Unrestrained Emotional playing

[comme_le_vent]

i have heard alot about 'reserve' 'poise' 'detachment' , these to me are the opposites top the qualities that i enjoy in most piano playing. my query is - what pianists dont hold back their emotions at all? and wear their hearts on their sleeves and play with a sense of freedom and abandonment and individuality, i love hyper romanitic/emotional playing, and for the life of me i cant understand why ppl want to hold back their emotions when releasing them would sound so much better, i can only think of cziffra off the top of my head - as a pianist who does this often, any other pianists to add? or comments to add about this style of playing?

[Chitch]

Just an opinion, but I think some ( most ) pianist do express their emotions while playing. While it's not obvious in some of the pieces they play, the emotion is still there in some way. I guess you get the idea of pianist holding back there emotions because they always have the serious look when performing, if the case is that all pianist who express their emotions have to be "smiling" and looking all "jolly" when performing I'd definetely want to drop it. Ever hear of the Super Fun Happy Pianist? Thought so.

[meiting]

Ever hear of the Super Fun Happy Pianist? Thought so.

LOL!!!

I'm pretty close to super fun happy pianist... just as long as I'm not playing

[comme_le_vent]

im not really refering to any particular emotion, but maybe if i had to choose - more on the dramatic side, like not holding back in passages that are obviously fuelled by the composers passionate fury or sadness, another thing- is sentimentality so bad? id really prefer to listen to a soaring singing account of the fantasie impromptu or whatever with all the emotion in the world thrown into it.than a lifeless metronomic performance.
maybe evidence of my preferences can be found in my playing - in fast loud passages i whup the keyboard's big black behind with relentless fury, and in soft dreamy passages i have to buy a hearing aid to hear myself play

[Chitch]

i whup the keyboard's big black behind with relentless fury

I used to be able to do that, then I moved into a semi...

[Jaydee]

I think the reason why some pianists prefer to restrain some of that emotional playing is so that they don't self indulge in the piece.  Some audiences feel uncomfortable when the performer self indulges in their own music.  Also, when performers do 'spill their guts' and use a lot of body language/facial expression, it leaves not much to the listeners/viewers' imagination.  The imagining has already been done by the pianist, and some people don't like that.

However, personally, I prefer those who don't restrain their emotion while playing, because it guides the audience to that particular pianists' unique interpretation.

[robert_henry]

Comme-le-vent,

Music is a form of art, and art is more than an extension of emotion.  It is also the intellectual and structural.  I have days when I want to hear Horowitz, and others I might want to hear Schiff.  But I welcome both, if not all approaches to music, so long as there is some sense of purpose to the playing other than self-indulgence.  The worst product of Horowitz and Cortot was the occasional playing that was spoiled by an overstatement of the emotional.  They began to believe too strongly in their infallibility and forgot (sometimes) that the music was greater than they were.  But, they also had the capacity to profoundly move people when they were at their best, and their best came when they demonstrated the proper proportion of their musical insights.   As I grow more mature, I expect to hear simliar maturity in other musicians, both intellectual AND emotional maturity.  Think about having a conversation with someone who has no emotional restraint; their cursing when slightly angered, laughing uncontrollably, or sobbing and wailing at a somber suggestion.  Why then would you want to hear this type of person intrepret a late Beethoven Sonata?  You wouldn't, because it requires intellect as well as emotion to play these pieces.  

Search for balance in your listening and playing.  Art is a constant trade between the following of the rules and the breaking of them.  As listeners and performers, we must recoginize when it is time to do one or the other, but we cannot have it one way all of the time.  We cannot follow the rules all of the time, nor can we break them all of the time, and strictly emotional playing at the expense of all else is simply distorted, unbalanced, immature and ultimately a failure, just as would be strictly intellectual playing.  "Balance in all things."

Robert Henry

[eddie92099]

Ever hear of the Super Fun Happy Pianist?

Jack Gibbons is a super fun happy pianist,
Ed

[Axtremus]

 Art is a constant trade between the following of the rules and the breaking of them.  ...  "Balance in all things."

Thank you, Robert Henry, for articulating such profound insight! I resonated with that one right away.

[Chitch]

Jack Gibbons
Damn you, Ed. Lol

[arigatuso]

Thank you Robert!. Your advice was very helpful.

[anda]

depends om what you mean by "poise" and restricting the expression of emotions - of course i dislike clowns who make faces and ballet during playing - i don't think that has anything to do with "feeling" and "expressing your feelings"

as for playing - i have seen two categories of players (i mean, of good pianoplayers):

1. "cerebral" pianists - generally oriented on structure, construction, organization of the musica material. their favourite theory is that you shouldn't emphasize your feelings, but simply expose the work - which is not a bad idea as long as you don't get to the point where you simply play the written material. they usualy put the letter of the text before the ideatic subtext. usually very good players of baroque, pre-classic and classic works.

2. "passionate" plyers (not pianists). oriented on feelings rather than mathematics of the work, the problem with them is that they put their feeling towards the work ahead of the work and risk to become show-off clowns (pianists making funny faces come from this category). sometimes good performers of romantic and postromantic works.

a written work has no meaning while it's not performed - it's dead, it takes an "interpreter" to bring it to life again. so, the bigest problem for everybody is finding the balance - put the subtext, the ideas hidden, ahead of the "letter" of the text - of course, while respecting everything written; finding a clear unique personal image of the work and trusting it with your life; expressing that image without forgetting that while you may own the image, you don't own the work, and that performing shouldn't be about you and your world.  

(imho)

[comme_le_vent]

whatever i play, i play because i like it.
however i play, i play how i like.
i respect the composer, but i have to play it how I want it to sound, i want to bring out the emotions to the maximum(this doesnt mean distorting the music) as i feel them.
i play music as though it is a part of me, as though i have lived with it, and it has inhabited me, and my performance of the piece is an outward expression of my feelings about the piece.
the only intellect i use, is to plan my interpretation to a degree that would make the emotion more powerful.
i agree that good playing HAS to be a balance of the planned interpretation , and the feeling of the moment.
but this is NEVER to be intellectually stimulating, it is ALWAYS to make the music sound as emotional and effective (as well as just GOOD) as possible.

[scriabinsmyman]

my music is dead if i don't put my emotion into it...and i just cannot get into pieces if it's not one i identify with..by "identify w/" i mean a piece that i am able to express my emotions through

[cellodude]

I think the keyword here is 'balance' although the intellect must certainly be in control during the whole performance.

I'm surprised that so far the name 'Lang Lang' has not appeared on this thread. Over on the cello board he is villified to no end for his 'unrestrained emotional playing' the title for this thread!

I have not heard or seen him perform but I would like to know what pianists think of him. I have read reviews that rated him very highly and others that swing to the other end of the spectrum. Must be an interesting character.

dennis lee

[Rob47]

yes balance is definietly the key. whoever said that.

I'm more of a "passionate player" and other students tell me I make funny faces when i play....i don't move a lot but they say i make bizzare facial expressions. I'm not  really a show off clown, more of a want to be Horowitz.

Learn the notes as and rythms and rests as mathetmatically as possible, practice slowly but once the piece is under your fingers it's up to you to do the other 50 %.  play for yourself not waht you think someone wants to hear....what's the point of that? (unless it's a jury/competition and your playing bach....like liszt)

Rob47