What does understanding a piece mean?

[schwartzer]

So I just saw Tiffany Koo (aged 5) play Chopin's C# nocturne, and many people in the comment section say that she doesn't quite understand the emotion behind the piece.

I've been playing piano for a while and I can definately play some harder pieces. But I just don't get it when people say that someone lack emotion. Do they mean that the interpreter is playing without using proper dynamics? If not, what is it then?

Thank you in advance.

[j_menz]

Music is a means of communicating.  What it communicates is not reducible to words, but it is like a language.

Understanding a piece is understanding what it is expressing (and, in performance,  communicating that via one's playing to a listener).

Dynamics are part of the means of communication, but are not the same as understanding what one is trying to communicate.

By way of analogy, I (who do not speak the language) could learn a speech in Mandarin. I could learn patterns of stress and emphasis. But without understanding what I am trying to say, it will always sound false - not quite right - partly because I am bound to make subtle errors, but moreso because I am not actually communicating anything of my own.

[schwartzer]

Great answer, wow.

Finally got the concept after years of playing.

Thanks a lot!

[coda_colossale]

 I do not play or listen to convey or receive a message. I listen or play to strenghten the violence of my present feeling, mostly in a masoschistic way.

 Understanding a piece is, to me, not understanding what the composer means, but adopting it as if it were yours. Forgetting all about the composer and thinking of playing or listening to that specific piece when you're sad or angry etc. Therefore, I really don't like programme music, unless the content is strongly related to my life, neither do I like concerts, in which people play pieces designated by others, mostly with no emotional attachment.

 This is the most intimate way to listen or play something, thus, to play for an audience.

 Personally, I wouldn't play a piece, with which I don't feel myself related, at a competition or an audition.
 
 I don't believe you can do wonders with everything you play. Of course you can play something good, but I think everyone has a few "signature pieces" that they truly understand. You can't play them badly, even without paying attention.

 Evaluating emotion in terms of technique, dynamics, tempo etc. is shallow.

[stevenarmstrong]

Some words from Hofmann. (In case you don't know who he is: only private student of Anton Rubinstein - founder of the St. Petersburg conservatoire and student of Kullak - who is an internationally acclaimed artist and pedagogue of the early 20th century...google & youtube!).
The following quotes do not appear in this order in the original source.

"Now, to discover what it is, intellectually or emotionally, that hides itself between the lines; how to conceive and how to interpret it – that must ever rest with the reproductive artists, provided that he possesses not only the spiritual vision which entitles him to an individual conception, but also the technical skill to express what this individual conception (aided by imagination and analysis) has whispered to him."

"It is the error of inferring the conception of a composition from the name of its composer; of thinking that Beethoven has to played thus and Chopin thus. No error could be greater!"

"Now how can we know whether we are or are not approaching the spiritual phase of a piece? By repetition under remitting attention to the written values. If, then, you should find how much there is still left for you to do, you have proved to yourself that you have understood the piece spiritually and are on the right track to master it. With every repetition you will discover some hitherto unnoticed defect in your interpretation. Obviate these defects, one by one, and in so doing you will come nearer and nearer to the spiritual essence of the work in hand".


Hope that helps :-)

[m1469]

Music is a means of communicating.  What it communicates is not reducible to words, but it is like a language.

Understanding a piece is understanding what it is expressing (and, in performance,  communicating that via one's playing to a listener).

Dynamics are part of the means of communication, but are not the same as understanding what one is trying to communicate.

By way of analogy, I (who do not speak the language) could learn a speech in Mandarin. I could learn patterns of stress and emphasis. But without understanding what I am trying to say, it will always sound false - not quite right - partly because I am bound to make subtle errors, but moreso because I am not actually communicating anything of my own.

I appreciate this post.

[schwartzer]

I appreciate this post.

Don't we all?

[carl_h]

Good stuff.