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When Is a Piano not a
piano?
I recently came across an
edition of Nocturnes by John Field whose preface
contained yet another repetition of the idea that many
of our most revered composers wrote music for the
piano that was not "pianistic," or well suited to the
piano, as opposed to music written for the piano that
would have been better suited to, say, the ukulele. In
this case, of course, the editor was saying it to
suggest that his hero, Mr. Field, who was a
contemporary of Beethoven, and a generation after
Mozart, may have indeed written the first truly
pianistic music ever, and that his is a major
achievement.
All gratitude to Mr. Field
aside (and some of his Nocturnes are quite beautiful,
by the way) I have for years found this kind of
statement annoying. It was made by a Doctor of Musical
Arts (like myself) but that doesn't keep it from being
a gross generalization, and in many ways, just plain
wrong. Besides, I fear that many of us, because our
time is taken up perfecting our skills in musical
execution, do not necessarily know what we are talking
about when it comes to matters of history or
analytical thinking, these matters being reserved for
persons in the theory and musicology departments!
Just what does it mean
when something is, or is not, pianistic?
I will suggest to you that
what one means when one says that something is
pianistic is that it is a piece written for the piano
in such a way that it sounds particularly as though it
was written with the strengths of that particular
instrument in mind, that the sound of the instrument
is an important part of the piece's message or nature,
and that it is difficult to imagine that the music in
question could sound as good if it were transferred to
some other group of instruments. Perhaps this is
self-evident.
This is never defined when
the statement is delivered--once someone uses the
term, the matter is settled. But it would be well to
reflect on the fact that the piano itself has
undergone quite a bit of change since its invention
about 300 years ago. The modern version is quite
different from the one that, for example, Mozart knew.
Or Schubert. Or Beethoven. Or even, to a certain
degree, Brahms.
This is going to muddy the
waters a bit, because, if we begin to ask just what
musical characteristics should be kept in mind if one
wishes to write something that is pianistic, we have
to consider just what exactly a piano can do well that
other instruments cannot, or at least what strengths
it has in common with other instruments, and some of
these characteristics are subject to change depending
on what time period we are discussing. Again, I
imagine that many who make this statement would rather
not bother themselves going into this kind of detail.
But these things would be worth investigating,
particularly if we would like to get composers like
Mozart or Beethoven cleared of the charges, or at
least have their transgressions bumped down to a
misdemeanor or two.
Usually, when one says
that a piece is not pianistic, one has in mind some
other medium in which the music would be better
suited. This is in contrast to music by Bach, whose
mid-century champions loved the idea that his music
transcends any mere instrument, that it is pure music,
and that any medium gets in the way of its exalted
genius. This is a very Platonic idea. Bach's Art of
Fugue does not seem to have been written with any
particular instrumentation in mind, which does seem to
support this abstraction, but the vast majority of
Bach's works are. True, he rarely gives his vocalists
a chance to breathe, as though he were writing for
instruments that did not have to, and he seems
comfortable assigning long lines of flowing
contrapuntal contraption to any combination of
instruments whatever, but history is full of
performers who like to complain that composers don't
know how to write for their instrument, which is often
code for "it's too difficult." History is also full of
succeeding generations of performers being able to
surmount those difficulties, which is probably what
Arnold Schoenberg had in mind when someone told him
that his violin concerto was so hard it would require
a six-fingered violinist. He replied "I can wait."
Aside from Bach, when
composers are assigned to the "did not know how to
write for the piano" bin at Recordmart (this is
supposed to be a made-up name for a retail outlet; if
there really is one, I'm sorry) it is because they are
supposed to be writing for orchestra. Beethoven
usually gets assigned to this category, as does
Brahms, and Schumann, although Schumann is often
charged with not really knowing how to write for
orchestra, either.
If you were German in the
19th century you wanted to write symphonies in
imitation of the great Beethoven. Under his pen the
40-minute orchestral statement gained quite a
reputation. And during the passionate outburst that
was Romanticism it was hard to imagine giving vent to
your artistic tirades with anything less than a full
orchestra. Composers still did, of course. Often as
training for the day when they could write symphonies.
Brahms wrote some early piano sonatas which Schumann
referred to as veiled symphonies, looking forward to
the day when he would write the real thing. Later he
did just that. At least six classical radio stations
in the United States are playing one of them right
now. Bet on it.
People seem to forget
that Beethoven,
Schumann and Brahms were all
pianists. Beethoven and Brahms were quite good at it,
in fact. They made their early reputations largely as
pianists. Obviously, if they wrote something for the
piano, it could be played on a piano. At least by
them. Still, they were more concerned with musical
substance than with showing off. Is it the lack of
virtuosity that makes these piece "unpianistic?" The
same impulse that once made a teacher tell his student
at a piano competition I was in that he shouldn't
bother himself with the Brahms first piano concerto
because it wasn't flashy enough?
The piano does have the
ability to support rapid passagework. Showers of notes
come easily to it. The 19th century (to grossly
generalize) often seems dedicating to trying this
grand idea out, in all possible permutations.
The piano is also
uniquely qualified for the playing of harmonies. None
but keyboard instruments are genuinely able to
reproduce several notes at once (there are some
interesting exceptions to this, such as double stops
on a violin, or sung harmonics on a French horn) which
means a piano can be made to play the same notes as an
entire group of instruments. Even a full orchestra can
in some measure be replicated on a piano. Does this
perhaps mean that whenever a piano is engaged in full,
thick chords, it is actually not being a piano, but
rather an imitation of an orchestra?
It often seems that way.
Brahms, who liked to compass such magisterial chords
in his early music, is often charged with not being
pianistic enough. And Beethoven, because he sometimes
favors such resonant moments over the aforementioned
running notes, is sometimes charged similarly, though
I can think of plenty of virtuoso passages in
Beethoven's piano music that not only require piano
technique to burn, they would also not sound very
effective rewritten for orchestra.
Pianos also come equipped
with sustaining pedals, which are great for keeping
full-bodied sounds ringing in the air while the
fingers are occupied elsewhere. Pedals can be used to
support these grand harmonies, or they can simply
allow a single melody line to sound more resonant.
Which is when we get to
the real truth. The great pianistic composers, I
have read over and over, are persons like Chopin,
and---well, Chopin. Actually, it's a very small crowd.
About 95% of our piano literature is regularly accused
of not being pianistic. Which is perfect if you
support a very narrow definition of pianistic. Debussy
I don't think is accused of it, so he's in. Maybe
Ravel gets to join the club. But other 20th century
composers--Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich,
Bartok, etc. are usually accused of treating the piano
as if it were a percussion instrument. Horrors! (It
is, by the way. Check a musical dictionary)
So what does the great
Chopin have to offer us by way of insight? Beautiful,
vocal melodies, supported by undulating
accompaniments. In addition to being able to hold
harmonies, and play them, the piano's sophisticated
touch-sensitive action allows a skilled pianist to
nuance melodic lines so that they melt into one
another instead of sounding merely attacked.
Paradoxically, an instrument whose sound is produced
by hitting strings with hammers can sound as if the
sounds were being released into the air on feathers.
This is an extraordinary property for an instrument to
have. Chopin's music highlights this feature.
I think we can let Mozart
into this category too. His music is usually
texturally thin enough.
Throughout the 19th and
20th centuries, people have been fascinated by the
piano's ability to sing. Piano teachers have imparted
this wisdom to their students: that the piano ought to
imitated the voice, which is, after all, the primal
instrument. I can say throughout the 20th
because I was often implored at lessons to make the
piano sing as well. Doubtless my students are
hearing the same thing from my lips.
Chopin's music, by the
way, is filled with another instrumental imitation. It
is the sound of the violin. Nicolo Paginnini, a violin
virtuoso like the world had never seen, had recently
lit up Paris with his demonic legerdemain, and
inspired both Chopin and Liszt (surely his
music is also pianistic, at least part of the time) to
do for the piano what he had done for the violin.
Sometimes they do it so well a passage sounds as if it
were perfectly suited to the violin. (listen to
Chopin's 2nd ballade in the rapid passages and you'll
know what I mean).
So how did a composer
whose music imitates voice and violin get to be the
most pianistic of our composers? Only on an instrument
which is capable of so many means of expression that
in order to speak of them all we have to compare them
to the traits of other instruments!
Isn't life funny that
way?
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