera and numerous other works. Her love of “beautiful music” is evident in her own works which hark back to the “galant” style and to the romantic music of composers such as Schubert and Tchaikovsky. Alma herself sensibly dismisses the comparison to Mozart, but it’s a convenient tag for those who find her fascinating or marketable. Her musical abilities have been widely praised, by such doyens as Sir Simon Rattle and Zubin Mehta, but also criticized for their derivative and unadventurous character. Yet when you listen to Alma Deutscher’s music it is perhaps exactly the type of sweet, tuneful romantic music one would expect from a girl with a vivid imagination and a penchant for elaborate fantasy, who perhaps has had little exposure to more avant-garde music.

The anxiety over children such as Alma Deutscher is that they are missing out on a “normal childhood” and that as a consequence of too much exposure may burn out in their teens or twenties, and then fade into obscurity. As well as parental support, there is a responsibility on the media, artist agents and concert promoters to ensure prodigious children are not cynically exploited and are allowed to mature and develop as artists. The transition from child prodigy to grown up artist can be difficult, especially if one has spent much of one’s childhood confined to a practice room instead of playing with other children, and the older the child, the harsher the criticism, and the harder the fall from grace.

Of course, the real challenge is whether the child prodigy can truly stand the test of time and is enjoying a successful career 20-plus years later. Notable examples include Daniel Barenboim, Martha Argerich, and Anne Sophie Mutter. Others simply retreat from the limelight into a contented ordinary life. One can but hope for happiest outcome for Alma Deutscher…..