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Leon McCawley (Photo credit: Clive Barda)
British pianist Leon McCawley presented a programme of music by Chopin, Debussy and Schumann, all played with evident relish and enjoyment, at a charming lunchtime recital at London’s Wigmore Hall.
Read my full review here
Leon McCawley kindly participated in my ‘Meet the Artist….’ series. Read his interview here
Going back over old territory here, but by chance I found a film I made when I was rehearsing for my ATCL Diploma recital last winter with my page turner (who also happens to be a very good friend of mine, and one of my piano students). I’ve edited it into a more watchable programme. The pieces are played in the order in which I performed them in the exam recital on 14th December 2011
Olivier Messiaen composed his eight Preludes for piano in 1929. Debussy’s own Preludes were less than ten years old at the time, and the influence of Debussy on the young Messiaen is obvious in these piano miniatures. Like Debussy, Messiaen gave each Prelude a title, suggesting a narrative for the work. Some are obvious, such as ‘La Colombe’ (‘The Dove’), a piece with delicate flutterings and cooings high in the register, or ‘Un reflet dans le vent…’ (‘A Reflection in the Wind…’), with its stormy gusts and eddies, while others have more esoteric titles: ‘Les sons impalpables de rêve…’ (The Intangible Sounds of the Dream) and ‘Cloches d’angoisse et larmes d’adieu’ (‘Bells of Anguish and Tears of Farewell’).
The Debussyan influence is clear in the use of unresolved or ambiguous veiled and misty harmonies, and parallel chords which are used for pianistic colour and timbre rather than definite harmonic progression, but Messiaen’s Preludes are also mystical rather than purely impressionistic, and look forward to his great and profoundly spiritual piano work, Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jesus. Messiaen described his Preludes as “a collection of successive states of mind and personal feelings”. Sadness, loss, and meditations on mortality are found in many of the Preludes, but there is light (physical and metaphorical) as well, as there always is in Messiaen’s music, and they contain many of the features which are so distinctive of Messiaen’s later works: a masking of literal definitions, shimmering sounds, colours, light, “flashes”, and already suggest the vastness of Messiaen’s spiritual and musical landscape, a landscape which makes the Vingt regards such extraordinary pieces to play and to hear. As Alex Ross says of Messiaen’s music in his book The Rest is Noise, it is “an evocation of the vastness of the cosmos that many experience when visiting mountains.” One has the sense, always, when playing or listening to Messiaen of something that is far, far greater than us.
As regular readers of this blog will know, I studied the fourth of the Vingt regards, ‘Regard de la vierge’, for my ATCL Diploma exam. This was my first contact with Messiaen as a pianist, though I was aware of his music and had even visited the church in Paris, La Trinité, where he was organist for many years. I am not a religious person, yet playing the Regard de la vierge put me in touch with a profound spiritualism, which I found deeply arresting and absorbing. Interestingly, Messiaen’s writing is so perfect that one does not need to share his faith to create a sense of the spirituality which imbues his music: it is all there, in the notes and the directions.
For my LTCL Diploma programme, I’ve chosen the second of the eight Preludes, ‘Chant d’extase dans un paysage triste’ (Song of Ecstasy in a Sad Landscape). Written when his mother died, it combines the emptiness of loss (as expressed in the weary quaver figure of the opening ‘A’ section, which is later expanded with additional textures) with the joy of memories (the “ecstatic song” of the title in a B section which definitely owes something to Debussy’s L’isle Joyeuse in its vivicious, dancing measures). It also occurred to me, while pondering this music as I was enjoying my morning swim (a great opportunity to allow the mind to wander along more abstruse by-ways), that, given Messiaen’s Catholic faith, this piece may also suggest the ecstasy of religion (unquestionably a recurring motif in the Vingt Regards and his organ music). I have recently seen the film The Way, starring Martin Sheen, in which a bereaved father walks the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. While not a film about faith and religion per se, there is an excitement amongst the travellers, a rather rag-tag group of people each with “issues”, on arriving at the great cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, and the awe-inspiring experience of a mass within the cathedral. Forgive me if this seems fanciful, but I find references such as this helpful in thinking about how to convey the “story” of the music.
Messiaen’s printed music can appear complicated, often with three staves, which can be confusing. However, he is very clear in his directions, and because he was a pianist himself, the notes tend to lie comfortably under the fingers once learnt.
When I played the ‘Regard de la vierge’ to a friend, who kindly heard my entire Diploma programme a month ahead of the exam, he commented that the piano and pianissimo measures can be very effective if played with a slight stridency and brightness of tone. This is a very ‘French’ style of piano playing, and if you listen to Yvonne Loriod, Messiaen’s second wife, playing his music, you can hear that sparkling clarity. This also applies to Debussy, whose music seems to suffer these days from a desire to make it gentle and soft. Remember that Messiaen shared Debussy’s fascination with the percussive, tinkling, luminous sounds of the gamelan orchestra of Indonesia. And Messiaen, like Debussy before him, capitalised on the piano’s sonorous potential, for example, in the inclusion of deliberately “wrong” notes (to be played more softly that the rest of the material), which create the illusion of the natural sympathetic harmonics set up by the release of the sustaining pedal. Another helpful tip, from pianist Murray McLachlan, who also heard my ‘Regard de la Vierge’, is to highlight the contrasts, of colour, rhythm and dynamics: this way, the music is truly brought to life with vibrancy, and subtle nuances of shading, beauty and expressiveness.
Here is Yvonne Loriod in the second of Messiaen’s Preludes:
Yvonne Loriod – Messiaen : 8 Préludes : II Chant d’extase dans un paysage triste
And here is Pierre-Laurent Aimard (a pupil of Loriod):
from the Vingt Regards – X. ‘Regard de l’Esprit de joie’
I ran an informal poll amongst my Twitter and Facebook friends, asking them to indicate which pieces they feel should be “must plays” in the pianist’s repertoire. This post is compilation of those thoughts. Thank you to everyone who contributed. Please feel free to leave further comments, either via the comments box on this blog or via Twitter @crosseyedpiano.
J S Bach – The Well-Tempered Clavier, Italian Concertos, Partitas
The general consensus is that Bach “teaches you everything” (Melanie) and is “the basis of all piano knowledge” (Lorraine) – phrasing, voicing, balance, techniques such as jeu perlé and legato, “orchestration”. Master Bach and you can play anything. Bach was revered by many composers who followed him, perhaps most notably, Fryderyk Chopin, who, it is said, studied the ’48′ every day (he took a copy of the manuscript with him on his ill-starred trip to Majorca).
Mozart
I’m revisiting Mozart’s late Rondo in A minor, K511, at the moment, and I am struck, not for the first time, by how Mozart’s piano music presents his oeuvre in microcosm: operatic, orchestral, choral – it’s all there. He is also a master of chiaroscuro (light and shade), with changes of mood and shading often occurring within the space of just a bar or two. Mozart’s piano music requires great clarity and elegance. Never forget Schnabel’s comment “too easy for children, too difficult for artists”.
Beethoven – Piano Sonatas
Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas are considered to be the New Testament of piano repertoire (Bach’s WTC is the Old Testament). Learn any one of the sonatas and you’ll have a snapshot of Beethoven’s creative impulse, as well as insights into how rapidly the instrument was developing at the time. Beethoven pushed the boundaries, both of the form and the instrument for which he was writing. For all the clichéd readings of it, the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata (Opus 27/2) remains a revolutionary work, written by a composer poised on the cusp of change. His music is full of wit, humour, pathos & philosophy.
Chopin – Études, Nocturnes
I suppose it goes without saying that any pianist worth his or her salt should study at least one of Chopin’s Études and Nocturnes at some point. Chopin elevated the Étude from student study to a highly refined genre, while retaining the original intention of the ‘study’. They are all different, and individual, and they all offer opportunities to hone specific techniques. Some are very well known (the ‘Winter Wind’, ‘Butterfly’, ‘Aeolian Harp’, ‘Tristesse’, ‘Revolutionary’) which makes them doubly difficult to play, for one wants to do one’s absolute best by them. Learn a handful of the Études – or all of them – and you will be scaling the high Himalayan peaks of piano repertoire.
The Nocturnes are exquisite miniatures, some of the finest small-scale music written for piano, and studies in beautiful cantabile playing. The distinct ‘vocal line’ in these pieces lends great drama and profound emotional expression, together with the judicious use of tempo rubato. Many have decorative features such as trills and fiorituras, which, when played well, appear to float over the surface of the music. The influence of Mozart on Chopin is clear in these works, in their distinct melodic lines. For me, the best performances of Chopin’s Nocturnes reveal him as a classical composer, with understated rubato, and close attention to structure and notation. Chopin may be ‘Prince of the Romantics’ (Count Adam Zamoyski), but he revered Bach and Mozart.
On a more general level, playing Chopin’s music offers the modern pianist a fascinating insight into what kind of instrument the piano was in the first part of the nineteenth century. More advanced than Beethoven’s piano, it was still some way from the modern instrument we know today. Hearing his music played on a period instrument is fascinating and makes sense of his dynamic markings such as sostenuto, and his pedal writing. (The Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands, Surrey, has three ‘Chopin’ pianos, which he may have played during his 1848 visit to England.)
Rachmaninov
The landscape artist in sound, Rachmaninov presents the vastness of his native Russia in his music, and a sense of history. A reluctant performer himself (in a photo in the green room at Wigmore Hall he looks as if he’d do anything but play the piano!), he wrote piano music which is difficult yet so beautifully constructed that it is extremely satisfying to play.
Debussy
Debussy forces you, as a pianist, to totally reappraise the way you play, and how the instrument works. In a lot of his piano music, you need to forget the piano has hammers. Debussy’s own piano playing was described as “hands sinking into velvet”. I learnt so much about arm weight, lightness, and touch from my study of Debussy for my Diploma, so much so that I feel he is now required playing for any pianist, whatever level. (Even simplified versions of Debussy’s greatest piano works are worth investigation.) Debussy’s piano music also presents some interesting paradoxes for the modern pianist: we have this idea that his music is fluid and gentle. It was, relative to the prevailing style, but we have now gone too far now, and many interpretations capitalise, sometimes erroneously, on the “impressionistic” nature of his music. The Preludes, for example, contain many different moods. shadings, and exercises in touch and tone. Definitely worth studying.
Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Messiaen, Stockhausen, Ligeti
I’m a recent convert to atonal music. I actually sat through a piece by Stockhausen in a concert earlier this week and enjoyed it, and I learnt a piece by Messiaen for my Diploma. It’s good to play outside your comfort zone, not least because it introduces you to new and different repertoire (I feel the same about Scarlatti and his cohorts!). Interestingly, younger students are often very receptive to dissonant and atonal music, because they have not yet experienced enough ‘straight’ classical music. I have also found some of my students like minimalist music, for the same reason.
This is by no means comprehensive, and is also very subjective. There are many, many more pieces and composers which could be considered “required reading” for pianists. Do please feel free to leave comments and keep the discussion going.
I performed Liszt’s Sonetto 123 Del Petrarca in my student’s concert last month, and was really delighted with it when I heard the recording afterwards. There are a couple of “bumpy” bars, but overall it sounded very good. So, now it is put to bed for a while: I will revisit it when I have a clearer idea of when I am going to take my Diploma exam. Meanwhile, because I am easily bored, I decided to get stuck into some new Diploma repertoire, ready to take on my teacher’s advanced piano course in September. My current programme (see below, and Spotify playlist) is only just within the lower end of the time limit for the recital, so I’d feel happier with a few short pieces, as fillers, which can be inserted if needed.
Debussy – ‘Sarabande’ from Pour le Piano. Yes, I am still working on this! Looking at my practice notebook on my way to my piano lesson a couple of weeks ago, I realised I have been studying this piece for nearly a year. It has been a truly Sisyphean task, with the last two months spent retraining my muscle memory to facilitate more comfortable and fluid playing. The daily regime of Pilates followed by shoulder loosening exercises at the piano have paid off: my teacher was delighted with the piece when I played it for her last month – and so was I. Now, to finesse it for performance and memorise some of the trickier chordal passages on page 2.
Schubert – Impromptu in E flat, Opus 90, No. 2. Such a hard piece to pull off, technically and musically, but so satisfying too. I’ve successfully “unlearnt” what I learnt about this piece when I first learnt it, aged 14, and now have it all in the fingers and memory. After a month practising the A sections without any pedal at all, I am introducing the merest hint of pedal, so that these sections don’t sound too dry. I’m aiming for a rougher, gypsy flavour in the B sections (a one-in-bar bohemian waltz), and have been listening to gypsy music and playing Schubert’s ‘Hungarian Melody’ for reference. This piece is going on the piano course with me next month where I intend to play it in the end of course concert.
Messiaen – ‘Regard de la Vierge’ (No 4 of ‘Vingt Regards de l’enfant Jesus’). Another seemingly Sisyphean task until a couple of months ago when I had a real breakthrough and suddenly it seemed so much easier, in part, from simply spending so much time with the music and finding it less horrific to look at every time I sat down to play! Messiaen was a pianist, and once learnt, much of this music is easy under the hand, if less so on the ear (I have a running joke with my husband that I am “making it up as I go along” whenever I play it!). I have memorised the trickier passages and now have a very clear idea of how I want this piece to sound. As my teacher said when I played it to her last month, one has to forget all one’s classical grounding when playing this kind of music: it is all about blocks of sound, rather than phrases and beautiful melodies. For reference, I’ve been listening to Arvo Part, Takemitsu and Tibetan singing bowls. This is also going to the piano course with me.
Syzmanowski – ‘Mazurkas’ No 1 and 2 from Opus 50. A composer who has been nudging at the edges of my musical consciousness for some time, ever since a friend suggested I’d like his music because of its references to Chopin and Debussy. Very interesting, both harmonically and melodically, full of mystery and some passages of heart-stopping beauty (especially in the Etude Opus 4, No. 3). The Mazurkas owe a great deal to Chopin’s model, but many are much closer to the original form, rougher and folksy.
Prokofiev – ‘Visions Fugitives’, Nos. 2, 11 and 14. I’ve been meaning to learn some of these miniatures for ages. Three contrasting movements: fleeting, mysterious, wild, magical.
Bach – Prelude & Fugue in F minor, WTC Book 1. I so enjoyed learning the Toccata from the 6th Partita at the beginning of this year that I wanted to get my teeth into some more Bach. It’s such satisfying and cerebral music. The Prelude is learnt, but I have done little more than analyse the Fugue. Glenn Gould’s recording is a benchmark for me – the slow tempo and simplicity of the Prelude is absolutely hypnotic.
Recital Diploma Programme
Bach – Toccata from 6th Partita
Debussy – ‘Sarabande’ from Pour le Piano
Schubert – Impromptu in E flat, Opus 90, No. 2
Liszt – ‘Sonetto 123 Del Petrarca’ from Années de pélerinage, 2eme année: Italie
Messiaen – Regard de la Vierge from ‘Vingt regards de l’enfant Jesus’
Listen via Spotify here
A heady mix of Fran
co-Hispanic music, from Debussy’s evocative ‘Images’ for orchestra to de Falla’s impressionistic ‘Nights in the Gardens of Spain’. Read my review for Bachtrack.com here
As a postscript to my recent article on synaesthesia, Extraordinary Splashes of Colour, here’s a video clip of Olivier Messiaen, a fellow synaesthete, talking about colour in Debussy’s Peleas et Melisande, a work he describes as his greatest influence….
This post is entirely biased, one-sided, subjective and immodest – because I am a ‘serious amateur’ pianist, one of many, many people who play the piano as a “hobby”, but who take it extremely seriously.
These days, the word “amateur” has become synonymous with cack-handedness and incompetence – yet the other ‘amateur’ pianists I met on the piano course hosted by my teacher in the spring were anything but that. With the exception of two young music students, one of whom was already halfway to reaching the pianistic nirvana of the Three C’s – Conservatoire, Competition, Concerto – the people gathered in that elegant sitting room in north London were anything but “hobbyists”: we had all signed up for eight hours, every day for three days, of intense masterclasses and performance. True, there were some slips, some smeared notes, and quite a lot of nerves, but everyone played with commitment, fidelity and honesty, and each of us were highly self-critical perfectionists intent on pulling off a memorable and pristine performance at the end of course recital.
The dictionary on my Macbook defines “amateur” as “nonspecialist, lay; dilettante” and “inept, unskillful, inexpert, clumsy, maladroit, bumbling”, yet I did not feel my fellow amateurs on the piano course displayed any of these attributes. Nobody was inexpert, not a bit: the young woman from Cambridge who played Debussy’s ‘Isle Joyeuse’ on the first day, and Chopin’s Barcarolle on the second day; the piano teacher from Bath who gave us one of Messiaen’s ‘Vingt Regards’, a piece she was learning for her Diploma; the quiet lady from southern Ireland who played two of Gershwin’s Three Preludes with jazzy extrovertism and panache. Even my own rendering of Chopin’s Opus 25 No. 7 Etude was described as “moving” and “thoughtful” by some members of the audience after the end of course concert…. (and, better still, my teacher told me she had never heard me play better). Then there is my friend Michael, a fine amateur pianist who, when he retired two years ago, bought a Steinway B instead of an Aston Martin, and who plays Rachmaninov like a pro and is currently working on Schumann’s famously difficult ‘Kreisleriana’.
Dictionary.com gives a more appropriate definition, in this context, for the word ‘amateur’: “a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons”. I play the piano because I enjoy it and it interests and consumes me, but I am not a professional pianist. I use my pianistic skills to enable me to make a living (after a fashion) as a piano teacher, so I could claim to be a “piano professional”, but I do not make my living from my playing – nor would I want to.
Not being in possession of the requisite artistic temperament nor the extreme single-mindedness to hack it as a professional pianist; nor, it must be said, having that particular and unique degree of talent that sets one apart from the ‘Sunday Pianist’, nor wishing to subjugate the rest of my life to that masochistic profession which can confine one to one’s piano room or studio for hours and hours, alone, without other musicians to laugh and joke with, to spark off ideas or to relieve the grind of day-in-day-out practising, means that I limit my piano-playing to performing for friends after dinner, or at occasional concerts with my students, or on courses for like-minded amateurs. That does not mean I do not take it seriously, because I do, putting in a good two or three hours practise every day, if I can manage it, fitting it around my teaching, and my home life. I admit I’m fairly obsessed: I miss the piano when I am away from it and worry if I don’t get the practice in, von Bulow’s quote never far from my mind: “if you don’t practice for one day, you know it”, and would freely admit it is now a necessity rather than a luxury in my life. It’s not exactly relaxing, but it’s certainly transporting, offering important time away from myself and the exigencies, big and small, of Real Life.
I come from a background of amateur musicians: my father was an accomplished clarinettist, who played with a local orchestra (conducted by, interestingly, the principal oboe player of the CBSO) and various chamber groups, and who could pull off a memorable and lively performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto to the accompaniment of Music Minus One. My older uncle was a violinist and may have taken the professional path if he had had the right mindset for it; my younger uncle plays the piano passably well and sings in a local choir. My paternal grandfather played too – Methodist hymns, snatches of the Old Radical’s Sonatas, shorter pieces by Bach, Haydn and Mozart.
And I’m in good company: Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger is a ‘famous’ amateur, who plays a Fazioli, a piano, favoured by the likes of Stephen Hough and Angela Hewitt, whose reputation goes before it; some people rave about its crystal-clear tone quality, that once played, one would never want another piano, ever…. Others that it is just over-engineered Italian histrionics; nothing more than a show-piece, an instrument without heritage or integrity. A piano for the Ferrari owner who values image and exclusivity above ultimate usability. I’ve never played one, but I’d like to, just to see what it’s like….. Rusbridger has written about attending piano summer school (or “boot camp” as he calls it! – a quick glance through the back of Piano or Pianist magazine and you will find many courses, in the UK and abroad, specifically for amateur pianists of all standards) and is currently writing a book about learning Chopin’s First Ballade, one of the most difficult pieces in the repertoire – a piece I am also learning at the moment.
Conrad Williams, author of the novel ‘The Concert Pianist’, an interesting examination of the interior life of a musician which questions what price one must pay in the pursuit of one’s art, is also a committed amateur. In his article in the current issue of Pianist magazine, he makes some interesting and truthful observations about the motivation of the amateur pianist. As he says, every amateur dreams of playing to a full house at the Carnegie or Wigmore Hall. A few years ago, while doing research for a book, I was afforded a wonderful backstage tour of the Wig. I actually walked across the hallowed stage, stood under the beautiful gilded cupola, and could have sat down at the Steinway and played Schubert’s D899/4, if only I’d had the chutzpah! Just being there made me faint with the feeling of connection to great pianists, past and present, who have played in what Vikram Seth calls “the sacred shoe-box”.
Even if there is nothing professional at stake, serious amateurs want to do their best, the best they are capable of. I can’t see any point in offering a half-baked Debussy prelude at my forthcoming students’ concert: after all, my audience will be, largely, the people who pay my bills, and I should at least make an effort to demonstrate I am worth it!
One of the more reassuring aspects of performing as an amateur is the knowledge that people enjoy hearing music played live and will be accepting of different, or even indifferent, standards if the context is right. As Conrad Williams says, “…amateurs will never touch the professionals, but just conceivably we might touch the audience”. Hearing my friend Michael play my piano – and he’s the only person, apart from me, who plays it well, is a wonderful experience. His playing may not be as polished as a professional, but there’s no doubting his commitment. “Was it all right, Fran?” he asked me anxiously after playing La Cathedrale Engloutie at my summer concert. The look on my students’ faces should have answered that question for him: they were utterly spellbound by his playing. As Shura Cherkasy said “If you have something to offer an audience, why be afraid?”
Resources:
Alan Rusbridger on attending piano summer school
Debussy – Voiles: This is one of the pieces for my students’ concert. It feels “concert-ready” to me – I hope my teacher will agree when I see her on Wednesday.
Debussy – Pour le Piano (Prelude & Sarabande): Both these pieces are at a fairly early stage, though I have made useful inroads in the last week or so. I am looking forward to having my teacher’s critical ear on them this week.
Chopin – Ballade in G Minor: I feel I’ve reached an impasse with this, partly because I over-practised it last month and ended up with a return of the tenosynovitis in my right hand. Some time away from it should renew my interest in it. It is not part of my Diploma repertoire.
Bach – Toccata from 6th Partita: It’s very satisfying to be playing Bach again after a long absence from his music. I hope my teacher will agree this piece will make a good opener for my Diploma recital. I love the intricacies of Bach – to me, playing it is like looking at the traceries of a Baroque church. I’ve only learnt two pages of this so far. Murray Perahia’s recording is a constant source of inspiration – he is so good at highlighting all the intricacies and nuances, interior architecture and harmonies, textures and ‘voices’ in the music (this is also true of his Chopin-playing).
Messiaen – Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jesus, no. 4: Hearing Messiaen’s ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ recently inspired me to learn some of his piano music – and this piece is on the Diploma repertoire list. It is a strange little lullaby, shot through with premonitions of Jesus’s fate. I have done little more than read through it. Not sure how it will fit into my Diploma programme….
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