Home » Dueling Chopin Polonaises – and my very brief piano career

Comments

Dueling Chopin Polonaises – and my very brief piano career — 25 Comments

  1. Horowitz is my favorite pianist, probably because around 16 I watched a TV performance by him that astonished me.

    Years ago I read a quote by him; “If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, my wife knows it. If I don’t practice for three days, the world knows it.”

    Another; “Piano playing consists of common sense, heart and technical resources. All three should be equally developed. Without common sense you are a fiasco, without technique an amateur, without heart a machine.”

  2. Now let’s be grateful to Mr. Janacek – it was HIS music behind the old radio series of Sergeant Preston in the Yukon, before the days when those White People and their evil intentions and inventions – trial by jury! – were condemned to face the muzzle of the Cancel Cannon.

    I must admit, his Preston music was a bit more sprightly than the moody Overgrown Potato example.

  3. The Sgt Preston theme music was from the Overture to Donna Diana by Emil von Reznicek, not Janacek.

  4. My mother loved Horowitz. I don’t recall her ever commenting on Rubinstein in my hearing.

  5. Years ago there was a TV documentary which visited Horowitz’s home. He was quite jovial, and clowned around a bit at the piano. His wife, Toscanini’s daughter, seemed exasperated with him, as if he had taken out his false teeth. I read later that she was the only one from whom he accepted criticism.

  6. I seem to recall some Rubinstein (Anton, Arthur?) saying, “You don’t play piano with your fingers; you play it with your _________.”

    But I’ve forgotten the who and the what.

  7. I started listening to classical music in the early 1970’s. Rubinstein and Horowitz definitely were the two most highly regarded pianists at that time. As mentioned in Neo’s post, Rubinstein for his musicianship, Horowitz for his virtuosity. Their complements at that time on the violin were Stern (musician) and Heifetz (virtuoso). Horowitz (born in Kyiv), was a sensation when he came to western Europe. A story, I think true, was that a famous pianist of the 1920’s, upon hearing Horowitz, cancelled all of his concerts, lest he be embarrassed. On a side note, a pianist maybe a notch below those two at the time was Clauddio Arrau. I remember attending a Sunday afternoon concert at Tanglewood back in the mid 80’s. The latest Russian sensation was to perform, Berman or Bronfman, I think. Well, when I got there, they either made an announcement or placed a hurriedly typed note into the program, Berman/Bronfman was sick and substituting for him, playing Beethoven’s 4th Concerto was Clauddio Arrau. Lucked out.

  8. Insufficiently wrote: I mixed up my Czechs.

    I know the feeling. You should see my Czech book.

  9. I share your taste in pianism. I am ver much a Horowitz admirer, too. I attended two of his last concerts given in his life in the upper mid-West, circa 1977-79. People prepare themselves to be stunned. And these audiences were.

    I too dropped piano playing quite young, yet later “mastered” an easy Chopin piece. Just so, like Neo. It entrance me, so I dedicated myself to the task. And yet stayed a life long lover of classical music, taking one university course in music history, “The Symphony from Classic to Romantic Eras” (for non-majors — thank you Professor Jackson — it was fun!).

    Like you, I’m a spectator and concert music consumer. In high school, I’d skip class after lunch merely because of Walter Haas radio shows on classical music simply captivated me too much!

    During lockdown time, I spent time rediscovering to the great Glenn Gould’s music on YouTube, an appreciation deepened by recorded talks or interviews from Gould himself. (There are some award winning documentary films up online, as well.) It seems his legacy foundation has been doing much to promote his memory, to my benefit at least.

    A bona fide prodigy and eccentric, I often wind up agreeing with Gould’s many opinions. He is said to have favoured the classic piano composers over the Romantics. But, he did record a lot of the Romantics, save Chopin.

    For example, everyone loves Mozart! But I don’t.

    Gould says Mozart is deficient in two ways. First, he’s deliberately exhibitionistic or showy. And indeed he was and is. Second, so much of his output consists of juvenilia — playful and delightful, but simple in unadorned and, flat out, not that interesting. How right again — yet refreshingly unconventional.

    In both respects, by explaining how Mozart is less than Great as a composer, he explains by deductive inference why the similarly short-lived Franz Schubert is the superior Master of composition. Schubert’s juvenile period was briefer and his exhibitionism more rare and by comparison restrained. (And THIS difference probably explains why Brahms burned his early works before his death: he didn’t want to undermine his more mature achievements.) And unlike his elder contemporary, Beethoven, Schubert very much anticipates Chopin by letting the melodies flow and flow.

    Schubert was also a prodigious and great song writer. Often ranked number two to Hugo Wolf, in German Lieder (“Art-song”).

    To finish with Gould on Chopin, he calls him a “superb miniaturist” and that possibly “no on ever understood the piano as an instrument as well.” But Chopin didn’t write what Gould looks for in music — exploring architectonic musical structure, we famously appreciate from his immortal Bach performances.

    Yet, he confesses, he’s moved to play Chopin at least once a year! A waltz, nocturnes, impromptu events have all been recorded by him. And Sonata No. 3:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhtjZXZU41c

    Gould’s trademark genius is bringing out the voice of inner textures you never realised were there before! And this is no less true of his faves as in Chopin.

    Here’s one astonished reaction to his No. 3: “it makes me feel like I’m hearing this piece for the first time.” Another: “Glenn really nails the nostalgia and melancholia here.”

    Alex Brk writes “Surprisingly, this might be one of the finest versions of this piece that I have heard. There lies in this interpretation some articulations which make me entirely rediscover the piece, even after hundred times of listening. Splendid.”

    One year ago, David Impastato adds: “Completely brilliant. Gould was interested in music as it was ‘ideated’ or thought in the composer’s mind. This interpretation, like all of Gould’s work, takes us to that interior place of ‘music before sound and beyond sound,’ his mystical gift to the art form.”

    But back to contemporary pianists, those who prefer Horowitz ought to enjoy another Russian, Evgenin (?) Kissin. Long ago he denounced Vladimir Putin and has long lived in London in defiance…. Alan Ling Ling? I find his play too fey. Too facile.

    Oh. And between Horowitz’ time and ours today, I’m still trying to grasp the mighty or even stupendous Daniel Barenboim, who seems to have played piano or conducted everything worth hearing in the classical music repertoire. An achievement unmatched by Claudio Arrau or Wilhelm Kempf in piano, or even Bernstein in both.

    Two more pianists in the Russian-Liszt manner of playing of whom Americans are unfamiliar (mostly because they don’t tour the States), are Ivo Pogoreli? and French woman Helene Grimaldi. First, an intro for the first.

    “After Ivo Pogoreli? (b1958) was eliminated from the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, jury member and fellow pianist Martha Argerich stormed out in protest, calling the Croat a ‘genius’. A one-time DG artist, his recordings have attracted as much acclaim as criticism.” He’s eccentric about tempo, preferring much more rubato than many like.

    Nonetheless, he remains a living exponent of the Russian-Liszt School of playing. His mentor at Moscow Conservatory was an older Georgian woman, whom he married. When she died, Pogorilec went into seclusion for years to mourn. But he was back touring when Covid broke out.

    So, the Romantic pianist was a romantic in his personal life as well? Yup.

    And so is the striking Helene Grimaud. She came to the piano late, as her folks last gasp to tame her rebelliousness. It worked because she had a prodigy’s talent, merely skipping the child part. Like Gould, she graduated from her music conservatory, the Paris Conservatoire, early.

    Her earlier in life American BF, a wind player, lived in Florida. She didn’t speak English, but became fluent by watching TV while first visiting him there.

    Her eccentric passion is wolf wildlife rescue. And thus she keeps a home with a private preserve in New York dedicated to this cause.

    Here’s Grimaud’s stirring performance of a Bach favorite, originally transcribed by Liszt (because first written for the organ). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOHiI_5yycU

    Or for purists, Brahms Sonata Number 3. (I had a university GF named Gretchen who’d launch my body chilling “eargasms” by playing the crashing chords witnessed here in the first movement, while I lay beneath the baby grand piano at the School of Music). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeOLopzrDXs

    And speaking of Franz Liszt, I’m reading random sections from Allen Walker’s second volume biography on him (chosen from three in all), “The Weimar Years” in Germany (mid-1840s to ‘61?). This was after Liszt became a world-wide performing sensation as a touring pianist, establishing a barnstorming tradition unbroken until the Internet.

    This was also when — and Weimar was where — the War of the Romantics began. That is, an aesthetic conflict over pure or absolute music, versus story telling “Programme music” like Wagner’s – with the burning question: which should be preferred?

    Historians play the game of “When would you have most liked to have lived? After all, don’t most philosophers wish they had lived in Ancient Athens? Everybody can enjoy playing this salon game.

    Historians seem to have developed a consensus on the second half of the 18th century, when the Founders rebelled. Or perhaps London or Paris back then, for non-Americans?

    My new personal fave entry is London in 1850s, then Vienna from the 1890s until the Great War. Oh! To have been alive then! (Weimar was too small, around 12,000 — and a museum-piece town devoted to Goethe and Schiller, etc., anyway.)

    Catch me some Liszt, Brahms, and Chopin when this was all a fresh sound-tacular sensation! As well as the Second Enlightenment in the sciences …with inner technology (ie, inventions) — it’s my own version of ”Back To The Future” part 2, fantasy life: complete with Jules Verne and Victor Hugo to go.

    Than you, neo, for sharing your passion. And some readers, for letting me share some of mine.

  10. I played piano as a kid, then played the violin from age 35 to 65. Violin is very social: you can hide in the back of the 2nd violins and still have a good time.

    At age 75 I have returned to the piano, playing a $100 electronic thingy. The interesting thing is that, even at 75, I can practice and make my playing better. Right now it’s Bach’s Minuet in G and Beethoven’s Für Elise. Plus Bach’s Aria from the Goldberg Variations.

    On my smartphone, I listen to mostly piano, and Bach, Bach, Bach.

  11. neo and TJ,

    It’s great that you took the time to master one of your favorite Chopin pieces! One can learn a great deal from an exercise like that. I’m sure you are much better for having spent the time on it.

  12. A few years ago I bought a Yamaha P-71 for $430. It had 88 keys and weighted-action, meaning it was a reasonable simulation of a real piano.

    I figured I would either stick with practicing or I wouldn’t. But either way I would have a piano in the living room like Americans of yore, which wouldn’t be a bad thing.

    Well, I stuck with the Minuet in G and some basic beginners books plus a few stabs at Satie’s 1st Gymnopedie for a couple months, but with pressure from my college courses and general discouragement — it’s plain hard to get ten fingers to do different things at the same time — I’ve let my keyboard lie for the time being.

    I may get back to it. Or perhaps some enchanted evening a guest will step up to the keys and thrill me with miracles of Bach or Beethoven or Satie.

  13. I did sign up for an online piano course called Piano Superhuman. The teacher brings an infectious enthusiasm to the task plus he’s done a lot of out-of-the-box thinking.

    https://www.bestpianoclass.com/dashboard/the-best-piano-theory-course-for-beginners/piano-superhuman-overview/

    Some of his students do quite well. I didn’t stop because his lessons were bad, but it just took more time than I was willing to spend.

    I imagined the vast stretches of leisure which would open up for me in retirement. But it’s only so much. I am pushing ahead on math, programming and chess — any one of which could be a full-time pursuit.

    –Clint Eastwood, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG2cux_6Rcw

  14. I am in entire sympathy with your list of favorites but–no Prokofiev? There is some ravishing Prokofiev, especially Romeo and Juliet.

  15. Not exactly on topic, but on the matter of attempting to learn an instrument more or less on one’s own: I have been fiddling with the guitar since I was 15 or so, and I had some lessons around that age that taught me the rudiments of reading music, but I never worked at any of it consistently or tried very hard to get better. Around age 30 I had sort of accidentally come into possession of a nylon-string (classical style) guitar, and picked up a book of easy classical guitar pieces. I worked fairly hard at mastering the first one (don’t remember what it was) and thought I had it reasonable well.

    So one night I say to my wife, who as a high school band member knows how to read music, “Listen to this” and she stands behind me while I play it, from the book because I haven’t memorized it. I finish and she says “Well, that’s very pretty, but it’s not what’s written on that page.” It seems my rudimentary reading was enough to get the right notes, but I was pretty much mangling their time values.

    Well, it sounded good to me. I still can’t follow written music–it tells me what notes to play, but I have to get the timing from a recording.

    I don’t know Chopin’s music well at all. Not entirely my cup of tea. But I did like Rubinstein better than Lang.

  16. Wendy Laubach:

    I do indeed like Prokofiev’s R&J very much. But for me, it’s not quite up there with the others.

  17. I saw a Rubinstein recital in 1976 when he was 89. A full two-hour recital including Chopin and Beethoven, plus some encores. He is usually my reliable go-to for Chopin, but I prefer others, usually Russians like Gilels or Richter for Beethoven and other composers. I admired Horowitz but can’t think of any piece for which he’s my favorite, except his incredible arrangement of Stars and Stripes Forever.

    And TJ, I’m afraid you’re wrong about Mozart. Gould wasn’t being entirely serious, just provocative, and even he said he greatly admired Mozart’s younger (in his 20s) works. And he made a very good recording of the C minor piano concerto. “[S]o much of his output consists of juvenilia — playful and delightful, but simple in unadorned and, flat out, not that interesting.”? Check out “Marriage of Figaro” or “Don Giovanni” and get back to me.

  18. Jimmy,

    I absolutely agree. And what’s wrong with “playful and delightful?” How many humans who’ve walked the earth have provided so much delight to so many?

  19. I saw Rubinstein in concert in 1966. No Chopin, but he played Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto and Brahms’ 2nd concerto. Two major works in the same evening – unheard of! And memorable!

  20. Horowitz is the best performance I have heard. Listen to it a few times a year. Never approached that level of delicacy on the keys when I was taking lessons. Brilliant pianist.

  21. I’ll cast another vote for the Horowitz performance. I might have appreciated Rubinstein more if there had been accompanying video, but, not really knowing the piece, just in listening to it, I found Horowitz captured my interest in a way that the others did not. On re-listening, Rubinstein sounds like it is probably technically perfect, but it also sounds a little too earnest and like he’s trying too hard. By contrast, the Lang Lang version seems like he’s barely trying and like he is just showing off. There’s something more natural and flowing about Horowitz’s rendition.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>