… if written down, it would appear as a well-thought-out work.

It has always been known that the greatest pianoforte players were also the greatest composers; but how did they play? Not like the pianists of today, who prance up and down the keyboard with passages which they have practiced—putsch, putsch, putsch;—what does that mean? Nothing! When true pianoforte virtuosi played it was always something homogeneous, an entity; if written down, it would appear as a well-thought-out work. That is pianoforte playing; the other thing is nothing. (Ludwig van Beethoven, as recalled by Wenzel Tomaschek – see the footnote)

Recently, I subscribed to the journal “International Piano.” having learned to my dismay that the old “Piano Quarterly” which I read for years is defunct.

In the current issue (pages 16-17), one of the columnists discusses a recent list of the “twenty-five greatest pianists” of all time, prepared by a UK classical music station. The columnist points out that such lists are always highly subjective, no more than “light entertainment.” He complains that the list includes pianists who died before the age of recordings, about whom we can go only on hearsay – Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Clara Schumann. Then he claims that none of these could stand up against the current generation of virtuosi. “Beethoven would have made the Top 25 in 1800. But in 1900—let alone 2016? No way. Even Liszt, acknowledged as the greatest pianist of the nineteenth century by most of his peers, would struggle against the talents of today.”

I don’t think so.

Not in the terms described by Beethoven. I would much rather hear him play – wrong notes, broken strings and hammers, deafness and all – than any of the modern players, “prancing up and down the keyboard” with their carefully manicured repertoire. “From the heart—may it return to the heart,” Beethoven said of the Missa Solemnis, and there is no doubt that this characterized all of his playing. Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann – it was the same with them.

But that is beside my point.

“… it was always something homogeneous, an entity; if written down it would appear as a well-thought-out work. That is pianoforte playing; the other thing is nothing.”

A “well-thought-out work.” That is how I want to play. That is why the constant struggle to improvise inside of a form rather than just “noodling” is so important.

At the suggestion of a friend, I listened to some recordings by a well-known New Age pianist (whom I will not here name). He succeeded in what I think was his aim – music that is intentionally bland. All mezzo-forte so that it can serve as background at home or in the workplace – no pianos that would disappear behind background noise, no fortes that would draw attention to themselves. The typical piece is (to my way of thinking) a mere fragment – two or perhaps three chords carefully chosen so as to never resolve in a cadence, in a simple and repeated left-hand figuration, with bits of melody and a few gentle jazz riffs in the right hand. To put it in the best light, it is relaxing, so long as one does not listen too closely.

That is what I want to avoid.

A convoluted path led me to the work of Mike Garson, a pianist who is best known for his work with the rock musician David Bowie, plus the bands “Nine Inch Nails” and “Smashing Pumpkins.” Not music to which I have until now paid any attention – I knew the name “David Bowie” (may he rest in peace) but had never listened to so much as one of his songs until the other day. For an example of Garson’s work in this context, I would recommend the song “Aladdin Sane.” Garson has a classical piano background, plus a lot of experience in jazz. And he has sought to find his own way of playing. It is a far cry from the New Age pianist who carefully stays in the background.

I can learn from this man. A good introduction to Garson’s way of thinking, which is highly spiritual in its ethos, can be found in this interview. His work is so different from anything I have done as to be extremely valuable for me. Thus, I shelled out $50 for his video “master class.” I am not very far into it as yet, but there are many ideas here. He describes his “Now Music” (his term for solo improvisation), and his beginning with it – a discipline of improvising little “etudes” – at first, just fifteen seconds or so, working at a specific figuration or other musical element. He says that he did more than three thousand of these.

That is a terrific idea for someone who wants to learn to improvise; it is not far from Gerre Hancock’s suggestion to harmonize scales in many different musical styles – those too are a form of little “etude,” or “study.”

But that begs the question: what direction should I go? I have been reading about Beethoven; I could extract interesting bits from his sonatas and make them into etudes, with the goal of making these things my own. Or Chopin – another of Garson’s projects as he developed his “Now Music” was to improvise a Nocturne in every key. Or I could go back to Fux and the Gradus ad Parnassum – this is how to deal with the Gradus as an improviser, and perhaps the key to it I have been seeking – improvise a little phrase in species counterpoint, play it back and check for parallel fifths and other violations, try it again. I never made it past two-part counterpoint; what would happen if I ventured into three-part and beyond?

I cannot do all of these things, and the direction I choose will change the manner in which I will play. For now, I will continue with the Garson masterclass, and my work Sunday by Sunday. That is the context which must guide my work; though I can learn from Garson, I cannot play like him because I must begin the Gathering of the Holy Eucharist. My music must remain linked to the tunes that will be used in the service, and it cannot be so “in your face” as to draw undue attention to itself. But neither can it be bland background music which would imply that what is to follow is without significance.

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Footnote: The Beethoven quote is from the biography “Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph” by Jan Swafford, pg. 644. Swafford adds: “What Beethoven was talking about was not playing from score but rather improvisation. [Carl] Czerny noted that Beethoven’s more formal improvisations sounded like a published piece, just as Beethoven here said they should.” Swafford also adds in an endnote (p. 1026) that Tomaschek wrote his recollection many years after his visit to Beethoven, so it might have been distorted by time and memory.

I have been reading the Beethoven biography for several months. It has made me like Beethoven considerably less. But (and I think this is part of Swafford’s point) it is all the more amazing that his music could come into being when his mundane life was such a shambles.

Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Küß der ganzen Welt!