Pianissimo

Is it just me or can people not play a real pianissimo anymore?

Maybe they just don’t want to?

Despite currently living in that cultural wasteland known as Australia, I have seen many live performances, including some very famous pianists such as Kissin, Hough, Kovacevich and Perahia.

However, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone really play what I consider a true pianissimo; that heavenly whisper that takes your breath away.  

Maybe there is just a dichotomy between concert-hall and recording studio playing?

I know pianists are usually concerned with projection in the hall and I guess in Australia you can’t count on having good acoustics, but it is really annoying when you attend a performance and never hear the dynamics drop below mezzo-forte.

On record, I can think of many great pianissimo players; Horowitz, Hofmann, Ginzburg, Curzon just to name a few. In fact, most of this great pianissimo playing was live, which shows that at least back in the day pianists weren’t afraid of playing softly. Indeed, I’ve read quotes from people who said that Horowitz’s playing in the 1980s was the softest they’d ever heard. Compare this to today's crop of pianists, particularly younger pianists, from whom I can’t recall hearing any great pianissimo playing even on CD.

By contrast, I’ve heard many pianists play loud. These days, even slightly built young girls seem to be able to draw a big sound from the piano. I’ve even heard playing so loud I thought my ear drums would explode (Evgeny Ukhanov in Bach-Busoni Chaconne and Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition; it was really too much).

When I move to Europe in a few weeks I should have the opportunity to hear many more famous pianists in concert, probably in much better acoustics. Hopefully I’ll finally get to hear the pianissimo that I’ve been missing. If I still don't hear it, then I'll have to conclude that people either don't have the courage to play softly, or can't.

Sergio Fiorentino

In this post I will discuss the late, great, Italian pianist Sergio Fiorentino (1927-1998).

Along with Josef Hofmann, he is my absolute favourite pianist. If ever there was an artist after my own heart it was Fiorentino, more specifically the Fiorentino of the 90s after he restarted his international career. After some introductory preliminaries, I will discuss some of my favourite of Fiorentino’s early recordings.

Fiorentino never had the career his talent deserved; instead he devoted much of his live to teaching in his hometown of Napoli. This changed when his friend and supporter Ernst Lumpe arranged for him to appear in Germany, which lead to new recordings being released on APR and renewed international interest. Unfortunately, the second coming of Fiorentino’s career was curtailed by his sudden death in 1998. At that time he was playing as well as ever.

Since then Ernst has continued to preserve Fiorentino’s legacy, maintaining an online presence for Fiorentino and generously providing copious amounts of Fiorentino’s recordings to fans around the world for free. Unfortunately, Fiorentino’s recorded legacy has been tarnished somewhat by the ‘Hatto affair’ perpetrated by his erstwhile record producer William Barrington-Coupe. As such, all recordings released by Concert Artist under Fiorentino’s name after his death have to be treated with suspicion (fans will note the sad irony, given that Fiorentino had spent much of his recorded career as an incognito pianist, recorded as “Paul Procopolis” amongst others). Ernst Lumpe has been doing his best to verify the authenticity of these recordings, please visit his site for more details.

I was introduced to Fiorentino’s pianism through the recordings that Ernst had made available on MP3.com. I think this was around 2003-2004. Sadly I don’t seem to have any of these individually downloaded files anymore. However, I have a particularly vivid recollection of an altogether barnstorming finale of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata, which clocked in at 4 minutes + not much (without the repeat).

Later, I got in contact with Ernst, who sent me many CDs worth of Fiorentino’s studio and live recordings. I also bought all the Fiorentino CDs I could find. These recordings date from different periods in Fiorentino’s life and it is interesting to see how much his playing changed as he developed artistically. The primary criticism of the young Fiorentino was that he tended to be quite two-paced, alternating very fast and very slow tempi. To a certain extent I can understand this criticism, for example his early recordings of Schumann’s Carnaval suffers from this. Recording for small independent labels, Fiorentino didn’t have the luxury of time and copious editing; he usually recorded many works on the same day, basically “live”. For example, he recorded the entire Rachmaninoff Preludes on one day! Compare this to recordings made by the current generation of pianists, which are virtually assembled bar by bar! In fact, two things that are beyond reproach are the young Fiorentino’s technique and tone, which is amongst the most beautiful and singing I’ve heard (other contenders are Hofmann and Ginzburg). Indeed, despite his flaws, there are some absolutely incredible recordings amongst these early releases.

The greatest of these is his 1958 recording of the Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor, which unfortunately is only available on youtube in a poor transfer, but which I'll happily send in a good transfer to anyone who wants it. This version has no equal, to my ears, and believe me I’ve many, many versions of this piece. As expected his tone is gorgeous and singing, but beyond this it is his interpretation that makes this recording incomparable. I especially love the way he plays the hushed opening of the development; it is pure poetry, moreover the feeling is 100% genuine, there is no sickly sentimentality or false profundity that so often mars the cantabile playing of lesser pianists. Another high point is the first movement cadenza (which is one of my favourite moments in music). It’s funny because Fiorentino himself thought it come out a mess (I beg to disagree!); he hadn’t realised that it was to be recorded separately and had preferred the way he had played it when the rest of the movement was recorded. What I like the best about it is how he builds to the climax, the way he executes the accelerando and crescendo are perfect, there is no starting super slow then suddenly speeding up towards the end, instead it is expertly gradated poco a poco (as Schumann wanted).

Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor (warning, poor vinyl transfer, skips)

Another amazing recording of the young Fiorentino is his Liszt Transcendental Etude no 6, ‘Vision’. It’s actually a pretty unique interpretation but it works so much better than how pianists usually play this (much slower and a lot more pedantically). Fiorentino’s opening is on the brisk side and strictly no-nonsense. What I love in this recording is the way he builds the intensity towards the euphoric climaxes. At one point he does an incredible piano subito that just takes my breath away. To be honest this is the only version of this piece I want to listen to. It just goes to show how dependant Liszt’s music is on the interpreter; when Fiorentino plays this etude it sounds like a different music, I can really hear the ‘vision’ that Liszt was depicting!

Liszt Transcendental Etude no 6, Vision:

Another incredible Liszt recording is his Funerailles, his octaves might not match Horowitz (whose playing of this piece can only be described as a fiasco) but it is certainly much more controlled, musical and genuine in feeling. Fiorentino was never one to play to the gallery. Indeed, there are many moments of pure tenderness in Liszt’s poetic tribute to his fallen Hungarian comrades.

Liszt Funerailles

A final early recording that I love is his Bach Italian Concerto. I am rather sick of hearing this incredibly hackneyed piece but when I do listen to it, Fiorentino’s is the recording to which I constantly return. He makes this piece sound fresh again to my tired ears.

Well, that’s enough on the young Fiorentino, really I could write all day but I have a programme to prepare. I will write another instalment later, I hope you take the time to listen to his recordings. Frankly, if you consider yourself a classical music lover you’d really be missing out if you don’t.

Tchaikovsky – Evgeny Onegin

One day I will write a proper essay on Evgeny Onegin, maybe in the form of comparative study between the novel and the opera. But for right now I just want to jot down some spontaneous thoughts on what is, in my opinion, Tchaikovsky's greatest work as well as my favourite opera.

I am a fan of all things Russian; music, language, ballet and women. 

Evgeny Onegin is my favourite opera and also my favourite work by Tchaikovsky.

N.B. I refuse to refer to it as “Eugene Onegin” as English speakers often do, as, to quote my Russian piano teacher, “Eugene is not even close to Evgeny!”.

Even more that Boris Godunov, I think this is the greatest of all Russian opera.

I find it hard to articulate exactly why I love this work but I will attempt to do so.

Firstly I love the libretto, based on Pushkin’s novel in verse (which is my absolute favourite book).  The story is certainly one of the most captivating ones set to music (Carmen is another).

I empathise strongly with both Tatiana and the ill-fated Lensky.  Both are people in love for the first time, and idealise the objects of their affection. Tatiana projects all the heroes of her favourite novels into Onegin's image, while Lensky… actually I don’t know what Lensky sees in Olga, who doesn’t seem to offer much beyond a pretty face and lively personality. It’s heartbreaking that Lensky threw away his life for such a woman! I certainly would’ve fallen for Tatiana myself.

Tatiana's letter, sung by the wonderful Galina Pisarenko:

 

Tchaikovsky clearly recognised the emotional plight of the two figures and gave them the stand out arias from the work; the letter scene for Tatiana and the “куда куда вы удалились” (where have you gone…) soliloquy for Lensky. The former is full of hope and passion while the latter is wistful and longing, yet both make my heart break for the characters. By given these characters better music than of our eponymous hero, Tchaikovsky is tipping his hand a bit; it’s quite clear he doesn’t care for Onegin. Indeed, Tatiana’s husband, Prince Gremin is given a beautiful aria of his own, whereas he barely makes an appearance in Pushkin’s poem.

 Lensky's aria, sung by the incomparable Sergey Lemeshev (he really owns this role):

 

Musically, what impresses me the most is how well Tchaikovsky has set Pushkin’s text (which is often quoted in its original form).  At no point does it feel like “Aria”, now “Recitative”, now “Aria” etc. Rather each seems to progress naturally from one to the other in a continuous manner.

Tchaikovsky sometimes struggled with form in his works, but this tendency is not present in Evgeny Onegin. In fact he displays considerable skill in the way he organises and develops his thematic material. For example I think it’s a masterstroke to bring the “Letter scene” theme when the tables are turned and it is Onegin pleading his love to Tatiana.

I also like that vocally we have not just the typical Sopranos and Tenors but also a Bass-baritone (Onegin) and a Contralto (Olga) in major roles. I'm also a sucker for lyric voices.

Book Review: Endtroducing by Elliot Wilder

I'm not in a good headspace at the moment; my mind is a mess. I don't really know what's going on in my head and to organise my thoughts enough to write about it is beyond me. 

Instead, I present for your edification (or not) the following book review on Endtroducing by Elliot Wilder. This book comes from the 33 1/3 series on popular music, and is dedicated to the instrumental hip-hop artist, DJ Shadow and his debut album Endtroducing. I will start by stating outright that I found this book disappointing, however that might have been due to my expectations.

The album Endtroducing is one of my favourite records from the mid to late 1990s. My introduction to DJ Shadow (real name Josh Davis) was the extended overhaul version of “Organ Donor”. I loved this song from the first time I heard it and the scratch solo is still my favourite in all of hip-hop. Although this song was included in Pre-emptive Strike, I thought it was from Endtroducing and so bought that album instead. Needless to say I was disappointed to find that this “Organ Donor” was different from the one I knew. I don’t think that the rest of the album made that much of an impression on me at the time as the thirteen year old me was unable to grasp the album’s gravitas and was probably expecting something a little more mainstream. 

Organ Donor - Extended Overhaul

 

Thus, Endtroducing sat on my shelf gathering dust until I picked it up again some ten years later. By this time, I had matured to the point where I was more open about different kinds of music (for example, classical music had become my passion). This time, the record made a big impression. I could hear all these different influences which DJ Shadow had somehow managed to mix cohesively. For example, I was amazed at how he combined “Orion” by Metallica with vocal samples from hip-hop artists like Grandmaster Flash in “the Number song”.

The Number Song:

 

Needless to say I was very excited at the prospect of learning more about the album that made such a big (though belated) impression on me. I hoped that Wilder would provide a critical analysis of the album, attempt to contextualise it and explain its lasting legacy. I also hoped that we might learn why DJ Shadow chose to express himself solely through sampling, which had been a kind of an industry joke (not to mention a source of copyright controversy) until the release of Endtroducing proved that it was a legitimate art-form.

Unfortunately, although ostensibly about the album, this book is actually more about the man than the music. Wilder’s intention in writing the book seems to have been to give the reader an insight into Davis’s life. To this end he employs an interview technique to outline the DJ’s formative years and introduction to music as well as discuss Davis’s creative process. None of this is without interest, to be sure, however it just wasn’t what I was expecting.

The Intro

The book opens with a rather bizarre introduction where Wilder recounts his own life and various attempts to succeed in the music industry. This is followed by a tangential discussion of the Beatles’ White Album and an altogether baffling section on postmodernism.

Amazingly, I’m less interested in Mr Wilder’s life story and postmodernist musings than I am in DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing. As such I found the introduction to be almost entirely redundant.

However, at the very end the author does attempt to explain why the album resonated with audiences when first released, and why it continues to do so today.

In Wilder’s view, the album “loosens its moorings and sails off into an uncharted territory that seems to exist both in and out of time”. Despite his tendency to wax lyrical, I agreed with much of what Wilder said in this brief section, which is why I was disappointed that he chose not to expand further and make the album’s legacy the focus of his discussion.

Instead, the rest of the book is devoted to an extended interview with DJ Shadow, similar to one that one might find in any magazine, with little discussion of the album itself and no analysis of it whatsoever. As such people who were expecting an in-depth discussion of the album or its impact on instrumental hip-hop will be very disappointed.

The Interview format

I will preface my review of the interview with a short discussion of the merits of the interview technique as a tool for inquiry, and Wilder’s interview style.

In this case, we have an interview where the primary focus is the subject’s life. As such we are concerned with the facts and sequence of events which make up the individual’s experiences. To this end, an interviewer could pursue a structured or non-structured format. The former relies on questions formulated in advanced, while the latter typically allows more open-ended and follow up questions that allow the interviewer to probe deeper into the initial responses in order to gain more detailed answers. The problem with the first approach is that it can be too formal and not facilitate depth of discussion, while the second depends largely on the skill of the interviewer, who must have enough knowledge of the subject matter and mental agility to quickly adapt to unforseen responses. A problem with interviews generally is that the technique relies on the subject being willing to provide accurate and complete answers, which might still be coloured by the benefit of hindsight.

Wilder seems to adopt a semi-structured approach to the interview. There are a lot of obviously pre-prepared questions such as “Do you remember the first rap record you bought?” and “When did you get into buying older records?”. However, there are also plenty of open-ended and follow up questions which get Davis to open up further, for example the discussion of why he chose the name “DJ Shadow”. I think that the interview benefits from Wilder’s more flexible approach as he largely removed himself from it by asking short open questions that allow Davis to talk at length.

Indeed, the interview often seemed more like a monologue. In any case, Wilder had clearly established a good rapport with Davis, who felt comfortable enough to share intimate moments in his life, such as an anxiety attack he suffered while promoting the album.

However, an obvious problem with Wilder’s approach is that he only interviewed Josh Davis. Thus, we have no way to challenge the veracity of his account. If Wilder had interviewed other people involved in Davis’s career, such as Oras Washington, Dan the Automator or James Lavelle, this problem might have been mitigated. Another problem is that, since he is so passive, Wilder effectively allows Davis to control the discussion. This meant that Davis was free to talk about what he wanted and not bring up things he wasn’t comfortable discussing, even if they would have been useful and relevant to the reader.

At its core, an interview is really a guided conversation and Wilder should have done a better job at leading the discussion.

I think a better structure for the book would have been a critical discussion of the artist and the album. To this end, Wilder could have used interviews with DJ Shadow and others to supplement his own analysis. I realise that Wilder’s aim was to allow Davis to speak in his own words but I think that approach is overly safe, superficial and a little lazy.

The Interview

As previously mentioned, the interview is more of a life story than anything else but it is interesting to learn about Davis’s upbringing and introduction to music. For example, he starts by explaining how his dad had an eclectic taste in music and that his older brother was also a record collector. Given this musical environment it is unsurprising that Davis took an immediate interest in both a diverse range of music and collecting records. He also states that he started listening to the radio in order to find a musical genre that would be his own (to begin with it was disco). He seems to have been even more open-minded than the rest of his family who seemed to shun any music that was in any way “manufactured”.

Although Wilder doesn’t question him on it, it is clear that radio had a big impact on both Davis’s musical taste and his career. For example, he states that he initially gravitated towards serious rock stations, but growing bored of this, switched to a station that catered to hippies before changing its format to urban soul music. It seems obvious that listening to stations that played such a wide variety of music was a major influence on Davis’s music. Later on, local radio would give him the opportunity to play his own mixes, which effectively launched his career.

A major turning point in the conversation, once again initiated by Davis, is his introduction to hip-hop. This occurred when he first heard Grandmaster Flash’s “the Message” in 1982. To someone like me, whose introduction to rap music was 2pac, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg, it is difficult to really hear what makes “the Message” all that different from Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Paradise” or even Blondie’s “Rapture” to which Davis contrasted it. However, to Davis it really seems to have been a defining moment in his young life. From then on, hip-hop became his overriding passion. Importantly, the prominent use of sampling and record scratching inspired Davis to get his own turntables. This in turn led to him devoting all of his time and money to collecting the older, forgotten records that would form his musical building blocks.

Grandmaster Flash - The Message:

 

From there the conversation turns to people who helped Davis get his start as an artist. He explains how being a fan of a locally-produced hip-hop radio show led him to ask to sit in while it was being recorded. Eventually, he gave the DJ, Oras Washington, one his early mixes which Washington played on the show. This was Davis’s initiation into the music industry and Washington became both a mentor and role-model for the fourteen year old.

This part of the interview also highlights Davis’s obsessive interest in the production side of hip-hop music and how he was already comparing himself to professional DJs to see how he stacked up. For example, he once surprised Chuck D from Public Enemy by asking him specific technical questions about his track “Rebel without a Pause”.

As the conversation progressed we got to understand how Davis’s mixing technique came together given his inexperience, lack of money and the technological limitations of the time. For example, he mentions how he would loop beats without a sampler by manually cueing and recording beats on a four-track. In this way he was able to make crude beats upon which he might later layer a vocal scratch. Davis also points out how he went through an imitative stage where he wanted to make beats that sounded like those he heard on records. This process of imitation gave way to a desire to use material that others hadn’t, which became a hallmark of his later work and one of the reasons why his music sounds so distinctive.

The discussion continues to focus on how Davis’s career progressed, however I found this less interesting because it seemed to follow a typical path; airplay leads to increased opportunities which leads to more airplay and more opportunities. However, it takes a slight turn when Wilder asks Davis about why he chose the name DJ Shadow, with Davis explaining how he liked to remain in the background, compared to other producers who wished to be front and centre. This gives us a very valuable insight into Davis’s personality; he is not interested in celebrity or getting too much attention. This also explains his later difficulties in doing promotion work for Endtroducing.

The next major conversational turning point is when we finally get a discussion of the album itself.

By this time Davis had finished university and could finally devote himself fully to music. He had also acquired the Akai MPC sampler which he would use almost exclusive to put the album together. In Endtroducing, DJ Shadow was trying to create a different sound from what other people were doing, which required him to use different source material. So while others were using mainstream funk such as Sly Stone, Davis tried to find stuff that was more obscure. It’s interesting to me that Endtroducing is considered “instrumental hip-hop” because despite the break-beats used, it seems like more of an introspective chill-out album to me, which goes to show how meaningless taxonomy can be in describing music that reflects a broad range of inspirations.

At this point, Wilder misses a golden opportunity to question Davis more on the idea of sampling as an art-form. Obviously Davis didn’t want to discuss which samples he used for legal reasons but it would have been interesting to know his opinion on the legitimacy of sampled music and whether the looming spectre of copyright infringement has stifled his creativity in any way. I have read other interviews where Davis has discussed these issues so it’s disappointing that Wilder didn’t question him on it here. Indeed, given his rapport with Davis, he might have been able to get him to open up on the topic in a way other interviewers couldn’t.

On the other hand, Davis was quite willing to recall his psychological state at the time he was composing the album. It turns out that he was often in a depressed state and prone to anxiety attacks when things didn’t go well in the studio. His depression served as a source of inspiration and undoubtedly contributed to the bleak melancholic vibe of tracks like “What does your soul look like?”, “Stem/Long Stem” and “Midnight in a Perfect World”. For example he calls the first-mentioned his “depression masterpiece’’ and recalls that there was a version of “Stem” recorded with vocals so personal that he decided to issue an instrumental version instead. 

What does your soul look like? (part 4):

 

DJ Shadow seems to have gained strength through the creative process and it’s nice to know that something positive came out of his personal difficulties. Indeed, these are three of the best tracks on the album. “Stem” is a particular favourite of mine. Its ambient opening piano melody brings a sense of calmness that obscures the almost paranoid angst hidden just below the surface. Eventually this angst breaks through in the explosive, frenzied drumming section. Throughout the rest of the song the two contrasting themes vie for supremacy, with neither able to entirely supress the other. “What does your soul look like?” is uncompromisingly heavy and this is probably why Davis chose to include only two parts of it on the album, while “Midnight” is more atmospheric and quite soothing. 

Stem:

Unfortunately, after only a handful of song-specific questions, the discussion of the actual album ends shortly thereafter and the conversation shifts to promotional aspects which bring the interview to a close. This is disappointing as Wilder has barely scratched the surface of the alleged subject of his book.

Conclusion

Overall, I thought that the focus of the interview was wrong, with too much time spent on Davis’s upbringing and how he got started in music and not enough spent discussing the album itself. As such, Wilder has failed to do the album justice. A particularly glaring omission was his failure to contextualise the record. This seems to have been partly due to his reliance on the interview technique and Davis’s reticence to answer certain questions. In any case, even if Wilder was unwilling to push Davis out of his comfort zone, he really should have included his own contextual analysis of the album.

If I were to try to contextualise the album myself, I think one of the reasons why it made such a big impression in the UK is that the British were more open to electronic instrumental music, having been exposed to hip-hop, trip-hop, acid jazz and Jamaican dub music. Endtroducing was an eclectic mix of these styles and more, carefully blended together into something that not only sounded different, but worked. As a matter of fact, the virtuosic skill with which DJ Shadow selected and manipulated sampled material had never been seen before, which is something else that sets the record apart. It was also a deeply personal record that reflected its creator’s sometimes fragile and anxiety-ridden state of mind. To his credit, this was something that Wilder was able to expose through the course of the interview.

At the end of the day, while I was disappointed with the format and focus of the book, there were some positive aspects to it, and we did get to “peek behind the curtain”. This might not have given us new insight into Endtroducing, but it did show us how Josh Davis became DJ Shadow.

Reference:

 

Eliot Wilder, Endtroducing, (New York, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005.

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