This December I'll be performing in Carnegie Hall in NYC. As a young pianist it's a big and humbling opportunity for me to touch the keys that so many virtuosos and masters of music have graced. As much as an honor it is, it's also a pretty shiny addition to a college resume, so that's nice. But i don't want to perform. I am representing my nation of Armenia as a finalist in this competition, and I was chosen to perform a very very odd piece. Like, a very odd piece. This is a sonata by Aram Khachaturian It's not beautiful. It's ugly, cacophonous, brutal and relentless. Worse yet, i have to represent a nation that is proud of its inner strength, composure-- and values the love of community and family over anything else-- with the dissonant squeals of a lonely but expressive crackhead. That said, I'm still happy to be up there. And for the third time too :)) My horn has been tooted. What's up with you?
Khachaturian is his own thing, in a way. For as modern as he is, he could be a lot worse. My objection to any of the technicals is that people tend to play them like they've got the piano roll between their shoulder blades - no emotion, no humanity. If I had the chops to play Carnegie I'd play whatever they gave me and just try to rawk the fuck out of it. You never know what might come of it. My mother is a semi-professional violist. She used to play all over Santa Fe with lots of different people. She got to talking with one of her cellist buddies once, who revealed he'd spent a brief interlude out in Hollywood in the '60s composing before packing it in and heading back to the desert. She asked him if he'd ever gotten anything on TV or movies or anything. "Just this embarrassing little rip-off of Khachaturian," he said. "I still hear it on late-night TV sometimes." *Embarassing little rip-off of Khachaturian?* Take the piece and make it yours. If you hate it, you aren't representing your country properly. Find the stuff to love and bring it out. You never know who might hear you.
Maybe i've gotten tired of it. Glad you like it though :)
I'll get a couple minutes to warm up and see what the piano feels like. Not much of a preparation. But honestly, pianos at stages like that have the tendency of being quite... incredible. An average model D steinway costing upwards of $90,000 carries a bit of comfort and adaptability with it :D still, its not easy
My upright at home was <$4k. Seeing people with bosendorfers and steinways, I think that no one man should wield such power.
My father forbid piano music from being played in the home, let alone the possession of a piano. When I was 17 I traded my oboe straight across for an RS505 and never looked back. As soon as I left the house, of course, my mother brought home some raggedy-ass YMCA upright. Nobody knew how to play it. When she left my dad 10 years later she and her new husband bought a Kimball, just to entice people over to their house to play quartets. Me? I've got an A-80 and a K2500XS so y'all can bite me. ;-)
A. You show 'em chief B. Why did your dad forbid piano music!??!
I've tried questioning my parents for the longest time. Hopeless. Now I just learn from their mistakes as much as my own and hopefully turn out okay :D
I'm... really digging the sonata. I think you need to listen to it with fresh ears. I mean, I understand that it's not n the same tonal realm as mozart, but it's got more in common with Debussy or Mussorgsky than it does with Schoenberg or anything else fiercely atonal. maybe you should start asking yourself why you're phrasing things the way you are in the piece, what you like and don't like about that phrasing, and try to if not like the piece, then come to respect it. As to Khachaturian being a loner and a crackhead, he's not alone in being a damaged person in music. A person can have a shitty life, or be a shitty person (like Wagner) or be really crazy (Scriabin, Satie) and still create great works.
Oh please don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing him to Mozart! I've been in love with contemporaries from Scriabin to Satie for the longest time, and am not one of those Mozart & Bach Master Race musicians. as I told lil, it might just be a matter of me being tired of it after playing for a while, But to represent my country with such a wild and out-of-bounds sort of piece is just kinda wrong :P You guys are mature and open-minded.. I don't know if my audience will understand.
absolutely. As a performer though it's a bit unnerving knowing you very well could be one of the 80. Everybody wants to be the best ;)
The best way to help your audience understand is to "sell" the music as best you can, and really be passionate about it.