Bottom line

[m1469]

I think I have come to the conclusion that when all is said and done, audiences and even teachers are actually most impressed by speed, accuracey, and volume.  If the artist delivers these, it wins the audience (and the teacher) everytime.

Am I wrong ? 

I know that "artistry" matters (at least that is the politcally correct thing to say... but what is it anyway ? )... but people, including knowing-musicians, become more excited over a fast and gruesome rendition of something than they do over a slow and "artistic" rendition.

Just trying to grasp the reality of the matter.


m1469

[leucippus]

I guess it all depends on who the audience is.

I much prefer to hear things played artistically well myself.   

Speed is impressive if done artistically, but speed just for the sake of speed does not impress me at all.

However, given two pieces played with the same level of artistry, and one is played at a faster tempo, the faster one will probably win me over.  Be even that depends on the piece.  Some pieces just don't sound well played fast.  I personally think that everyone plays Für Elise far too fast for example.  So when I hear someone play that piece more slowly I'm impressed.

It really depends on the piece.  A lot of pieces simply sound rushed if played too fast.  If a pianist wants to play fast they should be sure to learn pieces that were meant to be played fast.  There's nothing worse than hearing someone rush through a piece of music that was meant to be played slow. 

However, having said that, I do believe that people tend to think that almost anyone should be able to play slow pieces well.  So they probably are impressed most by people who play fast pieces well.  That makes sense.  That's certainly true on the violin, and probably with all instruments actually.   Playing a lot of notes fast takes more skill than playing fewer notes more slowly.  Especially if it's done well. That's a given.

[franzliszt2]

I think that speed wins over people who are impressed by technical feats. I think people who just geniunly love the music, will like whatever they prefer. Richter plays schubert incredibly slowly, and I enjoyed his performance just as much as I enjoyed the Kempff recordings. I think it depends, my teacher would not be impressed if I just played fast and loud. If a player has a string sense of rhythm, and solid control over sounds, the piece can be very exciting at a slow speed, and equally as exciting at a fast speed.

But I do see your point, on the whole is seems people do go for the fast renditions, which is a great shame

[zheer]

teachers are actually most impressed by speed, accuracey, and volume.  If the artist delivers these, it wins the audience (and the teacher) everytime.

  Yup, i call this the thrill factor. A good example is Horowitz playing fast octaves.

[opus10no2]

It's simply easier to appreciate physical feats than musical feats.

Also, when hearing a piece for the first time, if it's at a concert, I'd prefer it were physically impressive because that, alone, can grab and hold my attention even if i don't appreciate the music fully.

I've been to quite a few concerts, and many of them were a little too dull, and unexciting - musically and technically.

The best was Hamelin, who as a true virtuoso combined the excitement of the physical with great musical ideas and a powerful presentation.

I long to see/hear more virtuosity, because it's this combination of physicality and music that make live concerts a potentially thrilling experience.

[franzliszt2]

I don't find that many concerts that impressive if it's all technique. Some pieces are massive, like Godowsky Etudes etc..that hamelin plays, but what I like about them is the music. Technical things get boring, once you've seen a fast double octave passage, fast double notes you've seen it all. It's the music that interests me. It gets boring seeing some guy go crazy at a piano after about 2 minutes.

[kempff1234]

Piano music today is more like an olympic contest than anything else. Today, audiences are most impressed by how fast you play a piece and how loud you can bang on the keys. Many don't care for the hidden expressions, colours and feelings in the music. That is why i much prefer the old masters.

[franzliszt2]

I couldn't agree more with Kemppf.

[ramseytheii]

Probably they are, but so what?  If anyone wants to be a well-rounded musician, they have to be able to play beautifully slowly, and they have to sound impressive when playing fast things.  If you cannot play impressively fast and loud, you do not have the whole package!

Walter Ramsey

[kempff1234]

Probably they are, but so what?  If anyone wants to be a well-rounded musician, they have to be able to play beautifully slowly, and they have to sound impressive when playing fast things.  If you cannot play impressively fast and loud, you do not have the whole package!

Walter Ramsey

Yes, but technique is just a tool for you. A well rounded pianist should use technique and expression to deliver the message of the composer to the audience and not just to show off and try to impress people. Take a look at the kinds of Kempff and Rubinstein. Rubinstein had a great technique and of course he wooed the audience, but he never used his abilities to show off. Even when I hear stuff like de Falla ritual dance, you can still feel that it's music coming out and it has a purpose. Yet many pianists today compete in playing pieces faster abd faster, louder and louder. Kempff had a good technique also. but did he ever show off? Yet still he sounds impressive and his concerts were sell outs (I don't care about all those Kempff bashings in different forums).

[opus10no2]

I don't find that many concerts that impressive if it's all technique. Some pieces are massive, like Godowsky Etudes etc..that hamelin plays, but what I like about them is the music. Technical things get boring, once you've seen a fast double octave passage, fast double notes you've seen it all. It's the music that interests me. It gets boring seeing some guy go crazy at a piano after about 2 minutes.

  I've been to many boring 'musical' concerts

I crave some speed, I ain't gettin none.

I get more action in my bedroom than anywhere else.

[jakev2.0]

People like Wunder and Libetta wow unsophisticated audiences. The bottom line is only the supremely talented make an impression on posterity. Pianists with nothing deep to say about a piece of music invariably vanish into oblivion - regardless of their technical equipment.  This is why people will be listening to Schnabel's Schubert and Beethoven in 50 years and not Hamelin's.

[kempff1234]

People like Wunder and Libetta wow unsophisticated audiences. The bottom line is only the supremely talented make an impression on posterity. Pianists with nothing deep to say about a piece of music invariably vanish into oblivion - regardless of their technical equipment.  This is why people will be listening to Schnabel's Schubert and Beethoven in 50 years and not Hamelin's.

Thank you.

[mephisto]

Are you people crazy!?

Everybody should be able to appreciate both insane virtousity and extremely calm. A Chopin nocturne and an Alkan etude.

The old master were great(my top 10 pianist are almost all dead), but the pianist of the present such as Hamelin and Libetta seach new repertoire too, such that we can be familliar with masterpieces such as Ligeti etudies and Alkan.

I wouldn't want to be without any of them, wether they be Hamelin or Schnabel.

[nicco]

Are you people crazy!?

Everybody should be able to appreciate both insane virtousity and extremely calm. A Chopin nocturne and an Alkan etude.

The old master were great(my top 10 pianist are almost all dead), but the pianist of the present such as Hamelin and Libetta seach new repertoire too, such that we can be familliar with masterpieces such as Ligeti etudies and Alkan.

I wouldn't want to be without any of them, wether they be Hamelin or Schnabel.

Completely agree.

[iumonito]

I think I have come to the conclusion that when all is said and done, audiences and even teachers are actually most impressed by speed, accuracey, and volume.  If the artist delivers these, it wins the audience (and the teacher) everytime.

Am I wrong ? 

I know that "artistry" matters (at least that is the politcally correct thing to say... but what is it anyway ? )... but people, including knowing-musicians, become more excited over a fast and gruesome rendition of something than they do over a slow and "artistic" rendition.

Just trying to grasp the reality of the matter.


m1469

I don't think what wins the audience is speed, volume or precision, although there is nothing wrong with those being part of the package that is served.  Naturally, audience is a generalization, but I think what makes a concert hall really erupt or even more impressive give you one of those profound silences that you get every now and then when something good and slow has moved the audience, is purely the music.

You can have a great sense of excitement with a million wrong notes.  If you have ever heard Perahia live, you know what I mean.  In something like the end of the Wanderer, there are wrong notes flying everywhere, and who cares.  The music is wonderful, the audience explodes.

Same thing with speed.  You get a Jorge Bolet in Carnegie Hall playing Strauss-Tausig transcriptions and they are not fast, but they are delightfully rhythmic, with lots of rubato and an irresistible sway.  It ends, everyone has a smile in their face and they jump to their feet.

And as to loud, I think it is more a matter of reaching climaxes, rather than of decibels.  Think Stanislav Ioudenitch.

And since we have mentioned Horowitz, his pianissimo pierced to your heart like nothing else.  Have you ever heard his Serenade of the Doll?

Sophisticated artistry may go unappreciated, a la Richard Goode or Claude Frank, but the true explossive reaction is also a matter of true artistry, like what a Bolet or Horowitz would give you.

Of the people playing live concerts these days, I think the only ones that have touched me in that special way are Jonathan Biss, Olga Kern, Peter Serkin, Judit Jaimes and Omgrid Fliter.

I have seen many a cold audience with the likes of Kissin and Lang Lang, people get excited, sure, but it is not an eruption or nirvana.

[ramseytheii]

Yes, but technique is just a tool for you.

That's certainly a leap of logic!  I won't take the bait.

A well rounded pianist should use technique and expression to deliver the message of the composer to the audience and not just to show off and try to impress people. Take a look at the kinds of Kempff and Rubinstein. Rubinstein had a great technique and of course he wooed the audience, but he never used his abilities to show off. Even when I hear stuff like de Falla ritual dance, you can still feel that it's music coming out and it has a purpose. Yet many pianists today compete in playing pieces faster abd faster, louder and louder. Kempff had a good technique also. but did he ever show off? Yet still he sounds impressive and his concerts were sell outs (I don't care about all those Kempff bashings in different forums).

First of all since you mention it, Rubinstein did use his abilities to show off, and he confessed this himself.  It doesn't mean he is confined to purgatory for the rest of the world's existence, but if says he did it why try and convince him he is wrong?

Basically everything the pianist plays has to sound impressive.  If the octaves in Liszt Sonata don't sound impressive, the pianist is not doing her job.  Hundreds of thousands of passages were written to sound impressive, in other words, the particular musical impression that the composer desired was one of explosive virtuosity.  If that is what is demanded in the music, then that is what must be emphasized!

Walter Ramsey

[iumonito]

Walter, I agree there are lots of places in the literature where what is called for is an excess of virtuosity and flambuoyance, although such a serious piece of music as Liszt B Minor Sonata would not have been the example I would have chosen.  Most Hungarian rhapsodies and the Spanish rhapsody surely fit the bill, not to mention things like the Paganini-Liszt etudes.

Yet the point remains that technique and virtuosity without emotional content is shallow and most of the time uninteresting, particularly if you have a cultivated musical taste.  There is just so much Cziffra and Lang Lang one can tolerate.

Fortunately, interest in that type of hollow display of accuracy, speed and strength does not last, which is why so many pianists flash out of favor quickly.  Any one remember Horacio Gutierrez?  Louis Lortie?  Kraniev?  Only musical growth keeps a pianist relevant (like Garrick Ohlsson, for example).

Then, though, you do have the painfull process of a great artist going through that grouwth in relative obscurity.  It happened to Bolet, Abbey Simon, Shura Cherkassy.  It is happening now to Arnaldo Cohen, Jose Feghali, Jose Carlos Coccareli, Cristina Ortiz (these four, by the way all Brazilian), Jon Nakamatsu, Jeffrey Swan, Andrew Russo, Elena Abend (these for American (Elena, Venezuelan-American), Benedetto Lupo, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Alessandra Amara, Maurizio Baglini and Fabio Bidini (these five Italian).  All of them fabulous musicians mushrooming in conservatories and without a steady source of large engagements in the likes of Carneggie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall.

I live near Washington and don't get a chance ina decade to hear these people, even though Lang Lang and Kissin come to town pretty much yearly.  What a waste.

...and then sometime your life passes by and you only develop a small cult of admirers, like Sergio Fiorentino.  If you have been to one of their live performances, though, then you really know what woes an audience.  THey get a warm standing ovation every time.

[kempff1234]

Walter, let me clarify that I have no objection to bravura or showing virtuosity. Certainly there is nothing wrong with that. Yes, we will all get tired if we hear Liszt sonata played with much restraint. But at the same time, there are many pianists today who can play Prokofiev and Rachmaninov with compleet ease, can break records with their octaves and stuff, yet when you ask them to play a Schubert impromptu or moment musicaux, they stare at you, perhaps laugh you off. The thing I admire about people like Bolet and Richter is that, they have virtuosity and every thing, yet it is used in it's right place, not every wheer and all the time, like many pianists today.

[mephisto]

We all can agree about that. But certainly some Schubert impromptus are showy.