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Music Notes: What
About All Those “Wrong Notes?”
By
David Amos
This is a
somewhat negative article, not about the wrong notes we hear, but about the lack
of them, and the notes we do not hear.
Nowadays,
we hear virtual perfection from soloists and orchestras. That is what we expect.
Sometimes it’s as we are hearing a computer, flawless, no spontaneity, no
risks, just safe notes. So many artists on the concert stage will not take any
chances, but it is at the sacrifice of creativity.
It
was different in the past. Here are a few salient examples.
Among the most exciting recordings of a live performance is the one of pianist
Sviatoslav Richter playing Moussorgsky’s Pictures
at an Exhibition in Sofia, Bulgaria sometime in the 1950s. The dated
Columbia LP record is full of flaws. The microphone placement is questionable,
and the audience has a collective case of terminal coughing. And Richter misses
more notes than you could imagine.
Yet,
this is an electrifying performance. The energy level coming out of the piano is
indescribable, as is the virtuosity of the soloist. The communication is so
strong, the message of the music so vivid, that after a while you forget about
the pianistic clinkers, and you feel transported to a different dimension.
If you want to hear sloppy ensemble playing, listen to many of the recordings of
Wilhelm Furtwangler and the Berlin Philharmonic, in releases from the 1930s and
’40s. But that becomes unimportant. What you keep and remember from these
historical discs is music that sparkles, is alive and energetic. Furtwangler’s
interpretations were legendary, and once you go past the poor recording sound
and the less-than-perfect playing, the real quality becomes apparent.
Here
is another classic example. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “Artur
Schnabel (1882-1951), was a classical pianist who also composed and taught. He
was renowned for his seriousness as a musician, avoiding anything resembling
pure technical bravura. He was said to have tended to disregard his own
technical limitations in pursuit of his own musical ideals. However, Schnabel is
widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century,
whose vitality, profundity, and spiritual penetration in his playing of works by
Beethoven and Schubert in particular, have seldom, if ever been surpassed.”
Today,
we judge a performance and call it “faulty” if it has a few wrong notes. But
quite the opposite, if we do that, we are listening to the wrong things, and
missing the whole point of what music is all about.
There
are many wonderful and talented soloists in the world today. But in the past,
you could recognize the style of an emerging soloist by the teacher with whom he
or she studied. The individual personality was all there, but the stamp of the
master teacher or the school was clearly discernible. It had a pedigree. Today,
no matter where or with whom a young artist studied, they all tend to sound
alike, with a non-geographic, predictable similarity to other emerging talent.
It is no secret that musical competitions of the last 25 years or so are usually
won by the contestants who play the loudest and the fastest. None of the
subtleties and spontaneous imagination that make great music is to be found. And
judges, artists’ managers, booking agents and audiences on the whole, don’t
get it.
The best music being made today on a worldwide, world-class level is by
musicians who are willing to take chances. They play and create something
vibrant and fresh during the performance, not just “play it safe.”
No
wonder recitals and concerts, on the whole, are stale experiences that do not
communicate and leave so many listeners dissatisfied, sometimes not even knowing
why. And maybe this is a contributing factor to the ever-growing problem of
creating new, young audiences.
Many of us who are veteran concertgoers have become somewhat immune to the
cookie-cutter interpretations on stage today, and hear not what is on stage, but
what we want to hear. Younger, less seasoned listeners may actually be more
perceptive than many of us, and are somewhat unexcited by the concert
experience.
I have discussed this subject through the years with many people, in and out of
music, and more recently, with someone who has had a direct connection with some
of the greatest names in music of the 20th century, including
legendary artists.
By
learning from the past, music can strengthen its present and future.