The Times Critic's Top Ten

Anthony Tommasini, music critic for the New York Times, published his picks for the top ten composers (excluding living composers) of all times.

1. Bach

2. Beethoven

3. Mozart

4. Schubert

5. Debussy

6. Stravinsky

7. Brahms

8. Verdi

9. Wagner

10. Bartok

But where is Haydn? Handel? Dvorak? I'm afraid the last three--maybe even the last four--wouldn't have made my list.

Some Constellation

“Classical” music, strictly speaking, is music written between 1750, the date of J.S. Bach’s death, and the end of the eighteenth century, when Beethoven walked through the front door of the palace and ushered in the Romantic period of music.

Bue “classical” has become a catch-all term for music which doesn’t easily fall into other categories. People have tried calling it art music, un-popular music, longhair. It’s a bit like the word “germ” for a doctor, who will want to know what kind of germ we are talking about. Or “baby grand” for any horizontal piano measuring five to nine feet from tail to keyboard, each piano having a particular descriptive name, none of them including the word “baby”.

The Classical or Rococo period. Mozart, Haydn, Clementi. Geniuses all, and treated as glorified domestic servants in livery under the fickle patronage of various noblemen. Yet music was their day job. They didn’t have to teach, doctor or sell insurance.

Instead, they invented the symphony (Haydn), produced deathless diamonds of melody which would support generations of musicians and transport their audiences (Mozart), write a music method book which would teach geniuses such as Chopin and Debussy (Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum or Steps to Parnassus).

My Keyboard Literature teacher, Sylvia Jenkins, said that the Classic view of God was that of a divine clock-maker, that God wound up the universe and let it run all on its own. Accordingly, people of the late 18^th Century loved music boxes and clockwork toys. Musicians including Mozart wrote pieces for wind-up players. This concept of God and music was different from that of Bach, who believed that all music came directly from heaven, or from that of Chopin, who believed that music was a purely human creation.

The musicians I call musicians mostly started their job training as children. By the time they were adults, they had logged thousands of hours of practice time, which meant they were probably not good at sports. They can count beats and rests, can play in more than one key, can transpose without electronic assistance. They understand Italian musical terms and know the difference between a da capo and a dal signo.

Most of them have to teach whether or not they are good at it, just to pay their bills. The orchestra players have to play in several orchestras. The singers spend their lives auditioning and looking for an accompanist. The lucky few get studio jobs, shows and casuals (parties, weddings) to keep body and soul together.

And yet being a “classical” musician is a rare privilege and a constant consolation. As my piano duet partner John says, “It is some constellation.”

Titans in Warsaw

An international Chopin piano competition is taking place in Warsaw, Poland, and performances are streaming live on the Internet. There is a nine-hour time difference, so much of the playing is in the middle of the night for me; still, I have seen almost all the archive tapes and many of the recitals.

The preliminary round had 346 players, winnowed to 80 in the first cut and then to 40 on the second day, where each musician presented a 20-minute program for a distinguished jury and a packed house (the audience doesn't even cough except between selections.) Pianists choose from four pianos, a Steinway, a Kawai, a Yamaha, or a Fazioli, the most expensive piano in the world, with a top model costing $400,000. Most choose the Steinway. The top prize for the contest is 30,000 Euros, but each of the ten finalists will get a substantial reward.

I would not like to be on the jury for this competition, though the jurors and I agreed on about half of the semi-finalists. Every candidate is technically flawless; the programs are performed from memory and one hardly ever hears a note error. One thing the jury is listening for is a certain Chopinesque style, especially in the Mazurkas and Polonaises. But the defining requirement is that the listener be moved by the performance.

The tools for executing a moving performance are limited: Beyond the notes, rhythms, tempi and dynamics the composer specifies, the player needs to define the importance of the various elements of the composition. When the composer indicates piano or soft in a place having several notes playing simultaneously, he is specifying an over-all volume. Not all the notes have the same value, nor do all the musical lines and phrases. These are details the artist must decide upon, and the memorable performances are like stories, with a beginning, a development and an ending, high points and interludes. The player who only plays the notes will be accused, as was one contestant, of "sounding like the recording", even though he did nothing particularly wrong.

This is some of the best Chopin playing I have heard anywhere, any time. Almost all the pianists have something to say with their music, but the players I have loved the most were the ones who made me feel I had never heard the pieces in quite the same way before. Nicodemus and I agree on most musical things, and he said it better than I could: In the most profound musical experience, a spiritual truth is revealed.

Of course, mastery of the instrument is a prerequisite.

Because all the finalists obviously could not be Russian, only six of the extraordinary Russian players advanced to the semifinals, cutting two of my favorites. There are three Americans, two players each from Italy, China, Poland and France, and one each from Bulgaria, Austria and Australia. The semifinalists include 13 men and seven women. None of the 15 Japanese players, four Koreans, three Israelis, the Canadian, Croatian, German, Swiss, Armenian or Spanish pianists made it to the list of twenty.

The Page Turner

I wasn't even playing; I was just turning pages for Bob, the extraordinary pianist of the Trio Cabrillo. It was a long program, an hour and three-quarters, not counting intermission. Lots of it went so fast it was all I could do to keep up. I was so pumped up, it took hours to get to sleep that night.

You learn a lot about a pianist when you turn pages. Most of this I already knew about Bob, having turned for him several times, but I want to note these traits of his for the benefit of pianists who welcome performance tips.

1. He cares more about the work he is playing than about himself, the person playing it.

2. He is even-tempered, which makes people like working with him.

3. He has done his homework. He knows the music.

4. If he makes a mistake, he doesn't let it throw him.

5. He is not afraid of making a mistake. He doesn't make excuses.

6. He is willing to take risks.

7. When he plays, you feel that he wants every note; every phrase is beautiful.

8. He doesn't complain about the piano, even when to the observer the piano seems less than grateful.

9. He doesn't complain about the page turner, even when she doesn't notice the repeat sign.

(Photo is Bob playing the Saint-Saëns piano concerto with the Coastside Community Orchestra)

Playing Poorly

Well, sometimes we just don't play as well as we'd like to.

That was the case when I massacred Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel Waltz at the Coastside Chorale's concert last June. I knew it was bad, but didn't know how bad until I tried to listen to the CD a few days ago.

The accompaniments to the rest of the program are probably all right, but it was the solo performance which was, frankly, awful.

My teacher always had the same answer for times like this: "Take your lumps".

Nonda reassured me: "I have lots of CDs like that. Just put it in a drawer somewhere and don't listen to it."

Aargh.

Piano Dreams

My usual piano dreams run something like this: I am supposed to play for a wedding, but I can't find the church, am late, arrive without my music books, desperately try to think what I can play without sheet music.

I have ruined instrument dreams. Usually it is a school, where someone has left beautiful pianos, harpsichords and clavichords out in the rain. Sometimes it is a church (Episcopal, strangely, though I have only rarely played for Episcopal churches) meeting in a basement with a ruined organ.

Last night's dream was different. I was back at Skyline College, late to class, didn't have my books, couldn't find the room...and when I found it, there were a dozen people sitting on the floor, waiting to be taught, but no pianos.

So at the dream-Skyline, I had all the students sign a paper, lacking a proper roll sheet, and began the lecture. "We are going to talk about seeing today. We are going to talk about description. No matter what you choose to communicate, whether by written word, spoken word or music, the clarity of your vision is essential."

Casting about for something to use as a model, I picked up an instrument from a pile of discards in the corner of the room. A banjo. As the dream ended (and my real-life cat decided it was time to rise and shine) there was one lone plunk from the banjo strings: A lecture coda.

Clef Signs and Piano Duets

To the non-musician, the treble clef sign is just an icon representing music; the bass clef sign is a mystery, and the other clef signs are nothing but hieroglyphics. To the musician, however, the clef signs are fixed stars. They show the unchanging location on the lines or spaces of a particular music note, and just as you can find your way by knowing East, all the other notes may be found from the one.

The treble clef sign shows the G above middle C and the bass clef sign shows, between its dots, the fixed location of the F below middle C. The less familiar clef signs fix the location of middle C and are used by cellists, violists, trombone players and others who spend lots of time in that desert between the top line of the bass clef and the bottom line of the treble. Tenors in choirs use a treble clef which sometimes has a little figure eight at the bottom, since their notes are sung or played an octave lower than written.

“Treble” means high and “Bass” means low. Most pianists are used to having the right hand on the higher notes and the left on the bottom. We never take the clef signs for granted, however, since both hands could play in either treble or bass.

In the wonderful world of piano duets, it is common practice for primo or prima (the high part) to play using two treble clefs, with secondo or seconda playing two bass clefs, both hands on the bottom part of the piano.

In the old days, before phonographs and radio, piano duets were often the only way people could hear the latest orchestral or chamber music works when they lived far away from cities which had orchestras (almost everybody had a piano and many people could play a little.) Four hands would split the parts of the instruments between them. Even Brahms, during whose lifetime recording was invented, provided four-hands versions of some of his works.

In the 19^th Century days, a courting couple might be left unchaperoned if the lady’s female companion could hear the piano from her post outside the salon door. A few three-hand piano pieces date from this time.

Scrambling the clef signs produces a different kind of recreation for the player with no discernible difference in the sound. Chopin, Schumann and others would sometimes write a bass clef note higher than the treble note played at the same time. The effect is that the player’s thumbs cross, a kind of “Hello” from the composer, since the listener can’t tell from the sound that this is happening.

Mozart at least once wrote duets so that one player was still holding a key down when the other player landed on it. Mozart’s duets were probably played with his sister Nannerl, so he managed in this way to give her finger a good poke.

Other composers including Schubert and Brahms arrange the clefs so that the duet player’s arms cross. Great examples of this are the last part of Schubert’s piano duet piece called “Our Friendship Never Changes” (“Notre amitie est invariable”) and the fourth Brahms Hungarian Dance which John and I are playing in the video.

Duet references: Cameron McGraw, Piano Duet Repertoire, Indiana University Press. Ernest Lubin, The Piano Duet, Grossman.