Play to your strengths

Planning to spend the bank holiday weekend catching up on a spot of practising?...well, if you're anything like me, you may be wondering where to start. I sit and stare at my books of Beethoven, Debussy and Schumann, feeling stumped before playing a note by the decision of which piece to pick and why. Brush up an old one or learn something new? Try something I know (well, think) I can still manage, or something that will force me to learn a new technical trick? Or what? Fortunately I've asked pianist, teacher and maker of anthologies Melanie Spanswick for a guest post and she says: play to your strengths. Here's the post explaining why. JD

Playing to your strengths

A guest post by Melanie Spanswick

Piano students working towards a graded piano exam, a diploma, a competition, a concert or any type of performance always want to know if the repertoire they have selected offers an eclectic programme. Is their choice of composers, piano pieces and range of styles and genres, suitably complimentary? The more discerning student also questions whether their selected repertoire actually suits their playing and, more importantly, showcases their technique and musicianship as it stands at present. 

This last point is arguably most crucial. As pianists, we may have a firm view of our ‘ideal’ programme. It probably consists of several favourite pieces, topped off with a couple that we always meant to learn. And then there’s that one piece which we know will really challenge our technique, but which we feel might be a good addition to the programme to help us ‘improve’ our playing. We hope this will provide the necessary incentive, guiding us through the inevitable sticky practice sessions and lengthy preparation time. Piano playing is a complex task and without the inclusion of interesting music, reaching that pianist goal might seem a tad unrealistic. 

When selecting a programme, there are numerous factors to consider, but the most vital is this: always play to your strengths. Programming is a very personal choice; it can be a lengthy process, and one totally dependent on a pupil’s ability right now. Any public performance (and I put an exam in this category, despite performing for one or two examiners) requires a certain level of mastery; preferably, complete mastery. A pupil must not only be confident with the technical demands of each work, but they must be able to deliver those pieces under pressure, succinctly and with panache, flair and a musical understanding. It’s not possible to do this if pieces are slightly beyond their capabilities or out of their comfort zone. This may seem obvious, but as an examiner, adjudicator, and teacher, I observe this issue on a regular basis. If your desire is to improve or work on technique, by all means do so via technical studies, exercises, scales, arpeggios or even within the confines of specific repertoire (and with the careful guidance of an expert teacher), but learn the necessary technique before actually attempting to perform the repertoire that requires it. And never expose your weaknesses in public – performance is a chance to show off!

Melanie Spanswick
Photo: Sally Olsen

When choosing repertoire, aim to discover a wide variety of music, and try to play or study works by a whole gamut of composers. This isn’t to say that you must doggedly learn everything by all the major composers, but you do need to have sampled a fair amount (or at least listened and examined the scores), so that you have formed opinions on styles and genres, and have discovered works which you feel will exhibit your pianistic talents. Observe how your favoured composers write for the instrument, and compare this with your particular skill set. 

You may be a whizz at contrapuntal textures, in which case you’ll want to focus on J S Bach and some of his Baroque contemporaries, perhaps building a programme around one of his extended works such as the Italian Concertoor an English Suite. You may like to pair such a piece with a Shostakovich Prelude and Fugueor other works featuring counterpoint by Hindemith (from Ludus Tonalis,for example). Equally, the preludes and fugues by Mendelssohn or a fugue by Saint-Saëns, might be interesting offerings too. By homing in on this style and a fairly narrow band of composers, you will unearth a programme which plays to your strengths whilst also offering a balanced selection. 

Similarly, those who excel at rapid, complicated passagework will want to build their programmes accordingly. They may choose to spotlight Scarlatti, Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn, or many other such composers. It’s possible to add a couple of Twentieth or Twenty-first century works into the mix, whose style also exemplifies these qualities. A useful tactic to apply before making a final decision on a programme, is to categorise composers according to their most prolific technical elements (this is also an absorbing exercise). You can then explore those composers and works which resonate with your skill set. 

I would hope a piano teacher would discuss programming in detail; this is one reason why it’s a good idea to be able to talk frankly with your tutor. If you don’t resonate with their suggestions, you must feel free to say so, and they should guide you to an acceptable solution, but all within your current standard of playing. 

When helping students select a programme, I try to encourage them to seek a comfortable, attainable selection; one which they will be happy to work on for a few months. Most pupils enjoy learning a Classical sonata, and as this is standard repertoire, I think it’s a prerequisite. Such a work can be juxtaposed with several modern or contemporary choices. I am keen to introduce new pieces to students, and they generally relish traversing lesser-known works. This happy marriage can result in accomplishing a higher level of technical and musical prowess.  

In my recent two-book piano course, Play it again: PIANO (published by Schott Music). I present works of many different musical styles. Whilst choosing these works, I was mindful to select a balance of pieces that would not only give pianists the opportunity to play to their strengths and show off their skills set, but also explore pieces that might technically challenge them. And, to this end, each piece is prefaced with technical and musical information on how to actually learn it. 

Whenever and wherever your next performance opportunity presents itself, take time to think about what you want to play and whether that piece is suitable for your current pianistic skill. When you adopt this mind set, your playing will almost certainly transform and you’ll become a much more confident pianist. 

www.melaniespanswick.com

What price 'success'? A guest post by violinist Tatiana Berman

The violinist and artist Tatiana Berman is one of three musicians featured in Forte, a new documentary by American filmmaker David Donnelly exploring the notion of 'success' through the eyes of three female musicians - all of them strong personalities pursuing their dreams. Using classical music as an example, the film looks at the societal expectations women face today as private and professional individuals. 

To fund it, they've got a  Kickstarter campaign, which has just three more days to run. Please support them here! 

Below is the trailer and a guest post from Tatiana about her own experiences...
JD

The Journey of the Female Soloist

by Tatiana Berman

To become a professional soloist, you have to start young. For me, it was five. My mother and father were musicians, so naturally I wanted to play. At 14, I was accepted into the Menuhin school, one of the most prestigious music schools in the world, on a full scholarship. My mother had passed away unexpectedly two years earlier, so making the decision to leave my father and younger sister wasn’t easy. I didn’t speak English, but I knew it was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. While in school, I had many incredible experiences including solo performances with orchestras in London and Switzerland. I also had the privilege of working with the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin and performing the Bach Double for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace when I was just 17.

At 18 I was awarded the prestigious Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Scholarship to the Royal College of Music. Since my scholarship only covered tuition I had a strong incentive to win the prize at competitions — I was playing to survive. After winning some of those awards things started to happen and my career looked promising. That is until I met someone at the young age of 21, and suddenly my priority to start a family outweighed my career ambitions. It’s not unusual for a young soloist, fresh on the international circuit, to perform 100 concerts a year; however, that lifestyle is not conducive to starting a family, especially if you’re a woman.

I was confident in my ability, but if you’re a soloist, the reality is that your career is a chess game, one you have to be completely determined to win. You have to impress the right people. Mostly the male-dominated world of conductors, who a lot of the time are still the decision makers. You also have to devote a ridiculous amount of time practicing and developing your fan base on social media. It takes complete dedication, the right connections, monetary investment, and pure luck to be at the right place at the right time. You are also pressured to play the “right” repertoire for a long time before you are free to do what you really want. Over the years, I had seen so many of my colleagues become “successful” by industry standards. However, there were countless brilliant musicians who were simply overlooked or didn’t know how to play the game, and in their complete state of devastation they simply gave up on their dreams. But if we take a closer look, is there any evidence of a correlation between that industry stamp of approval and real happiness? Perhaps not.

Fast forward to 2018. I am the mother of three beautiful girls, living in the most unexpected of destinations; Cincinnati, Ohio. The Constella Festival, which I founded in 2011, wrapped its seventh season this year. I’ve worked really hard at this festival, and it’s allowed me to do innovative things. It became a platform to experiment with different artistic mediums. Constella was among the first festivals to present multi-dimensional programming that included digital and visual art, music, film, and dance. We’ve presented over 60 world premieres, and most recently developed a program that attracts a new type of audience, which is not your typical classical music crowd. (www.NotSoClassical.com).

I think of all those talented musicians who didn’t keep going because they didn’t fit into the traditional mold of success, but the world needs musicians now more than ever. It’s time for more of us to make our own rules and to let our passion fuel innovation and entrepreneurship within our cherished genre. Classical music is an industry with a lot of tradition, but that doesn’t mean we have to live and die by those traditions. Everyone, especially women, must have the confidence to create their own definition of success, and design lives that don’t force us to choose between personal dreams and professional ones. Despite an all or nothing culture, there can be a happy medium.  

TB

Tatiana Berman is a violinist and artist. She is one of the stars in the upcoming documentary Forte which tells the story of three strong women pursuing their dreams. You can support the film by contributing to its Kickstarter campaign here. Rewards include tickets to the world premiere in New York, private screenings, art prints, copies of the original score, and autographed posters. Film screenings can be donated to a school of your choice. The campaign ends on May 25th.

Ute Lemper's Songs for Eternity

Ute Lemper is in London tomorrow to present an extraordinary and heartbreaking project at JW3. Songs for Eternity is a programme of songs from the ghettos and concentration camps of the Nazi era. I talked to her about it the other week and you can read the full interview in The JC, here.

And here's why she says this devastating repertoire is so important for us to hear, right here, right now.

“People are saying racist things that they should never say, advertising intolerance and reactionary nationalism. Thousands of people have been displaced because they are not born with the privilege of freedom, peace, education and religious freedom. They fear for their lives in the middle of genocide and war — yet these people are often not even let in because of the fear of terrorism. Many thousands of innocent people are rejected, sitting in front of barbed wires or in immigration rooms, or simply being sent back. I feel broken-hearted when I see this, and the way the population rejects the responsibility to take care of others in a world that we have created of unbalanced wealth and education.”

Tickets here. 


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The day after the day before

Jonas Kaufmann, Jochen Rieder, BBCSO.
Photo: Mark Allen/Barbican

It's possibly some measure of my current distraction - with libretto, deadlines, nephew's wedding the other day and an ongoing situation with a very sick cat - that I completely forgot Jonas Kaufmann was coming to London to do the Strauss Four Last Songs, until the Barbican press office sent me an email saying, in effect, '...but don't you want tickets?'. So after Meghan and Harry had walked up the aisle - and so, in Harrogate, had our nephew and his own American bride, and so, in Cambridge, had Guy Johnston and Ali Digby (huge congratulations to music's loveliest new couple!) - and the sun shone and the Rev Michael Curry had wowed a rather startled congregation with his reminder of the powers of love and fire, off we headed for the City to see what the tenor of this event would be like.

One question that always applies at such concerts is: what else goes into the programme? Kaufmann's friendly conductor, Jochen Rieder, wielded the BBC Symphony Orchestra baton over a selection including Elgar's In the South, the second symphonic interlude from Strauss's Intermezzo and, to open, a work that I frankly thought I would never hear played live: Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Schauspiel Overture, written when he was 14. [Update: I am reminded that the CBSO did it a few years back and I missed it...] The drama in question has never been definitively identified: his adored Shakespeare is likely, and while The Tempest and The Winter's Tale have been suggested, Twelfth Night - as stated by his notorious critic father, Julius - is possibly the most convincing idea, given the bittersweet tone of the music, plus the mix of high spirits and big, generous tunes. But it's possible, too, that it's a non-specific concert overture and as such, it functions jolly nicely.

This Viennese gemütlichkeit, the expansive expression, the Klimt-like glistening of the orchestration, seemed to puzzle the Barbican every bit as much as the gospel choir inside St George's Chapel, Windsor, had earlier struck some churlish online wedding observers as "inappropriate". Of course, it wasn't - the bride is American and it represented her background. In the Barbican, Korngold was a Strauss disciple, so it was perfectly appropriate too. My dream is that one day the English will "get" Korngold. They still don't. It may be a long wait.

Kaufmann presented four Strauss songs in the first half - 'Ruhe, meine Seele', 'Freundliche Vision', 'Befreit' and 'Heimliche Aufforderung' - and the Four Last Songs in the second. I'm preoccupied with Lieder right now because I'm doing a comparative review of a certain song-cycle by Schumann and have been listening to dozens of recordings, day in and day out (Kaufmann has not recorded this cycle, so isn't in the survey). The ideal singer, in my personal view, blends tone, nuances of meaning and diction into one - it's amazing how often the balance between these elements is skewed. In this respect Kaufmann is an absolute master. What we heard last night, essentially, was a supremely intelligent, beautiful and detailed Lieder recital. But whether the orchestra bore responsibility (enough rehearsal? One wonders...), or the loud and muddy acoustic of the hall, or whatever, Kaufmann's tone - never huge in any case - blended into the textures rather than soaring above it.

You shouldn't go to a Kaufmann concert expecting ear-splitting volume, any more than you should go to his Otello expecting him suddenly to morph into Jon Vickers. He likes to sing softly. He goes for colour, nuance, text, intimacy - and these Strauss numbers are mostly not molto con belto-appropriate. Could any listener witness a fine performance of 'Befreit' and emerge unshredded? In this poem by Richard Dehmel, a man speaks to his dying wife of the joys they have experienced together and recognises the time ahead when she will be 'released' and he will see her only in his dreams. So, no, you cannot expect a singer to whack this out at high volume. You need some sensitivity from the orchestra. Or you need Helmut Deutsch at the piano instead.

Here's what Kaufmann said to me about the question of volume when I interviewed him a few years ago for BBC Music Magazine:

"I think you can touch the audience more with a soft sound than you can with any big note. I think you can impress people with big notes, but you can really move them and touch them with the soft ones. You need to have both. Even in the heavy Wagnerian repertory, no big note seems to be big if there isn’t a soft note as well. If everything is just shouted it’s not impressive – after five minutes you’re thinking 'we’ve heard that already'. When people are in misery, when people are suffering, you tell it with a soft voice – there are self-confessions and all these things, it doesn’t get shouted, it comes out naturally."

So, did the Four Last Songs work? In terms of pure artistry, of the mix of line and text and meaning, then yes, absolutely, with 'Im Abendrot' the finest of all: subtle, mystical, transformative. But can you get used to the sound of a baritonal tenor in these songs, instead of a soprano whose tone soars and slices through the textures? Kaufmann's didn't. He blended with the orchestra as if he were another instrument among them. In short, it was beautiful, it was a worthwhile experiment, but sopranos can probably rest assured they won't be losing these songs too often to their male rivals.

And one encore: 'Morgen', in which the orchestra was quiet enough and that soft, shining, intense Straussian beauty could reach everybody. Heaven at last.

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Young Musicians All

Lauren Zhang plays Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto with the CBSO in the BBC Young Musician final
Photo: Greg Milner

Coinciding with yesterday's apparently stunning final of this year's BBC Young Musicians Competition, oboist Nicholas Daniel and a magnificent roster of fellow past winners - Nicky Benedetti, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Natalie Clein, Guy Johnston and many more - have launched a plea for music lessons to be available free of charge to every primary school pupil in the country.

The BBC YMoY is 40 this year and has helped to inspire several generations of young people to love music and want to play it. This (along with so much else in the UK at present) is desperately under threat. 

Here's some of the letter:

"....despite some brilliant schemes, we are all deeply concerned that instrumental music learning is being left to decay in many British schools to the point that it could seriously damage the future of music here and jeopardise British music’s hard won worldwide reputation.

"Today, we are launching a campaign for every primary school child to be taught to play an instrument, at no cost to them or their families. It is crucial to restore music’s rightful place in children’s lives, not only with all the clear social and educational benefits, but showing them the joy of making and sharing music. We are especially concerned that this should be a universal right. This is an opportunity to show the world that we care about music’s future and its beneficial impact on our children.

"Musical life in the London Borough of Newham could be one example, with their excellent Every Child A Musician scheme. The programme gifts all of their primary school children a free instrument to keep and teaches them how to read and play music in weekly lessons. This at no cost to the children or their families.

"We believe that every child deserves to enjoy the benefits of Ecam and other excellent schemes, and their widespread adoption would alleviate many of our current concerns about the future of music in this country..."

Read the whole thing here.

Meanwhile 16-year-old pianist Lauren Zhang from Birmingham swept to victory at yesterday's final, playing Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.2. It's not a piece you expect to pitch up in a competition final - dark, intense, tragic, as well as phenomenally challenging in technical terms - and everyone I know who heard this performance was blown away. I managed to miss it and will catch it on the much-blessed iPlayer - you can too, here.