How to play the piano

Letters

Vol. 14 No. 8 · 23 April 1992

From Imogen Cooper

Nicholas Spice (LRB, 26 March) gives an interesting account of the commercial development of the piano. He pinpoints two very real problems, often mentioned by my contemporaries and myself: that of over-repeated pieces in the ‘classical music canon’ inevitably running the risk of losing their meaning (I trust he means for audiences as well as for performers); and secondly, for concert pianists locked into the somewhat conventional trappings of the piano recital to have about them a whiff of the dinosaur. Although I myself have no intention of jettisoning the medium, these are nevertheless nagging and unresolved problems. But the essence of his article is of course about Gould and Brendel. I never heard Gould live, but his recordings have variously enthralled, provoked and repelled me in equal measure – likewise some of his views, at their best revelatory, at other times idiosyncratic to a degree. But why will Mr Spice not allow Brendel a measure of idiosyncrasy too? Brendel’s sense of humour in music is also not something I have always felt happy with, but it is totally outweighed by other unique qualities he possesses, none of which are mentioned by Mr Spice. In fact, he talks of Brendel the writer in cutting terms, and only mentions Brendel the performer briefly and then in even more cutting ones. Gould, who claims his real interest – and that is his prerogative – is portrayed far more completely, if hardly more objectively. This is not the place to quarrel with Mr Spice’s views on these two men, but I submit that an article comparing and contrasting them from such extreme positions of love and hate is effectively invalidated from the start.

Imogen Cooper
London N10

Vol. 14 No. 10 · 28 May 1992

From Nicholas Spice

Of the many objections that could be raised to my article about the history and institutions of piano-playing (LRB, 26 March), the least substantive, I should have thought, was that I treated Brendel and Gould unequally. This imbalance could only have deformed my article if, as Imogen Cooper believes (Letters, 23 April), I had set out to ‘compare and contrast’ Alfred Brendel and Glenn Gould. But my purpose was quite other than this: namely, to write a polemical panegyric on Glenn Gould, in which Alfred Brendel had only a subsidiary part to play. Had Brendel’s recent book not seemed to me to epitomise in certain respects an attitude to the institutions and practices of piano-playing that Glenn Gould’s life and work stood over and against, I wouldn’t have mentioned it or him.

Imogen Cooper says I was ‘cutting’ about Brendel the performer, but I cannot find the reference. Indeed, I was scrupulous to avoid expressing my views on Alfred Brendel’s piano-playing as opposed to his writing, because his playing doesn’t seem to me to be opposed to his writing. I certainly do not hate Brendel’s playing (as Imogen Cooper imputes), but neither do I think it contradicts the impression his writing gives that he is a pianist who conforms broadly to establishment practices. This judgment (of his playing) is, naturally, subjective, but then so are all judgments about musical performance, and if Imogen Cooper thinks they can be otherwise, I believe she is mistaken.

It’s possible, though, to be objective about Brendel’s attitudes to music and about his public position. In my article I was careful to let Brendel speak for himself on these matters. But if anyone needs further evidence of Brendel’s entrenchment within the musical establishment, they should turn to a profile of him published in the Sunday Times on the weekend following the publication of my own article.

There, Brendel is hailed as the ‘star of the piano’s Responsible Tendency’, and in at least one of his remarks he appears himself to endorse this title. On the subject, again, of Bach and the piano, he is reported as saying: ‘Bach has come back to the piano and not just through Glenn Gould, whom I do not consider a mainstream performer, but through people like Andras Schiff.’ This is not the first time that Brendel has tried to promote Schiff above Gould (in his essay ‘Bach and the Piano’ he does it by mentioning Schiff as though Gould had never existed). But what is really revealing about Brendel’s remark is his use of the word ‘mainstream’ as a term of approval. To me that says it all. Was Thelonious Monk valued because he was mainstream, or Bill Evans, or Billy Holliday? Was Fred Astaire loved for being mainstream? Is Gielgud mainstream? Picasso? Mahler? What is this word ‘mainstream’ doing in Alfred Brendel’s vocabulary?

While musicians of Brendel’s standing continue to speak and act in favour of the mainstream, the chances will be slight of a change in the way classical music is performed of the kind Imogen Cooper appears to agree is necessary.

Nicholas Spice
Sulzburg, Germany

From Emmy Misser

In the fall of 1981 Alfred Brendel gave a concert in Copenhagen. November is a damp month in Denmark, and there was a lot of coughing and sneezing in the audience. Suddenly, in the middle of a movement, Alfred Brendel stopped his performance, pierced the audience with a cold stare through his thick-lensed glasses and said with great composure: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I can hear you, but I doubt if you can hear me.’

A month later, Isaac Stern was performing in the same concert hall. The cold season was still raging, and the audience may have been even less attentive than at the Brendel concert because it was election night and everybody was anxious to know the results. However, instead of reacting like his colleague to us cold-infested Danes, Isaac Stern goodhumouredly announced the election results after the intermission. Now that the audience knew who was winning, he said, they could go back to sneezing and snoring again. Laughter rippled through the hall, and a tangible calm settled in. Ever since that evening I have been captivated by the warmth that Isaac Stern radiates when he plays the violin, and to this day I have carefully avoided colliding with Alfred Brendel. By my books he blew it.

Emmy Misser
Kitchener, Ontario

Vol. 14 No. 12 · 25 June 1992

From Alfred Brendel

Much as I hate to agree with Nicholas Spice on anything, there is one point where he nearly got it right (Letters, 28 May): the term ‘mainstream performer’ is not an integral part of my vocabulary. Using it in the context of my Sunday Times interview, my intention was to separate serious performers from eccentrics. If belonging to the mainstream of performance means that the performer should bring to life the composer’s intentions and make sense of the piece instead of obstructing it – as Glenn Gould almost continuously did – then I shall be glad to belong to that mainstream and deplore those who don’t.

Alfred Brendel
London NW3

From Norman Potter

It is good to see a thesis, tenable or otherwise, developed to such heavenly length, as we used to say of Schubert. In his article in the LRB of 26 March, Nicholas Spice puts his finger on the peculiar intensity of irritation that Alfred Brendel’s playing generate – in his detractors. On the other hand, it may be that we expect more of Brendel than he can possibly deliver. That could be a comment on the awfulness of so much surrounding him, or a back-handed tribute to the seriousness of his reputation and its uniqueness.

Glenn Gould, brilliantly gifted as he was within the rather narrow band of his own declared commitment, said silly things about Mozart and Beethoven because they were outside his range, and – arguably – his depth. That vital half-century from 1778 to 1828 was far too radical for him, and must surely have been a source of outrage, and exclusion, to his fiercely conservative nature. It is a bit much for Nicholas Spice to call this ‘a blind spot’. Yet having stalked out of the house and slammed the front door behind him, Gould could then slip in through the back to play Mozart sonatas marvellously – or he could before deciding to hot up the pace.

It is plain enough that Gould, truly a child of our time, belongs with the margin, while Brendel, devoutly an intellectual to his fingertips, is right in there with the text. Despite their differences, there is one damaging respect in which these pianists came tar too close, and far too often. Both make good masters but bad servants; standing in the way of the music. Brendel professorially, showing us how it should be done; Gould competitively, perhaps, or simply needing to be there on ideological grounds, eschewing concealment. This was never true of Edwin Fischer’s Bach, and supremely untrue of Schnabel’s Beethoven. It seems that Schnabel agreed with almost everything Mr Spice says about piano-playing, but turning to the present day and (say) Radu Lupu or Murray Perahia, it is hard to hear their Mozart as a by-product of virtuoso piano teaching, however well they did in competitions. Virtuoso pianism surely belongs with musical deadheads and acrobats, at quite another level of argument.

At the end of the day – of a century so threatened by premature darkness – there remains a sense in which Gould, one of our own, is indispensable to us, while Brendel is not. Brendel himself would probably admit to this, I think, if ruefully: he is not a vain man, and certainly no fool. Nicholas Spice is alert to this something in Gould, this consciousness-in-common, that marks him out so specially as friend and ally, but the puffed-up word ‘important’ diminishes him. Con-proof at least by intent, Gould does elude such grades-awarding. As to the concept of greatness, under erosion or attack from every quarter, perhaps this is better denied to pianists altogether.

Norman Potter
Le Bouchage, France