Chamber Music

[chopinlover23]

I'm really curious about chamber musicians and piano accompanists... do they sight read the piece or do they learn it beforehand and just use the score as a guide while performing?

I'm asking because my friend (a cellist) is asking me to accompany him in his recital.

[drkilroy]

Try to sightread Ravel's Piano Trio. 

Best regards, Dr

[49410enrique]

i treat them like any solo (since my colaborative piano stuff will be put on stage/recital 90% of the time). these performances usually are so much more nerve wracking than my solo stuff!  usually because of time, there won't be a solidly memorized deal but even if i feel  i have it by memory i use the score, you're there to support the soloist or chamer musicians and so must know your part better than the solist(s) knows theirs, and you must know the solist part at least as well as they know theirs in case there is a slip by the ininstrumentalist in memory, or other performance bauble, it is up to you to keep the pieces folowing and together (either by takinup up their part, altering the progression, finishing the phrase and cadenceing to their next entrace, etc.).

also even if you're an incredible sight reader, you'd want to rehearse the performance so you know know where they will push the tempo or pull it back, grand pauses and fermatas, etc. also dynmaics and balance, etc will need to be known so you can effectively interpret the work together.
this is why i preffer to use the terms 'colloborative piano'' and not accompanist since you are working together to play the music, you can accompany your date to the coffee shop, you collaborate on these pieces.

hope that helps.

also what will you play (BTW be very weary of the big romantic giants , Brahms, Beethoven, etc sonatas for piano and cello, those piano parts are usually harder than cello and are as difficult as  or more than many solos you'd come across by them)?
 i love cello and piano works and have always wanted to plerform these but the cellist(s) at school are not quite at the level to be able to pull them  off so i continue to wait for the right student to come along....
(in case you're up to suggestions of some great pieces):

[chopinlover23]

Here;s what's lined up...

Schumann's Fantasy Pieces (all of them)
Saint Saens' The Swan and Allegro Appasionato
Bruch's Kol Nidrei

[indutrial]

I've been to woodwind/string recitals where the pianists were obviously phoning in their familiarity with the pieces and the results were painful and horrible for the soloist, the audience, and at times the pianist his- or herself. One such example that left a really bad memory was the experience of watching some pretentious Chopin-ophile pianist getting trucked by the piano part in Tansman's Sonatina for bassoon/piano.

I wholeheartedly second the notion of treating it like any solo part. In many cases, the pianist's mistakes in a chamber work can be more costly than those of the soloist.

[iansinclair]

Not to differ at all -- thinking of the piano part in chamber music is somewhat like a solo, in that you must be at least as well prepared on your part as though it were a piano solo.  But it is more than that: the essence of chamber music (or lieder accompaniment, which is very similar) is that all of the performers involved are, or at least should be, equal good at their instrument (preferably like really good!) and they must be dedicated to the notion that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  Chamber music is just horrible if it is performed by  several people who are not thinking and breathing together.

So a few rehearsals are mandatory, in my humble opinion.  And the very best groups are those that have played together for years!

And yes, even if you have your part memorized, use the score and be able to read all the parts, at least well enough to compare what's going on to what's written.  If catastrophe strikes, you may all have to pick up the pieces at some odd spot, and it helps for everyone to be -- literally! -- on the same page.