Liszt Ballade no2 (Video)

[storyseller]

This is me playing Liszt's 2nd Ballade - comments plz

1st part:     

2nd part:

[donjuan]

Nice job!  I like your phrasing.  one question: Was the change at 3:03 -3:10 of part 2 intentional?

(Here's me playing it a couple years ago, by the way:

   interesting to compare interpretations..)

[ramseytheii]

You obviously play at a high level.  I would advise you to consider your stage presence.  There is no physical contrast evident in your approach.  For instance you start the opening, which is a very dark and mysterious substance, and you are moving this way and that, and pushing up the shoulder in a sensuous way, and other passages, which are of a totally different substance, look exactly the same.  It gives the impression of disorganization, of a certain tendency to not properly and completely define characters.

Of course when the demands of the music become more difficult, you move less, as is natural.  I think you should explore limiting your motions during easier passages, to make them more effective; to use them to contribute to the character in a specific way.

I remember hearing in Carnegie Hall Pletnev play Tchaikovksy op.72, which are 18 characteristic pieces.  Together I think they last about 50 minutes, though it was so wonderfully played it seemed like 5 minutes.  He didn't move at all, and I don't exaggerate.  He just sat there; until one point about 2/3 of the way through, a fast descending passage then a climatic and very vocal leap - his whole body went in the direction of the high note, he reached for it in a dramatic way, and his head lifted slightly, and the audience had collective shivers.  It was the most effective physical gesture I've ever seen in concert.

I think especially at the beginning, you should concentrate on matching your movement with not the direction of the music (the chromatic scales up and down or the melodic direction) but with the character.  If you contain your body language, you can make the crescendo physically effective.  Also, jerking around during the Lento assai chords detracts from the heavenly essence.  I strongly urge you to consider these things.

Walter Ramsey

[storyseller]

Thank you both for the comments.

donjuan

Of course the change you mention was not intentinal, I wouldn't just change some notes, it was something like a memory lapse coveredor "saved" in what seemed at the time the best way. Still if I can make someone who actually plays this piece think that a random wrong note is intentional - well that can't be bad 

I loved your performance also - good job.

Walter

Nice point you make. I will really  think about it. Some of my body movements are results of stress, some are result of trying to make the music sound better, and some just come naturally whenever I play, but I assure you none are pre-calculated or staged. I tend not to think about my body when I play but about the music. Still maybe you are right and I will have to think of not moving too much trying to control my torso better. I dont know.

I understand you believe that this will be more convincing to the audience and I tend to agree but dont you think that just letting go is a better approach? If my body moves by itself as a result of the music going on, even if this seems akward, then maybe controling  this will make the music sound more sterilized or dry? What do you think?

(Sorry for the bad English)

   

[ramseytheii]

Thank you both for the comments.


Walter

Nice point you make. I will really  think about it. Some of my body movements are results of stress, some are result of trying to make the music sound better, and some just come naturally whenever I play, but I assure you none are pre-calculated or staged. I tend not to think about my body when I play but about the music. Still maybe you are right and I will have to think of not moving too much trying to control my torso better. I dont know.

I didn't get the impressino you were staging the pieces or moving deliberately, but the movements seemed incongruous with the substance of the music.  I think your distinction between "not [thinking] about the body when I play but about the music," is false because it is the body that makes the music, and the physical sensation of playing is part and parcel of the joy of making music.  They can't be distinguished, can't be separated.

When performing, your duty is to dramatize the material and be a leader for the disparate elements of the audience.  No musician can assume the audience knows what is in the music, so we have to do everything to make sure they understand.  I get the impression watching your video that your physical focus is a bit all over the place, and it detracts from understanding.  Not all of the elements seemed focussed on the music, actually, and that is what is disturbing to me!

I understand you believe that this will be more convincing to the audience and I tend to agree but dont you think that just letting go is a better approach? If my body moves by itself as a result of the music going on, even if this seems akward, then maybe controling  this will make the music sound more sterilized or dry? What do you think?

(Sorry for the bad English)

   

It may be possible that you are used to playing in this way, and trying to restrict yourself will restrict your emoting.  But I would argue that "letting go" is deceptive, because we all build up habits which are good or bad over the course of our piano-playing lives, and to "let go" is often to give ourselves up to habits, rather than control the course of things.  Also it presumes that the only thing we are feeling is the music, when in reality all kinds of feelings come into play in a performance, nto the least of which is grand nervousness, which if we abandon ourselves to, it can cause all kinds of disturbing motions.

I don't mean to be too critical because I think it's well played, but I get the impression that this is the one area which has been slightly neglected in your studies!

Walter Ramsey

[term]

The area of body movement? Wow, i've never seen that in a piano study.
"Move left..yeees....right.....now...head up ---  Wrong!! It comes from the neck!" 
 

Come on. He should move in whatever way he feels natural. The one single thing a performer should think about is the music. Gesture and body do transport some of the 'content' to the listener, right, but most important is what he plays, and in order to play he should move the way he's inclined to. Everything else is secondary or irrelevant.
A performer can also not move at all, and that is perfectly legitimate.
This has nothing to do with bad habits, if anything, moving naturally is exactly what the body needs to adapt to your movements in the best way.

And btw, good performance, storyseller. 

[ramseytheii]

The area of body movement? Wow, i've never seen that in a piano study.
"Move left..yeees....right.....now...head up ---  Wrong!! It comes from the neck!" 
 

Come on. He should move in whatever way he feels natural. The one single thing a performer should think about is the music. Gesture and body do transport some of the 'content' to the listener, right, but most important is what he plays, and in order to play he should move the way he's inclined to. Everything else is secondary or irrelevant.
A performer can also not move at all, and that is perfectly legitimate.
This has nothing to do with bad habits, if anything, moving naturally is exactly what the body needs to adapt to your movements in the best way.

And btw, good performance, storyseller. 

Hi!  I think you've got me wrong.  I wasn't at all telling him how to move, or to choreograph movements.  I just noticed that in different passages, with different styles, his body looked the same; it is a hindrance in my opinion to communicating the message of the music.  Also, the distinction between "only thinking about the music" as opposed to the body is false.  The body is necessary to make music.  There is almost no such thing as moving naturally, all movements are learned, can be unlearned and re-learned.  So many factors contribute to the way we move, such as nervousness or excitement, that a degree of control is necessary.

The main thrust is that music cannot be made without the body, and since all performance is a dramatization, we should consider how it aids or hinders the communication of the drama.

Walter Ramsey

[term]

I understood that and the discrepancy you pointed out between his movements and the music, although i'm a bit of a different opinion about the latter.

You're right with the body movements, but if you analyze and take control over intuitive movements, you have to fully comprehend them first. From my experience, this is rarely a smart thing, and i would even go so far as to say this is true for my hands and fingers also. But in any case, let the body move and it'll automatically be correct and you spare yourself a lot of work and stress.

[ramseytheii]

I understood that and the discrepancy you pointed out between his movements and the music, although i'm a bit of a different opinion about the latter.

You're right with the body movements, but if you analyze and take control over intuitive movements, you have to fully comprehend them first. From my experience, this is rarely a smart thing, and i would even go so far as to say this is true for my hands and fingers also. But in any case, let the body move and it'll automatically be correct and you spare yourself a lot of work and stress.

That last bit may be true as far as necessary motions are concerned.  Especially in such things like leaping left hand chords (think Chopin op.25 no.4) or wide-spread arpeggios that require more than just fingers (think Chopin op.10 no.1) we should let the body do the work.  My point is unnecessary motion, motion that goes neither towards the physical production of the sound, or the expression of the musical substance.

Like I said, I think this pianist plays at a high level, but I get the impression that there is a lot of excess motion, motion that is not needed for physical production, and which actually goes against the substance of many passages.  This kind of thing should be given a lot of thought, in my opinion, and I think most great pianists have done that.  When you see pianists like Horowitz, Argerich, Richter, Pletnev, you see a fantastic distillation of movement: only that which is necessary.  These people sit there like rocks on a cliff, not having to show anything with their shoulders, or moving their heads this way or that. 

In his old days, Liszt played the same way.  So knowing what we do about his early days (having seen the series of caricatures showing the extremes to which he was prone [even though those extremes did show the dramatic quality of the music perfectly]), what can we say is natural for him?  He gave the issue deep thought, and in the end, his most mature years, he distilled the essence of character down to the barest minimum of motions.

We should strive as artists to always cut out what is excess to the goal, even if the goal is excess.  Only that which is necessary to the strongest vision should be retained and nurtured, and everything else should be done away with.

Walter Ramsey

[term]

I don't really believe such thing as unnessecary movements exist. The body always does naturally what serves the movements your hand and fingers do naturally. There's not really one wrong intuitive mechanical approach to a given sequence of notes since the body does not work inefficient by nature, and this is reflected in the infinite varieties of possible ways to play that given sequence; and i'm not even referring to anatomical differences or differences in articulation.
But this is probably not the best place to discuss our opinions on piano&anatomy anyway. 

[ramseytheii]

I don't really believe such thing as unnessecary movements exist. The body always does naturally what serves the movements your hand and fingers do naturally. There's not really one wrong intuitive mechanical approach to a given sequence of notes since the body does not work inefficient by nature, and this is reflected in the infinite varieties of possible ways to play that given sequence; and i'm not even referring to anatomical differences or differences in articulation.
But this is probably not the best place to discuss our opinions on piano&anatomy anyway. 

You sound like you've studied Alexander Technique.  Alexander's theory was that we are all born into natural movement, and movements rise out of unadulterated "purposes" ("I am going to lift my leg above this chair") that ensure the pureness of the movement itself.  But if you did study it, or if not, you are still neglecting the second part of his thesis, and that is that we learn throughout life all kinds of other motions which are hindrances to pure action.  We learn them through observing others in our society, or because of injuries which put is in a certain habit of action (moving in a certain way to avoid pain, even if the pain has passed), etc.  In short there are all kinds of accumulated movements that are not necessary to our goals, and this is especially true in musical purposes.

As a child, I often lifted my fingers very high, and especially made them splay out in certain passages where I wanted to highlight single notes.  This was born from my desire to make a passage expressive in a certain way, to speak in the most general terms.  But those motions are not necessary.  All that physical activity, the strain on the fingers, the ultimately absurd-looking gesture, is just a waste of energy, a spreading out of energy that should be distilled and focussed inexorably on the production of music, not going this way and that.

You may have an excellent technique, and perhaps this leads you to say, "just be natural."  But those with excellent techniques always forget that the most complicated figurations had to be learned, sometimes easily, sometimes painfully, but they always had to be figured out.

Through my own experience, watching this video, I can honestly say that I believe most of the movement excess to the production of sound is unnecessary.  It's unnecessary from the point of view of producing the music, and it's unnecessary from the point of view of expressing the music publicly.  To me, perhaps as a result of my training, it looks like the energy that should go straight into the keyboard is going in all different directions.  As a listener, I'm distracted, and the full effect of the music is lost.  If I closed my eyes, I may not feel the same way.  But then again, he posted a video, not a sound file.

Walter Ramsey

[storyseller]

Wow - this turned to a thread about motion and Alexander technique....

Anyway, term thanx for the support, and Walter thank you for the possitive critique.

I tend to think that truth lies somewhere in the middle..... you know... not restaining yourself to choking, and not calculate everything donw to the smallest detail loosing the"live" asspect of any live performance but not giving up to bad habbits or too excessive movements and manierisms.

About this video however I have to somewhat agree with Walter - maybe for the audience all this movement is dissorienting and since I do not play alone just for myself I should keep that in mind. Just being a little more motionless cant be fatal to the music and it even saves energy and helps concetration.

Still I would like to ask for your pesonal preference Walter: you obviously want both - less movements and more expression, but if you had to choose just one what you you prefer?