Classical Music for Aficionados

Merry Christmas to all!

On the subject of practicing:

No question that disciplined practicing elevates one’s playing no matter what stage of one’s development as a musician is at. It is a life (career) long pursuit. To a great artist, there really is no such thing as perfection and while we may attribute perfection to favorite artists, they themselves would be the first to recognize (if not necessarily point out) the imperfections in their own playing. This attitude is really the only path to true greatness.

Having said all that, there are different ways to “practice”. To a certain extent it is a very personal matter and what it takes some players four hours to achieve, someone else might be able to accomplish in one. A very busy artist is concertizing all the time and that half hour of “warm up” in a dressing room before a performance may be all he gets given the very busy schedule. Performance itself helps keep the playing in shape. Developing a personal and extremely efficient practice routine is key. Personal in that it considers the player’s personality and any physical idiosyncrasies or limitations; they all have them to one degree or another.

Some players need and strive for 110% consistency of a particular technical goal during practice. For instance, if there is a particularly brutal fast technical passage in a musical work some strive for accuracy at an even faster tempo with the knowledge that at performance there will most likely be some reduction in the level of accuracy. Conversely, another player may feel that this approach is over practicing and they enjoy the controlled tension that results from aiming for something new during performance as a means of achieving a musical goal for that performance.  Regardless, no player becomes the kind of artist considered here without having practiced a tremendous amount of time at various points in their careers. Of course, in the case of the great artists discussed here this all happens at an extremely high and exalted level with the goal of personal artistic expression; always a reflection of personality. A couple of favorite quotes on the topic:

- ”If you sound great practicing, you are practicing the wrong things”

- “If I don’t practice for one day, my fingers know it. If I don’t practice for two days, my friends know it. If I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it. On the fourth day, the critics hear about it” - Ignacy Paderewski (sometimes attributed to Heifetz, or Louis Armstrong)

All artist practice...

But sometimes some are different because all men are not equal...

An anecdote:

The great mathematician, Alexander Grothendieck, for many the greatest of the 20th century, NEVER bough a mathematical book and almost NEVER study save by himself.. Rediscovering unknown to him modern integration theory by himself...

A journalist interviewing him at his home seeing no books at all about mathematics

"where are they ?" The mathematician Alexander Gronthendieck answered smiling i wrote them i dont have time and the need to read none of them....He left perhaps 60 thousands page of mathematical works even today all is not even published...

At sixteen years old coming from concentration camp he go to the Bourbaki group, the more advanced mathematical group in the world and say i wanted to be useful... These man all great mathematician, some being the greatest in the world like Andre Weil smiling gave him 100 hundred important problems and said to him come in one year if your able to solve one or two... He solve them all in few months and created singlehandly modern mathematic for the next 15 years alone with a great french mathematician Dieudonné as a passive scribe...

Incredible story!...

Some artist or creators dont need "practice" or studying like normal human...

Vivaldi was able to wrote at a speed like Mozart a works one after the other...

Ervin Nyiregyhazi practiced music as a baby for few years but quit his dictatorial mother at 16 years old and never practice really after that and even never own a piano for decades... Some journalist ask him at 74 years old for his first concert almost for the last 30 years were is his piano? He answer mechanic dont need tool at their house... He dont have one...

All artists practice but some are more superhuman than other...

Ramanujan teach himself mathematic at young age with a simnple english book and is now recognized to be a mathematician exceeding almost all mathematical genius in history...

All artists practice but to any rule there is exception... And like say frogman the concept of practice is very different for each musician...

If someone wanted to know what is genius read the biography of William James Sidis, he was not a musician but this life express very well that we are not created equal for studies and practices needs...He was the highest measured IQ in history probably and declared out of any knowm measuring scales...I read his bio and 2 books by him... It is so incredible that is in UNBELIEVABLE...He learn all indian languages of america, and know any language after a week or two... He go to university at 11 years of age and was refused at 9 being too short... His first conference at 11 years old was about the projection of 4 manifold in three dimensinal space in 1911 and he answered questions ( all this is redacted at Harvard) about the diffference between the very new  Einstein Minkovsky 4-d space time notion and his own 4-d geometrical concept...

All artists practice and study... Some way less than others...

I can go on with examples...

Superhuman exist it is historical fact, genius in music exist, it is historical fact...

Telemann for example taught music by himself alone at young age and his output of work exceed Bach at least by triple numbers...

Did he practice ?i guess he did... But what is practice and what is playing, what is the need to practice many hours each day if you create more than 3000 works among them figure 1000 cantatas yes not 100 but one thousand... Did he had time to practice each week all the instruments he was able to play?

No....

Allow me to add my appreciation for the contributions by the frogman.  Both here and on a jazz site, he offers great insights to the music and the artists.  He has a way of doing this for musical dummies like myself, while not dumbing down his comments, so they are also meaningful to those with more musical background.

Others of course add valuable insights, but few with the depth and consistency of the frogman, a treasure for those looking to learn.

With that, here's wishing a warm and wonderful Holiday Season to all, and a safe and sane New Year. 

Putting aside the question of whether musicians such as Milstein, or Perlman can be compared to unquestionable geniuses such as Haydn. The very things that drive any particular artist’s personal approach to “practice” in its various forms are also what shape an artist’s musical personality.  It is about more than simply what is sometimes perceived as a reflection of that person’s work ethic.  These are hugely accomplished individuals with often equally huge personalities, musically and otherwise. Artistic expression is an expression of the musician’s personality even when taking a back seat to that of the composer. I have always had trouble with the notion of a “greatest”, or “best”.  Personal favorites?  Of course.  Our own personal preferences (biases) are always a part of the mix of reasons that influence our reactions as listener; enough to always throw into question an attempt at designating a “greatest”.  

Amazing Pavarotti.

First there is no greatest in a general way of speaking... Pavarotti is not Greater than Jussi Bjorling in an absolute sense...

Second there is greatness...For me it is Fritz Wunderlich and Dietrich Fisher Dieskau the two greatest singer i ever listen to...

Yes i know i contradict myself here...

I cannot claim in an ABSOLUTE way that Bach is the greatest composer in history, even if i think so somewhat and to be frank i think so... Because esthetic and ethic converge in Bach works at a level never seen before or after save like in Beethoven case for example but never with the perfect balance that exist in Bach between esthetical choices and means and ethical one.......

But i love Scriabin And Gesualso because the esthetic choices here are so constrasted that esthetic choices here border near an ethical abyss and over it...Gesualdo with his contrasted excessive colors use is almost contemporary composer...And Scriabin is near atonality not by an equation like Schoenberg but by a genius particular  chords choices obsessive expressive habit...

Then i am not afraid to speak about "greatest" or "best"...But i know that this is only a relative way for us to express something objective sometimes, the ouput of Telemann is the larger in European music and sometimes subjective, like Bach is the greatest Composer in European history...

But feel free to contradict me, if someone say that Scriabin is the greatest i will never mock him, knowing his genius ....Or Telemann who was the greatest composer and the prefered choice of one of my friend ... How do we know a man who has written 3,000 works and more, 1000 cantatas, 40 passions... It is safe to say that almost no one can judge Telemann...

The greatest and the best are always like say wisely frogman personal choices but these personal choices COULD be motivated and must be motivated by precise reason to say so...

it is sometimes clearer and more informative to speak about vertical greatness than to put all on a relative horizontal line...

The point is not to say which one is the best in an absolute sense , but why we think so in a relative way.... It is a way to think in different perspectives and anyway to clearly emerge, each one of these perspectives must be hierarchicallly described and related....

If we forbid ourself to express our own feeling and any hierarchy, how do we are supposed to understand all musical history? Musical history is not ONLY objective facts, it is also critical debatable esthetical choices and ethical one... All mountains are not equal at all and many Himalaya exist....

I apologize for being too exclusively passionnate in this thread... I recognize it like my greatest defect but also my greatest quality....