Give Greg and other pianists your two cents.
Do you hate it when pianists sway with emotion? What do you think about their choice of music? Shorter concerts?
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Don't miss...
...the Performer Advice to Audience page.
Read Greg's thoughts on audience behavior. They may not be what you expect!
(May take a moment to process)
Do you, an audience member, have advice for the performer? How much interaction is appropriate? Do you hate or love it when a pianist sways with emotion? What's your opinion about the pieces performers choose to perform? Longer or shorter concerts? Greg will add your comments to this page (and possibly to his book!).
How do we remember ray charles? swaying at the piano with a gleeming smile of happiness - The same music played by a stiff person would not seem the same. Personality projects the performance. Some overdo it, but people go to see Lang Lang for the "entertainment" he offers. I go to see Yundi Li when I wish to concentrate on the "performance", not the animations. Not to say Yundi is boring at all - I just prefer his personality.
We should read the poems before Gaspard de la nuit and talk to the audience. That works great for audiences. It's helpful if there is something to light their imagination. :) (totally unnecesarry in music school or competitions...)
A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved ... for the revealing of his humour will stimulate a like humor in the listener. ... Those who maintain that all of this can be accomplished without gesture will retract their words when, owing to their own insensibility, they find themselves obliged to sit like statue before their instrument. Ugly grimaces are, of course, inappropriate and harmful; but fitting expressions help the listener to understand our meaning. (C.P.E. Bach, Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, trans. William Mitchell (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1949), p. 152.)
hmmm... that never ending "to sway or not to sway" question. haha. I'm also a music student myself and i remember, in almost every masterclass i've participated in, one of the comments that i'd get most of the time is "this piece LOOKS so easy for you, i somehow get the IMPRESSION that you're bored" or "i almost feel like you're trying to show how easy this piece is for u." Hearing comments like these after playing the Verdi-Liszt Rigoletto Paraphrase or the Bach-Busoni Chaconne where i spent tons n hours of energy attending to all the details just infuriates me. My mentor always insisted that i should always strive in "hiding" how difficult it looks, that one shouldn't just OVERCOME difficulties but SURPASS them. There are many legendary pianists, some of them physically moved a little or didn't move at all while some of them move a lot. I must admit to adoring the ones that looked naturally on the piano (Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, Lupu, Pollini, Lipatti, Cortot, Richter) as opposed to the Lang Langs that are so in demand now. I guess how they MOVED on the piano isn't the thing that made them great, it's how they made the piano SOUND. If you're a musician who is loved by how you "look" on stage more than how you "sound," then it just shows what your priorities are. Your sound should always be your first priority. I believe in planning certain movements in aid of how the sound would project but doing this too much, i believe, cultivates an audience that uses their EYES more than their EARS. (Well, in a world where how you look is more important, i guess this can't be helped. Bring it on HDTV)
Nowadays i look at it this way: It helps NOT to think of it as choreography, swaying or movement etc. I think it helps more to think of "it" as BODY LANGUAGE. How your body reacts to a certain passage and makin sure that this reaction doesn't hinder the production of the "proper" sound. I realized this after playing the opening chords of Rachmaninoff 2nd where playin it with your whole body "too relaxed" just wouldn't help in the emotional projection of the passage. sorry for dumping too many words. There are many things one can fake in playing the piano, but SINCERITY isn't one of them. I guess in the end everything else wouldn't matter as long as it sounds Sincere, really human.
The sight of the gestures and movements of the various parts of the body producing the music is fundamentally necessary if it is to be grasped in all its fullness. (Igor Stravinsky, Chronicle of My Life (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1936), p. 122.)
My hero is Ervin Nyiregyhazi. He didn't show much in the way of emotion when he played (physically, I mean) but, on film clips, there is a terrifying intensity that comes across from his still presence. Apparently he played with such intensity that his fingers regularly bled during performance (even though he played his chords from direct contact with the key, virtually all the time). He played however he felt like playing, regardless of whether that mean't rewriting the textures, dynamics, structure, or just about anything else. In his mind music was pure emotion and he cared for nothing else at all when performing. Look for Kevin Bazzana's book Lost Genius about his crazy life, including his ten wives. Unfortunately by the time he was recorded, he hadn't been practicing (or owned a piano) in many years. Here is a recording of him playing Rachmaninoff's 2nd concerto in a solo version, from his final concert. http://www.savefile.com/files/611701
Before you turn this off in disgust, listen to it through at least once. The slow rendition of the theme in the central section, stretched out to the absolute limit, is one of the most tragic things I've ever heard. Also, after all the heated insanity, he plays the last few minutes incredibly softly- creating a whole different emotional structure to the movement. This has some of his very best and very worst, all mixed up. Here's quote, that sums up his attitude: "I want that my dirty alcoholic heart should shit itself out on the piano" Ervin Nyiregyhazi
As a performer myself - I like for the musician to be free and to be natural! Every movement, every sound, every "funny-face" even, should come straight from the heart. Bare your soul and don't hold back. I like for the performer to talk some inbetween pieces - not only does it help those who wouldn't normally listen to classical music to understand it better, but also creates a unique connection between audience and performer. You come away from a concert feeling as if you just met the artist...... and that is very cool and inspiring to a young budding musician like me! :)
I think the real source of stuffy concerts is stuffy programs, i.e. bad music selection or a very unbalanced program, or selections that are so routine that the artists could have phoned-in their performance.
I love to see a pianist (or other musician) immersed in the music he or she is playing. Bring on the motion! But don't fake it or be tempted to embellish. There's no greater turn off. (Conversely, there's no greater turn on than seeing a musician honestly give their whole being over to the music they're performing.)
I myself sway back and forth when I play or listen to music, so I prefer performers who do, like you, by far over those who don't. Those who don't give very dull performances that are usually unbearably slow, while your performances are great, filled with movement and fast enough to move me!
"I wish we could hearken back to the days when concerts could go on for over three hours and nobody would mind. Let people leave if they want to. Let some of us just enjoy it without thinking about where we have to go next. Feldman has the right idea. (In more ways than one.)"
"Be yourself and enjoy yourself. You are our guide to the music - even if we are moved to tears, we are filled with joy because we were moved. Through your play the air is filled with life."
"After a piece, the performer should show their appreciation for the applause and convey the fact that they enjoyed performing. It drives me crazy when a person acts smug after a piece, makes them seem less personable."
"I love it when the pianist sways with the music because you can tell he or she is enjoying it and feeling it just as much as the audience is."
"Keep doing your 'little extras' ... the world will remember you!"
"I've played the piano since I was 6, but I've always had extreme difficulties with memorization. I don't see what the problem is with using music as long as the pianist can turn the pages or have the pages turned without distracting from the music."
"i love it when they have some motion when they play."
"i like it when it is performed from memory."
