Pianist

“ When the voice rests that waltz is still going on, throbbing, monotonous. Now, any indifferent pianist will make a sorry affair of this accompaniment. It demands the most delicate and exact finger work, the nicest regard for rhythm, the most delicate modulating of tone power. It must be played almost without pedal, and it reveals instantly any slip in the pianist’s technique. It might almost be published independently as a piano étude. The singer must deliver his part with great delicacy of diction and achieve expression on the most limited scale. ”

“ As soon as the pianist has asked the piano how it finds itself, and the piano has intimated that it is pretty well, but somewhat out of tune, a collateral fiddler and a violoncello brace up their respective nerves, compare notes, and when their drawlings and crookings are in unison, a third piece of music of indefinite duration, and as it seems to us all about nothing, begins. ”

“ Sunday afternoon, an English aviator at the piano and a French officer with a violin have fallen into feud over a matter of musical precedence, and within a few feet of each other are playing at the same time entirely different tunes, and that with vehemence and vindictiveness. The pianist, firmly planted on the piano stool, where he has spent most of the day, passes without pause or punctuation from Chopin to ragtime and from ragtime to absolute incoherence. ”

“ It will come about in three ways: through the mechanical development of the piano, through a new type of music, and chiefly through the new type of pianist.
You will have your Mason and Hamlin— (this is not advertising; it is merely a conviction) —you will have that great dark-winged-victory standing alone on a stage; you will care a great deal about the color of the light around and above it—the tones of the walls within which your beautiful sounds are to live; you will touch that ivory and ebony—oh, there are no words! You will see those sounds against the color.... ”

“ They cannot but be varying if they are to depict the motley crowd of figures that go to make up one's own experiences. Such chapters are like the various pieces on the programme of a musical recital. There we are taken from a fugue to a notturno, from a grande valse to a moonshine sonata; and the pianist, if by some chance he happens to be a musician, leads us with a few improvised chords, from one mood to another, from flats to sharps, major to minor. ”

“ As an extemporaneous player, perhaps no pianist has ever lived who could surpass Moscheles. His improvisation on themes suggested by the audience always made one of the most attractive features of his concerts. His profound musical knowledge, his strong sense of form, the clearness and precision with which he instinctively clothed his ideas, as well as the fertility of the ideas themselves, gave his improvised pieces something of the same air of completeness as if they were the outcome of hours of laborious solitude. ”

“ Never at a loss for an idea, invariably correct and often imaginative, going from a piano concerto to an opera, and from a cantata to a symphonic poem with disconcerting ease, composing rapidly, yet never exhibiting any trace of slovenly workmanship, finding time in the meanwhile to distinguish himself as organist and pianist, and to wield the pen of the critic, the astonishing capabilities of this wonderfully gifted musician may be put down as absolutely unique. ”

“ Every one who has watched a pianist play a waltz knows how appropriate and convenient for the piano is that kind of accompaniment which has been called the ‘dum-dum-dum’—where the left hand first sounds the bass and then strikes twice a chord completing the harmony and at the same time marking the rhythm. ”

“ Before the applause has died away, while still acknowledgments are [Pg 120] being bowed, another man takes his place on the platform. He is a stranger and no one knows what he will sing. But the pianist is a man of genius. Whisper to him the name of the song, give even a hint of its nature, let him guess at the kind of voice, bass, baritone, tenor, and he will vamp an accompaniment. He has his difficulties. A singer will start at the wrong time, will for a whole verse, perhaps, make noises in a different key; the pianist never fails. ”

“ If a modern pianist has not at fifteen mastered all the tricks of finger, wrist, fore-arm and upper-arm he should study bookkeeping or the noble art of football. Immense are the demands made upon the memory. Whole volumes of fugues, sonatas of Chopin, Liszt, Schumann and the new men are memorized, as a matter of course. Better wrong notes, in the estimation of the more superficial musical public, than playing with the music on the piano desk. ”

“ It not unfrequently happens to a musical composer that when a new idea occurs to him while he is extemporizing, it appears to him at the first moment more beautiful than he finds it to be on reconsideration. The Prince, who enjoyed extemporizing on the pianoforte, kept in his service a pianist, whose business it was to write down his inventions, which he played repeatedly to the pianist to enable him to sketch at once as faithfully as possible the chief ideas and modulations. ”

“ In 1839 he ventured on the first pure piano recital ever given in the concert hall. His series of performances in this line, covering the entire range of piano literature, in addition to his own compositions, given entirely without notes, led the public to expect playing by heart from all other artists.
As a great pianist, a composer of original conceptions, a magnetic conductor, an influential teacher, an intelligent writer on musical subjects and a devoted promoter of the interests of art, he stands out in bold relief, one of the grand figures in the history of music. ”

“ Sometimes I carry my own musical coach, and I have found out that when I don't carry my own pianist I always have trouble with my work. I have never found anybody who can play the piano for my rehearsals to suit me unless they have played professional rehearsals before. They must have a certain touch to inspire me, so a good pianist means a lot. Insist upon one who reads easily and who can play by ear as well. If you have a rotten piano player the numbers will usually turn out to be terrible. ”

“ In the intensely busy life of a concert pianist a systematic and exhaustive study of the whole broad field of piano literature has been utterly impossible. That would require the exclusive devotion of a lifetime at least. My efforts have been necessarily confined strictly to such compositions as came under my immediate attention in connection with my own work as player. ”

“ You see, I—I loved to play even then, and I had dreams—oh, yes, dreams. But when I heard you—I knew. I knew just what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a concert pianist. I wanted to hold people as you held them. ”

“ But I had forgotten one important point which is, that on the pianola nothing is difficult, that with this modern instrument the question of difficulty entirely disappears, and that the most hair-raising, breath-catching exploits of virtuosity are as easy for the pianolist as the most commonplace five-finger exercises are for the pianist. In other words, the pianolist can approach music from a wholly new standpoint. For him music exists simply as music. ”

“ It has been said that a pianist should study color effects in order to express them in his playing. He can do this to special advantage at the theater or opera, where he can see unrolled before him the greatest possible variety in light and shade, in colors, and in the constantly changing panorama of action and emotion.
The pianist can receive many ideas of tone color when listening to a great singer, and watching the infinite tonal gradations produced on the "greatest of all instruments," the human voice. ”

“ But--one may say what one will--the piano accompaniment remains always a leaden weight for a violinist. With the orchestra it fares better, but that is too ceremonious. If I envy the pianist one thing, it is his independence. ”

“ XX. ARTHUR HOCHMAN HOW THE PIANIST CAN COLOR TONE WITH ACTION AND EMOTION
"A pianist, like a painter, should have an infinitude of colors on his palette," remarked Arthur Hochman, the young Russian pianist, in a recent chat about piano playing. He should paint pictures at the keyboard, just as the artist depicts them upon the canvas. The piano is capable of a wonderful variety of tonal shading, and its keys will respond most ideally to the true musician who understands how to awaken and bring forth all this tonal beauty from the instrument. ”

“ There is a pianist at the Black Cat—a real pianist, not just a person who plays the piano. She is a striking figure in a quaint, tunic-like dress, greying hair and a keen face, and a personal friend of half the frequenters. ”

“ Lacking genius, your pianist is simply a player—an artist, perhaps—whose work is politely listened to or admired in moderation as a musical tour de force. He leaves his hearers cold, nor is the appeal which he makes through the medium [Pg 77] of his art, a universal one. ”

“ I have never had an accident to that or to any of my pieces when playing in public. In my opinion a pianist has a more difficult task to accomplish than any other artist. The singer has to sing only one note at a time; the violinist or 'cellist need use but one hand for notes. Even the orchestral conductor who aspires to direct his men without the score before him, may experience a slip of memory once in awhile, yet he can go on without a break. ”

“ It will be observed that in the matter of so handling the volume of musical sound, prolonging it and slightly coloring it by the use of the pedal or by skillful emphasis of touch, the pianist’s attention is directed ever to the after-sounds, so to speak, of his instrument. He is interested, not in the sharp, clear beginning of the sound, but in what follows it. He finds in the very deficiencies of the instrument possibilities of great musical beauty. ”

“ A piano, it ought to be pointed out, is not absolutely necessary. Any form of music will do; or if there is no instrument some one may sing, or read aloud. But a piano is best, and the pianist ought now and then to pretend to stop, because this makes it more exciting for the players. ”

“ The human voice is the greatest of all instruments, and the player can have no more convincing lesson in tone production and tone coloring, than he can obtain from listening to a great emotional singer. The pianist should hear a great deal of opera, for there he will learn much of color, of effect, light and shade, action and emotion. ”

“ The principal charm of the piano lies in the command which the player has over many voices singing together. But until the pianist has a regard for the individual voice in its relation to the ensemble he has no means with which to make his work really beautiful.
"There is a great need for more breadth in music study. This, as I know, has been said very often, but it does not hurt to say it again. The more a man knows, the more he has experienced, the wider his mental vision in all branches of human information, the more he will have to say. ”

“ He may never have heard of these technical works yet, if he has natural musical instinct or has developed it through the piano-player, he will be as correct in his judgment of what to play and how to play it, as if he had devoted his whole life to an arduous study of pianoforte technique. The pianolist's experience with music is wholly musical, while the pianist's is largely technical. ”

“ It is this difference of interpretation that adds charm to the piano recitals of different virtuosos. There is no one right way and no one best way, but rather an indefinite margin for personal opinion and the exhibition of artistic taste. If there was one best way, there are now machines which could record that way and there the whole matter would end. But we want to hear all the ways and consequently we go to the recitals of different pianists. How can I express more emphatically the necessity for the pianist being a man of culture, artistic sensibilities and of creative tendencies? ”

“ Few people recognize the multifarious requirements of the concert pianist. He must adjust himself to all sorts of halls, pianos and living conditions. [245] The difference between one piano and another is often very remarkable. It sometimes obliges the artist to readjust his technical methods very materially. ”

“ Few have ever been successful in inducing this pianist to talk upon any other subject than music for more than a few minutes at a time. Another pianist, who was distinguished as a Liszt pupil, and who toured America repeatedly, seemed to have a hatred for the piano that amounted to an obsession. ”

“ So, without meaning any disparagement to the splendid masters to whom I owe all my previous musical culture, I cannot help feeling that I have at last got into the hands not of a mere piano virtuoso, however great, but, rather, of a profound musical savant—a man who has been a violinist, as well as a director, and who, without being a player himself, has made such a study of the piano, that probably all pianists except Liszt might learn something from him. ”

“ The third requisite for the pianist, as I have said, is true feeling. I have no sympathy with dry, mechanical performance, where every effect is coldly calculated beforehand, and the player always strives to do it the same way. How can he always play the same way when he does not feel the same? If he simply seeks for uniformity where does the inspiration come in? ”

“ The playing of any instrument—be it ever so perfect, like that of Paganini on the violin, or Kalkbrenner on the piano—is, with all its charm, only the means, not the end of the tone-art. The achievements of Mozart and Beethoven as pianists have long been forgotten, and their pianoforte compositions, although undoubtedly classic works, must give way to the diversified, artistic treatment of that instrument by the modern school. ”