Zo: It's not just for dinner anymore (Sun, Aug 29)

As one of the non-composer guests for the 8/29 concert, I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed the program! I had never had a chance to hear a grand piano in such an intimate setting before, and it was a wonderful experience. I enjoyed the varied selections and appreciated the way Paul put them together. Paul’s presentation of the Brahms Intermezzos brought back all the beautiful feelings I experienced when I first heard him play earlier this summer. Thank you!

I’ve actually thought a lot about this concert…much more than many I’ve attended. Here are five thoughts that I continue to mull over.

First of all, it was a wonderful musical experience. Paul is an accomplished pianist and it is always a pleasure to hear him perform. The atmosphere is low key, almost casual, but the playing is anything but. This is a serious performer doing serious work.

2) Being so close to a piano that you can feel the vibrations in your chest is an experience not to be missed. It reminds me of those few times when I get rushline tickets to the MN Orchestra and end up sitting in the first row about two feet from the cellos. I wouldn’t want to experience every piano recital this way, but it’s worth doing from time to time. I tend to think of the piano as closer to a harpsichord than an organ, but at this close range the resonance of the instrument makes legato and pedalled passages almost organlike.

3) The intimacy of a “house concert” is striking and wonderful. I’ve stayed away from such events in the past out of shyness. Now I see what I have been missing. For several hundred years (I am thinking of the history of the forte-piano, but I’m sure it extends backwards to before then), most concerts were house concerts if you extend the definition of “house” a bit. Paul (and Franz Kamin, among others) is maintaining a tradition well worth keeping alive.

4) And now for a critical comment. Paul segued from one work to another all the way through the concert. I prefer to have a space before and after each work. As a composer, I work very hard – and not always successfully – on how to end a given work. A performer who moves immediately from one piece to another is implicitly suggesting that the composer’s efforts to decide when and how to end a work really don’t matter … or that the endings were poorly done and need to be glossed over … or that the individual works are too weak to stand on their own. We actually talked about this at the end of the concert, but I kept my mouth shut at the time, thinking it was no big deal. It’s continued to bug me ever since, however, so I figured I’d say it. I know others have different feelings about this.

5) Which leads me to my last thought… I put this out to Paul based on the normal “rules” we abide by in the Composers Syndicate, which state that we all get to say things but nobody has any obligation to follow our advice or even apologize for not doing so. But I wonder…if you want to link pieces together, why not think of joining them in three ways. The first is by silence (and you as a performer have the job to find exactly the right length of that silence for that particular performance). The second is by a direct segue (as you did). The third is by an improvised transition from one piece to another, the way church organists do all the time. You might want to announce to your audience that you may use any or all of these strategies between pieces in your program, and then challenge yourself to be spontaneous, responding to the dynamics of the audience and your own feelings at the time of the performance and see what happens.

Paul, that was a great concert September 1st. I wouldn’t change anything except to charge a few more dollars and offer your audience a few treats afterwords, we’ll be hooked then. Glen

Greg — Your #5 is an interesting idea. I’m not sure I’d do it, but it’s intriguing. I’ll ponder it.

I disagree strongly and unequivocally that “a performer who moves immediately from one piece to another is implicitly suggesting that the composer’s efforts to decide when and how to end a work really don’t matter.” Having been raised on a diet of late Beatles, the entire concert is a composition to me, and the transitional moments are supremely important: the way we exit the world of one piece and enter the world of another is the mortar in the architecture of the concert. Endings do matter!

What I really don’t want is a concert punctuated by frequent long pauses (or, worse, applauses) that jar the audience in and out of deep listening. Of course I have to let the audience’s focus intensify and relax throughout the concert, but I don’t want to break the bubble. Relaxing attention and breaking attention are very different things. When the bubble does break after the ending of one piece, it shortchanges the beginning of the next. And if there’s one thing that matters as much as endings, it’s beginnings!

I think the problem has been that I’m just not leaving the right amount of space for each piece. I did a better job of that at the concert Glen was at, I think, which may be why he didn’t sense the problem.

Breaking the bubble… Hmmm. I’m intigued, I must say. I wonder if my reaction comes from a lifetime of attending primarily orchestra concerts, as opposed to solo or duo recitals. In other words, my preference is purely due to habit. Possibly.
And yet… I like to think that music comes out of silence, gets a response, and then the silence returns. In this world of 24 hour sensory input, the silences that music can create can be extremely powerful. Part of the showmanship (or craft, if you prefer) of the performer lies in accepting applause, ending it, creating a small space of silence to allow for focus (both by performer and by audience) and in then opening the new piece. Many times I have seen an orchestra conductor raise his hands for a downbeat, only to lower them when he senses that that audience has not yet quieted down.
Or ponder this cynical approach to the issue. Maybe most (classical) performers really aren’t taking the needs of their audience very seriously in this regard. The larger groups – starting with trios, I guess – take time between numbers to make sure that everyone is ready to start the next piece. Soloists just rip into the next one as soon as they are ready.
No. That can’t be it. I never said that.

I like to think that music comes out of silence, gets a response, and then the silence returns. In this world of 24 hour sensory input, the silences that music can create can be extremely powerful.

Oh, I agree, absolutely! And I should note that I rarely actually join two pieces without any silence. (There were silences between pieces at the concert you heard, which may not be obvious to those reading along with our discussion.)

Silence between pieces is just as important as silence within a piece, in exactly the same way: it functions musically. And so, as a performer, I think of those silences as rests within the overall flow of the concert as one large piece of music. In the silence between pieces, the musical flow is still going in my head.

Many times I have seen an orchestra conductor raise his hands for a downbeat, only to lower them when he senses that that audience has not yet quieted down.

And that’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid: I want the audience to still be holding their breath a bit, listening to the silence, when the next piece starts. There is no shuffling and fidgeting for those critical opening notes of the next piece; all ears are already open and at full attention. This is why I start every concert with a pregnant silence: listen first, then the music will start.

When I do decide to stop the flow between pieces and stretch for a moment, let the audience take a breath, I do what you’re describing: baton up (a solo performer can accomplish the same thing with body language), and listen to the audience until they’re listening again.

Soloists just rip into the next one as soon as they are ready.

No, not this one! I want to start as soon as the music is ready.

And your criticism is really about musical timing. I claim your reaction is because – well, certainly because of habit, as you suggest – but also because my transitions between pieces weren’t musically convincing. It’s not about long or short necessarily; it’s about what works, just as with a silence within a piece.

I’ll work on the timings – and see if I don’t convince you next time you come!