I was fascinated by the TV relay of Martha Argerich playing Beethoven’s 2nd piano concerto at the Proms with the Munich Philharmonic under conductor Lahav Shani.
It had been well publicised that Martha Argerich is now 85. Many, perhaps most musicians have retired long before that age, of course. Those who do persevere into their 80s or more are often pianists. (I’m sure there is a study waiting to be done on the longevity of pianists.)
Watching Argerich make her way on to the platform with a certain stately caution, I wondered what was to come. But when she started to play, her well-known precision and fast reflexes were immediately apparent. Her touch is beautiful, her shaping of phrases gorgeous. Her fast passage-work was light, crisp and seemingly effortless; every note was sharply sculpted. From time to time she cast a wry glance towards the conductor to make sure he was listening. Her concentration at the piano seemed as keenly focused as ever.
Watching her hands move about the keyboard, I had a similar feeling to when I watch Yuja Wang at the piano – as though she has an unusually clear mental map of the keyboard linked to an unusual control of finger muscles which enables her to move unerringly about the keys without the slightest doubt about where her fingers are going to land. Many pianists develop this ability to a high degree, of course, but still – doubts creep in, balance may falter, memory may play tricks, and little slips can occur. Watching someone who seems to have no misgivings, one wonders whether the paramount skill is mental or physical – or perhaps a glorious fusion of the two.
In any case, it was a most heartening spectacle and an inspiration to those of us who hope to keep playing for as long as possible!
How inspiring!
YOU: ‘…one wonders whether the paramount skill is mental or physical – or perhaps a glorious fusion of the two.’
ME: It seems to me that a fundamental message of the F M Alexander Technique is that a human being is a single psychophysical self. In other words, there are no two to fuse. There’s a single self. It’s true that the self can fall into an illusion of being two but it really doesn’t have to. In our culture religion and philosophy have tended to give us the idea that a human being has a mental part and a physical part, gloriously fused or more often ungloriously unfused. (And ever since David Hume came home from talking to the Jesuits the Mahayana idea has been swimming around: roughly that really the human being is an empty field of consciousness into which transient objects of consciousness arise and exist for a while and fade back into nonexistence. This too seems finally unintelligible.) The truth is, I think, that the people we’ve loved and respected the most – for example, Busch, Serkin, Casals, Horszowski, or whoever – don’t make music from a place of Cartesian duality but from a unitary self. I saw a masterclass with Casals in which he asked a question. The student said, ‘I think’, and instantly there was a tremendous explosion: ‘But you must NOT think. You must feel’. And I think, or let’s say I feel (not wishing to be haunted by an angry ghost), that Casals was pointing exactly to this unitary self: that you have to play as a whole feeling self, and not as a one-who-thinks, desperately and anxiously trying to exercise control over a detached and recalcitrant machine (a bit like out-of-control AI) called ‘my body’. (This comes of course rather close to Csikszentmihalyi’s observations of ‘flow’: we want to play in a flow-state, he would say.) Does that make sense?
What a marvellous comment, thank you so much Rob. I hope everyone will enjoy reading what you’ve said.
I totally agree that reaching ‘a flow state’ is the ideal. However, my experience is that thinking is a necessary tool. As musician, you try this and try that until it ‘feels right’. The process leading up to ‘feeling right’ is not simply a matter of feeling, but also of thinking and experimenting.
We weren’t discussing playing from memory, but I might add that if one is playing from memory it is dangerous to rely solely on ‘feeling’. Strange things can happen! If I’m playing from memory I have to use conscious recollection of the piece, its structure, its appearance on the page, and any imaginative ‘prompts’ I’ve developed during practice to help me remember the sequence of events. I’m aware that there are several types of memory operating at once – muscle memory, aural memory of how the piece goes, but also conscious analysis which runs alongside those others.
Playing with other people brings extra challenges. There’s a lot to observe and think about as well as feel.
I think that at very high levels of attainment the feeling of a ‘physical/mental’ split probably does disappear – is it a contradiction in terms to say that this is a state that has to be worked for?
Susan: Yes to everything you say of course. Only after giving something over 100,000 piano lessons I do feel that rather than thinking twofold of mind and body it’s more illuminating to think of the human being threefold: as having an exteroceptive self (tuned to the ecology: the way in which every detail finds its place in the whole), an interoceptive self (tuned to fine currents of feeling, emotion and sensation), and a proprioceptive self (tuned to the poise and movement of the body in space): so that a crucial part of playing music is for these three to come into unity as a single embodied-listening self. This may sound merely pretentious but I feel inclined to say: this is the main thing I’ve learned in the past fifty years of trying to help people make music.
Susan / Rob
I cannot recall any musician ever mentioning the impact of arthritis on their piano playing but this must surely be a factor? No one ever mentions this yet anyone who has to overcome this problem and operate at such high levels deserves masses of admiration. I cannot recall ever reading an interview with a musician where this has been discussed. For me, this makes the performance seem even more impressive if they cannot properly articulate their fingers as they once could and are experiencing degree of pain to achieve such objectives.
Rob’s post tends to fall towards philosophy and this is something I am often wary of as I am never convinced whether there is any genuine science behind these ideas. I have heard pianist Kenny Werner expound the same views in a masterclass about 25 years ago and I found many of his comments not only strange and also alienating. I would feel the same regarding the Casal’s quote. As with so many elements in life, I struggle with ideas if they are notional and cannot be measured or are not tangible. (A bit like the old argument that Britain had an Industrial Revolution because of characters like Watt, Arkwright and Stephenson whereas a France didn’t because it produced the likes of Rousseau and Descartes instead !)
By contrast, I think that the physical /mental is something I can more readily appreciate. At the end of the day, the reason why MA was so compelling in performance is entirely biological even if consciousness is not properly understood.
There must be a point at which if you have arthritis in your figures that the physical elements are diminished. I have also read that piano playing is considered something that can mitigate against the effects of arthritis. Surely a large number of pianists over 60 need to make an allowance for this?
It is amazing that MA is still performing at such a high level at 85 years old. I thought she was much younger. In the past I have seen several jazz pianists pull out all the stop as they approached their nineties – the best two examples I have seen are Hank Jones and Ahmed Jamal, both of whom were incredible at this age. Herbie Hancock still strikes me as incredible for his age too. It does make me curious as to how the “mental” element has to make up for deficiencies when you fingers cannot fly so easily over the keyboard. If you had a great technique when younger, I suppose this is a benefit. However, I do wonder whether musicians either consciously or unconsciously make consideration for arthritis.
I think that the thought process in music making as players become older is different. In jazz, I feel that many players manage to more finely focus their playing down to essentials as they become older. All the extraneous stuff gets ditched. I feel someone like Wayne Shorter became a much better improvisor as he grew older.
Switching the argument on it’s head some what, upon reflection of the original post, nearly all the most important composers for piano died before the reached old age. (Thinking of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Scriabin, Debussy, Ravel , Bartok, etc) and therefore it is not possible to understand how getting old would gave affected their composition and whether they would have had to make allowance for arthritis or recognised that old age allowed them to be more focused as was the case with Gabriel Faure.
Ian, I wonder if the constant exercise pianists’ hands receive helps prevent arthritis there? I am always surprised (and disappointed!) that the muscles in we pianists’ arms don’t seem to benefit from all that exertion, but our hands must be super-fit. Taking this off at an irrelevant tangent, you may not have heard a pianist struggling with arthritis but I wonder if they ever battle the desire to sneeze! I do sometimes when playing (especially in pollen season), and I often have to stop. Does the extreme concentration of playing to an audience help prevent this, or are they just very good at recovering and pressing on? Not exactly a subject for university research but in idle moments I do wonder…
Susan and Ian: Thank you for these very thoughtful responses. Ian: I don’t imagine that anybody thinks of F M Alexander and Pau Casals as suspect academic philosophers. I do think that one might have to have had Alexander lessons to understand Alexander’s idea of ‘unreliable sensory appreciation’ and the conclusion he drew after much experiment and teaching many thousands of lessons that it makes no sense to divide the human self into a physical part and a mental part. When you say that ‘At the end of the day, the reason why MA was so compelling in performance is entirely biological’, Ian, you are clearly making a philosophical claim; and (with the greatest respect) you commit yourself to a materialist metaphysical stance. And then when you say that ‘the “mental” element has to make up for [physical] deficiencies, you commit yourself to a non-materialistic metaphysic, in which some elements are non-physical and therefore non-material. Although the word ‘philosophy’ has shifted its meaning and the meaning of the word ‘philosophy’ is always intensely contested, I’m inclined to understand the word ‘philosophy’ as a name for the attempt to clear up such seeming contradictions: and I’m always in favour of that. I think that genuine science is always an attempt to think clearly: and as you imply, Ian, it is extremely hard to conduct satisfactory scientific experiments investigating such phenomena as ‘flow states’. We all hear that something quite wonderful is going on when Argerich or Casals or Horszowski can perform at a high level in late life. However, in the nature of the case, these are rare and individual situations: about which a scientist can certainly say interesting things, but nothing which would be likely to make the situations replicable – especially if we mean exactly replicable. No amount of genuine science will enable us to make a second Herbie Hancock. Anyway, here is the irreplacable Mark Reizen at the age of 90 singing Gremin’s aria from ‘Eugene Onegin’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzImX2kGq-c. If you’ve not heard him, he’s worth six minutes of your life.
Rob, I just wanted to say that I loved that clip of Mark Reizen singing Gremin’s aria. I confess I had not heard his name until you mentioned him. I don’t think I have ever heard a singer whose voice was in such good shape at the age of 90. Was he just lucky, or did he have a practising (or health) regime which preserved his voice? It would be so interesting and possibly useful to know!
Rob
Not an opera nor Tchaikovsky fan but that was amazing to think that the singer was 90 when he was filmed.
The one musician I am fond of who has just issued a recording at 90 is Argentinian bandoneon player Dino Saluzzi. I have a few of his discs in my collection and was tempted by his new CD. There has always been something reflective and ruminative about his music which inhabits a a musical language that owes much to world music, jazz and classical. I would have thought the a bandoneon would have presented a physical challenge.
I do not know much about Martha Argerich but I note that she has twice, bravely overcome cancer. Clearly she is someone to admire. She is supposed to have a great reputation for performing European repertoire but Wicki also mentions she had championed Ginastera who is also from Argentina , as is Dino Saluzzi. There is so much great music from South America which does tend to get overlooked. I have been listening to this tonight…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Wb_TM0HVo
This is absolutely incredible.
Cheers
Ian
Thank you, Ian. Thank you very much. It’s not my music. Not my pianism. But my goodness! She can play. And it’s great to be pointed at something which I wouldn’t usually listen to. I’m so slow and the central classical repertoire is so important to me emotionally, that I don’t very often listen to anything else. And many years ago Robert Philip encouraged me with the greatest kindness in my interest in classical interpreters of a much earlier age – not always seriously: I remember that he introduced me to the unique art of Florence Foster Jenkins – but I still feel that there is something different about certain great musicians whose imaginations were formed before the advent of modernism – in a spirit of faithful unromantic craftsmanship and perhaps in a rather magnificent counter-reformation to the Cäcilian reform in Roman Catholic church music. Meanwhile: I remember this little exchange: CHARLES GROVES: ‘It’s all very well for you but my orchestra can’t play that fast.’ MARTHA ARGERICH: ‘But what can I do, Charles? My problem is speed.’ Maybe it still is.
Rob
I agree about that performance. It is staggering.
I have to say that my interest in classical music worked in the opposite direction. My fist love is jazz and I worked backwards from Messiaen. It does help also being a birdwatcher!
I am pretty new to Ginastera myself but this is precisely the kind of classical music I love. It has so much energy , includes some nice melodies and is also dissonant enough to make the music interesting and a bit spicy. Some of his music has been re-worked by the Argentinian jazz arranger and composer Guillermo Klein who does not get the credit he deserves even amongst the jazz community. (It is a mixture of South American music, Steve Reich, Gil Evans and Charlie Haden’s Liberation orchestra for whom Carla Bley wrote the scores.) I would recommend his music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfrprQxPYfc
It is great that MA champions a composer like Ginastera who might otherwise get over-looked or seen as somewhat niche. Some of these obscure composers need a push from famous musicians to bring them to public attention. There is a lot of great music from places like Cuba and South America that deserves more attention and it is a refreshing change from the Germanic composers we get bombarded with or are told are part of a “canon.” Someone like Villa- Lobos is also rewarding and his chamber music is extremely original with duets for flute and cello, etc. I don’t know why it gets so side-lined and I wish concert hall promoters would programme neglected music often at concerts. I do think that listeners are up for hearing unfamiliar music these days as opposed to trotting out the usual favourites. I am no longer sure that programming the likes of Mozart or Beethoven piques people’s curiosity these days as audiences strike me as having a thirst for the unfamiliar. Music from South America should be better known and it’s exuberance would capture the imagination of those who are usually wary of 20th century composers.
I love exploring music and I have to give a big thumbs up when a pianist takes it upon themselves to champion a composer who should be receiving greater recognition. I am sure that Ginastera piece would knock may classical fans out with it’s shear brilliance if they were curious enough to check it out.
Ian: It’s great to have these exchanges with you. Mostly because we see everything from different angles. As I have it, people are losing touch with the values which enable us to hear that the greatest classical composers are on a plane of their own. As Phidias is or Shakespeare or Rembrandt or Du Fu. It’s very are for the historical conditions to come together under which the greatest art can come into being. I feel that the person who doesn’t see something rare and special in the Ardabil carpet is really missing something: https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-ardabil-carpet?srsltid=AU7gw4Wk3XLOS8r5vPn0gg0Hv49of6VL_Xgp–oc5eIze_ZlFGI2MNn0.
Rob
Good evening
I have been flicking through the MA clips on Youtube and have found her playing to be pretty amazing. Just listening to a live performance of Scarlatti K141 played at breakneck speed but I need to return to some of the other works by composers I love such as Chopin, Prokoviev, Bach , Debussy and Bartok. She also performs composers like Mozart, Beethoven ,Schumann and my “hero” Joseph Haydn who I am guessing are probably your bag. (Also interesting to read of her tackling populist composers the likes of Tchaikovsky and Grieg who are much too saccharine for my taste. Same for me with Rachmaninov who is also in her repertoire – I was once told you appreciate him more when you re-imagine him composing in 1860 and not 20th century! ) I want to listen to the Bartok piano concerto No. 3 which is probably the most “Romantic” of his works – I will search to see if she has performed the second concerto which is probably the apogee of piano concertos in my opinion,
I think it is great that she does not switch her ears off to composers outside of the Germanic canon. There are even clips of her playing Piazzola! The playing of her on Youtube is stupendous. She is practically bionic!
I am not so sure about your opinion of modern audiences. There is clearly a split in my imagination. The broader audiences are less demanding in most fields of music and not really engaged in the argument as to whether the music is any good. It has become simpler whether you are talking about much pop music these days, Einaudi, or Tord Gustavsen in jazz these days. All pretty worthless in my opinion. By contrast, I do feel that there is a core of listeners who are increasingly open to listen to more challenging music and open to works by female composers, avant garde jazz or 20th /21st century repertoire. (You just have to look at the success of someone like Caroline Shaw to see that listeners are demanding “new” works. ) Looking at the playlist, I am sure Martha Argerich would embrace this outlook and welcome “good music” that maybe does not fit cleanly within the classical repertoire. It is quite interesting to go through these Youtube clips as you come to the conclusion that MA finds merit in everything.
Wondered if you noticed that the Guillermo Klein clip included an arrangement of a piece of Messiaen?
Cheers
Ian