The View From Markson Pianos

Monday, 31 March 2014

#31 Joseph Fleetwood: Concert Pianist

Generally I'll start my practice session with a little warm-up, play some Bach, or something light, or something Romantic, just to get the blood going through the hands. Then I'll look up the repertoire I'm performing at that particular time and focus on the technical problems because, there's no point in playing the whole programme through if you can play most of it, but get stuck on bits. So, in the Liszt for example, there are a few scary moments in there and I just make sure they're secure, that I can play them without thinking of them technically, so that the technique just functions by itself. At the same time I'll be working on the sound and the interpretation, but once the technique is solid you can then open the door into what's next; how you phrase, how you interpret the piece ...

To solve technical problems what I do is break the music down into the smallest component parts. I studied with a teacher called George Donald, and he was a pupil of two great teachers; Karl Schnabel (the son of Artur Schnabel) and Aube Tzerko who was a pupil of Artur Schnabel and they both go into something they got from Leschetiszky, who got it from Czerny who possibly got it from Beethoven; to get the composer's view of how the music is constructed so you look at motifs.

So the motifs are like the words that make up the phrase. I'm talking about practising micro phrasing hands together; so split up the phrase into the smallest unit that makes musical sense on its own. That's called the motif, and it's the stringing of these motifs together that make up a phrase. If you practise that one motif until it's right, and then you go onto the next motif and then you can string the two together so that you're not taking a running jump at a huge difficult part. The smaller the unit, the better the practice. Obviously you can't just practise the single note as that doesn't make musical,or physical, sense.

The aim is that the motif becomes instinctive. So, play it very very slowly, and with a light, but firm touch. You'd play with the key all the way down, but lightly, so that the fingers really understand the movements that they have to make. When you practise it at a slow enough speed, the brain understands the movement that the fingers have to make. Of course, when you practise faster, a certain compromise has to be made, because when you play all these motifs into a phrase you don't necessarily want your audience to hear the separate parts to the phrase, but if you don't practise like that, sometimes you can hear this and the music can sound a bit frenetic and senseless. It might feel like you're doing the phrasing right, and the pedalling right, and everything else, and getting the tone right but that sense of rushing comes from not rushing on these individual motives.

Practising in these small chunks actually builds stamina because your concentration is focussed only for a very small time, so you're not having to maintain a long line of concentration all the way. When you perform, your brain is going through the motifs so you're not focussed on thinking “I have to maintain the long line” - yes - you do have to maintain it, but you can do it in such a way as to go between the places where you can rest. You will have practised the motif within context, you will have moulded the motif into the line and that increases the stamina of practice and because you're not going over the same passage . In fact it's easier to make sense of the "long line" (as in the romantic idea of the long line) by focusing on the motifs, because instead of trying to make the line out of notes, you're making it out of the motives. It's like the difference between trying to make sentences and paragraphs out of individual letters, or trying to make it out of words.

I wouldn't play it excessively until it's right because you end up killing your ear and numbing your brain, so I think play the motif 3 or 4 times, then go on to the next one then go back – and keep it fresh, keep everything fresh. I never sit down and open the book from beginning to end unless I'm practising the performance.

When I'm practising for a performance I do two things. When I'm playing it all the way through, I practise it very, very slowly with that kind of soft, but sure, touch. You have to be incisive but you can't bang. And that gives you the core sound. George used to tell me that Schnabel told him that the tone should sound like iron wrapped in a velvet glove, and that you should imagine even in your pianissimo that you are playing to somebody sitting at the back of a large concert hall, but never shout at them. And from that sound you can increase to your fortissimo or decrease to your pianissimo and then you practise certain things in different ways. Sometimes it's good to practise a fortissimo passage pianissimo because you can get into the habit of thundering out all these chords and you're not really hearing what you're doing at that volume, your ear gets confused. So if you take it down and listen to everything at low volume you don't get as tired actually, because it's actually quite a lot of work. Break it down tonally and again into the motifs. Playing everything through at half speed is a good test of memorisation.

I'm not a great advocate of memorisation. The fashion is already changing and pianists are returning to using the music in performance; the piano competition had made some pianists into performing monkeys. Of course, I'm not saying that ALL competition pianists are like that, and there are exceptional players rise out of the competitions, like Danil Trifonov or Federico Colli, but many who enter competitions are merely thinking about memorizing as many of the right notes as possible and churning them out. I'm not sure how healthy that is to be honest. I think it's more the fault of an individual competitor than a competition - after all, the competition organizers aren't controlling how these people play. That is down to the individual, right?

I'm from Dundee which is going through a renaissance at the moment. There's currently a twenty year campaign of building works to completely redevelop the waterfront.

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Joseph Fleetwood comes from an extraordinary musical lineage, having studied extensively with George Donald, a concert pianist in Scotland and a pupil of Karl Ulrich-Schnabel. Karl’s teacher was Artur Schnabel, a pupil of Leschetiszky, who had studied under Czerny. Czerny was a protégée of Ludwig van Beethoven. It is from this training that Joseph’s concept of tone production and preparation has been developed, and his playing is attracting international critical acclaim. His current CD of piano works by Edvard Grieg is available directly from him (visit his website for details). His next recordings will be of the complete Bach Partitas, and the Liszt B minor Sonata coupled with the Schubert Wanderer Fantasy, and John McLeod's Sonata No.1

Connect with Joseph
Website www.josephfleetwood.com/
Twitter @pianoteacher1
Facebook www.facebook.com/JosephLionelFleetwood

Come hear Joseph Fleetwood perform at the Markson Pianos Concert Series
St Mary Magdalene Church, Munster Square, London NW1
Wednesday 30th April 2014 7.00pm
Tickets £6.00 on the door or pre-booked (phone 0800 0748 980); £4.00 Concessions
Scarlatti Sonata In E minor
Scarlatti Sonata In C major
Scarlatti Sonata In D major
Mozart Sonata K.570
Liszt Sonata in B minor
Ginastera Tres Danzas Argentinas

Monday, 28 October 2013

#30 Mayda Narvey: Cellist, composer

Nadia Boulanger

Mayda Narvey

“Nadia Boulanger was born 1887 and lived to 1979 and was just a unique musical talent. She had a younger sister whom she revered. Nadia and Lili both studied composition and became composers, and they both tried to win the coveted Prix de Rome. Nadia became one of the few female winners of the 2nd Prix de Rome but her sister, at the age of 19, won the Premier Prix de Rome and as a result of that Nadia seemed to decide that she herself was not a composer. So she stopped composing and became primarily a teacher and also a performer of the organ and piano. It seemed almost as if she had a strange psychological block about herself and she just wanted to aid and abet other people's creativity.

Nadia had a way of nurturing. She had more than six hundred students and she had a huge interest in Americans and the situation in America where there hadn't been a traditional musical culture. Most musicians in America at that time had come from other places. She felt that the musical culture that evolved in America during her lifetime, and with her help, evolved from the music of African Americans.

She was not interested in imposing a stamp on the composers who studied with her. What she thought was the necessary thing was to learn how to listen and work out how to be able to recognise and write what a composer was hearing, so they absolutely understood music from the inside out, and then to evolve their own style. All her students have very individual, unique styles – including the really famous ones who include Copland, Barber, Bernstein, Carter – most well known American musicians went to Paris to study with her. She had a studio in the house she'd lived in since her teens and she had her Wednesday class there; it stayed like that for her whole life.

I've known about Nadia Boulanger since I was a little girl because my first teacher, Peggie Sampson, had studied with her (and also with Casals). Peggie was originally from Edinburgh, she died in the '90's. She was quite well known in Canada - where I'm from - because she was at the forefront of the Canadian Baroque movement playing viola da Gamba. In my lessons Peggie offered me a huge repertoire which she'd developed through her association with Boulanger; a lot of short pieces and show pieces of 20th Century music that were quite new then, not so quite well known now, including Hindemith who Boulanger rated highly. I also remember that Peggie was very familiar with Imogen Holst.

I was visiting my sister who runs a large music school in the States and saw on her desk a book that was transcript of “Mademoiselle” – a documentary about Boulanger I'd seen years before. I pounced on it saying “This is mine now!”. I realised it would be amazing to create a concert programme triggered by the transcript and that's exactly what I did. And that's why we have an actress working with us – to read from the book. I sourced various compositions; by Nadia, her sister Lili, her teacher Fauré and three of her students - Copland, Barber and Bernstein and also her good friend, Stravinsky. I am a composer too, so I composed for the project; the poet Paul Valéry was a close friend of Nadia's and I wanted to include him so I wrote a song setting his text.

It was easy to source Nadia's and Lili's works, they are in the general domain. We've been rehearsing at my place and spending hours on this project because we love playing together.

I've been working with the singer Sarah Cluderay for around six years; I love her voice...her ethereal voice. Our pianist is Selah Pérez-Villar from the Canary Islands who is a wonderful, passionate pianist. Our actress is Sally Mortemore; she was in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

We are ending with an amazing tribute of Leonard Bernstein about his meeting with Nadia on her deathbed when she says she's hearing music without beginning and end, followed by a beautiful song by Barber which many people know - Sure on this Shining Night - which you could say is about healing, because even though we know Nadia is gone, she still exists for us in our minds.” (Mayda Narvey)

Hear Mayda's ensemble "Ismena" perform October 30th at 7pm in the Markson Pianos Concert Series
St Mary Magdalene Parish Church, Munster Square, London NW1 3PT
An evening celebrating Nadia Boulanger's Life, Art, and Teaching. Soprano, Cello, and Piano. Ismena Collective are Sara Cluderay - soprano, Mayda Narvey - cello,and Naomi Edemariam - piano. An evening of music composed by the illustrious students of the great 20th century Parisian teacher of composition, including Barber, Berkeley and Bernstein, readings and reflections on Boulanger’s life, art and teaching

Connect with Mayda Narvey

Mayda Narvey was born in Canada where she was taught by Peggie Sampson, a student of both Pablo Casals and Nadia Boulanger. Narvey went on to study with Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi and Janos Starker, and was teaching assistant to Bernard Greenhouse of the Beaux Arts Trio at the University of New York where she received a Master of Music degree. Having played for some years with the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada, performing often in a solo and chamber capacity for the CBC (national radio) she moved to London where she teaches cello, string quartets and some music history classes at the City Lit and in the City. She writes/arranges for and plays with the Ismena Collective who perform 'Sunday Cabaret' in the West End and performs solo and chamber music recitals both in venues across London and beyond. She also runs a recital series at St Philip's in Earl's Court. Her piece 'Traue' for small ensemble and vocalists was recently performed by the Sweelinck Ensemble in the City of London and her chamber opera, Antigone is to be workshopped in the spring. Narvey is the cellist on Coloured Clutter by the young British band, the Savage Nomads, who have been called the “saviours of contemporary music.”

Thursday, 5 September 2013

#29 John Kenneth Adams: Concert Pianist and Teacher

“I’ve taught a huge number of private students from aged 7 up to college age from lower level up to concert level. As they approach college age I always told them there were two routes. First, they could try for the biggest names, i.e. Julliard, Curtis, Eastman, and spend a huge amount of money along the way. Or, they could come here to USC, save a huge amount of money and then on graduation apply to a top graduate degree program like those named above. USC has been hugely successful with this approach to recruiting big talents.

When students go directly from your studio to a top flight school, the minute they hit that level the name of the teacher who got them there in the first place seems to disappear in favour of a bigger name. So for example, when they have a concert and name their teachers – they will only put the bigger name and never recognise the teacher who worked with them in their formative years. So I have a bone about that and I’ve sometimes made a pertinent comment! I’ve found it has improved in recent years, in some students, in their maturity have looked back. I’ve heard from students now in their 50’s and 60’s and they’ve started to pour our these very emotional stories about what I meant to them and how I made them realise all these things about themselves and how I opened up a whole world of music for them – all this family stuff, “my father was very opposed to me doing this, and “I was suffering from all this emotionally”…etc. Of course I’ve found this enormously gratifying!

I grew up in the South, in Birmingham Alabama, in the 1930’s and ‘40’s - it was like South Africa, we had complete segregation. I played by ear until I was 11, it was perfectly usual just to be able to play. My first teacher was Elizabeth Allen. She pulled me up to quite a high level in just two years. She had been trained by the same teacher (a composer herself) who had developed the composer William Gillock. I was already in the line of some high level, serious pedagogy.

We moved home and my second teacher was responsible for bringing one of Clara Schumann’s last students, Carl Friedberg, all the way from Julliard to Kansas City. His comments to me when I was seventeen were just riveting. No one had told me I had a special gift and could go far. He asked me to go to New York to work with him but my father had a fit and said no way. Over the next years I had lessons with him when he visited Kansas – he was the first great influence on my life.” (John Kenneth Adams, July 2013)

About John: American pianist John Kenneth Adams has travelled the globe presenting recitals, “Piano Portraits”, master classes and lecture-recitals to audiences in 22 countries. He has successfully blended a wide choice of repertoire with his unique ability to speak about music in terms that bring audiences closer to the music. Long known for his powerful performances of French repertoire, including the complete piano music of Claude Debussy, he has also made a strong reputation as an exponent of major works of Schubert, Schumann and Brahms.

Read more at John's blog http://johnkennethadams.blogspot.co.uk/

Hear John Kenneth Adams perform during Markson Pianos Concert Series September 2014

Wednesday, 17 July 2013

#28 David Nelson; Pianist and Artistic Director of Hebden Bridge Piano Festival

Tony Cornwall on the terrace

Our first festival took place this year in April and it was fantastic. Financially we did far better than we thought we would and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We were trying out a brand new venue in the town which was taking a pretty major risk, but it came off well in the end. We hired in three pianos including an upright on a frame that we could move around. When it was outside some incredible pianists performed on it ad hoc; it was so loud that it could be heard across the valley, across the town and up the hill. The tickets sales went through the roof after that!

I come from both a “posh” and “community” music background so I wanted to do things in this festival for everyone. We organised events for kids, for young families, had jazz, blues, world music, boogie-woogie in the bar and fantastic classical concerts in the two halls- pretty much wall-to-wall music from Friday night to Sunday night. Next year, in addition to the kind of events we programmed for the 2013 festival, we'll be having masterclasses given by some of our principal artists.

I was the Musical Director of the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival for sixteen years, and ran a Piano Weekend as part of that – a festival within a festival. When the Arts Festival truncated from a fortnight to a week it would have been impossible to carry on the Piano Weekend within it. So, we found the venue and sponsorship to branch out on our own.

We live in an amazing town where, including all the people on the hills, there's only around 8,000 of us living here. We have a blues festival, an acoustic music festival, a burlesque festival, the main arts festival – and there's many venues as well. This town is full of artists – just this weekend we had a studio show featuring 80 studios of working artists in town – that's an extraordinary number of studios! So there's a lot of active artists who are willing to come to our festival but also there's a can-do, we-can-make-this-happen attitude around this town, because we all know each other. There's a really good sense of community here.

The 2014 Hebden Bridge Piano Festival will take place between Friday 11th and Sunday 13th April and will feature such internationally renowned pianists as Kathryn Stott, Charles Owen, Paul Roberts, Noriko Ogawa and Zoe Rahman.

More information at www.hebdenbridgepianofestival.com
To contact the festival: hbpianofest@gmail.com
To contact Dave: dave@piano40.co.uk

Tuesday, 25 June 2013

#27 Emilie Capulet: Concert pianist

"Water has always inspired composers and artists – it has texture and colour, it’s prismatic and vibrant, it catches the light and yet it can obscure the sun. Mist and fog create a sense of mystery and strangeness. For my recital on the 26th of June in the Markson’s Pianos Bösendorfer Series, I have chosen pieces that are all inspired by water: Tchaikovsky’s Barcarolle, Chopin’s Second Ballade, Ravel’s Jeux d’Eau, Debussy’s Sunken Cathedral and Gardens in the Rain and Ohana’s Quintes. Very often, in my concerts, I like to have a theme or a leading thread which links the pieces. I like to play music which tells a bit of a story. As part of the performance, I usually talk about the music and give the sources of inspiration of the composers. That really makes the music come alive.

I don't think that music can be totally detached from its artistic and aesthetic context. It's true that Stravinsky said that music is powerless to express anything and therefore does not have any meaning outside itself, but in my view, I feel that music does have strong connections to the real world, to emotions, to landscapes and to art in general. The repertoire which I will be playing at the concert, from the 19th and early 20th centuries, was composed at a time when the musicians frequented the famous “salons” where artists from different backgrounds used to meet. Composers would constantly be talking with poets, writers, painters, sculptors, dancers, etc. Musicians used to go out a lot, to the opera, to the theatre and ballet. Music was not composed in the abstract, and I like making connections between what we hear and the context in which it was composed – but in an imaginative way. It's all about art being suggestive, it's not about imposing a specific view of the work, it's about making the whole musical experience of the concert even more poetic and expressive, by showing how the music starts from something real but then moves into the realm of the inexpressible. As Debussy once said, music is made for the inexpressible but at the same time, he gives us suggestions for titles, between brackets, at the end of each of his Preludes. The Sunken Cathedral is both the story of this majestic cathedral rising out from the depth of the ocean, and yet it is also about the abstract musical relations, textures and colours which are often far from being painting in sound but are the embodiment of abstract correspondances, to be enjoyed for themselves.

How do I create this sense of poetry and music in recitals? Well, the visual is always very strong in our lives. As soon as we are shown a projected image, that image dominates our imagination, often to the exclusion of all else. So, for example, in a multimedia concert with projections of paintings, the projections can, in a way, overwhelm the music. In my concerts, I like to include poetry and story-telling, and even little anecdotes about the composers, and I do make references to famous paintings, like Monet’s Waterlilies, but it is sometimes better if people can conjure them up in their minds, rather than have them in front of their eyes. Of course, if one is performing in an art gallery, with the original works on display, the atmosphere is very different.

I think it's very special if the person who is playing the music, who is interpreting it at the piano, is also sharing their creative process in words as well as in music, sharing their sense of communion with the composers and their sources of inspiration. To take an example, Ravel was fascinated by the vision of the fountains of Versailles, captured in poetry by one of his friends, the symbolist poet Henri de Régnier. The poem speaks of statues that seem to come alive and start frolicking in the water gardens of Versailles and Ravel particularly liked the reference to the River God, who“laughs as the water tickles him”. From that one line, Ravel wrote a whole composition full of light, full of colour, full of movement and full of humour.

All this just gives you that tiny spark, opening a window into the imagination of the composer, and then the music seems to acquire that many more shades of meaning." (Emilie Capulet June 2013)

Hear Emilie Capulet Wednesday June 26th at 7pm at Markson Music & Wine Evening
St Mary Magdalene Parish Church, Munster Square, London NW1
Tickets £6.00 on the door or pre-booked ; £3.00 Concessions

http://marksonpianos.com/concerts

Monday, 22 April 2013

#26 Emma Hutchinson, Composer, Musician, Music School and Music Venue Founder & Director

"I was given piano lessons because my brother didn't practice. This led to my life long love with the piano, and a fascination with playing all types of instruments. I was given a full grant to Chethams school until I was 19. I defected from music for a while, by studying dance and theatre at Dartington College of Arts. Music kept following me about including a spell of teaching in Hong Kong. With theatre performance and dancing experience also under my belt, I returned to music study, taking a piano diploma at Trinity College of Music.

Alongside piano teaching I became interested in early childhood music, developing my teaching work in nursery groups alongside my private piano teaching work. Having a motorbike was the only way I could get anywhere quickly in London, and to maximise the volume of work that was building up. This inevitably led to my dream of having a music house full of children learning different instruments, with me living at the top! The Music House for Children was founded in 1994 as a not for profit music school to provide children in homes, nursery schools with musical learning, performance and training for teachers. At this point I did not have a real building.

In 2001 together with my husband, Charlie Raworth, we purchased an old snooker club. This is now Bush Hall in West London, a beautiful Edwardian concert hall hosting international and national artists concerts, showcases and private events. Our Boston Steinway grand serves as an apt and very lovely piano for visiting artists, although my dream would be to adopt a Bosendorfer, as the acoustics are so resonant in Bush Hall.

The Music House for Children’s new home became the next-door building to the hall to give children who could not afford instrumental tuition the same opportunities as those having private home tuition. In addition I was able to provide training to early years and instrumental teachers on site, as well as music workshops, holiday activities and specialist music classes.

I have over 60 instrumental tutors, and early childhood music specialists working with me, in homes, schools and in nursery groups. We are unique as a school in that we provide early childhood music for families, newborn babies and toddlers, instrumental learning and performance opportunities each year, all under two roofs. We are in the process of creating a new restaurant called Bush Hall Dining Rooms to provide delicious food for families, artists, audiences and musicians enjoying musical experiences at Bush Hall and The Music House for Children. This will open this May (www.bushhalldining.co.uk)

As a baby the multi-sensory embedded musical experiences provides them with an instinctive understanding of music when they later come to learn an instrument. Every child is invited to perform at Bush Hall each year to reflect achievement, parents’ ability to see progress, and build on confidence and social engagement with other young musicians. My interest in the benefits of early musical engagement led me to taking an MA in early childhood music (at Birmingham City University), due to be completed this July.

Termly training for all our music teachers provides fresh, updated and inquisitive ways to continue with their work in music teaching. With very young children using their instruments to draw out musical responses and curiosity is compulsory! We also provide training in early childhood music teaching throughout the UK.

My enduring love of the piano has continued to provide inspiration for composing music for babies and young children (check out Little Birdsong – www.littlebirdsong.co.uk). The books have just been taken on by an American publishing house, and due for re-launch this summer. Our insistence for high quality music provision is reflected too, in our commissioning an instrument maker. We now provide and sell early childhood instruments reflecting a range of tactile shapes, sounds, and are of high quality, and extremely durable (www.littlebirdsong/resources/treasurebasket)

I am still very much in tune with my piano playing, having recently performed at Robert Lockhart (late composer and pianist)’s memorial service, playing one of his early pieces. I also performed at Sark island to a private party. In my spare time I play the trumpet (my other favourite instrument) at celebrations and weddings.

I play a range of instruments including French Horn, Guitar, fife, whistles, violin, melodica, ukulele. These all emerge during my teaching work with babies and young children since live music is an integral and inextricable glue to a child and parent’s musical experiences. My other message in this habit of multiple instrumental playing, is to encourage others to pick up their instrument and to enjoy playing whenever they can.

The Music House for Children is currently going through major refurbishment. We are still waiting on hopeful funding and/or sponsorship to enable extension of the former ground floor studio into a more modern, ground floor space to enable more group music provision, with a particular emphasis on children with special needs.

As our twentieth anniversary approaches next January, we look forward to celebrating continuing diversity and opportunity for children and families in musical learning, not least, supporting music teachers and our musicians of the future." (Emma Hutchinson)

Connect with Emma

www.musichouseforchildren.co.uk/

www.littlebirdsong.co.uk

www.bushhallmusic.co.uk

www.bushhalldining.co.uk/