This is my translation of the "Chapter - 12" of my book in Russian: "The Laws of Beauty in Music, unknown to music schools".
https://www.proza.ru/2016/07/24/474 "And does it sound like a song?"
In 1941, the entire senior year of the 1st Moscow Medical Institute, where my father studied, was sent to the front instead of state exams. A friend of my father Gosha Glukhikh helped the wounded under fire. For this hero action he was presented to the award and promoted to the rank. But he did not have enough time to receive the award, since he was executed "for anti-Soviet conversations" by denunciation from his colleagues who envied him. The very old mother of this Gosha sometimes lived in our family and once very amused me and my friends with her comment on my music studies: "He is studying, studying, playing, playing, however his music does not sound like a song at all".
Many years after that I became a student of the Moscow Conservatory and served as a security guard when the artists came to perform in the Great Hall of the Conservatory. I accompanied from the car to the hall and back Arthur Rubinstein, Van Cliburn, Arthur Benedetti Michelangeli, and other celebrities. For this I was allowed to listen to their rehearsals and concerts.
One morning I listened to S. Richter's rehearsal with K. Kondrashin. It was Grieg's concerto. For some reason, Richter had the mood to hang on to rehearsals, which he did. When the orchestra prepared to play, Kondrashin raised the conductor's baton and silence reigned. Richter just at that moment "fell asleep" on the music stand of the piano, laying on it chest and shoulders with a head on the strings. Kondrashin asked him several times: "Can I start?" But Richter's dream was "so deep" that he did not react to the question. Kondrashin waved his hand and gave a sign to the timpani, who began their introductory tremolo with a huge crescendo. Richter still continued to "sleep" as before.
And then, when it was already clear to everybody that the timpani had been too long, the shoulders and Richter's arms suddenly slipped from the music stand, and he "smeared" the initial a-minor chord almost on time, though not exactly for the notes that were needed. In the same spirit, all the rest of the rehearsal passed, on which the pianist rather "fooled" rather than rehearsed. Some students just left this rehearsal, and the rest were divided in opinions: some thought that "Grieg was not for him," while others said that Richter simply "does not want to spend himself before the evening concert." No one had desire to go to an evening concert after such a rehearsal. All decided to go to the cinema.
For some reason, the trip to the movies broke, and I was still at this evening concert.
But, unlike the rehearsal, it was such an exciting performance, such a wonderful, truly great music performed by really great artists, that I, without even noticing it, bruised my hands.
What struck me most after this concert was my complete loss of voice - I could not even talk on the phone, only whispered until the next day. And I did not shout "bravo" and "encore" at all. I do not have a luxurious bass. A squeak in the high register of a man somehow does not fit. I did not shout for sure, but I lost my voice.
This phenomenon was explained to me at the Scientific and Research Laboratory of the Moscow Conservatory. It turns out that all the listeners (and often the performers themselves), if they are completely captured by the music, begin to perceive this music as a song and always involuntarily begin to sing along with it (at least "inside of themselves", in the soul) - this is a widely known phenomenon. But if I suppress this singing inside of myself (singing in the hall aloud during a piano concert is indecent), and the ligaments, voice cords still try to sing, then I over-stress them in such a way, and they lose their working capacity because of this for a certain period. So the expression "I'm speechless after your performance" can have a completely literal meaning.
And here the success of great artists is based on this effect- they involve all their listeners in performance, everyone in the room becomes (albeit only mentally) its participant, singer, everyone merges with the heart and soul with the general flow and mood of this music festival, and not remains only a passive, outside observer. My teacher V.Nilsen spoke about this with these words: "There was a holiday/festival - there was a concert. There was no celebration - there was no concert "
If the listeners did not want to sing, it means that this music "did not catch" them, left them indifferent. By the way, in English-speaking countries, whatever you play, it's still called a song ("song"), even if it's "Prokofiev's" Toccata ".
I bumped into this fact, when I start my performances in Sun-City (the most luxurious resort in the world at that time. Republic of South Africa). Each evening guests from around the globe asked me the title of the last SONG I played. The same SONG instead of PIECE I hear everyday around me in the most international country - Canada.
The huge popularity of Russian music abroad is primarily due to the fact that it is not something that sounds like songs, but simply consists of songs. This was convincingly proved by American composers, stealing almost all the themes of Russian great symphonies, operas, ballets and concertos for "their own" songs. And now they are already seriously and under threat of prosecution demanding royalties for every performance of "Fly on the wings of the wind" from the opera "Prince Igor" by Borodin (now it is called "Strangers in Paradise") The 6th Symphony of Tchaikovsky ("Starry Night"), the 5th Symphony - (again some kind of "Night"), "Swan", "The Nutcracker", the 2nd Concerto by Rachmaninov, etc.
When I began to learn from V. Nielsen, he immediately put me on a "song diet" - Schubert, List, Glinka, Balakirev, etc., telling me that a pianist who can not play a song is not worth a penny. "As a song," he demanded to play both Mozart's Sonatas and Bach's Preludes and Fugues. It was forbidden for me to sing at the same time, although the world-famous Bach performer Glen Gould, for example, simply could not play and make his record without simultaneously singing the same music with his own voice (and quite loud). His "vocal part" was never possible to remove from many of his records.
Nielsen likewise considered the Studies of Cherni (a pupil of Beethoven) excellent music and demanded to play them absolutely seriously, and also "as a song." And recently I learned that (at some period in his life) only the Cherni's Studies were recorded by the famous pianist Vladimir Horowitz. Hence, he considered them to be good music, in contrast to lazy students and bad teachers.
By the way, the famous Chopin's Study in E-Major (op.10 №3) at first was just the beginning of the next rapid Study, C-sharp Minor (op.10 №4). And Chopin separated No 3, making it a separate piece, only under the pressure of the public, who wanted to sing this Study in their souls, and not just listen to it at a fast pace. Subsequently, Chopin always considered this Study in E-Major the best melody of all that he wrote.
In 1993, I signed a contract with the resort "Sun City" in South Africa. I had to play in their huge Crystal Palace with wonderful acoustics on the wonderful "Boezendorfer" grand piano 6 days a week playing for guests from all over the world "pleasant, quiet, relaxing music" for 6 hours without repeating the played melodies in the course of the day. Then I was offered to play not for 6 hours a day, but already for 13 "on conditions that can not be refused."
However, I did not have enough "pleasant, quiet, relaxing melodies" in my memory for a 13 hour shift (there was no library and internet at that time). Not having a better way out of the situation, I started playing the fast works known to me in the "slow-motion" mode. - No one objected.
But one day a group of people, obviously experienced in music, sat around me (they asked the servants to bring chairs closer to my piano) and began to smile looking me in the face. They sat there for about two hours, then came and asked if I knew who they were? They introduced themselves to me - the professors of the Madrid Conservatory. I did not expect anything good from them, except severe professional criticism. But instead of criticism they gave me a hundred-dollar bill and a bottle of wine with the words that they could not even imagine how enjoyable can be the Chopin's Studies(I played almost all 24 but the most dramatic ones) at the "pace of Adagio" (very slowly).
By the way, for my fast technique I received many ovations, flowers, screams "Wow!", sometimes even kisses. However, all the money that I received from my grateful listeners in my entire life - they were only for slow music. If someone else has not become a millionaire yet - keep in mind.
Today I always try, that my and my students' music sounds like a song, and I advise others to do the same.
Topic: "Piece" or "Song"?