A. I started thinking about this recital at the same time our country was about to invade Iraq. I felt frustrated, ineffectual, unable to make a difference. I heard from many fellow musicians that they felt, for the first time, that it was useless to be a musician. I decided that in some way this recital had to be a response to all of this. I began gathering pieces that were about war. I found many interesting and powerful works and set about trying to fashion a program from them. But try as I might it just wouldn't take shape musically. And I believe that no matter how compelling a theme, if it doesn't hang together as a musical idea then it has to be re-evaluated. But rather than abandon the idea altogether I realized that I had a strong group of pieces that, while not overtly being about war (except for one piece) still resonated with the original idea. So the first half of this program is about peril, alienation, remembrance and well, war. The pieces on the second half offer something else: the possiblity of interconnectedness, hope for some kind of future based on compassion, stillness and meditation.
Q. How do each of these works take us beyond the popular boundaries (limits) of our listening experience? How should we prepare ourselves for this new listening experience?
A. Each of these pieces challenges the listener in a different way. Cage's Perilous Night transforms the timbral world of the piano into another dimension, a world of percussion and bells, wood blocks and plucked bass. I find myself asking how these six movements paint the Irish myth about a bed on a floor of polished jasper. Cage wrote this work at a particularly difficult time in his personal life too. Some people think it's one of his most emotional pieces. But that emotion is conveyed through the conduit of the prepared piano. Not your typical venue! Sciarrino's Perduto in una citta d'acque is very still, very quiet, very suspended. Nothing happens except occasional shivers of color rippling the water. It's the kind of piece that turns you back in on yourself. Makes you confront certain things. Then in Jack Body's piece Sarajevo we explore the idea of memory - it's ephemeral nature. Ideas start and then trail off, other memories burble up then disappear. In the second movement - Totentanz (death dance) the relentless nature of the piece conveys a certain terror, but the ever changing meter keeps you off balance the whole time, like a dance that won't get comfortable, which indeed it shouldn't. The last movement is a Lachrymae, a lamentation for those who have died. After that, the main challenge to the listener will be the last piece on the program - Satoh's Incarnation II in which waves of beautiful harmony cascade and build in a long slow, meditative curve. As to how one should prepare for any of these experiences? Well, our audiences have always had such open minds! I hope they bring them, and their open ears to this concert too!
Q. Do these works reflect the styles of the native countries of the composers or do they go beyond to a more universal form of expression? (I really like the idea of your program offering an international cast of composers).
A. Hmm. Good question. Well, the Cage is so...Cage. Is that American? It's hard for me to say. In some ways, what could be more American? The whole idea of the prepared piano is so kooky, so creatively unexpected. The Sciarrino has a certain austerity - but not one that I would call particularly Italian, and the Body seems more universal to me, but maybe that's just because I haven't heard much new music from New Zealand!? Simurg by Mario Lavista definitely has a certain kind of latin flavor - but it also transcends the same. And lastly, Satoh's work seems influenced by a kind of Zen simplicity. But in all cases the music is so much more - so ungraspable and haunting. I'm looking forward to sharing it next week.
~ interviewed by Mary A. Hannon
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Scott Dunn journeys to the outer limits of 20th century piano repertoire and performs two west coast
premieres. He discusses his program in this interview.
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A. Originally, Richard Rodney Bennett was commissioned to write Noctuary for the English National Ballet but it was never performed. It has only been performed as a concert piece. The idea of ballet music as concert music is not new. Some of the most famous pieces of 20th century symphonic literature were written for ballets, most notably The Rite of Spring. If a piece is musically cogent, it will stand on its own, and this piece is musically cogent. In formal terms, it is a theme and variations. Unlike the classical theme and variations, the compositional technique in Noctuary evolves during the course of the piece. The early variations are similar to the musical language of Joplin and they evolve through styles similar to Schumann, Ravel, Bartok, Schoenberg and finally, wild serial language at the end. The piece is kind of a reversed biography of Sir Richard himself. He was Pierre Boulez's first student and started his career as a young British composer, writing very complex symphonic music in the 50's and 60's, and whose Second Symphony was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered by Leonard Bernstein. In addition to his intense interest and early training in serial technique, Bennett has always also had an incredible interest in jazz and classic American popular song. As he's matured, his interest in serialism and the avant garde has given way somewhat to this passion for jazz.
Q. Why did you couple Bennett's Noctuary and Chopin's Nocturne in B major together on your program?
A. After the exhausting psychological journey of the Bennett piece, I thought it would be lovely to have something incredibly lyrical and restful - like this Chopin nocturne. Also, the Chopin and Bennett make a nice pair as these pieces represent to me two different ways of musically evoking nighttime. I would call Bennett's approach subjective and Chopin's approach more objective or descriptive. Bennett takes the listener in the night in a subjective freely-associative way, whereas Chopin, I think, invites the listener to experience nighttime in a more physically descriptive way. The Nocturne in B major is one of my favorite pieces. It has a beautiful section at the end where the tune comes back in trills - in just the way a bel canto singing star of Chopin's time might have sung and embellished the theme.
Q. How does Carter explore the full potential of the modern piano in his Piano Sonata?
A. Carter is constantly experimenting in this work with ways to get the undamped strings of the piano to ring in sympathy with other notes being played. This ringing is accomplished with sostenuto pedal, or the damper pedal and sometimes with notes held down silently while others are rather violently struck. Using these techniques, Carter actually gets a tune to speak in overtones at a couple of points. One has to listen carefully to hear it, but it's a very interesting effect which I've rarely encountered elsewhere. Additionally, Carter exploits the terrific power and dynamic range of the piano, as this piece goes from roaringly loud to whisper soft very often and very quickly. Finally, Carter exploits the facile responsiveness of the modern piano with the very complex and fast rhythms which he uses in his characteristic fashion.
Q. What is the overall character of Foss' music and what is the specific identity of Solo for Piano?
A. Lukas Foss is a prodigiously gifted musician with a quick mind and wit. He is constantly trying out new styles and techniques and in his entire output, no two pieces are similar. The constant element that runs through all of his music is a very open heart, light spirit and tendency toward lyricism and joy. Lukas is greatly influenced by Mozart and the lyricism we find in Mozart, we find throughout his music. This is quite unusual for 20th century music.
Solo for Piano was written in the 80's. Its constantly evolving ostinato of eighth notes is based on a 12 tone row. Initially, Foss manipulates the row employing the usual techniques of playing it upside down, backwards, and so on; all the while the texture and color of the piece almost imperceptibly evolve as the piece drones on and on. Similar to the Bennett piece in a way, this work has an evolving technique as it proceeds, but Foss goes further and commits the cardinal sin of actually appearing to change style during the course of the work. The piece begins with rather orthodox serial techniques, and by its end it has become this huge, rather tonal romp. The changes occur slowly and subtly, but overall it just gets bigger and bigger and more tonal, eventually coming to a huge climax. Then there's a little joke at the end, where the composer suddenly juxtaposes the first twelve notes of the piece quietly played. Foss tells me he wanted it to sound like someone had "bumped the needle on the phonograph" and he hoped to frighten the listener with the momentary possibility that the piece was starting over.
~ interviewed by Mary A. Hannon
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Leonard Stein travels the maze of Boulez's
Sonata No. 3, a work he premiered in 1962 at
the Monday Evening Concerts. Experience the rare
opportunity to hear this work from the hands of
one of its original performers. Stein will also give
the world premiere of two new works and play
several small pieces that will challenge and excite
the listener. Leonard discusses his program in this
interview.
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A. Boulez composed Sonata No. 3 in 1959 and I immediately wrote to the publisher for a copy. It wasn't published yet but they sent me a photostat of the score in his writing. I set to work to copy it which was quite a task. It turned out to be a twenty page manuscript.
Q. When did you first play it?
A. I went to Europe in '61 and heard Boulez play it. Later, I looked him up to make corrections to my copy. I premiered Sonata No. 3 in 1962 at the Monday Evening Concerts. Boulez was at Harvard University in 1963 and he asked me to play Sonata No. 3 on a program of his music. It was then that I got my lesson from him about how it should be played and he was most interested in the sonorities over anything else.
Q. How has literature influenced Sonata No. 3?
A. The literature of Mallarme and Joyce were a big influence. Mallarme's words "A die cast will never abolish chance" inspired Boulez to lay down musical fragments on the score like a poem on a page. The performer is then given indeterminate choice as to how to play the piece. The consequences of that choice are strictly controlled by the composer and the relations between choice and control are literally part of the musical effect.
Q. How is the work organized?
A. It is divided into formants entitled Antiphonie, Trope and Constellation. Trope and Constellation have been published but I am one of the few people who have Antiphonie because it has never been published.
Q. What indeterminate choices have you made in playing Sonata No. 3?
A. The order I have chosen is to play Antiphonie, followed by Constellation and ending with Trope. Antiphonie is a small introduction in a-b form that can be played four different ways. Constellation is the immovable still center of the Sonata and is made up of blocks of sound (chords) printed in red and points of single notes printed in green. One must play red after green or green after red and the choices within the two colors are determined by arrows which give the effect of a labyrinth. You can play them in 1,000 different orders, choosing your way through the music as if you are traveling through a maze. The challenge is how to make continuity out of little fragments. Trope is in circular form with no beginning and end. You can start at any point but I have chosen to play it as Boulez played it. Every note is marked and there are so many effects that you have to think each one out.
Q. Do the other pieces in your program have any relationship to Sonata No 3?
A. The other pieces are smaller and of a different character. They all lead up to Sonata No. 3. I start the program with Schoenberg's Op. 33a, always a joy to play. The small piece by Anna Rubin, a former student of mine at Cal Arts, was dedicated to me for my 85th birthday. Six Episodes by HK Gruber are tonal but influenced by 12-tone. I have known Gruber for many years and he experimented with 12-tone but found it was unwelcomed in his native Vienna. His music is often influenced by popular culture. In fact, you'll hear an influence of the Beatles in the Second Episode.
Q. Your program continues to gain momentum from beginning to end. Tell us about the smaller works in the second half of your program.
A. I begin the second half with Op 33b by Schoenberg. This is followed by a small piece by Luciano Berio, commissioned for the 75th birthday of Boulez. It is a fast, sticky piece with lots of repeated notes. Good technique and good piano action are important when playing this piece. Finally, I'll be performing the world premiere of Peyman Farzinpour's Four Vignettes, small pieces that move from slow to fast. These pieces accelerate to the final Sonata No. 3 which is a tribute to my long and valued friendship with Pierre Boulez.
~ interviewed by Mary A. Hannon
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Susan Svrcek performs an All-American program that explores a wide spectrum of themes from the universal
to the personal. She discusses her program in this interview.
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A. The Hilarious Curtain Opener and Ritournelle were written as some of the incidental music for a play by Jean Cocteau entitled Les Maries de las Tour Eiffel. They are complimentary, yet contrasting pieces. The Hilarious Curtain Opener is just what the title suggests; a short piece, partially influenced by folk elements. It runs along in a humorous fashion, filled with well placed wrong notes and rhythmic quirks. The Ritournelle is quite different. It is sensitive, stark and very beautiful. Cowell wrote it using his "elastic form", giving the performer an opportunity to use various combinations of the material, similar to putting a patchwork together.
Q. It isn't often that we hear piano works by William Grant Still. Tell us about Seven Traceries.
A. Seven Traceries are very personal and delicate pieces written in a simple, elegant and individual style. William Grant Still, who was not a pianist himself, wrote these pieces for his second wife, pianist Verna Arvey. Each evokes the impression of things that no longer are, but in the past had been seen by the eye. You can imagine what they sound like from their titles but the titles were suggested by the music and written afterward. Still was a man of deep faith and believed that music should communicate deeply. These pieces seem to reflect his view of the world and his place in it. Seven Traceries were written with a purity and spiritual essence that touches the depths of the heart.
Q. Why did you choose Ives' Sonata No. 2 ("Concord, Mass.", 1840-1860) for your program?
A. The "Concord" Sonata is one of the greatest piano pieces of the 20th Century. Ives carved new ground with this work. It speaks to history and the human condition, and is especially relevant during these times. Meanwhile, Cowell, Still and Ives all use folk elements in their music. They also leave a certain number of decisions up to the performer. Still doesn't put pedal marks in the score and dynamics are sparse. Cowell's "elastic form" is chancy but not by chance. He gives the performer several patterns or suggestions to use but the choice is left to the performer. In the Ives work everything is relative. For the most part, he doesn't use time signatures or key signatures and he incorporates phantom notes that are to be heard as overtones. There are very few bar lines throughout the piece. This flexibility gives the artist great freedom in making interpretive decisions.
Q. How does Ives approach the challenging themes of history and the human condition in Sonata No. 2?
A. This piece is both universal and personal. Ives permeates the piece with "the" four-note motif from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and these four notes become the essence of the piece. They speak to the soul of humanity looking for answers and knowing they will find them. The Emerson movement is a sprawling movement that evokes the feeling of Emerson standing on top of a mountain, giving one of his orations to the Universe. The music explores the spirituality of people globally. The Hawthorne movement is concerned with a single community. The fantastic inner realms of the imagination run wild and free with tunes of marches, church hymns and parades coming out of nowhere. Then that four-note theme comes in with "the answer." The Alcott movement takes us into one family's home. It describes the house and activities within. Folk tunes and hymns are played on the spinnet piano and again, we hear the reassurance evoked from the four-note motif. The Thoreau movement looks to the inner exploration of one single man. We see that the universal and the personal are all interconnected and ongoing. The piece ends in a quiet way, suggesting the simple and eternal forward movement of the individual life.
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Mark Robson explores the outer limits of an intriguing repertoire. He discusses his program in this interview.
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A. The Etudes connect Debussy to a strong tradition of works that were written as studies but have become art pieces. The tradition began with Bach's Preludes and Fugues and culminated for Debussy with Chopin's Etudes which served as a model of technical and artistic mastery for him. The 12 Etudes embrace a variety of technical concerns, an amalgam of styles from the composer's oeuvre, and an occasional foray into things yet to come. The first set concentrates on intervallic ideas such as 3rds, 4ths and 6ths, and the second set is concerned with textural ideas such as sonority in opposition, repeated notes, and chords. The Etude for Arpeggios, which is the next-to-last, is an abstraction of the idea of the harp in its most ideal sense, using glissandi and arpeggiation which one associates with the harp. Debussy had a particular technical focus for each piece, but if you listen with a broader perspective, you get an evocative tableau of tremendous scope. Debussy wrote his 12 Etudes after a fallow period toward the end of his life. He sought the stimulation of the seaside as his environment for composing and these pieces often suggest water imagery and the atmosphere of a landscape. The Etudes were basically all written at the same time and sum up Debussy's compositional ideas. Each one stands solidly on its own as a significant movement, but together they have a family resemblance. As a group they are the most physically demanding of his piano pieces. Sustained stamina is required from the pianist; you have to have your wits about you at every moment when you play them.
Q. Debussy and Skryabin were contemporaries, the former from France and the latter from Russia. You are playing two major works of each composer. How are they similar and how are they different?
A. Debussy and Skryabin had traditional roots but belonged to a generation of composers who were constantly re-evaluating their position on harmony, melody and timbre. All of the major composers at this time were searching for ways to handle the broadening pallet of harmonic choices. Debussy and Skryabin were outstanding pianists and mature composers. The piano was their fundamental instrument and even though their language was different, both were concerned with the suspension of harmonic development. Some of Debussy's writing avoids a sense of finality or resolution. The harmony remains suspended, but suspended in a way different from Skryabin. Both of these composers also sought effects of light and color not imagined by other composers. Later in his career, Skryabin composed using the octatonic scale, which is a symmetrical partitioning of whole steps and half steps in the octave. Debussy differs from mature Skryabin by drawing on many types of scalar structures: modal, major and minor, octatonic. His music still retains a classical shaping of beginning, middle and end and projects a sense of emotional development. The later Skryabin works often seem to hover without development despite the energy of their surface structure. Sonata No. 8, for example, is a very circular piece. The melodic material and set of motifs are so interlinked that the piece feels as if it is constantly spinning rather than evolving.
Q. Messiaen and Skryabin both saw color when hearing sound and both were influenced by nature. How do these elements influence their music?
A. Messiaen was interested in the scientific phenomena of biology, astronomy and botany. He observed the cycles of nature and often organized materials using numbering systems drawn from nature. Quite specifically, his observation of birdsong culminated in a musical language that became a major part of his output. Skryabin was not as precisely oriented to nature but was influenced by natural rhythms and impressions of nature. His philosophical leanings led him to conceive of an ideal world in which mankind and nature formed a harmonious whole, and he believed his music would be a vehicle for attaining this harmony.
Q. You are premiering a new work by Athanasia Tzanou. Tell us about this work.
A. Motto: Nege is inspired by the idea of snow, snowfall and whiteness or clarity. The piece, nonetheless, is quite chromatic and the harmonic structures utilized have an affinity with the language of both Skryabin and Messiaen. The piece is in three main sections that are unified by the use of grace-note groups, textural oppositions of sustained chords and staccato skitterings, sounds produced by reaching into the piano, and certain recurring melodic profiles, whether in chordal presentation or in the form of octave reinforcement.
Q. How did you go about selecting this program?
A. I wanted to present Debussy's Etudes as the cornerstone of my recital. The remainder of the works were chosen by virtue of their potential to complement that piece. Skryabin, being a contemporary of Debussy, offers interesting comparison at the level of color and harmony. Messiaen, of course, is an avowed admirer of his French predecessor and shows a similar penchant for evoking nature and being stimulated in its presence. Messiaen and Skryabin are also linked by the phenomenon of synaesthesia. And although Tzanou's work was made known to me through our Piano Spheres website after I began to develop my program idea, her idiom seemed fortuitously to work well with the accompanying repertoire. I suppose the theme throughout the recital is the rigorous exploration and organization of color.
Interviewed by Mary A. Hannon
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Vicki Ray will perform three World Premieres in a program of widely ranging styles. A delicious menu of sound that explores the gamut of the classical avant-garde is certain
to satisfy every musical taste. We talked with Vicki about her program in this interview.
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A. Last year I recorded Prelude for a new Powell CD that is coming out soon. The piece is very kaleidoscopic, changing mood, color and character every few seconds. I knew I wanted to begin my 'Spheres recital with this piece. But then a few months ago I ran across this Etude of Mel's that dates back to the mid 40's when he was first exploring classical composition. Etude has obvious germs of what was to become Mel's later style but it is more focused around specific tonal centers than his later works. In fact, Etude moves from D to E flat, and Prelude starts on E flat - so despite my resolve to open the program with Prelude I'm going to play Etude first, as a sort of prelude to the Prelude. Mel's career started as a jazz pianist and he played with Benny Goodman and other jazz notables before transitioning to classical avant-garde music. Even though you do not hear obvious references to jazz in these pieces, you might find gestures speeding by that bring different styles to mind.
Q. How did you discover Morton Feldman's Nature Pieces?
A. I unearthed them a couple of years ago in the David Tudor archives at the Getty Museum. David Rosenboom, (a wonderful pianist and Dean of the School of Music at Cal Arts) and I were invited to look through the archives and extract interesting pieces from the collection for a performance at the Getty. The premiere was done in 1952 at Hunter College with choreography by Jean Erdman called Changing Woman. The work is early Feldman, so even though the pieces contain many of his later signatures, they're also quite surprising in a variety of ways.
Q. You will perform the World Premiere of Shaun Naidoo's no man's land, a piece written for you. Tell us about this piece.
A. This is a darkly ironic piece written in four movements but played as a continuous whole. The movements are titled Goodbye, A Bullet for Breakfast, no man's land and Torched (again). The piece is driving, rhythmic, virtuosic and has elements of cabaret and rock sensibilities interwoven in a subtle and unique way. Shaun's music is deeply serious and tongue-in-cheek at the same time. You're never quite sure which way to take it.
Q. Tell us about the two bird pieces you have paired together.
A. The Golden Bird (after Brancusi) by George Antheil and Le Loriot (The Golden Oriole) by Olivier Messiaen were written 37 years apart yet they share some intriguing commonalities. The Golden Bird, written in 1921, glitters with beautiful colors and adventuresome harmonies that travel over the entire keyboard. Messiaen's Le Loriot is from his Catalogue d'Oiseaux and besides featuring the birdcalls of the golden oriole (and many other birds!), is a subtle pun on the name of his wife, pianist Yvonne Loriod.
Q. You are giving the World Premiere of Due (Cinta)mani, a piece written by Eric Chasalow. Tell us about this composer and the piece he has written for you.
A. Eric teaches at Brandis University and specializes in electroaccoustic work. I fell in love with his music last year when I was conducting a piece of his for ensemble and tape that the E.A.R. Unit played. Due (Cinta)mani means "two hands" in Italian. It is also a Buddhist word that symbolizes three flaming pearls rising out of the waves. The piece is for piano and tape and is in two movements: Three Symbolic Gestures and Cloudbands. The tape is sparse, subtle, funny and wickedly elegant with all kinds of gestures mixed together. The second movement is more atmospheric with washes of sound coming from the piano. I love playing piano with tape - it's like playing chamber music by yourself!
Q. Your World Premiere of Jay Cloidt's Span will end the evening on a high note. Tell us about this imaginative new piece he wrote for you.
A. I talked with Jay a few years ago about composing a piece using rock 'n roll techniques and Span was his reply. In this piece he uses boogie, blues, stride, rock 'n roll and gospel feels. Span is often structured with the left hand playing in one tonal and time center and the right hand in another - but when they are played together, the piece grooves. If you listen carefully you'll hear quotations from other works woven into the piece…not all of which are rock related. Span is named after blues pianist Otis Span and also alludes to the span of the hand.
Q. How does this program differ from your previous programs?
A. In the past I built many of my programs around a common theme. That can be interesting but sometimes it means you have to leave an alluring piece out of the concert because it doesn't "fit" the theme. This year I wanted to play pieces that I loved, that challenged me musically, technically and spiritually. That's the theme. And even though I didn't consciously look for unifying elements, they're still present; from Mel's beginnings as a jazz pianist and Shaun's and Jay's infusion of pop sensibilities in their pieces to the "bad boy" label that Antheil shares somewhat with Feldman (and Naidoo and Cloidt!) and the ephemeral quality of the Chasalow, Powell and Feldman.
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Gloria Cheng opens the Piano Spheres ninth season with a compelling program of contemporary works, including the premiere of two works by Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg. Gloria discusses her program in this interview.
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A. The six Jubilees began as a single Jubilee composed for Pierre Boulez's 75th birthday in 2000. Magnus placed it first in the set, which explores and develops various aspects of that original material. I suspect that the richness of ideas that abounds in the first Jubilee must have made it impossible for him to leave it at that. All the Jubilees emanate organically out of the first, and together they feel cohesive and complete. It's hard for me to imagine them apart from the others at this point because they work so well as they are now.
Q. As a tribute to Earle Brown, who passed away this past summer, you have chosen to perform Four Systems. The notation for this work is a series of lines rather than notes on a traditional staff with a key signature. How do you read this music and interpret it?
A. Nancy Perloff at the Getty Center recently informed me, much to my surprise, that David Tudor, who premiered and championed many of Earle's graphic scores, prepared performance scores for himself using standard fixed notation rather than creating new renderings of the graphics each time. My first response to this was that it seemed to defeat the purpose and take away from the openness and spontaneity that graphic notation offers, and yet I'm finding that I'm doing somewhat the same thing for myself. The fun of translating a squiggle into a musical gesture remains, but the pre-planning controls things in a way that makes a performer like me a bit more comfortable. I knew Earle from many summers at Aspen, and he was a mensch, and I wanted to honor him on this recital.
Q. Toru Takemitsu believed that sounds should have the freedom to breathe. How does he accomplish this in For Away?
A. All of Takemitsu's works evoke a feeling of freedom, fluidity, floating, and a gentleness that everyone who knew him speaks of. In spite of the very strict notation, including meticulous note values and metronome indications, the piece is like a freeflowing improvisation with tons of rubato, and as you say, freedom to breathe.
Q. Chinary Ung is known to be a master of fusing Cambodian folk melodies and Western composition techniques. How does he achieve this in Seven Mirrors?
A. Chinary Ung's piece is drenched with the colors and sounds that he knows from growing up in Cambodia, enhanced by close work with Varèse once he arrived in the U.S. The piece is extravagant and exotic and luxurious and sensuous, with many open spaces in which to lose oneself in the sheer beauty of the sound. He conceived of the piece as seven cadenzas, and so it is very free and fantastical.
Q. You are playing works by Dutilleux that range from his very early career (Résonances,1965), to the Three Préludes which date from 1973, 1977, and 1988. How does Dutilleux's style shine through over such a long time span?
A. The balance of fantasy and rigor in Dutilleux's music reminds me a bit of Lutoslawski's music. There is a preoccupation always with resonance: using tricky pedal effects and the like, which link his music nicely with that of Takemitsu and Lindberg on this current program. Also, Dutilleux was very fascinated with symmetrical constructions: the third Prélude is called Le jeu des contraires, or The Game of Opposites, and takes place around a horizontal axis. His music is very clear, and the titles of the other two Préludes also give the listener a handle on what to listen for: D'ombre et de silence (Of Shadow and Silence) and Sur un même accord (On the Same Chord).
Q. You have collaborated with such distinguished composers as Pierre Boulez, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Adams and Elliott Carter. How have you benefited as a pianist from these collaborations?
A. My collaborations with composers have been the touchstone of my life as a musician. I love getting inside their minds and having them there to tell me how they hear their music, a process I find to be highly intimate, and infinitely interesting. It's a great privilege to have a composer's input when preparing his or her music for a performance. Working with composers, not only in shaping a performance of a finished work but often also in exchanging ideas prior to the work's completion, is without a doubt the most satisfying aspect of my musical career.
Stein founded Piano Spheres with four other pianists in 1994. Now in its
ninth season, Piano Spheres specializes in the performance of contemporary
piano classics. In 2001, the 50th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg's death,
Leonard Stein performed his piano works at a Piano Spheres recital, as well
as a performance and lecture series at the Schoenberg Center in Vienna. We
are privileged to have talked with this distinguished pianist, teacher and
scholar about his association with Arnold Schoenberg and his thoughts about
the piano and modern classical music.
Q. You worked side-by-side with Arnold Schoenberg when you were his teaching assistant at UCLA. During this time he was developing his 12-tone method of composition. What effect did this have on him as a composer and teacher and on you as a student?
A. Schoenberg rarely talked about his 12-tone compositions. The only time we got into it very deeply was his first lecture on 12-tones, which he gave in 1941 and is in printed form today, and when he showed me his work on the String Trio which he wrote in 1946. We discussed parts of some of his works but he never let me in on how he composed his 12-tone music. He kept it mostly to himself and let others describe it and analyze it. Our class discussions were on Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and practically nothing on Schoenberg.
Q. Schoenberg believed that the idea is the most important element in a work of art and that the idea will never perish. Bach's idea of counterpoint has proven this true. Has Schoenberg's idea of composition with 12-tones taken firm root in music history?
A. His approach to non-tonal music was like creating a new world of music. His was music without key references or references to a tonic. He was not concerned with chord progressions that give you a sense of ending or release of tension. This was inevitable because of the accumulation of so many dissonances and chromaticism by late romantic composers such as Wagner, Richard Strauss and Debussy. Schoenberg's contribution to music has taken its proper place in history as an evolution from the music that preceded it.
Q. What makes Schoenberg's piano music distinctive?
A. It lacks any of the typical accompaniment figures of the 19th Century; no broken chords and very little use of the pedal. He didn't want anything to obscure the musical line and he was very interested in the polyphony of the lines. The melody may appear in any voice; upper, middle or lower. In a certain sense he is closer to Bach than to any other composer. I approach his music as I approach the most complex music of Bach.
Q. You took all of Schoenberg's classes; theory, harmony, counterpoint and composition. What was his approach as a teacher?
A. Schoenberg believed that the weightiest problem in teaching was that young geniuses make discoveries by themselves just by thinking and talented students learn from their education. He tried to find out what each student was capable of. He admitted to me that when he was a young teacher he over-taught. He taught everything he knew and you shouldn't do that. You should teach pupils what they need to know for their own development.
Q. What approach should a student take in learning a new piece?
A. I prefer the analytical approach, learning the piece as if you were the composer. Study the components of the piece; motifs, periods, sentences. Then begin to see the relationship of one part to another; the creation of a certain order. For example, compare what happens in measure 1 with what happens in measure 57 and understand why things happen as they do. Analyze the masters, Beethoven especially, because Beethoven can be explained more easily than the other masters as to form and harmony.
Q. When changes of style occur in the arts the difference between the old and the new can be confusing to audiences. What should they do to overcome their confusion?
A. The history of music is one continuous line. The latest is derived from what has gone before it. Some people become outraged at a new work because they can't find the connection with what has preceeded it. The clues are there and it is up to the listener to make the connection to what he/she is familiar with. By reading and listening more, the audience will have additional clues to help them understand. They will have more illumination and fascination with the new because they have connected with the old.
Q. You have had a life-long commitment to bringing new music to audiences. Have you witnessed a more adventuresome public to music of the 20th Century?
A. When I first started playing modern music as early as 1930, there weren't many people interested in it. I've looked back on some of the old programs and I can't find works by Bartok, Hindemith, Copland or any of those composers we know so well today. Because of recordings I think there's much more sympathy for new music. The audience is well aware that there will always be something presented that they don't understand at first. But they are willing to listen and be open to new listening possibilities. Today is different from the past. Music surrounds us all the time because of recordings, radio, television and the internet. We hear more music and we become more identified with it. There are so many kinds of modern music, some of which has direct appeal and some of which it takes two, three or more listenings to understand. Even the critics have decided to encourage rather than discourage modern music. I think these trends speak to a healthy future for music.