Concerts and Piano Teaching

Summer in America is often the time when universities and music colleges offer special courses for students wishing to attend various master classes so that they can study with different teachers and also enrich their musical knowledge. In many cases, the institution that offers these courses uses the same faculty as during the regular school year so that they can recruit in future these students to their school. On the other hand, there are also places that invite artists from outside and so gain their fine reputation from the list of famous names that come and teach at the institution. Texas Christian University offers such an environment and has become a place for students wanting to have master classes with world-renown artists. In 1981, under auspices of Van Cliburn Foundation and the TCU (Texas Christian University), Dr. Tamas Ungar became the founder and Executive Director of the TCU/Van Cliburn Piano Institute and since has organized and invited performers such as: Lazar Berman, Philippe Bianconi, John Browning, Janina Fialkowska, Sergei Dorensky, Leon Fleisher, Moura Lympani, Vlado Perlemuter, Menahem Pressler, Bela Siki, Takahiro Sonoda, and Soulima Stravinsky. This is only a small list of the guest artists that have visited the institute during the three-week summer course and gave master classes during the sessions. This summer, the guest artists were: Gyorgy Sebok, John Perry, Paul Badura-Skoda, John Lill, Fanny Waterman, and also Tamas Ungar, John Owings, an excellent pianist who has given several cycles of Beethoven sonatas, and Jose Feghali, himself a gold medalist at Van Cliburn Competition. In addition, this institute has the only summer program that has a concerto competition with the prize of performing with a professional orchestra. This helps the winning students prepare for international competitions and also gives them more credence as first-rate applicants for major piano competition. The audition requirements for acceptance at the institute are difficult: tape and now, video application with repertoire of different styles. The material has to be of first class caliber, CD-quality, and students are chosen according to their performance and their total repertoire which they can perform for these sessions. For example, this year, a student from Japan, previously from Shobi Tokyo Conservatoire and now studying with Tamas Ungar, Kumiko Aida, had to prepare Bartok Sonata for Gyorgy Sebok, Mozart Sonata for Fanny Waterman, Prokofiev Sonata for John Lill, Schumann Sonata for Jose Feghali, and Saint-Saens Concerto for Concerto Competition. She became one of the winners for the concerto competition and performed with Fort Worth Chamber Orchestra. Also, the purpose of the institute is to aquaint the student personally with the master teacher. Because of this, it often becomes easier for a student to apply for international competitions because they are already known to the judges.

This year, the summer session ran from June 10 to June 29. It was divided into two sessions: from June 10 - 19, and from June 20 - 29. I attended the second session. I took a plane from Los Angeles bound for Dallas, Texas, a three hour trip. At the airport I was met a van who also picked up two other passengers. Fort Worth is about 45 minutes away from Dallas airport. It was a hot afternoon, nearly 40 degrees C., but people seemed to be used to it and indoors, strong air conditioners were working without stop. I stayed in the dormitory of the university. The next day, the opening party welcomed some 30 students, some from Japan, (Gedai, Musashino, Shobi Conservatoire), Australia, Israel, Korea, Russia, and United States. The age of the participants ranged from 14 to 32 and what united all of them was the eagerness to learn and improve their skill. I was able to see Master Classes by Paul Badura Skoda, John Lill, Fanny Waterman, Tamas Ungar. Also, I went to two recitals: by Badura Skoda, and John Lill. In addition, I heard the complete concerto competition and lectures by Waterman and Skoda. Finally, I was able to interview Fanny Waterman, John Lill, Badura Skoda, and Tamas Ungar, the founder of this institute. And also I gathered feedback from various students who gave an important view of how they felt playing for these eminent artists. My first session was with Dr. Fanny Waterman, a world-famous teacher, founder of the Leeds Piano Competition, and a juror herself at international competitions, including “Tchaikovsky” in Moskow, “Rubinstein” in Tel-Aviv, and many others. She gave three two-hour master classes. If I could characterize her teaching in one word, it would be: meticulous. Dr. Waterman would first listen to the complete first movement and then begin her teaching. It was amazing to see and hear her energy, enthusiasm, and thoroughness as she would be going over the piece note by note. In almost every case, it would take more than twenty minutes to “correct” just the first line of the piano piece. She would analyze the different possibilities of each note, the various strengths with which it can be played, how it connects to other notes, and carefully seek a balance between one note and the next.

AT: let me begin by asking you that having participated in many world-wide competitions and master-classes, how would you say that this TCU/Cliburn Piano Institute is different from others.

FW: I would not say very different. I would say that the standard is higher than some of the master classes I have given in more famous places in the United States. What I have enjoyed here is the willingness of the young students to take on board all the musical ideas. In some of the famous American institutions, I found that there was not the same humility there. When you go to a master class, you’ve got to abandon all your ideas for the moment to listen with respect to the master and the master’s ideas. You need not take those ideas on board forever, but for that hour, if you’re having a master class, you give everything you can to understand and reproduce those ideas and I have enjoyed the humility and respect of the young pianist at TCU.

AT: In Europe, the students seem to be different. Are they?

FW: Yes, I would say that they are very polite and similar, but the standards here are remarkably high.

AT: Would you say that this is so because of the association with the name Cliburn and also due to the strict screening process.

WT: Well, certainly the name “Van Cliburn” associated with this institution is a magnet because he is one of the greatest master pianists of our time and a very wonderful human being. People like to be in the vicinity of Van Cliburn and I think that this has been a great attraction world wide. The standard of teaching in this institution is first class. You have Tamas Ungar, John Owings, and Jose Feghali, and they are all first class teachers. It is the twice a week regular lessons that is so important to building up a career in a young person.

AT: You mentioned about twice a week lessons. When you are in England, how do you schedule your lessons…once a week, or twice a week.

WT: Well, on the whole, it is once a week because the young pianists in England have to go a normal school and they have to cope with their school homework. Now , I think that the examinations of the Associated Board in England, I think, emphasize too much on scales there are about 500 scales…scales and their variants: staccatos, legatos, double thirds, and all variants. Now, I think that the people who are insisting on that cannot have any young children at home. They do not realize how much homework they have to do and how much practicing time they have. And music, to learn music, the great joy, is to play the great composers. Not to run up and down the scales. And so, that has become unbalanced. But on the whole, the lessons are once a week. I have very advanced students, for example Benjamin Fritz who is playing three Mozart concerti at Edinburgh Music Festival and made marvelous recordings of all Mendellsohn’s works, Davidsbundler Dances, the Diabelli Variations…all with great acclaim, …now, he will have double lessons a week. The lessons will go much longer and at greatest depths and he will come twice a week certainly.

AT: I know that you studied with Tobias Mathay and also with Cyril Smith who in his later years was incapacitated due to paralysis. Could you comment on these two great teachers.

FT: I was lucky to know Cyril Smith before his stroke and while he was still a great performing pianist. Very sadly, not many people remember his name now but when I even now hear his recordings, let us say of Rachmaninoff concerti, they are absolutely marvelous. I wish young pianist now could hear him…his later years do not represent him as a performing pianist. Before I went to him, I felt like a big fish in a little pond, but when I came to him, I realized that I was a little fish in a big sea. He made me think about what I was doing and he made me read the score. Up to that, I was very careless in how I approached the score, and although he didn’t study the score at the depths that I study the score with my students, however, he did start me in the right direction.

AT: I was very impressed that you put so much emphasis on the tempo directions and expressivo marking of the score and that they have to be memorized in the same way that the notes have to be memorized.

FW: Exactly, that when a composer begins to think about the composition, the first thing he begins to think is what kind of a piece it is going to be….a miniature or on a grand scale…if on a grand scale, how many movements there are going to be…and then he starts on the first movement…how am I going to have an opening…one big grand introduction, an then, a very detail music full of energy…and he will think on those line, thinking about how to choose the melodies, the register, harmonies…the direction of harmonies…so that in the end they should sound right….and the piece emerges like a ship in the sea…Then, he goes to the second movement and asks himself whether it should be of great simplicity or great resignation…and then he will say how he should finish the work…and might say… “enough, life is full of ups and downs, and we can carry on…” and so he will finish with great outburst of joy and write allegro con brio. So not only the signs in the beginning, but throughout the whole piece that are important. It shows a lack of respect of you don’t take on board everything that the composer has written. How he phrases, whether he wants to sit down and shorten the phrases, or whether he wants to elongate the phrases. As Artur Schnabel said, many people play notes like I do, but few play rests and pauses as I do… You seldom hear the pause…and that is a wonderful effect…and when you got a chord and hold it on, it will get louder and then softer, with all its overtones blending. It is a wonderful effect to hear a chord at the end of its life, not just the beginning. And then rests between the phrases, what do they mean…taking in breath. Is it something agitated, resignation, desperation, you see all these are very important .

AT: Yes…don’t you think that sometimes what is not written in the score is as important as what is written in the score?

FW: Yes…and this is where each individual comes in. My piano sound will be different from yours because you have a different hand and it is what is in-between the notes that is so important and the expression I think you are like a great actor. Now we all know the phrase “to be or not to be, that is the question”. Now where is the accentuation. To be or not to be…; or is it, to be or not to be…; or is it, to be or not to be…I can take each word in order and analyze each word. A great actor like Lawrence Olivier will study every sentence in relation to all the other he is saying…and analyze and balance the sentence and the whole. Musicians have to give great thought to each note and see it in relation horizontally and vertically and see how one phrase affects other, until one reaches fuses one section to another so that one architectural whole is reached with all the emotions contained within.

AT: in you method of teaching, what etudes do you emphasize?

FW: I love the Chopin etudes, but I also love the Debussy etudes. I don’t treat them as technical exercises. I treat them as miniature masterpieces. I will work on those etudes for effects…and beautiful techniques and polish. But then you get many etudes for drama…like op. 10 no. 12 the revolutionary etude. I know that left hand is difficult, but the right hand is also very difficult and you can’t play that in perfunctory way. You have to feel the drama of the revolution there. Or op. 25 no. 3: that is charming…each one has its own mood in addition to its own technical problems…

AT: watching and listening to the various students performing at the master classes, I notice that often they do not understand the use of wrists…the flexibility and the flow involved, and that often, they play from fingers alone…

FW: yes…I agree…I think that they do not understand how the wrist works: the lateral , the rotary which relaxes you, and the vertical which gives you finger staccato so they don’t realize the value of the wrist which connects the hand to the upper arm. I think that there are too many superfluous movements, especially in women-pianists who wave their arms about and I quite can’t see the point why they are doing that. I am very keen on dropping from high with a loose wrist and relaxing and going right through that movement. I think that it is important to see great pianists…that could be a great lesson.

AT: From my own experience and also looking at great pianists, I often notice that their fingers are hardly moving when they are executing passages. The fingers seem to be gliding…

FW: Yes, all those quick passages need to be colored and I think that if the notes are just even with pulsating beat that is not getting to the music and that is not having a good technique. To have good techniques means to play scales with emotion, with fury if power is needed, or softly… Playing scales does not mean playing even notes. There should be gradation, soft to strong, or opposite, or some undulating coloring in the middle. One does not have good technique unless one can color the scales with emotion according to the music one is playing. And when people say that someone has good techniques, I disagree. They can’t do skips, they have poor trills and trills are cut short…

AT: …I have noticed that you have excellent trills. As you mentioned, trills are very difficult to play and you have very long and concise, even and rounded trills.

FW: Yes, because I treat a trill musically. Or I think of Beethoven walking in those Vienna woods listening to the birds. I think that trills in Beethoven are the sounds he heard when he was walking in the woods. And a trill, you can start it slowly, in duplets, then triples, then sixteenths. You see, the beginning, middle and ending of the trill are all part of the texture and I think of the trill often as melodic.

AT: I must say that many active performers-pianists do not have such good trills as you do.

FW: Yes, they don’t. A trill is not one wedge of sound, it consists of just two notes alternating at different speeds, different dynamic levels; they are very important.

AT: During one of the master classes, you mentioned about the construction of program in giving concerts.

FW: I think that often the programs are too serious. Even some of my students’ programs consist of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms…one should not be so serious all the time. There should be humor and brilliance in programs. For example, Horowitz’s programs, or Shura Cherkasky’s programs…there was so much humor in their programs that the listener wanted to smile as he listened to the performance. Not only should the pianist be emotionally tuned to the music he is playing, but the audience should feel all different emotions and show it appropriately.

AT: Life consists of different emotions and the programs should reflect this too.

Could you say something about competitions.

FW: Well, I think that the competitions are important for the engagements that they have to offer. When I ask our contestants why they entered the Leeds competition, they say because of the repertoire, the jury, and because of the engagements. None of them comment on the prize money. I think it is important to open as many international doors as possible. They have to stay up there afterwards, but I think Leeds has a unique record as far as the quantity and quality of engagements is concerned. The winner gets to play with every major London symphony orchestra…and all these are important gates to a major career.

AT: In conclusion, do you have some message for the Japanese people?

FT: Well, I would like to thank them for all their support and especially Bunkamura for their wonderful support for the Leeds competition. Bunkamura has become an active helper for the Leeds Competition and we at Leeds appreciate it very much and hope that future cooperation will bring wonderful results. Japanese people are very interested in Art and Music and I wish them much success in their endeavors. Thank you.

John Lill gave three master classes, a recital and a lecture. It was wonderful to see a great artist behave so modest and humble about himself. His recital, consisting of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and Rachmaninoff was excellent. His tone is full and never harsh. Music flows and speaks for itself. Lill shows that music can be heard without excesses of showmanship. It was a wonderful evening.

JL: How many languages do you speak?

AT: Five.

JL: I admire that so much in a person and I think it is fantastic…

AT: I know that you play a complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas. Can you please say how you approach performing his sonatas because at different times, the aesthetic of performance will change…

JL: Very good question. However soon I play a piece of music after the last performance, I must relearn it from the next day. Otherwise, you can develop bad habits. It is like driving a car. If you don’t analyze yourself and make sure that bad habits are not occurring, then you have nothing to worry about concert halls and playing for public knowing in good faith that you have been honest to the score and have given your best. If you keep relying on past habits, exaggerations can occur. You will gradually get inaccuracies in your memory of things, and music can become distorted. It is important to relearn so that the score is clearly known. It is like cleaning a window so that you can see a beautiful picture outside. I find all practicing like that; it is a gradual cleaning process. Of course if you know the music very well, it does not take a long time but you must go through every mark. Having said that, you analyze your work almost scientifically like that and practice almost scientifically. During a concert performance, you must forget all of that and enter a state of mind not related to earthbound trivia. You must be totally solitary, relaxed with a quiet mind and then you must walk out knowing that you will be inspired knowing that you have done your best with your earthbound work. You must feel free to play however you wish but because of you disciplined work it cannot go too far away from the path of good taste.

AT: In your lectures, you mention about the percentage of difference in tempo performance allowed in a piece of music.

JL: Yes, I feel strongly about that. The most important single aspect of a great work of art is its architectural strength. The greatest composers are those have the strongest architectural sense. And so I think that we as recreators of music cannot turn our backs to the architectural plan of music. We have to be aware of this architectural sense even though the music may require a lot of rubato; it has to be related to the governing shape of the piece. Therefore, any change of tempo has to be related within a few percent to basic norm which must be very well chosen. The best tempo is where the smallest percentage of tempo change is necessary. However, there have to be tempo changes. You cannot eat a recipe, you cannot eat a menu…it has to be prepared. The performer is like a positive or negative side of a charge. Music is one side of the charge and you need the other side of the charge to make it understandable and you need near perfect reflection to bring to life. You don’t want to get in the way and make it impure by cheap tricks and fashion.

AT: Please can you remark on your ideas of “assai” in Beethoven’s indications.

JL: I strongly feel in Beethoven that “assai” means enough from the French assai. In other composers, like Mozart, it means very, you have to be careful. Very often in Beethoven you get “allegro assai” which does not mean “very fast…” , it means “enough fast”, enough of liveliness…because allegro means “full of life” or “having life”. Many serious works contain “allegro” will mean that music must move. Even “con brio” in Beethoven means different from Haydn’s “con brio”. I think that the Italian request is much more important than the metronome mark. The metronome mark has to be basically artificial. No two halls are the same; no two resonance’s are the same, therefore, your imagination is coming to play to ensure that your tempo is right for that time, for that acoustic. In addition, another performer will not have the same makeup as you. We all have different heartbeats, different blood pressure, different character, and so it will be wrong for someone to play at certain metronome marking because it is wrong for his hands. It is the same way with fingering; no two hands are built the same way. So, I would never force fingering on someone. It is the same with pedaling, your body is used. Ideas can be suggested but never forced.

AT: Yes, I agree because to begin, metronome mark is an artificial sign; nobody feels it without first switching the metronome on and these markings do not exist per se in nature.

JL: Exactly, and when Beethoven discovered the error he made in 9^th Symphony, he changed the metronome mark by one-half…that is a big difference! The Italian request for me is much more important. “Andantino” is speaks for me much more than a metronome mark. For example, Beethoven puts metronome mark minim = 138 in Hammerklavier which is very fast, but the Italian request is only allegro, not presto …that means much more for me. And also, if you are playing in a large resonant hall, it will take more time for sound to carry. It also has to do with atmosphere. It takes time for atmosphere to descend. At the same time there is nothing more boring than something slow without life. A pianist has to be vigilant all the time and sensitive to the enormous range of moods available to you. One must never interpret in a conscious way. In the end it is the inevitability of your performance that will be compelling.

AT: I remember seeing Isaac Perlman say that when he plays a concerto, he can never be happy with all three movements of a piece. Each movement has its ups and downs and also its own mood, and the performer can never be 100 percent up to the level in all three movements.

JL: That is good and that is a sign of a great artist because nobody should be completely pleased with themselves. We can approach perfection but never reach it on this level of life. That is the point of life: to get experience and improve oneself. There is no hardship in life that you cannot use to turn it into development. The way we react to it defines whether we are going to be defeated by it or become stronger and wiser because of it.

AT: Speaking about hardships, you are very against making passages easier or certain skips as in the opening of Beethoven’s op. 111.

JL: True. When one hand should be used, one hand should be used because there should be an element of struggle in the piece. There is much struggle in Beethoven, as also in beginning of Hammerklavier. On the other hand, the ending of op.111, it is possible to divide hands so that it becomes easier for the small hand to play it.

AT: I know that you have recorded the complete piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev. Looking at these sonatas, there is a certain development present…from 2^nd to 4^th, then looking at the 6^th…I think that his ideas become more refined…

JL: Yes, as in the late works of all great composers, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, the excesses of all these notes become replaced by the essence and the work becomes more economical. It is a spiritual process. A composer doesn’t need so much to say so little; on the contrary, with so little, he can say so much. I adore Prokofiev because he bent laws, and not broke them. One cannot break rules. I feel that the greatest performers have something indefinable.

AT: I think it is the 9^th Prokofiev sonata that is dedicated to Sviatoslav Richter. Texturally, it seems a more simple piece, and yet a performer must know that it cannot be a lesser work…because Prokofiev dedicated it to Richter.

JL: Yes, it is a great, profound work which has fewer notes. Quality and quantity are not the same and often popularity is not related to quality. Look at pop music which makes a lot of money…it is totally worthless. It is a simple way of making a few people rich. Pop music is most primitive aspect of human nature: banging on the drum and screaming out for sex. Combine those two things and you have pop music which earns billions every year.

AT: yes, because pop music uses a rhythmic beat which actually stimulates our glandular, endocrine system through a sympathetic influence on our heartbeat. Then, the hormones our bodies are released and sexual drive is increased

JL: It is designed so because it stimulates our basic primitive aspects and the sex drive is not far away from our most primitive nature. I am sure that many people are proud of their sex drive but any animal or insect can do it far better and I think that the only difference between us and the animal is the spirituality we possess…and then, probably the animals are more spiritual than most humans. Great music does exist in spite of the barbaric onslaught of media ideas and we should be grateful for that. I think it was Plato who said that art is the measure of civilization and life without art is legalized barbarism.

AT: Can you say something about cadenzas and also what are your thought on 2^nd revised editions as for example, Rachmaninoff’s 2^nd Piano Sonata.

JL: I prefer to play the cadenza of the composer and if there is no cadenza of the composer, then, to write a cadenza myself. One doesn’t want a third party. The performance is already a three part thing anyway: the creator who is the composer, the re-creator which is the performer, and the receiver which is the audience. You don’t want a fourth person to be there. As for original in comparison to revised editions, I prefer the original because I believe that the composer was much closer to the original inspiration, to the original creative spark and when he returns to the same work many years later, he is already analyzing the work with a rational mind and so is removed further away from the original thought.

AT: And that reminds of the d-minor Mozart concerto…how much Beethoven must have loved this concerto to write a cadenza for it.

JL: Yes, that is an exemption. Brahms also wrote a cadenza for this concerto. Brahms’ cadenza are remarkable because they are totally uncompromising and there is not adjustment to the other style. They are very Brahmsian—heavy and bold, but very good too. It is interesting to note that Mozart was the natural genius but Beethoven was the struggler. In chess there is an interesting parallel: there was Capablanca who was the natural, and there was Alehin who was the struggler. Both were geniuses and played the World Chess Championship and both were equal; however, in the end the struggler just won…that is Alehin won. In that degree of competence, everything is already the same.

Prokofiev was a chess player, too.

AT: Prokofiev was very much into train schedules. He adored trains and studied meticulously various train schedules.

JL: Yes, and also into hatching eggs…chicken eggs. You see, all these things as with chess represent the intangible disciplines. In my own small case, I am very keen on gadgets, computers, and programming. I am also an amateur radio ham and talk to different countries including Russia. I love the magic of these things because they are intangible and as a result help the musical concentration. I find musicians very difficult to talk to, especially pianists, because they can talk only about piano and pianists. They are so boring. You can’t talk about music anyway and there are so many thousand of things one can study. To me, piano is an orchestra.

AT: Do you advocate playing etudes?

JL: Yes, because existing repertoire one is studying may not do justice to improving one’s technique. So, I advocate Czerny, Moscheles, and Chopin etudes. It is like brushing one’s teeth every morning. So, everyday I start by practicing etudes. As I get older I get fussier about getting everything right and I am less satisfied with what I did before. I know I am improving because I am less satisfied with my older recordings. I used to be pleased with them. Now, I find them too matter-of-fact.

AT: I notice that for example in op. 111, in the second movement the soft triplets in the left hand, you are playing non-legato.

JL: Yes, I wouldn’t do that now. It depends on the mood, the acoustic of the place and time of day. The objective is to make it distinct without being too strong.

AT: You are a remarkable artist because listening to your performance music becomes like a fluid which takes the shape of its container and yet always remains the same.

JL: You are very kind. It is not for me to say about myself; I don’t think I am that good, but still, thank you very much. An artist has to be true to himself. There is nothing to equal great art. Life has to be a compromise, but art, never. Art has to be a reflection of life and more…the wonderful thing about music is that it points directly at reality…to seeing over the other side of the mountain. Great composers, geniuses, give us this glimpse of the other side.

AT: In listening to Beethoven, one does forget the mundane problems and we do focus on the eternal.

JL: You are right. The range of emotions, from the profundity of slow movement of the Eroica symphony to some other movements, full of vigor and humor…the range is enormous. And when you get those “musicians” who dissect music from a scientific point only, they are completely on the wrong track. Music has always reflect the basic laws of Nature and will always continue to do so. I hope that there will be a return to simplicity soon. I can play music of which I am myself convinced. I have played some avant-garde music and wasn’t convinced…and I have to be true to myself to be able to give the best…and that can be done only when you are totally convinced with what you are doing. If I am not convinced, how can my public be?

AT: Well…thank you very much for a wonderful evening.

JL: Thank you…for your very searching and very interesting questions.