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Should Classical Soloists be encouraged to improvise?

Posted by BarneyT (A) on April 7, 2007 at 10:05:52

Should Classical Soloists be encouraged to improvise?

Reading through the articles from the NY Times I posted below about the Classical Revolution in China and some of the responses they engendered, I became even more concerned about the drastic decline in the popularity of classical music in the West. In recent years, classical record sales have declined drastically. With less than full concert halls, orchestras are struggling to meet expenses. Recording contracts for new young artists and composers are virtually non-existent or far less lucrative than they once were.

In an effort to find some solutions to this problem, I came up with what might seem, at first glance, a rather simplistic suggestion for reviving the popularity of classical music: Encourage soloists to improvise.

In the first half of the 20th century, there were a number of famous soloists who featured improvisations or transcriptions in their concerts. Vladimir Horowitz had several encores or transcriptions in his repertoire that were popular “show-stoppers”, and his delighted fans would not allow him to leave the stage until he played them. Rachmaninov used to improvise on his own compositions and those of others, sometimes to the consternation of conductors and recording engineers when he changed harmonies while recording his concertos.

It is an interesting fact that many great classical artists, including Horowitz, his father-in-law, Toscannini, Gershwin, Stowokoski and Rachmaninov, were great admirers of jazz pianist, Art Tatum, a widely acclaimed improvising genius.

Perhaps the most famous and most controversial classical improviser was the brilliant pianist, Leopold Godowsky. The following selection is from a Wikipedia article on Godowsky’s efforts at “paraphrasing” the works of famous composers.

“Leopold Godowsky was not only a brilliant pianist….. but also a composer who is best known for his paraphrases of piano pieces by other composers, which he enhanced with ingenious contrapuntal devices and rich chromatic harmonies. His most famous work in this genre is the “53 Studies on Chapin’s Etudes”, in which he varies the already challenging originals by: introducing countermelodies; transferring the technically difficult passages from the right hand to the left; transcribing the entire etude for left hand solo; or interweaving two etudes, with the left hand playing one and the right hand the other (as impossible as this seems). These are so taxing even for virtuosi that only three have ventured to record the entire set: Geofrey Douglas Madge, Carlo Grante and Marc-Andre Hamelin.

Godowsky also transcribed for the piano two sonatas and one partita for solo violin, and three suites for solo cello by Johann Sebastian Bach while highly embellishing them by the addition of complementary voices in contrapuntal manner. These have been recorded by Carlo Grante and Konstantin Scherbakov..

The Piano Sonata, the Passacaglia, and Triakontameron are amongst other works of his that have become more well-known of recent times. The Passacaglia is based on a theme from Franz Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and has acquired a reputation for extreme difficulty. (Even Vladimir Horowitz gave up on it, stating that it would require not 2 but 6 hands to perform. However, Horowitz was not a fan of Godowsky's work in general, and the reality is that there are more challenging works in the concert repertoire.) The Passacaglia has been recorded by Carlo Grante, Marc-Andre Hamelin (twice) and Konstantin Scherbakov, among others.

Improvisations by these early 20th century artists were not something new. They were rather the dying gasps of a tradition that flourished in classical music from the 17th to the end of the 19th century.

According to the article cited below, many of the greatest composers were more famous in their life time for their improvisations than for their compositions. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert and Liszt, to name but a few, were admired for their brilliant improvising on their own works and the works of others.

In his concerts, Liszt, for example, would often improvise on the songs and melodies of the popular operas and ballets of his day, and would often accept suggestions from his audience. It was called, “Extemporizing” in Liszt’s day. He also composed for the piano improvised transcriptions of popular Hungarian dances and songs, themes and orchestrations of other composers, etc.

http://ericbarnhill.wordpress.com/facts-about-improvisation/

To return to my original question: “Since it was their improvising or extemporizing that made many of the great artists of the past so popular in their lifetime, why not encourage classical musicians to attempt it today?

A little over 20 years ago, Yehudi Menuhin recorded about 5 albums of popular standards with Jazz violinist, Stephane Grappelli. In an interview he gave at the time, Menuhin said that, while classical artists often added their own personal interpretations to the pieces they played by varying the tempo and other dynamics, they seldom, if ever, deviated from the composer’s notes. They were not trained to do so. While Grappelli would never play a piece the same way twice, Menuhin confessed that he had to write out his transcriptions before each recording session, and adhere slavishly to the notation while playing.

Menuhin also said that, after his experience with Grappelli, he was motivated to introduce classes on improvisation in his violin school. In fact, he even invited Grappelli to demonstrate his skill at improvising to his students. One of them, a brilliant and somewhat eccentric young teenager, Nigel Kennedy, even volunteered to get up on the stage and improvise with Grappelli. That experience, and a few other public sessions with Grappelli, prompted Kennedy to broaden his improvisational skills.

Certainly the recent success of Gabriela Montero, whose last two recordings of classical improvisations have become best-sellers, indicate there is a market for such music.

Except for one or two interviews on National Public Radio, I had never heard of Gabriela Montero until I saw her interview with Morley Safer on “60 Minutes” last December. Safer called her “the hottest rising star in the classical world, and the most controversial as well.” I was so impressed that I immediately purchased her “Recital” and “Bach and Beyond” EMI recordings. I was not disappointed. It was delightful listening to this talented young artist breathing new life into many old and somewhat “worn-out” classics.

http://www.gabriela.biglifemanagement.com/

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=63187753

I apologize for this rather lengthy and somewhat disjointed article. It is subject I have been concerned about for some time,

Barney

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