( 6 votes, average: 4.17 / 5 )
Loading ...It is a great pleasure to play music on the piano. I have been trying to think what is the source of the pleasure and have concluded that it is the physicality. Teaching music, talking about music, listening to music, writing music - all of this is purely intellectual. But to perform a work for piano involves the coordination of the mind and the body. Your feet and legs are using the pedals. In Debussy you might use the left food for una corda on the accompanying chords but release it for the melodic chords. At the same time you will be using the right food for the sustain pedal but perhaps only using a half-release so that some of the bass is caught as you move on to a new harmony. This is satisfying.
In preparing for a performance of these pieces it is wise to play a single chord, say the final B flat major chord at the end of the first piece, again and again until one feels the ‘funny feeling’ that tells you the chord is well voiced. A tickling sensation accompanies the well-played pianissimo. Chords resonate through history and composers remember them as they write. For instance, this same B flat chord is remembered and transfigured in Messiaen’s Vingt Regards.
Lately, however, I have begun to rediscover the exaltation of fortissimo playing. This is particularly to be observed in Busoni’s arrangement of Bach’s St. Anne’s Fugue. The entire arm drops into the opening bass octave. You push forwards and through the keys. The low E flat octave is a friend to all, but a semitone lower, the D, creates a much more dramatic, even depressing, effect. The chords in this piece are massive and majestic and the performance should strain the muscles. The final cadence is the perfect representation of spiritual victory. There should be a golden eagle mounted over that chord!
There is something even better about playing ‘total force’ upon a single key. You can play a single note with two or even three fingers. The hammer-blow of such a tone is very strange - you can almost hear the piano being detuned. You can feel the damage. I have recently begun to experiment with trying to play total-force with each individual finger and to be able to voice individual notes at this volume whilst playing a chord with the other fingers. Why do this? Because the shrill hysteria of such playing reminds me of the moment of ecstasy. There is violence in such playing, but not human violence. It is a cosmic violence, explosante-fixe.
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I seem to remember, 10 years ago, that your playing was much more tricksy, much more fingery than arm.
Why this new vigour, and why so late?