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‘The Single Petal of A Rose’ – Duke Ellington

Another troubled, turbulent week – at home and abroad – but on Friday evening, at an informal performance platform/social event for members of Piano Network UK, a 1500+ strong Facebook group of pianists, composers, piano teachers, and piano lovers, I discovered via one of the performers, jazz pianist Rick Simpson, this piece by Duke Ellington. As Rick said when he introduced the piece, it’s Ellington’s hommage to Debussy and Ravel, and there’s more than a hint of Claire de Lune in it with its sensuous harmonies, repeated melodic fragments and softly undulating rhythms.



This rendition is by Marian McPartland from her album ‘The Single Petal of A Rose: The Essence of Duke Ellington’.

The piece comes from ‘The Queen Suite’, written by Ellington in honour of Queen Elizabeth II in 1958 after he met her at a reception in Leeds. The six-movement suite had remained hidden in the Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, since the composer’s death in 1998 before it was played at the Marlborough International Jazz Festival as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012.

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(photo: Nikolaj Lund)
Who or what inspired you to take up violin and pursue a career in music?

This was an easy choice, everybody in my family was playing the violin. It was almost a “Mother language”. I HAD to talk this language if I wanted to be understood, or understand what was around.

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

In my early life, as I said, my parents and my family, but then, later on, the absolute love of the music and the need to create sounds!

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

All the competitions that I have done were a great challenge till today. But I understand now, that the biggest challenge ever happens each time I come to play a concert for an audience who expects to hear something special, something they will remember; this is  very challenging!

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

I unfortunately don’t remember so well which concerts went well, but I remember very well the bad ones. I always try to recall what actually made an experience not so good, so that I know what to do for the next time. The greatest concert was probably a recital, where I felt the biggest connection with my partner. That was incredible.

Which particular works do you think you play best?

Probably the ones that I believe in the most. Meaning, when I study the piece in its context and the main idea, touches me. When the music, or its purpose doesn’t really touch me, I am afraid I can’t be sure of giving my best in it…

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

I of course look into the big repertoire pieces that I haven’t played yet, and then try to combine them with maybe lesser-known pieces that fit well with the mood, character, and again touch me enough to be able to transmit it to the audience.

I always try to keep something that I’ve already played, so that not always everything is new!

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

I’ve discovered a lot of dry, beautiful and great sounding concert venues! Every concert hall for me has a very personal history: I simply try to remember every concert, and all the circumstances of each hall where I performed.

I enjoyed very much the Philharmonie in Cologne, because of the shape of the hall and its unbelievable acoustic.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

Well, probably the one I love to play the most is J S Bach, no surprises there. Simply because I always find new harmonies to underline, or listen to. The writing is perfect, so evident and clear, one always discovers more and more complexity in his music.

I would say my problem is that I sometimes want to show my “personal discoveries” too much, and then it becomes a personal fight:

What I want to show as personal intention / what needs to be kept natural and be played in a more “hidden” way. For this reason, I also love playing Ysaye’s music, where a lot is happening and there is rather more room for personal interpretation.

Who are your favourite musicians?

From the ones I have been listening to lately: L. Kavakos, C. Eschenbach, M. Goerne, V. Gergiev, M. Pressler, S. Edelman…

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

I believe that today it is becoming more and more difficult to hold on to the principles of “great culture”.  We are the people who have the chance to be part of it, we have a great but very difficult mission – we have to keep it alive. I really think that a great part of our humanity is kept in the Art, as much in the “understanding” of it, as in its “producing”. This is why new and young artists have to hold on to something that maybe doesn’t bring that much success, or money, or fame. They have to bring something much more powerful (and not to themselves) – feelings, happiness, support, unity, and thousands of images.

All those elements are the true benefits of the music that we are sharing.

You’ve just been announced as the new London Music Masters Award Holder, tell us more about this?

It is a very new episode of my life starting, and I am really looking forward to the fresh new contact with Great Britain! Passionate people, passionate musicians!

I will be given the opportunity to introduce my concepts of instrumental playing and music making to the growing new generation of people/audiences in schools, for example. I really hope that my English will be good enough for the people to understand some of my twisted notions!

What are you most looking forward to about working with London Music Masters?

Meeting different people, and learning from them!

Where would you like to be in 10 years‘ time?

In a place where there would be unlimited space for love, friendship, and where I could be in a good enough shape to make music on a very high level

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

To be surrounded by truly honest and loving people.

What is your most treasured possession

Hum… Material possession..? Nothing… (Yet?)

What is your present state of mind?

In a very good mood.

Marc Bouchkov was born 1991 into a family of musicians. He received his first lessons at the age of five from his grandfather, Mattis Vaitsner. His first public appearance was just one year later. In 2001, he joined Claire Bernard’s studio at the Lyon Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique; he transferred to the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique (CNSM) in 2007. There, he began studies with Boris Garlitzky, who has been his mentor ever since, and offers him invaluable guidance for honing his craft. The following years saw participation in master classes and invitations to festivals in Moulin d‘Ande, Troyes, and Bordeaux (France), Viterbo (Italy) and New Hampshire (USA).

Marc Bouchkov is the recent recipient of a London Music Masters award

Marc Bouchkov’s website

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A plethora of P’s PP’s and PPP’s by three guest writers for this entry in A Pianist’s Alphabet

Piano……Whisper it softly, everything we do as pianists is indicated in advance by the letter ‘P’. If we play the piano as a piano – which is to say play it piano – then we are simply following this alphabetic instruction.

We might, therefore, be tempted to say that the most pianistic pianist was Chopin, who played his piano so piano that his audiences often struggled to hear him play at all. Importantly, Chopin achieved this pianism not through the use of another ‘p’, the una corda pedal (signed ‘ped’), but through the fingers. He played with great touch, preferring to practise and perform on instruments that suited his style – notably, on Parisian Pleyels.

And yet, shout it loudly, the great strength (or forte) of the piano is that it holds within itself its polar opposite. It was originally conceived by Cristofori as a harpsichord that could be played both quietly and loudly. It is the gravicembali col piano e forte. The piano, that is, is always the pianoforte or ‘pf’.

Thus it was that Liszt, who had been inspired by Paganini (another ‘P’), was able to perform in places like La Scala, Milan, and to thousands of gathered aristocrats in St Petersburg without any loss of sound. Not that it was it just about sheer volume for Liszt. The Hungarian was, by all accounts, the master of pianoforte playing in the fullest sense. In performance, one of his strengths was that he played the pianoforte ‘pf’, moving from quiet to loud, from lyrical passages to bravura runs and back again. For him, the pf was to be played ‘pf’.

James Holden is a writer working across the critical-creative divide. He is a specialist in British and European culture from the birth of Chopin in 1810 to the death of Monet in 1926. His published work includes In Search of Vinteuil: Music, Literature and a Self Regained (Sussex Academic Press, 2010). He is currently working on a philosophical reading of romantic pianism. James also writes experimental prose and poetry. He is currently associated with the HOARD art project in Leeds. 

His website is www.culturalwriter.co.uk and he tweets as @CulturalWriter 

 

P  is  for  Piano. Many call it the Perfect instrument. It can Play every note, high and low, that the orchestra can. It can be both melody and accompaniment. Or a wash of sound and colors. Or even five individual voices all vying for their chance to sing above the others. It can be Percussive, Pulsating, Pounding, or Powerful. It can be Pensive, Profound, Philosophical, or Prayerful. It can be Playful, Presto, or Peculiar. It can be Pleading, Poetic, Plaintive, or Pianissimo. The Piano can express a range of emotions, to the audience of course, but also to the Performer, who often experiences the music in a totally different way than the audience. It can at times sound Pompous and Pretentious. Or Produce the most Private, Personal, innermost thoughts and feelings.

P  is  for  Practicing. Many a Pupil will Procrastinate on this essential Part of Piano Playing.  Picking apart a Piece to understand it, analyzing minute details like the chord to chord Progressions, and the overall structure and compositional form. Researching Performance Practice, to ensure that the Pedaling is appropriate for the Period, or that the Portato touch is not too short. Practicing means Painstaking Preparation. Patience. Persistence. Repeating Parts, over and over, literally thousands of times. Purging wrong notes and solving Problems that arise along the way. It means Pleasure in Perfecting a Passage. Or Sometimes Physical Pain, when a Pianist overworks his muscles and Pushes himself too hard. Or even emotional Pain, because Practicing Piano also means being alone.

P  is  for  Psychology. As performers and teachers, not only do we need to know how to Physically Play the Piano, but we need to be our own and often our students’ Psychologists. We Practice Performing to Prepare ourselves for Principal dates and venues and maybe even Premieres. We try out our Programs, Playing for whoever will listen, making ourselves nervous with the hope that at the “real” Performance we will be calm and collected, and therefore able to make music more easily. Mistakes still happen, though, even though we Played our Program Perfectly many times in the Practice room and beyond. Bad mistakes can sometimes lead to a Phobia of Public Performance, which is tough to overcome. With our Psychology in one hand, and solid Preparation in the other, however, we Push down the Panic, the Palpitations, and the Perspiration (often on our Palms!) and get back on stage, encouraging our students to do the same, hoping to share a musical moment with the audience. After all, Playing the Piano is not about Perfection, but about making a connection: to the music, to ourselves, and to the audience.

Francesca Hurst

Francesca Hurst is a New Music and Classical Pianist and teacher in Washington, DC. 

www.francescahurst.com

 

P is for PPPP –  Plan, Practise, Prepare and Perform!

It’s Spring 2016, and I’ve just been planning my repertoire for concerts in 2017 and 2018. In this post about the Performance of a new piece, let’s begin with the Planning, which starts a long time in advance. Yes, we must be conversant with different periods of music and different styles, but think long-term, play to your strengths and play music you respect, believe in – and enjoy; this will communicate itself to your audience.  Keep learning new repertoire, investigating the unusual as well as the familiar, to keep programmes fresh and interesting.

Then comes the Practice. If a musical performance can be likened to an architectural structure in sound, then the score is the blueprint, and much can be gleaned from studying it away from the instrument. See how the piece is put together; what are the musical motifs which form the building blocks, how are they used, and which sections reappear in different guises? What stylistic features are apparent; to what stage of the composer’s life does the composition belong, what else was he/she writing at the time in other genres, and what does the title tell us? What were the characteristics of the instruments of the day, and what else was going on in the world ?

Having grasped an overview of the piece and ascertained its context, it’s time to start the Practice. Be strategic; learn similar sections simultaneously. I would always start with separate hands and careful fingering in small sections, gradually building into longer sections with hands together when they are fluent. Memorise as you go using not only muscular memory, but an awareness of keys, patterns, harmony and structure.

After learning the piece, we then enter the crucial Preparation stage before the first Performance.  Here we need the aim of a complete play-through some weeks, or even months, before – keep going, no matter what happens. Seek to replicate performance conditions, and try ‘stress-testing’ by getting friends and family to reproduce the noises which seek to distract us in public. Coughing, rustling, mobile phones, glasses clinking… you’ll think of others, I’m sure. Try recording yourself in private or making a video –  anything that raises the expectation and which highlights areas that need reinforcement. Seek out opportunities for trying-out pieces in informal settings. Have a dress rehearsal; ensure that clothes –  and shoes –  are suitable. Brendel writes amusingly of a piano duet performance with Daniel Barenboim wherein he became tangled in Barenboim’s concert outfit; they had rehearsed in their shirtsleeves.

And so – The Performance. Everyone approaches Performance differently; some withdraw into isolation before it, some are gregarious. Find what works for you. Try the piano in advance. Before you play, take deep breaths, smile, walk tall and enjoy! You’ve Planned, Practised and Prepared; be confident.  And afterwards …  Ronald Smith used to say that pieces always improve themselves after the first performance, and he was right. Learn from what went well, note what still needs attention – then move on. Tomorrow is another day.

Christine Stevenson

Christine Stevenson enjoys a distinguished career as a recitalist and concerto soloist in the UK and abroad. She is a Director of the Summer School for Pianists, and is on the staff of the Royal College of Music Junior Department in London.

Her concerts continually draw critical acclaim for her virtuosity, musicianship, and the engaging rapport she establishes with audiences of all ages.

www.christinestevenson.net

www.notesfromapianist.wordpress.com

Meet the Artist……Christine Stevenson

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The other week I gave a concert in a church in a small town in Cheshire. I felt well-prepared and confident, my anxiety was under control and I was looking forward to performing the programme to a friendly audience. The opening sentence of the Sonata passed off without incident: I felt it had the requisite majesty to contrast with the falling arpeggios which followed. I was just silently congratulating myself on having played the arpeggios with just the right amount of wit and playfulness when the left hand flopped onto the keyboard and produced a chord sequence of utter rubbish. And at that point, a voice piped up in my head warning me of the perils of pianistic hubris, that “pride comes before a fall”, and that I should probably focus fully on the task in hand.

The mind can play strange games with us when we are performing and also when practising. At that moment when we should be concentrating hardest, the head has a tendency to wander off on other pathways and cul-de-sacs of thought. Most of us are well aware of the “inner critic”, that poisonous, heckling little voice within that reminds us of our fallibility and our weaknesses, that we haven’t prepared this or that section properly, that we are going to make a mistake, or repeats negative comments from teachers. This voice can seriously get in the way of our concentration and, if allowed, can sabotage a successful performance with its judgemental tone which can rob us of confidence and self-esteem.

A number of adult piano students have talked to me about their difficulties with concentration when practising and particularly when performing to others such as teachers, other pianists or in exams.

Concentration can be learnt, and trained, and I have successfully used some simple strategies to improve my concentration when practising and performing:

  • Do not practise for long periods of time. The idea that one should do hours and hours of practising is a fallacy. Successful practising is about quality rather than quantity: set aside small segments of time (up to 45 minutes in one session) and achievable targets for practising. After 45 minutes take a break, make a cup of tea, do some arm- and shoulder-loosening exercises, take a walk round the garden.
  • Banish your phone and tablet, either to a drawer away from your piano or better still turn it off and put it in another room. The urge to check in with your social media networks, “just to see what’s happening”, can be quite potent. These quick check-ins distract the mind away from the task in hand (practising) and can seriously affect concentration.
  • Practise with extraneous background noise – the radio playing in another room, for example (this is my normal practising state as my husband works from home and listens to Radio 4 all day), someone mowing the lawn outside or vaccuming in the house (the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould would practise while his mother vacuumed). Rather than attempt to completely shut out the noise and grow frustrated because it is distracting, accept that the noise is present and then switch your attention back to the music. I find practising when I cannot always hear every single sound I make encourages me to really focus on other aspects, such as touch, flexibility and fluency in passage work.
  • Get someone to come in and try to distract you. In the preparation for some recent concerts, I asked my husband to randomly stroll through the piano room, go in the garden, crash around a bit, come back in etc. On one occasion he did his Pilates routine right next to the piano. I’m glad to say I was able to carry on playing while accepting that he was there.
  • Accept that the Inner Critic exists – when we do this we take away his/hers/its power and regain control ourselves. Then show him/her/it the door – literally by imagining you are ushering the nasty creature through a doorway and out of your brain.
  • Use techniques drawn from Neuro-Linguistic Programming and mindfulness
  • Often something as simple as taking a deep breath in and exhaling slowly can pull your focus  back to the task in hand.
  • Aim for excellence in your music (which is achievable) rather than perfection (which is impossible)
  • Take confidence from knowing you are well-prepared and use positive affirmation such as “I can do it” and “I know my pieces”.
  • Don’t worry about what other people are doing – just because your friend from piano club practises Hanon exercises every day, it doesn’t mean you should be too. Find a practise regime that works for you.
  • Take confidence from positive comments and endorsements from trusted friends, colleagues, teachers and mentors. Carry these positive comments with you into the performance situation.
  • Take time after the performance to reflect on what happened and why, and then find positive ways to avoid such things happening again. Most errors can be identified and put right very easily.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

~William Shakespeare

 

Further reading:

The Inner Game of Music – Barry Green

The Musician’s Way – Gerald Klickstein

Music From the Inside Out – Charlotte Tomlinson

The piano and Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Mindfulness and piano playing