Jon Nakamatsu, winner of the 1997 Van Cliburn piano competition, explains the importance of being a loser. Wise words!
Have you ever considered how it is that the key you press makes a hammer jump up and hit the strings of the piano? Turns out, it’s incredibly complicated! Here’s an inside look at what goes on inside of EVERY SINGLE KEY of the piano!
If you’d like to know more, click right here.
Franz Schubert’s incredible “Du bist die Ruh“.
The great Emil Gilels plays Alexander Siloti’s transcription (some might say arrangement) of Bach’s Prelude in E minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier. Gilels often played this as an encore.
Here is Carlos Kleiber leading the Vienna Philharmonic in the annual New Year’s Day concert at the Musikverein in 1992. While you’re at it, you might want to check out this recording of Beethoven by the same duo, which in my opinion is probably the greatest classical recording of all time.
Happy New Year from Bale Piano & Music Studio!
It’s easy to assume that printed music is more or less all the same – notes are notes and that’s that, right? In fact, there are countless decisions that go into making printed music, and those decisions can mean the difference between something that better helps us to learn and understand, and something that discourages and confuses us.
I myself never gave much thought to how my beloved music books came to be until I saw this incredible video a number of years ago. Little did I know the staggering amount of care and craftsmanship involved in making just a single page:
What a revelation! I should have known there was a reason why I always loved working out of Henle books, but I kind of always dreaded using Schirmer editions.
What makes the Henle editions so great are the clarity with which they present the music. Take for example the opening measures of Brahms Ballade for piano, Op. 10 No. 2.
First, the Schirmer edition:
and here is the same passage from the Henle edition:
The most striking difference is the visual fidelity in the Henle edition. Take a look at the sharp signs, the treble clef, the staff itself. Everything is just more ‘in focus’ in the Henle:
These might seem like trivial differences here on the screen, but any performer or student who studies these pages for hours on end will tell you that the difference is quite practical. These pages are simply easier to look at.
Even more importantly, notice the decisions made by the layout editor. The ‘espresso e dolce’ is placed above the staff, which removes clutter from the middle of the staff. The curve of the slur in the 3rd and 4th measures reflects the slur from measures 1 and 2. In the Schirmer edition, the curve is flatter, and it seems to ‘trap’ the notes underneath it. The extra width of measure 4 in the Henle helps to communicate the extra length of the dotted quarter figures. There is no left hand rest in the 4th measure. The list goes on..
Just about everything in the Henle edition seems less confined and more free. And it all comes down to little differences that keep adding up.
The attention to detail and clarity, the insistence on removing all unnecessary clutter is what sets the Henle editions apart. And the benefit is not purely visual.
By doing so, these editions help the printed music, ironically, to almost disappear. Printed music is not music, it’s a tool – it’s a means to an end. And like all good tools, it shouldn’t distract the person using it or call attention to itself – it should exist to serve and it should be intuitive. Good written and printed music doesn’t call attention to itself. Instead, it makes us forget that we’re reading music, and allows us to move one step closer to simply experiencing it.
Yesterday, I learned that JS Bach had a special seal that he used throughout his time in Leipzig, where he worked for the last 27 years of his life. In the picture above, you can see how the seal consists of his initials, “JSB” and a mirror image of the initials superimposed on one another. Above them is a crown.
Not much is known about the specific meaning of the seal, but it’s still easy to see that it is wonderfully appropriate for Bach. It’s mathematical, ornate, and ordered. Numbers and patterns are everywhere. Discrete elements are combined by mathematical means to make a new form, a new creation.
from the album Contre Courant, 1976
A taste of the sprawling, weird, ear-tickling prog rock coming from Quebec in the 70s. Check out those insane drums at 1:59!
The very first iPod was introduced 10 years ago today on October 23, 2001. Think about how your music listening world has changed since then. I know mine is drastically different: whole music collections on demand, shuffle, smart playlists, digital music stores. Time before seems so distant and prehistoric, and yet all this has happened in a mere 10 years!
Reminds me of The Beatles..