A week ago Sunday I schlepped down to Sharon on an overcast afternoon for the latest BPAA soiree. We're experimenting with the format of the soirees these days, after the success of the December one at Robert's house (which he called "very enjoyable", which is positively gushing for him). This time we spent about an hour talking about the pre-selected topic of "making the piano sing", then another hour talking about a pre-selected work (the 1st movement of the Italian Concerto), then the recital part of the afternoon. I stayed for the whole thing, it was quite the marathon, but pretty worthwhile. I'd recently unearthed the lower numbered volumes of the International Library of Piano Music in the attic, one of which contains the Italian Concerto, so I brought it along and was one of a few people who played through it for demonstration purposes.



For the concert part of the afternoon, I'd brought along the Alcotts movement of the Concord Sonata, which I've been playing around with ever since hearing Stephen Drury play it at NEC last June. Eventually I'd like to work up the other movements to the point that they were in 1985, since I never got the opportunity to perform it then, but looking at it now I can't believe I actually had the first movement memorized once. I don't think I have enough brain cells left for that any more.



The rest of the recitalists were a mixed bag, including a couple of people I'd never seen before. One, who appeared to be somewhat autistic maybe, played the most disturbing rendition of a Mozart sonata I've ever heard. From memory and with the repeats, to boot. I felt like taking a shower after it was over. When I got home hours later I pulled out the music to play through it myself to hear what it's supposed to sound like, and I didn't recognize any of it. Another guy who was new to me played from memory the Chopin Polonaise Fantasie practically without ever taking his foot off the damper pedal. I understand wanting to overpedal to cover up shortcomings in one's technique, but this was so overdone it must've been on purpose. Although listening at the time was like having a root canal, it's still kind of interesting how it brought into focus how one's playing can be a manifestation of both personality and psyche.



Obviously some pretty scary inner demons are at work in both performers, and they've chosen to channel Mozart and Chopin through their own unique worldview as an outlet for self-expression (which is fine if it keeps the axe-murdering impulse at bay). The extent to which they both overdid whatever it was they were trying to do still gave an extreme example of imbuing a performance with your own personality, however disturbing it might be. You see that in the greats too with Gould and Horowitz, and lately I've been listening to Julius Katchen, who based on his playing should've been a pretty interesting guy. What's even more interesting is that the personality factor in one's playing can also be evident by the lack of involvement or emotion or whatever. Are boring pianists boring in real life? Not necessarily, but it shows how they feel about expressing themselves and their opinions about things, or their fears over what others think of their feelings or ideas. In other words, boring playing may be more a result of thinking that you're boring rather the fact that you truly are. The soirees have their musical aspirations, but they are also therapy for some, who profess to be able to play something note-perfect in the privacy of their own home but seize up in front of even the smallest of audiences, even with the music in front of them. As I've noted many times after playing for Chorale auditions, there are a lot of high-strung people out there. Other than mood-altering drugs, I don't know of any other cure for those kind of jitters than to keep doing it. But I'll make an exception for those who just lay on the pedal the whole time, or go through bizarre and sudden shifts in dynamics and tempo. They should stop.