I tell a story🌞

At an exhibition in Manchester some years ago Ken Gilbert decided he wanted to perform his celeb recital on an instrument I was exhibiting and not the one they had made ready for him.   During his rehearsal I noticed he had played from memory so after tuning for the concert, I took the desk away to the green room.    Five minute before he went on stage he noticed that and hit the roof.    I immediately fetched it on stage for him.    After the performance he felt he owed me an apology.   He said the desk must always be there and the manuscripts on the floor in case I forget.     Oh well, you can't please them all.

MJ





Sent from myMail for iOS


Saturday, 20 February 2016, 16:46 +0000 from [log in to unmask]  <[log in to unmask]>:
>Everyone played the Goldbergs from memory!!  Everyone played everything from memory with very few exceptions. Schnabel played all of Beethoven from memory.  Rubenstein and Horowitz played the history of piano music from memory  As performers, if we ARE performers and not academics (we CAN be both…Moroney as a fine example), we are similar to actors.  We need to internalize our music as actors internalize the text of a play.  Nothing of it must remain on a page for us to gather up as we communicate it out.  Now it maybe true that there are a few people who play better when the score is on the desk.  I think Leonhardt was one of those exceptions.  I remember when my very respected teacher Kenneth Gilbert would play a work on stage. A few times when he had the music in front of him but for one reason or other (page turns, etc) would have to do a repeat from memory.  It was ALWAYS better from memory.  But mostly, not memorizing is giving up on an important aspect of advocating the art work. 
>
>Best 
>
>ANDREW
>
>
>




::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Note:  opinions  expressed on HPSCHD-L are those of the  individual con-

tributors and not necessarily  those of the list owners  nor of the Uni-

versity of Iowa.  For a brief  summary of list  commands, send mail to

[log in to unmask]  saying  HELP .

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::