Sorabji and the Pianola

[pianolist]

Let's raise the tone on Kaikhosru. He does seem to get very good coverage here, by the way - Mr Hinton is clearly doing a grand job!

Somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, I think I have heard or seen information that Sorabji was in contact with, or was aware of, the Orchestrelle Company in London, effectively the UK branch of the Aeolian Company, makers of pianolas and so on. Anyone know anything?

It does strike me that a series of giant piano rolls of the Opus C would be a good project for some enthusiastic pianola owner. As it happens, I have access to a roll perforating machine that can digest MIDI files. I leave you with this scurrilous thought.

Pianolist

[ahinton]

Let's raise the tone on Kaikhosru. He does seem to get very good coverage here, by the way - Mr Hinton is clearly doing a grand job!

Somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind, I think I have heard or seen information that Sorabji was in contact with, or was aware of, the Orchestrelle Company in London, effectively the UK branch of the Aeolian Company, makers of pianolas and so on. Anyone know anything?

It does strike me that a series of giant piano rolls of the Opus C would be a good project for some enthusiastic pianola owner. As it happens, I have access to a roll perforating machine that can digest MIDI files. I leave you with this scurrilous thought.

Pianolist

Your "thought" is a good deal less "scurrilous" than some that have lately been posted on this forum, so your raising of the tone is especilaly welcome at this time.

We have unearthed no specific reference to the Orchestrelle company per se in Sorabji's writings, but he was indeed aware of the Aeolian company and referred to it in an article published in the September 13 1924 edition of the English journal "Musical News and Herald" entitled "Towards a New Piano" (pp. 216-217); chapter 30 in his book "Around Music" (Unicorn Press, London, 1932, pp.206-212) is similarly entitled "Towards a New Keyboard Instrument of the Piano Type" but this, like chapter 27 - "Piano Design" - in his later book "Mi Contra Fa" (Porcupine Press, London, 1947, pp.224-228) concentrated entirely on design developments in keyboard instruments to be played by instrumentalists rather than embracing any kinds of automated processes as in the case of the pianola. Chapter 12 (107-113) in the latter book, entitled "The Way of the Virtuoso", includes a paragraph (on p.111) about the pianola which included the names Chase, Baker and Ampico as well as Aeolian; this essay was an expansion of his article of the same title published in the February 1943 edition of the English journal "Musical Opinion" (pp. 150-151), although the original article did not refer to the pianola.

As to the matter of OC and the pianola, four letters to the editor were published in 1936 in the English journal "The New English Weekly" (for which Sorabji was music critic from its inception in 1932 until 1945), following what, by all accounts, had been a disatrous public performance in London of Part 1 of OC by another pianist; these letters urged the formation of a private society for the purpose of encouraging Sorabji to record the work himself. Following Sorabji's polite decline to do this (published in the same journal on September 10 1936, p. 360), some reference somewhere was also made to the idea of this and other works by Sorabji being prepared for reproduction on the pianola but (a) I cannot now find this reference and (b) nothing ever came of it in any case.

Technology in such areas has, of course, moved on immensely since those days. A few years ago, a well-meaning person made MIDI files of the first 18 of Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies (1940-44) from the edition by Marc-André Hamelin (at the time this was done, these were the only ones of the set that had been edited - the remainder have been edited since); whilst these were undoubtedly some of the very best examples of their type and were prepared with considerable sensitivity and skill, they simply do not and indeed cannot substitute for what the composer intended - which is a real live performance by a real live pianist, such as we have had more recently from various pianists, especially Fredrik Ullén, whose BIS CD of the first 25 from this vast cycle is about to become available. For this reason, we were sadly obliged to decline a request that copies of this MIDI-realisation be publicly distributed.

In so saying, I do not propose to discourage your idea for the sake of it - and, indeed, a MIDI-project of the OC is already being undertaken privately by a number of people who happen to be contributors to this forum. In the end, however, what we all now await is a recording by the pianist who has now given one private and five public performances of it during the past 2½ years and who indeed proposes to record it as soon as he has another few such peformances behind him.

Best,

Alistair

[pianolist]

Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir, and thank you for such a considered and detailed response. It will take a little while to digest, and will be a very useful reference.

I like to clothe much of my correspondence with a little humour, but I always keep in mind Jonathan Miller's acute observation that humour can often indicate an intense seriousness of purpose.

Like Sorabji's music, the pianola throws up many questions about what it is we expect from concert musicians. As I have explained in my thread thanking the management for its generosity towards my 10,000th membership, most pianola rolls were not recorded by pianists. Instead, they were marked up from the sheet music and punched by hand, before being duplicated in more automatic ways. Thus, there is no inherent "performance" on such rolls, and anyone playing them will provide a unique performance, which will be different from anyone else, and different from day to day as well.

Now, of course, the vast majority of pianola owners use the pianola unthinkingly, and so most performances will be unmusical. They will sound not unlike the MIDI transcriptions which you mention, and which beset the Web. Most people will want to play rolls of popular songs or four-in-a-bar jazz, which is fine, and hurts no-one, but it does propagate the perception of the pianola as a mechanical sounding automaton.

Properly speaking, a good pianolist should be like an orchestral conductor. Of course, one does not need to use psychology on a pianola, but on the other hand, a pianola is capable of playing more inhumanly than the very worst orchestral player. There are so many tiny, almost imperceptible pauses and emphases that we make when we speak, sing or play, and an arranged piano roll will not conjure these up without being properly performed.

I don't doubt that Sorabji intended all his works for performance by "live" pianists. But I should be interested to know what distinction you, as an experienced musician, perceive between performance by a "live" pianist, and performance by a "live" pianolist. Is it that you consider the physical pressing of the keys to be the most important aspect of a musical performance? I would say that, for myself, it is the interpretation, and not the source of the music that most moves me, but I recognise that I may be in the minority.

I took part in George Antheil's "Ballet Mécanique" in Germany at the end of 2004. It's a difficult work to play, because one has to remain scrupulously in step with the conductor, and the time signatures change in almost every bar. It is also very heavy work, with rapid successions of 20 note chords in some places. There are three rolls, and from about one minute into the first, I was dripping with sweat. At the end there was a great deal of applause, which I'm sure came about simply because I was sweating, and not because the audience appreciated the real difficulties that I faced.

In a way I can see that Sorabji's music has similar qualities. Those who particularly like it want its performers to have something of the high priest about them. Their seriousness of purpose is not to be thrown off lightly, as Friedman, Godowsky or Pachmann might have done. It has to be palpably serious, and its pianists must be seen to have overcome hurdles in the pursuit of its proper performance. Sweat is good, smiling and gold teeth are bad.

I've expanded the nature of this thread slightly, but it does have a relevance to both Sorabji and the pianola, and I shall be interested to see what response it brings. Once again to Alistair Hinton, thank you for a very well-informed reply.

Pianolist

[ahinton]

I don't doubt that Sorabji intended all his works for performance by "live" pianists. But I should be interested to know what distinction you, as an experienced musician, perceive between performance by a "live" pianist, and performance by a "live" pianolist. Is it that you consider the physical pressing of the keys to be the most important aspect of a musical performance? I would say that, for myself, it is the interpretation, and not the source of the music that most moves me, but I recognise that I may be in the minority.

It is the interpretation for me, too; however, regardless of the extent to which a pianist will develop an interpretation in his/her practice studio, there will inevitably be fresh evens and/or insights in subsequent public performances and Sorabj's concern was to ensure that the artist's freedom to enjoy or fear the consequences of that in the heat of the moment remain sacrosanct. However thoughtfully a pianola performance may be put together, the extent of control afforded to the "live pianolist" is inevitably - as I understand it (and please correct me if I have misunderstood any aspect of this) - less than is the case for the "live pianist". I agree nevertheless that the "live pianolist" situation might arguably be seen as representing some kind of halfway (or at least some way!) house between the fixed result of a ready-created MIDI and a live pianist's performance. Where I find the difference of approach important is in that (as we agree) Sorabji wrote his piano works to be performed live by pianists, whereas Nancarrow wrote - and indeed "made" - most of his pieces to be enunciated other than by a live pianist - a comparison I did not mention earlier.

Those who particularly like (Sorabji's music) want its performers to have something of the high priest about them. Their seriousness of purpose is not to be thrown off lightly, as Friedman, Godowsky or Pachmann might have done. It has to be palpably serious, and its pianists must be seen to have overcome hurdles in the pursuit of its proper performance.

I am not sure that what some may see as the inspiration in listeners of a desire for high-priestly status and stance in performers is necessarily exclusive to the music of Sorabji - nor am I convinced that the pianists you mention would always - or even often - have "thrown off" seriousness of purpose in their performances. As to the question of being "seen to have overcome hurdles", experience has demonstrated to me what I had always believed should be possible - which is that almost all visual sense of such hurdles are simply made by the performer to disappear, so that listeners do not encounter this or any other distraction to their concentration on the matter in hand. As we all know, some pianists are far more physically demonstrative than others in live performance and the demands often made by Sorabji in particular are such that ultimate economy of physical movement must be paramount in the performer, otherwise wasted and disspated energy may well interfere with performances.

Once again to Alistair Hinton, thank you for a very well-informed reply.

Pianolist

You are very welcome!

Best,

Alistair

[pianolist]

There are so many varied opportunities on this forum. One can be silly in one part of it, and deadly serious in another, although being deadly serious is also very good fun. Thank you, Alistair, for a willingness to act as a sparring partner - greatly appreciated!

I'm not surprised it's the interpretation for you as well, since I was being just a little provocative. But I'd like to make the point that the pianola can be very much a live instrument. There are, inevitably, differences between it and the normal piano, not least the fact that one can play superhumanly difficult music without worrying about the pitches. But that shouldn't stop a good pianolist worrying over the interpretation.

Now what do I mean by interpretation, and in which ways can one have domain over it? A good pianola has a number of controls. In the first place, one creates the dynamics with one's feet. That does not mean that one seeks to create only a limited number of terrace dynamics, except when specifically called for by, say, Nancarrow. Generally, one seeks to "dance" on the pedals, in order to create accents, sub-accents, and more general crescendos, diminuendos and static levels. The limiting factors in this are the abilities of the pianolist, perhaps tempered by the piano being used, since a pianola is very susceptible to the evenness and weight of a piano action.

The pneumatic mechanism is generally split into two halves, between E and F over middle C in most pianolas, and one has levers to subdue each half, known as the treble and bass. This subduing process is gradual, according to the amount one moves the levers, and it effectively subtracts from the dynamics provided by the feet. Now clearly the pneumatic pedalling process will be different for every player, and indeed different on each occasion, and with a good pianolist, there is no reason why fresh insights into a piece of music should not affect the process at each new performance. There are also special marginal perforations on some music rolls, which, for the fraction of a second during which they occur, cause any note beginning at that instant to be returned to the full foot-pedalled dynamic level. This mechanism is also split between treble and bass. One can create very effective accents without this device, but it helps particularly in situations where the dynamics must return very quickly to quietness, or where there is a succession of very quick accents over a quieter accompaniment level.

There is a tempo control, operated by the right hand. Most pianola owners set it to a chosen speed and then leave it alone, but it was not designed for such basic use. Instead, in most music, one should never leave it alone. One is always making tiny, tiny changes to the flow of the music, just as pianists do. In romantic music, the ebb and flow is perhaps more obvious, but human pianists make so many minute changes of tempo, so many tiny hesitations and accelerations, even in contemporary music. And even when they do not realise that they are doing it. Only as a pianola player does one have to think this through in advance, because otherwise the music will sound "mechanical". I should say that I dislike that word. There is far more mechanism in a decent pipe organ than in any pianola, but we don't call the Albert Hall organ a "mechanical" instrument.

One's feet are constantly occupied with the dynamic control of the music, so they cannot also be responsible for the sustaining and soft pedal, and so there are levers provided, though many push-up pianolas only have one for the sustain. Getting used to sustaining and half-pedalling with one's left hand is quite amusing. It takes a few weeks, and then seems as natural as any other way.

Something over 100 composers wrote music for pianola during the 20th century. Most of them did so on the basis of a very incomplete understanding of the instrument, since they were often linked to only one player piano company for publicity purposes. Nancarrow came to the instrument well after its initial demise, and he ended up choosing Ampico uprights, which were available in New York when John Cage went looking. Ampicos are reproducing pianos, designed to replay automatically the subtleties of Rachmaninov or Lhevinne, for example. They were not made for Nancarrow, and he uses their sophisticated dynamic control mechanisms in a deliberately simplistic way, since his concerns were simply to help distinguish between voices in complex, often imitative musical structures. So you can't take any one composer as representative of the whole pianola, and certainly not Nancarrow, who wrote instead for automatic reproducing pianos. This is not in the least to belittle Conlon, who was a lovely man, and an inspirational composer.

Here ends today's pianola lesson! On the more generalised questions of interpretation and audience perceptions, particularly with regard to contemporary music, I think there is not so much that divides us, but I think I should leave it until tomorrow! I don't want to trespass on the generosity of anyone's webspace, and I need to do some work.

All the best,

Pianolist

[pianolist]

Good afternoon Alistair,

This business of what audiences perceive in concert interests me greatly, as do the ways in which pianists comport themselves. Paderewski was someone who did not make light of his art. He had such an inscrutable face, and who knows what really went on behind the façade! But one can recognise that he enjoyed, or felt at home with the rôle of a high priest. There are such musicians these days too!

By contrast, I'll take the cases of Pachmann, Godowsky and Friedman in turn, and how I feel they made light of their technique. I don't mean that they belittled it, but simply that they found ways of kicking it into touch, of placing it somewhere where its importance was less relevant to a lay audience. It's easy to dismiss Pachmann's antics on the platform as silly eccentricities, or as a seeking after publicity, but he was from a different era, when it was not so much frowned upon to be self-satisfied. I think he clothed his technique, which in his early days was really brilliant, with a good covering of humour. There's a photo of him about to milk a cow, I think, and a film of him recording a piano roll, in which trick photography fades him away as he listens, grinning, to his own recorded performance. You can't end up in these slightly comic situations without wanting to do so. I can't imagine Paderewski allowing himself to be portrayed in such ways, and I can identify with Pachmann's need for humour as an antidote to the seriousness of performance. It is his way of establishing an equality with his audience, rather like Brendel's poems.

Godowsky had a way of playing, in my view, that makes one forget that his music is at all difficult. Whoever I hear playing it today doesn't manage to do that. I understand that he did not relish recording, and that his real soul only survives on one 78 of two Schubert song transciptions, but even on his less inspiring records, one is not, as a layman, moved to concentrate on his technique. In many ways, it seems to me that the difficulties of his music were something personal for him, which he did not therefore seek to play up in performance.

In Friedman's case, his unbelievable technique tends to make me smile in the fast pieces, though of course he is throughout wonderfully expressive as well. Maybe I am on the shakiest ground here, but the sheer devilry of his technique suggests to me someone who was flourishing it with an occasional nasty glint in his eyes.

I don't know how well I have managed to express all that. I personally like a good sprinkling of humour in music, although the performances that I shall remember the longest are those which have made me cry. I don't particularly want to be overawed by intellectual or technical prowess, either on the part of the composer or the performer. Music for me is not primarily about intellect, but about emotion. If I want intellect, I can read about it. And I detest piano competitions: the idea of competing in a sphere of life that should unite humanity is quite perverse. I find much musicmaking today to have lost its emotion and spontaneity. Authenticity is so often an excuse for dryness, and music that is particularly difficult has, in my view, a responsibility to be particularly emotional as well, otherwise there is no point to the difficulty, other than the self-satisfaction of the performer.

I am no expert at all on Sorabji or his music, and that is of course one reason why I began this thread by asking someone (you, in effect!) about his connections with the Aeolian Company, which I had once noticed I know not where. I have been to one performance of the OC, many years ago, and I must make the effort to rediscover it, and Sorabji's other works.

I should value your reaction to all this, and be interested to know what you mean by "concentration on the matter in hand", when referring to possible distractions placed upon an audience by a demonstrative performer. On what are you concentrating when you listen to your ideal performance of Sorabji's music? Is it an excitement at the way in which a pianist has finally managed to conquer the technical difficulties? I imagine not, in view of our previous posts, and so I wonder how would you describe the emotional content of the music? It's a rotten question to ask you, because the point of music is that it allows us to share and feel aspects of life that cannot easily be put into words, but I'll trespass on your generosity enough to leave it in place!

Best wishes,

Pianolist

[ahinton]

Good afternoon Alistair,

And good afternoon to you, "Pianolist"! - though, in so writing, I do not want to make this thread look as though it's only a duet between us - this is a discussion forum, after all and I would hope that other forum members will want to have their say too - especially after all the things that you have written so far on this subject!

This business of what audiences perceive in concert interests me greatly, as do the ways in which pianists comport themselves.

These factors interest me, too - although mindful also of those matters of the pianola with which you initiated this thread, if we are to consider what audiences perceive when they listen to music in any form, we should not only take on board what a concert audience might perceive when listening to both a live pianist and a pianolist but also what a listener perceives when listening to a recording. The examples you then give for the first of these are fascinating, nevertheless.

I don't particularly want to be overawed by intellectual or technical prowess, either on the part of the composer or the performer. Music for me is not primarily about intellect, but about emotion. If I want intellect, I can read about it.

Whilst I understand and empathise with what you write here, I cannot agree with it 100%; my position is that music that lacks sufficient intellectual or emotional thrust usually interests me less than that which doesn't. In a published article, Delius, in bemoaning what he perceived as some of the woes of music at the time of writing (1920), complained that, as he saw it, "emotion is out of date and intellect a bore"; whilst he does not actually say so in as many words, it seems to me that Delius likewise felt that emotion and intellect are each essential components of fine music.

And I detest piano competitions: the idea of competing in a sphere of life that should unite humanity is quite perverse.

I'm afraid that I'm with you here!

I find much musicmaking today to have lost its emotion and spontaneity.

I do not disagree entiely with you, but not ALL of it, surely - or even "much" of it?!

Authenticity is so often an excuse for dryness,

I rather think that this may arguably have been the considered the case to a greater extent in the early days of the rise of period performance practice than it is now, especially since we are no longer considering "authentic" performances only of baroque and early classical music - the "authentic performance" bandwagon has since rolled into the music of the 20th century and I'm not convinced that an attempt to perform, say, Elgar's Second Symphony within the disciplines of period performance practice would of necessity be an "excuse for dryness". That said, the composer Robert Simpson's general reservations about period performance practice in those earlier days included the very telling truth that true authenticity can never be achieved, because all performances can only be listened to with present-day ears by people with experience of music up to that present day - in other words, we nowadays listen to Bach with ears and minds accustomed to absorbing Brahms, Varèse, Xenakis, Carter, etc., which is of itself a different experience to listening to Bach as contemporary music as in the days when that's what it was.

and music that is particularly difficult has, in my view, a responsibility to be particularly emotional as well, otherwise there is no point to the difficulty, other than the self-satisfaction of the performer.

I'm not sure that I fully understand you here. As I have observed elsewhere (albeit only in terms of performance difficulties), what is difficult for one performer to play may be less so for another - and the same must surely apply to listeners in their respective ability to absorb and respond to what they hear; familiarity plays a not insignificant rôle here, so a performer may well find him/herself presenting a piece to an audience in which some are baffled and others excited. In any case, individual listeners will have different emotional capacities and levels of emotional excitability. I assume that your assertion here refers, however, more to the responsibility of the composer than to the performer - which puts it in my court, so to speak; I fear that my answer will nevertheless sound evasive on this issue, but I can at least clarify that this is because it is simply not possible (or recommended!) for a composer accurately or meaningfully to presume the emotional or other responses of his/her listeners in advance, or when writing a piece. Another factor to consider here is that some pieces are destined to require more listenings than others before their full impact may be made; this is not to defend deliberate obscurantism of expression so much as to point out that some pieces have so much in them that different details are likely to rise to the surface of attention from one listening to another.

I should value your reaction to all this, and be interested to know what you mean by "concentration on the matter in hand", when referring to possible distractions placed upon an audience by a demonstrative performer. On what are you concentrating when you listen to your ideal performance of Sorabji's music? Is it an excitement at the way in which a pianist has finally managed to conquer the technical difficulties? I imagine not, in view of our previous posts,

I would not seek to draw any different conclusions about this aspect in relation to Sorabji's music than I would in respect of anyone else's. What I meant here was the kinds of visual distraction that a particularly demonstrative pianist, for example, can visit upon an audience whose principal reason for attendance at the performance is to listen rather than to watch; this is not to say that there is never anything worth watching, but when the visuals are so noticeable as to threaten to attract undue attention, some level of potential aural distraction will likely result in some of those present who do not in turn distract themselves from it by closing their eyes.

Your reference to "an excitement at the way in which a pianist has finally managed to conquer the technical difficulties" raises the issue as to what might generate such excitement in the first place; this is a factor that will vary from listener to listener depending on individual past experience, prior knowledge and understanding of playing techniques and challenges and the manner in and extent to which the pianist might, consciously or otherwise, reveal this aspect of his/her performance while playing. In other words, the extent to which any listener can recognise such technical difficulties will invariably influence the extent of his/her excitment at the performer's conquest of them. This may seem obvious, but it's one thing to get excited about a pianist's fast octaves, clear and rapid passage work or accurate leaps in performances of, say, Liszt or Alkan and quite another to appreciate successful balancing of subtle polyphonies, polyrhythms and multi-layered textures or even the adroitness of pedalling that contributes to such things in, say, Godowsky or Sorabji. Since it is Sorabji that you mention here, I will quote the response of someone (whose previous experience of Sorabji had been limited to his songs) to Jonathan Powell's London OC performance in 2003, to the effect that, whilst there could be no denying the surfeit of unrelenting and and improbable technical feats, after a while the sheer power of the music simply washes them all away from the consciousness and they are forgotten. This reaction came from a soprano...

and so I wonder how would you describe the emotional content of the music? It's a rotten question to ask you, because the point of music is that it allows us to share and feel aspects of life that cannot easily be put into words, but I'll trespass on your generosity enough to leave it in place!

Pianolist

Yes, it is indeed a "rotten question"! - but at least you know why and I agree with you! I'm not being evasive here - simply confirming that I am unable to answer it in words. I'm sorry if that leaves you with a lesser view of my "generosity"!

Best,

Alistair

[pianolist]

Well, hello after a few days' break! I duly took part in my first choral concert since the 1970s, and managed to hack my way through a Richard Strauss motet, in the tenor clef, and with at least one enharmonic change every bar, or so it seemed!

You are absolutely right that this thread, as with the whole forum, should not be regarded as a two-way conversation. Having said that, I think perhaps a number of folk have taken part as audience, while you and I have duetted. It would be nice if others joined in too.

I was making the point that emotion is for me the most important part of music. I stand by that, but we probably agree to a large extent. Subtlety is one of the great joys of life, and perhaps what you would describe as intellectual thrust, I might call subtlety of emotional content. Of course, intellect and emotion are interdependent. But I would sooner take as a friend someone of great kindness, and intellectual simplicity, rather than the fiercest intellectual, who had no soul. The use of the word "soul", coming from an atheist, may seem strange, but I know what I mean, and I daresay you do too!

The lack of spontaneity in musicmaking does apply to much of it, in my view, which is a shame. There is so little time for musicians to think about life, and the performances suffer, no matter how note perfect the executions may be. Pianists travelling from Europe to the USA used to have a week on board ship, during which they would interact at leisure with other people, and shorter journeys were likewise more leisurely. Nowadays they travel by air, with the latest film to take their mind off higher things, and at best one or two instant companions in the same row. And in general terms we are all encouraged to be specialists, with one or two notable exceptions. Gone are the days when a Moriz Rosenthal was capable of conversing in five languages, two of them ancient. Josef Hofmann patented a very successful automobile suspension system; Paderewski gave three hour-long speeches at the Versailles Conference, in English, French and Polish, all without notes. This wider experience of life inevitably had an effect on musical performance.

Recordings have played a part as well. Of course they have been a real boon to music lovers, because one can listen to one's chosen repertoire whenever one wants to. But, they have slowly led to greater uniformity in performance styles. A pianist in 1895 would not have heard other pianists particularly frequently, except perhaps in student days. In our present circumstances, the influence of musicological theories has become much more important. Authenticity has become not an advisor, but a regulator, and yet theories of authenticity themselves change with fashion.

Your example of Elgar and period performance is a very good one. Orchestral violinists in Elgar's time knew instinctively when to scoop, and when to hesitate. Having such parameters imposed by a conductor is not the same. You are absolutely right about our not having "authentic" ears., and I would extend that to say that our violinists do not have "authentic" bowing arms, and so on.

Perhaps I should shift my idea about difficulty in music from composer to performer. Effectively, I felt that there should be some very valid musical reason why music should be difficult, because otherwise its only purpose is to act a a vehicle for the performer to show off. I know audiences like to draw breath when pianists flourish themselves up and down the keyboard. If I call it the "Kalkbrenner" effect, someone from the Kalkbrenner Society will write in to condemn me, and tell me that Kalkbrenner has had a bad press. But you know what I mean.

Nancarrow's Studies, or at any rate the simpler ones, have a mesmerizing effect on pianists, alas. It seems to me that they regard them as a challenge. I have been to a performance of a couple of his Studies, played by four pianists, with conductor. The seriousness of purpose, the concentration, and the metronome-like precision of the beat utterly ruined Nancarrow's quirky, slightly humorous style. His music is not meant to be difficult in performance, because it isn't written for pianists. Playing it in a way that is obviously difficult spoils it, in my view.

I'll finish with one rather telling contrast between the reaction of audiences to a player piano, and to a piano. On the pianola, I cannot get away with speeds as fast as live pianists. If I play at a fast speed, people tend to say, "That's silly - you're only doing that because it's a pianola." If a pianist plays even faster, they simply draw breath. The physical movement of fingers on keys makes all things believable, whereas the pianolist has a much more difficult job of lifting folk off their feet. It is. perhaps, an instrument which you would like, because there is very little in the way of demonstrative physical activity, even in complex music.

Thank you for your detailed and carefully thought out explanations, by the way, which have made me think a great deal. I have looked at your website, and found it fascinating:

https://www.music.mcgill.ca/~sorabji

As the great man said - "In the last resort there is the pianola." Hmmm.

All the best,

Rex

[ahinton]

Well, hello after a few days' break! I duly took part in my first choral concert since the 1970s, and managed to hack my way through a Richard Strauss motet, in the tenor clef, and with at least one enharmonic change every bar, or so it seemed!

Ah! - the Deutsche Motett - a wonderful piece and quite a challenging sing for a choir, too - though not quite so much so as the same composer's equally glorious "An den Baum Daphne", perhaps...

You are absolutely right that this thread, as with the whole forum, should not be regarded as a two-way conversation. Having said that, I think perhaps a number of folk have taken part as audience, while you and I have duetted. It would be nice if others joined in too.

Yes, indeed it would (wrote he, dropping as loud a hint as is possible with a computer keyboard); the field is open...

I was making the point that emotion is for me the most important part of music. I stand by that, but we probably agree to a large extent. Subtlety is one of the great joys of life, and perhaps what you would describe as intellectual thrust, I might call subtlety of emotional content. Of course, intellect and emotion are interdependent. But I would sooner take as a friend someone of great kindness, and intellectual simplicity, rather than the fiercest intellectual, who had no soul. The use of the word "soul", coming from an atheist, may seem strange, but I know what I mean, and I daresay you do too!

Point well made and well taken. The way I see it, the two are very much interdependent - and, being the avaricious pest that I am, I want the best of both worlds in music - but then look how often that can indeed be gotten...

The lack of spontaneity in musicmaking does apply to much of it, in my view, which is a shame. There is so little time for musicians to think about life, and the performances suffer, no matter how note perfect the executions may be. Pianists travelling from Europe to the USA used to have a week on board ship, during which they would interact at leisure with other people, and shorter journeys were likewise more leisurely. Nowadays they travel by air, with the latest film to take their mind off higher things, and at best one or two instant companions in the same row

This is largely true, although cabin crews rarely try actually to force passengers to watch whatever movies are on offer, in my experience (indeed, I don't think that this kind of thing would have happened even in the worst days of Aeroflot [which, incidentally, is not a private airline owned by a well-loved English soprano]). One of the problems is the number of performances that some artists give, expecially given that their professional activities usually also include recording sessions. Pollini seems to have got that one just about right, I think (although I'm sure others have, too). If there were too many more antiquarian bookshops around the world than there are, Hamelin would almost certainly find time to give less performances than he does currently...

And in general terms we are all encouraged to be specialists, with one or two notable exceptions. Gone are the days when a Moriz Rosenthal was capable of conversing in five languages, two of them ancient. Josef Hofmann patented a very successful automobile suspension system; Paderewski gave three hour-long speeches at the Versailles Conference, in English, French and Polish, all without notes. This wider experience of life inevitably had an effect on musical performance.

Indeed - "our age of specialisation", as Ronald Stevenson deprecatingly put it - although maybe this situation is no longer quite as bad as once it was. However, within the fields of musical activity, the crux of the problem still lies, I think, in the word "encourage"; performers are for the most part "encouraged" only to be performers on their chosen instrument. The importance of proper application of this encouragement factor, especially in the early days of a musician's development, cannot be over-stressed; were there sufficient encouragement of instrumentalists to make at least some study of a second instrument, singing, conducting, musicology and, perhaps above all, composition (and likewise singers to pursue instrumental study and the other disciplines) and then to continue with at least some of these activities rather than drop them like stones immediately upon graduating, this sitaution would surely in time become better balanced. It would, of course, be a gross over-simplification - and indeed misleading - to suggest that this never happens; it's the extent to which it's encouraged that matters here...

Recordings have played a part as well. Of course they have been a real boon to music lovers, because one can listen to one's chosen repertoire whenever one wants to. But, they have slowly led to greater uniformity in performance styles. A pianist in 1895 would not have heard other pianists particularly frequently, except perhaps in student days. In our present circumstances, the influence of musicological theories has become much more important. Authenticity has become not an advisor, but a regulator, and yet theories of authenticity themselves change with fashion.

This is so true! I suspect, however, that greater early encouragement (we're back on that again!) of involvement in the widest possible range of repertoire (together with the pursuit of other musical disciplines) may help to weaken this "uniformity"; the more one puts in front of students, the more the differences between them will reveal themselves as each naturally prioritises those things that most matter to him/her. Another aspect of this is the "specialisation" (again!) in, say baroque or contemporary repertoire. A very famous - and very fine - string quartet that has been going now for over three decades began its days "specialising" in post-World War II repertoire (later broadening this to encompass a larger swathe of the music of the last century) but to the exclusion of anything else; given that the string quartet medium has somehow endured for some three centuries, what price a quartet that plays no Haydn, Mozart and Mendelssohn and only a tiny amount of Beethoven? Of course, learning large amounts of new repertoire takes up a great deal of time, but nowadays there are far more quartets around who will take this on, so there would seem to be rather less excuse for a quartet that wants to play contemporary music not to widen its repertoire scope more.

The remainder of your paragraph here is equally salient. Musicology is a most valuable tool, but too many people are now expected to worship at its self-made shrine rather than musicology worshipping at the shrine of music itself; I once told a very gifted musicologist colleague that, if people like me didn't do what we did, people like him would soon be out of a job - I do not seek to undermine musicology per se - far from it - but its proper rôle is, after all, that of music's handmaiden, not its employer...

The rest of what you write is, I think, beyond argument, yet many of these matters are all too infrequently discussed, it seems to me.

I have looked at your website, and found it fascinating:

https://www.music.mcgill.ca/~sorabji

It's currently undergoing a complete revamp - and not before it's about time. The original site was designed for us by Erica Schulman, entirely gratis, but it has not been duly updated. Two other self-appointed volunteers (one of whom is also on the team of Sorabji score editors, although both are mathematicians by profession) have recently taken on the task of  redesigning it more or less from the ground up and the end result will soon replace the original site; it URL is
www.sorabji-archive.co.uk
May I take this opportunity to apologise to those interested in Sorabji for the outdatedness of the current site and ask for patient forebearance while the new one is put together?

As the great man said - "In the last resort there is the pianola." Hmmm.

I wonder which particular resort he meant...

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

There is so little time for musicians to think about life, and the performances suffer, no matter how note perfect the executions may be.

Just a brief P.S. - I am reminded that, in an interview quite late in life, the incomparable Shura Cherkassky once said "today everyone plays so WELL!". Ouch!

Best,

Alistair

[pianolist]

Very quick post indeed from me - I've been sorting rolls all day, and I'm just off to Rigoletto at ENO. There IS a resort called Pianola; at least there is a village with this name near the hillside resort of L'Aquila in Italy. I'm going there for my birthday. No doubt I'll start a thread.

[ahinton]

There IS a resort called Pianola; at least there is a village with this name near the hillside resort of L'Aquila in Italy. I'm going there for my birthday. No doubt I'll start a thread.

Fascinating! I did not know this. But do you suppose that Sorabji may have known it?(!)

Best,

Alistair