Hail to Thee...Master CLass!

Remember that scary play "Master Class", all about Maria Callas tormenting young
singers while flipping the channels of her life story? The thought of it went through
my mind more than once the past couple of weeks, while doing master classes for the
South Eastern Piano Festival at USC Columbia, as well as at the Charleston Soutern
Piano Camp at Charleston Southern University. There was one thread that seemed to run
through all the students, and that was the high level of preparation and concentration on the task at hand. I am not a tormentor I hope, but I do think most anyone in that
situation is already nervous and apprehensive and it is my duty to relax them in every way possible so they can open up and do their best.

A master class for me is more about encouragement more than any other single aspect. Obviously the students have worked hard to get to the stage, and I certainly cannot decide in a single sitting if they have the type of talent to go to the top, or perhaps that they might be headed the other way! All one can deal with is what is heard at that moment, be it an up day, or a down day. So it is more like asking the same question over and over..."Are you aware that you are.......?" Once made aware, then one has to offer a solution. That's where the fun starts.

It is certain there are things best not addressed in a master class. Top of the list
would be fingerings. The moment you draw attention to fingering the pianists tend to freeze up. Then there is the quesion of changing a basic technical aspect. Other than just casual remarks that can cause the participant to at least think about technical solutions, it is again best to not try to teach technique in front of an audience. The same goes for pedaling. Many pianist unfortunately have poor pedal techniques, most using a rather generic pedaling technique that has very little room to manuveur.

So just what CAN one do in a master class. I find the most important one thing is to get a hold of the student's imagination by whatever means possible. This is where a limitless vocabulary by the master teacher comes into play. One plays against the personality of the student, probing here and yon for clues to how they THINK! As they relax one can begin to judge how they use their body, how they tend to think musically, and what are their strongest/weakess links to the score at hand.

Its all rather like Plato..."Study the Object at Hand", the object being the STUDENT!
Just the pointing out of a few simple laws of music can transform a performance in
a matter of minutes into a whole new vista of what is possible. I often think that
the things that have helped me the most to be a better musician, have occured by
almost idle comments from others, professionals as well as amateurs. At the top of the list is a "salient example" by a master teacher at exactly the right moment for permament absorption!

Letter From London

London in May was suddenly hot, which makes Mad Dogs and Englishmen seem quite true. Looking out my window onto Green Park found masses of people trying to make it into the Riviera, or at least the Costa Brava. The days leading up to the Jubilee seemed to find the English happy with their Queen, and indeed, photos of Elizabeth and Phillip showing them walking up or down airplane stairs without so much of a holding on, instead straight down the middle, would seem to say they are both amazingly fit. There was not so much decoration around, the thought being on village parties, especially "The Long Table" set for this weekend, where everyone in the UK sits down to celebrate with Coronation Chicken, that famous Constance Spry recipe from the Queen's Coronation Celebration....seems like yesterday. You would have to enjoy that blend of curry, apricot, mayonaise, chicken and rice...rather a dated affair, but I still fix it, and will do so this weekend. I visited my friends at Attadale Gardens in Scotland. Nickie Macpherson has the artist;s eye, and has transformed this estate into the most popular garden in Scotland. Taking a chalenging landscape of hillsides, rock cliffs, meadows and bogs, she has created a series of gardens witnin a garden. I like best the original rhododendrum planting, all brought from the Himalayas in the 19th Century. They are all towering trees now, and looking ar the tops full of bloom, the eye is carried up rock cliffs, where all firs and decidious trees tower at the top...over 150 feet above you. It is rather like a Chinese scroll painting from ancient times. This part of Scotland is very wild, and one goes miles at times with only barren hills and lochs, with great penensula jutting out into the Atlantic, even wilder still. I love the little train that goes from Inverness to Attadale, having to request a stop at Attadale, where the estate station sits beside Loch Carron. You have to make sure you are at the head of the train when you alight, as the platform is only one car in length, otherwise you plunge into the void. I noticed many Japanese are now discovering this area to tour, and in fact, Attadale with its Japanese Garden is a magnet. This was not a musical trip for once, and I didn't see a piano the whole time, which is good for the body in general. I never seem to have to search again for my fingers after a break, and I attribute this to the Matthay technique of relaxation. When I have a moment in the days ahead, I will comment on Stephen Siek's new bio of Matthay, which reveals an astounding amount of detail about his life, and the politics of music in London at the turn of the last century. Thought provoking, and worthy of a long article. Be back soon!

"La Mer" in Charlotte

A wild, wind-swept drive to Charlotte March 2 found me fighting pounding rain and black clouds trailing omnious fingers. I was a month earlier than expected, when a last minute cancellation brought a call the day before, asking if I could trade places with the March 2 presenter, rather than coming March 30, as planned. Since I had just been in Charlotte the week before, and stopped by Miller Pianos to try out the piano, I decided I was ready...so go for it. I last played for the Charlotte Piano Forum about 40 years ago!...right after I came to USC. At that time we were a very small music departmant, with a low profile. What a surprise to find our USC School of Music is a recognized force; many people told me of family members or friends who have attended USC, and several had students there at present. The best thing was the respect for our piano program, and several teachers told me they had students planning to audition for scholarships. So I felt at home, and could communicate easily with the group assembled to hear Debussy's "La Mer".

Audiences are surprised with this Lucien Garban arrangement of the orchestral score. As I may have mentioned before, Garban was an editor for Durand and Sons, the Paris publishing house for Debussy and Ravel, and a host of other famous French composers. He was a close friend of Ravel, and there is a letter from Ravel to Garban in my Collection of French Music in the USC Music Library. He made this arrangement in 1938, and I had never heard it performed publicly when I started learning it about one year ago. I am sorry now I didn't learn it years ago, as i could have enjoyed introducing it over the years.

Judging from the comments I received, i think many teachers are somewhat uncomfortable with teaching Debussy as he does not give any pedal indications, and certainly no fingerings. It's all up to "the ear" and one's sense of style. I promised to return and give a class on these points, with approachable literature for intermediate students. It is so interesting to me how Germanic our approach to muisc remains in the USA, but that was the early prevailing influence.

The Charlotte Symphony will perform "La Mer" this coming season in honor of the 150th Anniversary of his birth.

The Genius of Liszt

Getting around to Liszt has always been difficult for me. Not that I haven't taught most of his larger works to students the past 50 years. Now the opportunity has arisen to prepare a new Piano Portrait for next year. I did one on Liszt at the Villa d'Este some years ago, and a friend sent stunning slides of all the fountains, gardens and other water features of this fabulous villa in the hills outside Rome.
Now I am reworking the original Portrait, and returning to some of the scores he was inspired to write during his years there.

I think as a young pianist I made a detour around Liszt as I was not drawn to this type of overt virtuosity. I think the thing that held me back was my (then) inablility to wade through so many notes that seemed to be there only for
display. Later studies, and teaching experiences, awakened me to the need to look at his compositions organically, trying to place each note, whether in small print or large, into the whole. Well, at this stage of life that sounds elemental "Dr.Watson".
If I could penetrate the most complicated Bach and Beethoven, surely I could conquer Liszt. Still the spirit was willing, but the flesh.....!

The thing that turned the trick was my ear for sound. I began to see that a clear need for aural color, inflection and timbre was vital, as it unlocked the technical
side. In other words, the vision had to come first, and then the rest would follow. Suunds rather easy doesn't it. Often one sees a half-page cadenza, full of tiny notes. I have watched many students try to encompass these passages, only to fall apart halfway through. Only by breaking these passages into manageable cells of notes...not simply drawing imaginary measure strokes, but actually finding the small melodic gem that is used to hold the whole thing together, will you find the necessary guideposts for your ear. Hence, small cells lead to the whole cell. As always, the ear is the great detector.

Octaves abound in Liszt, and finding your way through them can be at your peril. I studied the Kullak octave studies while a teenager, and this helped tremendously. Also, listening for the melodic core will help, keeping one's ear open to inflection, so you don't play every octave with the same intensity. In an octave passage the hand has to recover the best it can from the strain, so keeping a flexible wrist behind a firm hand is mandantory. Also, weaving in and out between black and white notes means subtle adjustments of the angle of the hand itself. Forcing your hand into an octave mold and just blazing away can lead to injury. You have to think of octave passages as MELODY..two melodies in one hand. To find the inflection and curve of it, play the passage with both hands, so you just hear the line, and not tax your technical powers before you are ready to make music from it.

Not to digress...but I will, naturally!...I heard a most interesting discussion on PBS Nightly News last evening, probing why we have failed in our efforts to improve student achievement. The gist of the argument centered around the fact that we have resorted to holding the stick too high, and pushing everyone to jump over it. Of course, this is proving to be a failure. The correct psychology is to find where the student actually is in their development, and start from there. Well, I am sure that more than we would like to recognize fall into the bottom of the barrel. This is where teaching piano can solve the educational crisis. Good teachers make an ASSESSMENT, then prescribe the cure. This seems so logical, but apparently is unsaleable in Washington D.C. The parallel thought is the same for solving problems at the keyboard. Start with a great teacher, then proceed with caution, and a path will open before you.

Back to Lizst. I am convinced that Liszt made his points as a performer with great clarity of line, and an overall eveness in execution. The only person I studied with who was a descendent of his teaching was Ilonka Deckers Kuzler in Milan. When I knew her she was in her late seventies. She was Hungarian and had studied in Budapest with a teacher named Arnold Szekely. She traced his roots back to the Liszt/Czerny/Beethoven tradition that many claim, rightly or wrongly. Ilonka also taugh Edith Farnardi, who recorded an enormous amount of Liszt for Westminster Records in the late 1940's-early 1950's. Quite a few of these are in the University of South Carolina Music Library, and are real treasures. They exhibit the qaulities I remember from Ilonka's teaching. She also taught the great Annie Fischer as a young prodigy, Annie going on to become one of the greatest pianists of the last century.

When I listen to so many young pianists today play Liszt, I feel the energy and bravura of their playing, but usually notice a lack of pianistic color and expert pedaling. Of course, it is all too fast for words, and can end up sounding like a stunt. Sometimes the sound is just too black...without depth or timbre. Paul Ulanosky said it best .."Speed is a poor substitute for spirit and nicity of detail".

So, dear readers....to be continued.

La Mer...."Bring an umbrella!"

Many Thanks are due to Charleston Southern and USC for two splendid venues for the first performances of "La Mer" in the transcription by Lucien Garban. Charleston Southern has been generous in inviting me, and this year we had a full house. I presented my new Piano Portrait "Debussy and the Sea", and I found the audience entirely receptive and involved. At USC I returned to the "September Concerts", still going after almost 35 years, first as the Fall festival I organized for 5 years, and then, in the same format, September Concerts since the early 1980's. Columbia audiences can be difficult to predict, but this series draws out the best in the concert going public. You can tell when you walk on stage that this is a very special atmosphere, and that has existed since the beginnings. I have decided to document the genesis of this unique festival, and place this with my papers in the USC Music Library.

As for "La Mer", the thing that struck me was the many comments about the power of this score, even in the smaller frame of a piano solo. It transcends the medium, and comes across as a musical drama on its own terms.

I was amused when leaving USC to see a tremendous storm approaching. Indeed, parts of the city had a terrifying hour of pounding rain and wind. Such is the peril of playing "La Mer"....don't mess with Mother Nature!