Spiritual Performers?

[m19834]

Please, if you could post about who you feel demonstrates what one might call "spiritual" playing, I would be most grateful.  Perhaps some of you feel that any music and musicianship could be that fundamentally (or perhaps none of you feel that way), but I would love some specific direction.  I know it's probably a bit of a subjective subject, but I ask anyway.

Thank you very much.

[birba]

Interesting topic.  Brendel, in one of his books, touches on this subject.  He cites a recording of Wilhem Kempff, whom he considered, along with Cortot and Edwin Fisher, one of the  great "spiritual" pianists, as an example.  It's a rendition of Liszt's St. Francis of Assisi legend.  Kempff was far from being a religious person.  And certainly, not catholic.  But he achieves in this recording what few are able to at the piano.  That is, he goes beyond the printed page and conveys a deep spiritual and mystic feeling.  Michelangeli had a similar magic to his playing.  The last movement to the chopin funeral march sonata is an example.  I heard him in the huge sala Nervi in the vatican filled with 2,000 people, and it was absolutely eerie.  There were no notes.  No hammers hitting the strings.  It was wind.  I don't know HOW he did it.  But it was memorable to say the least.

[alessandro]

I can't do anything but joining this endless subject about spirituality (and subjectivity).   I often feel like living in a time and a region of the world (northern Europe) where the concept of consciousness is highly questioned and where thinkers (even in inexact sciences such as filosophy and psychology), physicians, are approaching the matters of the brain, the senses, and matter in a very physical (in opposite to spiritual) way.   I'm not against that approach.  But what I seldom see in literature, or in the fruits of this thinking process, is the notion of the limitations of thinking.   I'm not against the process of thinking but I don't think a human will ever know, know how it all started, where it all leads to, how to imagine the universe etcetera.   There are probably a few thinkers, that highly question the makeability of the world, or at least the concept of 'improvement', like John Gray (or in a more provocative way Ivan Illich, who makes propositions like 'liberating the future' and questions the notion of development).   But then again, what I don't like in John Gray, is that there is apparently no place for atheïsm without an atheïsm being linked to catholicism.   I do think that not believing in (a) god isn't necessarily a revolution (against religion).  And, if one does not believe in one god or in gods as a concept, like I do, the world can be such a lonely and violent place.   Spirituality - and I go very short here - is for me linked to exactly everything that is not explainable.  So giving some feedback here, with words, can in the end be contradictory but hopefully not too absurd.   It is everything 'that is left' that means in my life almost everything, the effects of poetry, my selfish 'egoistic' sensory life, my sensations.   It could well be that I'm exactly looking for 'spirituality' when listening to music or when interpreting music.   Improvisation is probably, above interpretation, closer to spirituality.   This could mean that spirituality has a link with freedom, and what an individual makes of freedom.   I would like to give three examples (I'm quite sure I already wrote about two of them in another topic).   First example is a sidestep, a singer.  I listened recently to a beautiful recording, the singer Anne Sofie von Otter, sings Bach (Bach's music could be considered as an obvious example but hopefully not too 'cliché'), an Archiv Produktion from 2009.   She sings arias on this CD that I'm not familiar with.  And one of those 'songs' is "Erbarme dich, mein Gott" from the St Matthew Passion.   I was absolutely stunned by her performance.  Even after hearing it tens of times, I'm still enchanted.  And I can't explain why ! But it has something to do with my imagination, or with what I'm feeling while hearing her sing.   I hear a mixture of wit, humour and despair, a unique and delightful cocktail of traits of character.  And many other things...
Example number two, that also 'does the thing' every time I hear it is the Sonata nr 2 in A minor for violin solo BWV 1003, on my record played by r.i.p. Philippe Hirshhorn.   I'm quite sure that in this case it is not only the interpreter that demonstrates spirituality but that the sonata in itself is such a beautiful piece of music.   This piece is for me heartrending.
Finally, piano.  Deutsche Grammophon, Sviatoslav Richter, "In Memoriam", Legendary Recordings 1959-1965.  Bach again, Prelude in C sharp minor BWV 849.   If music can be spiritual, than for me, this track is very close to spirituality.   Again, words fail for describing what this piece of music and interpretation does to me, but there is one word that comes to my mind now; time.   When I listen to this track, I hear "time".

Very kind greetings to you all.  

[gyzzzmo]

I can imagine that when a composition involves singing too, that the vocal can express 'spiritualism' by expressing devotion and/or serenity by for example emphasizing words like 'god' and singing techniques.

However how could somebody express that on a piano? Churchial accoustics? Some sort of organ-ish playing?

[pianowolfi]

I'd second birba, to me Wilhelm Kempff is a very spiritual pianist. Every video I have seen from him (unfortunately I never heard him live) gives me the impression that he is on another layer of being while he plays. He looks inwards, almost like a blind person, and he is following completely his inner ear and his inner vision, which both seem to be very precise and exact.

I have also read two books from him, but that was a long time ago and I don't remember much, but my impression from that read was also that he is a very sensitive and openminded person with a spiritual approach to music. (maybe I will reread them soon)

To me music is spiritual per se and per definitionem and spirituality can be expressed very well through music.

But nowadays the word "spiritual" seems often to evoke rather unwanted side-associations in some minds. So I think I will for now shut up about this subject and leave it to private exchanges.

[pollydendy]

Sometimes I feel that I hit it right and it is bigger than the music or notes or me or the instrument.  At that time it floats.
I recorded myself  when I was learning, because what I felt as I was playing did not reflect what was being heard, and I was able to change it objectively by analyzing it and changing it to what made it sound the way that I meant it to sound. I don't usually need to do that now, but it was a great learning tool.
  Sometimes, I am left with a breathless feeling afterward, when I don't even want to move and break it.  I have experienced this with others of course, and I don't always get to that point. You really have to know your chosen piece intimately.

[birba]

I'd second birba, to me Wilhelm Kempff is a very spiritual pianist. Every video I have seen from him (unfortunately I never heard him live) gives me the impression that he is on another layer of being while he plays. He looks inwards, almost like a blind person, and he is following completely his inner ear and his inner vision, which both seem to be very precise and exact.

I have also read two books from him, but that was a long time ago and I don't remember much, but my impression from that read was also that he is a very sensitive and openminded person with a spiritual approach to music. (maybe I will reread them soon)

To me music is spiritual per se and per definitionem and spirituality can be expressed very well through music.

But nowadays the word "spiritual" seems often to evoke rather unwanted side-associations in some minds. So I think I will for now shut up about this subject and leave it to private exchanges.

Did you read those books in German?  I went immediately to amazon.com and there are two books by Kempff, but both in German.  Damn!  Can't believe they haven't been translated.
Do you know anything?

[pianowolfi]

Did you read those books in German?  I went immediately to amazon.com and there are two books by Kempff, but both in German.  Damn!  Can't believe they haven't been translated.
Do you know anything?

Yes I have read them in German. I don't know if there's an English edition

[pkpianist]

I tend to be much more spiritual when I play improvs. For me, it's how I can connect with what I am trying to say. I think being spiritual is really to be truthful with how you sense the music and how it's speaking inside of you. I think a lot of the times performers are caught up trying to make it sound like something rather then making it sound like their own truth, no matter how different or unacceptable it may be.