Most of all, I give myself plenty of time to get familiar with the composition, to “grow into” its concepts. The composition “congeals” under your fingers and in your heart; each phrase becomes yours, and the artistic expression, which emanates from the piece, becomes your expression. Artistic intuition also plays an important role, although it is difficult to determine why a particular idea for interpretation seems to be right. You just know. You feel it. Of course, this intuition is being fed by theoretical knowledge, including knowledge about the composer. But the starting point is in the notation. Also, there exists something that is not written down. I am talking here about that space between the notes, where you have more freedom. However, you always need to be aware of the notation, because if you treat this space too liberally, you can make an interpretative mistake and destroy something that should be left intact.
Polish pianist, Rafal Blechanz, in an interview with Bożena U. Zaremba, Chopin Society of Atlanta, http://www.chopinatlanta.org/interviews/RafalBlechacz.html, accessed 25 August 2020.
Rafal Blechacz on interpretation
by
Tags:
Featured Content
Borge on Borodin
"My favorite Russian composer is Borodin, mainly because he had the shortest name. Except for Cui, who was just showing off. […] Cui wrote an opera called A Feast in Time of Plague. Shows you what kind of guy HE was." (Victor Borge, My Favorite Intermissions, New York, 1971, p133)
Reincken on Bach’s playingThe famous organist Reincken heard Bach play. Bach improvised for half an hour on the hymn “By the Waters of Babylon”. Reincken said: “I thought such art was dead, but I see it still lives in you.” Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, p. 58.
A new take on the harpsichord soundHarpsichordist Jane Chapman performs both early music and Avante music, including using techniques to use distortion on the harpsichord! “Many early music people are interested in contemporary music, too, and many composers are also interested in early music instruments because they don’t have the baggage of the [classical and romantic periods]. Increasingly, younger generation composers […]
A “small” concerto“I don’t mind telling you that I have written a tiny, tiny pianoforte concerto with a tiny, tiny wisp of a scherzo. It is in B flat, and I have reason to fear I have worked this udder, which has always yielded good milk before, too often and too vigorously.” – Brahms on his Second […]
Difficult music is the easiest to playScriabin’s fiery D#-minor Etude, with its relentless triplets and huge leaps, used to just fall under my fingers, while the Lento final movement of the Copland Sonata was a minefield of wrong notes. Why is that? Is it just because we practice hard music 20 times as much as easy music, or is it psychological, […]
Musing by MoonlightTitle: Musing by Moonlight Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Duet Level: Piano I – level I (5 finger position, left and right hands) Product medium: PDF score & MP3 accompaniment track (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)
The weird people“Blessed are the weird people–poets, misfits, writers, mystics…painters & troubadours–for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.” — Jacob Nordby Jacob Nordby (2016) Blessed are the Wierd: A Manefesto for Creatives, Boise: Manifesto, Publishing House, p.8.
Tears in artIn art there are tears that do often lie too deep for thoughts. – Louis Kronenberger L. Kronenberger, Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life, Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1954, p. 42.
Richter on Bach“It does no harm to listen to Bach from time to time, even if only from a hygienic standpoint.” – Sviatoslav Richter, pianist Monsaingeon, Bruno (2001). Sviatoslav Richter: Notebooks and Conversations. Princeton University Press, p.196. Cited at: Wikipedia
Musicians’ response to violenceThis will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. — Leonard Bernstein, 25 November 1963 Christopher Buchenholz, “An Artist’s Response to Violence”, Leonard Bernard Office, https://leonardbernstein.com/about/humanitarian/an-artists-response-to-violence. Accessed 18 March 2022.