Prokofiev Dance of the Knights: Drama and Visual Craft

[mrcreosote]

This piece is pure essence of Drama.  The opening puts the audience on the edge of its seat with apprehension. - and the orchestra delivers with that classical anthem.

I am adding as much visual drama as possible:  From eye-level height, full arm weight drops onto those base octaves/chords.  

I believe you can only do so much with the piano and for this piece (any many others) you have bolster the performance with everything at your disposal.

Does anyone really talk about visual craft?  

[mrcreosote]

Case in point is a young and old Arthur Rubenstein playing the Chopin Heroic Polonaise.

The Younger dispatches eye-level full arm weight bombardment at every opportunity to great effect - it is a wonderful performance that whisks you away even if you weren't in the mood to go.

The Elder, you can see he has become frail, opts for he less demanding approach except or the last chords of the very end - here he drops literally from above his head - and the crowd went insane - they saw that the Old Man still had it.  

R The Younger said in the early video, "... (the Heroic) is the closest to my heart." may in fact be true.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEl9zn8JPW8

[georgey]

Mr. Creosote,

Just to get the discussion started, here are my thoughts on what I think you may be asking.  These are just my own thoughts to a topic that may not have a right or wrong answer.

I believe piano playing is 99% a sound game.  This includes having a performance that is free of humming and grunting sounds that a few do (e.g. Gould).  From a visual point of view, I would hope the performer would be free of annoying mannerisms (e.g.  Lang Lang) and would have motions that are natural looking and show as much economy of motion as can be expected from a good performer with good technique.  Rubenstein’s visual appearance looks perfect to me. If there are annoying mannerisms, I can shut my eyes and still get 99% enjoyment from the performance.

Regards.