Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Rachmaninoff op. 39 no. 5, two performances by Kissin

Thoughts on the performances? I thought this would be a pretty good example how one's interpretation can change with age, I found it really interesting:

Young Kissin:


Older Kissin:

Very interesting indeed (gosh I love this piece sooo much!!!). The 1st recording (young Kissin) was when he was about 15 in Tokyo (he won the Suntory Music Award). The older recording is either the one from 1989 (the one with the Rachmaninov concerto) when he would've been about 17 or 18 or 1995 when he would be about 24. Either way, he is truly an astounding young genius!
Source: http://www.kissin.dk/discography

Thanks for posting! It is interesting how it changes with time. I've done this with a few other players and their pieces before. I even noticed with my teacher playing La Valse (he has two recordings of it, plus I heard him play it live) and Chopin Ballade 4 (he has a recording and I heard it live), and some of the time differences between the two performances are quite short, but the performances are quite different!

By the way, sorry for the plug, but I would like to share that one of our own PW members plays this etude, and I think quite well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_py2z_jmKpQ

Its a more interesting comparison with Op. 39 No. 1 I think.

Surprised this didn't receive many comments. Come on, what better example of "life experiences" in music, and interpretation, than this?

I think it's a fine example. My gut reaction is:

I hear the younger Kissin play a mass of notes, sounding very "étude-y", with effort to bring out the melodic lines. The drama feels unfocused.

I hear the older Kissin tell a story with the melodies, and I feel soulful singing, always singing, throughout. Everything is planned, shaped, and executed -- chords, textures, progressions -- to heighten the drama being sung. I never feel pummelled by a torrent of notes, or that I'm listening to an étude. (And I love Kissin's RH descending 6ths just before the final/quiet section, to name just one specific thing.)

Thanks for making this thread; it was interesting hearing and comparing.

P.S. There are a couple of things he does both times that I don't like:

1) Distractingly jerky duplet-against-triplet execution at measures 7-8.

2) At measure 12, Rach marks sempre marcato and cresc but Kissin gets quieter, and then pushes through the F - D flat - B flat of the melody where I think it's better to hold back slightly.

The Older Kissin seems far more in control. It's not that the Younger Kissin lacks technical control, and I won't even go so far as to say musical control, because I don't think he does. The difference, in my opinion, is that the Younger Kissin lacks control of the audience.

It seems as though the Younger Kissin blazes through the piece with ease, if to say, "Yes, I've acquired the technique and skills to play this, and effortlessly so." To me the Older Kissin played with a sense of control and reserve omitted from his earlier recording. I would assume he has the ability to reflect on the scope of this work, and all of his for that matter, and to hold his playing and achievements in a higher regard. He no longer has to "make it" or prove himself. It is far easier to truly reflect what you want to convey when you know who you are. Can anyone do that at such a young age? Can the argument be made that they simply don't have the mental or emotional capacity, regardless of their technical capabilities? Does anyone know who they are at that age?

Nevertheless, both are enjoyable. One for the youthful exuberance and feeling of achievement, realizing your dreams, feeling like one can conquer anything. The other for the beauty, control and peace found within.

But then again, I could be way wrong!

+1 I noticed the same thing with Aimi Kobayashi's performances of the Waldstein Sonata (although that was only a two year difference between ages 12 and 14). The first performance was rather nervy, too fast in sections, and like she had to prove something. Of course she did have phenomenal control, musicality, and the works in the first interpretation, but she really was able to get "inside" the music when she played it two years later.

This is a good comparison. Young Kissin doesn't really prioritize the melody the way his more mature self does. You can tell in this etude that the flow comes from the melodic line and not the jagged chordal accompaniment.

He also played the C sharp minor etude (op.42 no,5) by Scriabin at the same recital - I'd like to hear him take a look at it again to see if he's matured in the same way. His old recording sounds like he's overwhelmed by the thick texture of the writing (just like in the Rachmaninoff etude).

At that age, two years makes a massive massive difference!

True even months can make a difference as I found when I performed the Papillons op2.

Even 2 days can make a difference.. as long as you practice on those two days. This does nothing to prove anything for or against the life experiences debate. Sorry. Prove to me that it was his emotional life experiences that did this and NOT his musical and pianistic experience over the years.

We had pages on end of that debate and I couldn't get this point through, so I should probably not expect people to understand this now. There is no way you can demonstrate that your claim is true (neither can I prove that it is false). So why bother saying that these videos are evidence when they are not if you stop to think about it logically (and not emotionally, as you as aspiring professional musicians tend to do)?

+1 and let's leave that old topic buried... It got pretty fierce!

I'm sorry that you can't hear it... it's not a matter of practicing, sometimes you have to listen between the notes =) Anyway, for me it sounds different and not just by technical means..............

I think it's as interesting for what changes as for what doesn't. Certain aspects of the interpretation stays very much the same, yet the maturity brings something completely different to the piece.

Everyone should watch the Up! series of documentaries by Michael Apted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_Series

The first film introduces a group of schoolchildren in 1964, aged 7. Then, Apted visited the children every 7 years. As a result, there are seven films in the series, the most recent being from 2005 when the "kids" were 49 years old.

What's striking about the films (and you must watch them all!) is that there are certain things that seem to be set at a very young age. What's amazing is how that develops over time.

I can't recommend the series enough. It should be required watching for all artists and educators (and everybody interested in growth, children, adults, and life.)

This is a GREAT example of how different a piece can sound when one more fully understands the "poetry" informing the piece, as opposed to playing the score "correctly". In Kissin's mature performance, you can feel the tortured agony and suffering that IMO Rachmaninoff so wonderfully projects in this Etude (one of Rachmaninoff's finest efforts, IMO). In the mature perforance, Kissin establishes a far more extensive dynamic range for the melodic arch -- absolutely necessary in this piece to get the emotional payoff. He pays great attention to shaping the melodic contours and bringing them into high relief -- all the rest of the notes (and, boy, are there a LOT of them) are there to serve the melody. Very briefly put, this is an operatic aria, and we need to hear the singer OVER the orchestra, not WITH it. NOT an easy task!

i like the older kissin because he is musically more mature and pays much more attention to each phrase

Yes, I heard these recordings years ago when I was learning this piece as an undergrad. It's funny how everyone is talking about the 'mature' Kissin. The first recording is taken from a 1987 Tokyo recital; this recital was released by Sony on CD [SONY 35DC 1061] as well as on Video Disc. The second recording is taken from a 1988 RCA recording [BMG R32C-1151] that was released along with his rendition of Rach 2; two years before his official Carnegie Hall debut...he was still quite young.

Be sure to check out this excellent version by Perahia!

Did you check for sure? Kissin re-recorded the Etudes-Tableaux op39 again in 1995. He would've been 24. That makes him considerably older don't you think?

And anyway, two years is a huge amount of time for young ones (I would know because I'm a young one myself)!

I'm not aware that he re-recorded the Etudes-tableaux, but I just listened again to the 2nd version and it does seem to be the 1988 studio recording. I do agree that that the two interpretations are very different even though they're only a year apart. I vote for the more 'recent' one.

Me too!

Kissin's younger performance of Prokofiev 6 is better. Better music doesn't necessarily come with 'maturity' whatever that means.

I also prefer the Tokyo recital Prokofiev 6 to the later Carnegie Hall performance. So gritty and brutal!

There's still some sense left in here, thank you for that.

Angelina, I hear it too.. you don't get it. You don't even try to. None of what I said means that I didn't hear the difference. Of course there's a difference, but what is it due to is the question (I identified a large number of factors for you in that previous thread, including recording quality! You ignored all of that, which is why you've gone ahead and posted two recordings of different recording qualities, played by the same pianist with obviously different technical capabilities (probably better technique at and older age...duh), etc and claims that this is evidence for how "maturity" and "emotional experience" has paved way for better interpretation). I no longer expect you to see what the issue is, so I'll stop. You answer the wrong question every single time and a loyal fan following latches on to it every time too. It really does no good for anybody.

and I really prefer the 1998 Tokyo recital of the Liszt sonata compared to what Kissin just did at the Verbier

I don't recall anyone suggesting that performances by pianists when they are older are always better than performances when they are younger.


Someone with original recordings to compare has already stated that the first recording is from 1987 and the second from 1988. Kissin was known for his extraordinarily fine technique already in 1987, so it seems more likely that increased maturity (touring more widely throughout Europe and working with different conductors in the interim) was responsible for the difference. My ears hear a more evolved personality causing fingers to play differently, rather than fingers being controlled with more skill.

At the time of the previous thread on this topic I was busy moving to a new city and looking for work, otherwise I would have become involved. I can cite my own experiences as a counter-example to the factors I saw you mention. For about a decade my life went through a phase when I played the piano little, hardly listened to classical recordings, nor read books or magazines on the subject. However, in terms of emotional maturity, plenty of things happened in my life during that time. When I resumed playing, I played differently, and I would say a lot better, even though I was rusty technically. In many cases I was playing works that I had never heard played by anyone else, and I had formed my own impressions before reading what anyone else had said, and I had not attended music school to be influenced by any established tastes and preferences. Again and again, my views, feelings, and instinctive analysis were often very compatible with what I read when I looked up books, magazines, reviews, and source and performance commentaries in fine editions.

Also, upon resuming my interest in classical music after the long break, I found new meaning, occasionally including vivid images or programs, and different preferences. Or sometimes music will suddenly pop into my head and I will then realize a subtle connection between my mood at that time and the music, which influences the way I feel about that music. Unless occasional rock-and-roll oldies on the radio were educating me, or my subconscious was working away in the background on previously-heard classical music, I do not see how my brain was re-wiring itself to appreciate statistical aspects of music with greater sophistication, or anything like that. I matured a lot emotionally, and my appreciation for music had changed and deepened in the meantime, and I don't believe that was a coincidence.

My knowledge would be far broader and deeper if I had gone to music school, rather than it consisting of little patches here and there, nevertheless my experience shows me that unschooled amateur music lovers can have similar tastes to trained experts. I think there is an essence to much music, emotional in nature, that needs a certain emotional range/palette to be appreciated. Some musical education/experience/familiarity is involved and needed, and I'm sure that expected patterns and sequences, and deviations from them, can be analyzed statistically and that things can be learned from that. However a big component is experiential in a way that is hard to analyze, and emotions are very much involved. Out of curiosity, what do you make of Moiseiwitsch's claim that he felt a connection between a specific painting and Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B minor, Op.32 No.10, which was emphatically confirmed afterwards by the composer?

I cannot prove that my memory is not skewed or conveniently selective for me to form the opinions I do and, in isolation, I know my testimonial does not prove anything, nevertheless, I wanted to share it anyway.

Kreisler listed some examples of music without a clear emotional component. They were good examples, but how often does one hear them in the concert hall? I took it as obvious that the discussion was focused on the vast majority of music that is performed publicly, much of it popular with audiences, and that doesn't include things like marching songs sung by soldiers to keep steady time, or things like that. Yet you applauded the examples as if they were showing that emotions were being unduly focused on in the discussion, rather than seeing them as exceptions that pretty much proved the rule.


[My favorite quote from the previous thread] It isn't a crime to have an emotional reaction, you know!

Who said that it was? Obviously, you don't get it either. This was quoted by somebody else too at a different time.. I'm extremely disappointed. We have professors calling people names because they offered an alternative plausible view of things, you have musicians providing "evidence" that is obviously confounded by very many factors, etc. There is too much misinformation out here.. I'm glad to be able to say that I am capable of weeding out the nonsense.

When you resumed playing after many years, you obviously thought you played better, because what you did at the time resonated better with your present state and not your past state (its obvious, isn't it). So there is no way you'd say "I liked how I played 10 years ago more so than I do after a couple of months now of picking all that back up again". If you did that, you wouldn't play anymore. Your brain has to tell you what you just told us to keep you playing.. if not, you would give up. There's very many factors here.

The rest of the post is a general comment, not meant to address you directly:

When you grow older, you like to think you are emotionally mature, wiser, etc. When you hear a pop song and you think.. ah well, that reminds me of my 20th break-up, that's fine. You couldn't have had a 20th break up at the age of 5. However, does it really help you with your playing? You really think having gone through 20 break-ups will help you play a piece that the critics say is supposed to evoke a feeling of loss or whatever, better than you would if you went through just 1 break-up? That is just absurd.. (this is analogous to the example we discussed about in that other thread where Angelina seemed to want to argue that a certain piece could be played better if the pianist had had a direct experience of having lost somebody close to him/her. That again is just very absurd to me and usually when something sounds absurd, there is probably a good reason).

So all I can say is, continue thinking that all of your "better" playing is due to your 20th breakup if it makes you happy but I'm not going that route.. I think I can make better sense of this than just attributing it all to emotional maturity. I don't care if somebody who knows Yuja Wang personally, thinks that I'm an idiot for thinking so. There are things that don't come with a music education.. things that people need to develop on their own.

Perhaps I should have used a smiley. Of course there's nothing wrong with having an emotional reaction. It seemed like you had a spontaneously gushing reaction to a piece of music, and when someone commented, you responded like you were shimmying around trying to sound as dispassionate and "logical" as possible. "Yes, that music is 'divine'... [cough] in a statistical sense, that is." (By the logic you've cited more than once in these threads, if you say that wasn't going on, how can disprove that subconsiously that was going on, but you can't see it because you need to see yourself a certain way?) I found your explanation of "divine" funny -- not in a nasty, mean-spirited way -- just funny. Sorry that you took offense.


For a moment, please forget piano playing completely. Some of what I was talking about was hearing music differently. I'm talking about not initially liking a work much in one's youth, having a fairly lukewarm reaction to it, perhaps feeling it is too long or lacking contrast. Then you come back to it after a break and it sounds completely different. Things that didn't make sense now do; things that felt boring or samey now have interest and ebb and flow; structures that did not make sense now do, instinctively, without have to work at them consciously/intellectually; voices and textures emerge clearly and vibrantly as a coherent part of the picture that you never noticed before, or if you did they just seemed like a bit of background decoration or mush; moments attain a depth of joy or sadness or horror or brutality or some other quality that you never felt before; and in some cases you might have images or scenes or a story forming in your mind as you listen. Sometimes things that caught your attention as important when you were younger are now clear-as-day supposed to be subdued and subtle, giving way to the really important stuff. Even if my life had depended on it in my younger days, if I had been asked to describe a work in any detail, and what I'd like to hear specifically in good interpretations, I would have been lost. It would be like asking someone to describe a tree they had only ever seen with blurred vision, then you give them corrective glasses and ask them again.

I don't see how any of the alternative factors that you mentioned apply to my situation. If you re-read my previous post, perhaps it will be clearer why I believe that the most logical explanation is connected with life experience and maturity. An alternative hypothesis is that I have a deep-seated need to believe that I have a deeper connection with music nowadays to make my life more meaningful, but how then how could one explain how often my personal (recent) views and preferences coincide with those of experts? I haven't maintained a list to provide on an occasion such as this, but I can think of a couple of examples from this forum.


Well, some posters have definitely asserted that in many cases it is the dominant factor in explaining how artists often give better/deeper interpretations when they are older. As you are aware and have stated already, a lot of this stuff is in an unfalsifiable area anyway. So I don't see it as worthwhile to take the viewpoint, as I believe you have essentially done, of: "Unless you can prove to me logically that your instincts have a solid basis, and are not due to alternative factors, I'm going to assume they aren't worth taking seriously."

Why not put aside the scientific method for a while and try to see if you can hear what other people are talking about? Actually, there's probably a way to have both. For example, a couple of your alternative factors are improved technique and improved musical insight, so if two recordings were presented of a relatively easy work technically, where the older version arguably has more technical and musical flaws compared to the earlier one, yet the older one is asserted to have special qualities associated with emotional maturity, you could listen in and see what you think.

What I disagreed with was with people presenting all of this as evidence FOR emotional maturity enabling better interpretation. It can still be all those other things. I have repeatedly said in that other thread that I fully realize its not possible to prove any of this but that when people offer this as the only "logical" or whatever explanation possible for the better interpretation (as you just did in your post), it may very well be misleading..

In any case, since I don't expect anybody here not to misquote me, I am outta here.

What if a piece of music resonates with you as expressing deep sadness and weariness that things have gone painfully wrong, yet again, rather than going wrong for the first time?


What makes it so absurd? If a movie is largely about parents dealing with the death of a young child, for example, who would likely do the most sensitive and insightful job of directing the movie: someone who had personally experienced such loss; someone who had not personally experienced such loss but had very close friends who had; or someone who had no personal connection with such a loss, but interviewed people who had?

I'd like it if you could be specific about what you find absurd. Is it the idea that certain musical works can be associated with specific emotions or experiences? If so, if you hypothetically assumed that they can, would Angelina's proposition no longer be absurd (or quite so absurd) to you?

A few posters have expressed the general view that people who have experienced more in life have a wider emotional palette to draw from, which can lead to better interpretations. I get the impression that Angelina agrees with that, and that she only cited specific emotions with regard to that specific work as a way of providing a concrete and vivid example. You obviously don't take the specific example seriously, fine, but that isn't inextricably bound to the overall viewpoint that several posters (including me) agree with.

I did my best in my post to cover every alternative explanation of yours that I remember, but you haven't addressed that yet. (Not that you have to, it's your choice, I'm just pointing it out.)

Slatterfan, extensive discussions on many of these issues can be found in that other thread. And no, you have covered none of those other explanations nor have you managed to discount them successfully. Do you have recordings of your playing the last time you played and the first time you played after 10 years? Let others judge. You telling me that it was MUCH better isn't good enough for me to build a conversation on (and I've stated a biologically and ecologically motivated reason for that as well).

So please look at that other thread, I'm really tired of trying to explain it to people. A few people got it, most didn't.. and I'm fine with that.

So, I've looked at a few examples of young pianist/older pianist recordings of the same piece. Another interesting one is the Gould Goldbergs. I find that I always prefer the recording by the older pianist. Is that because I'm old and boring or have I just not looked hard enough? Does anyone know of a recording by a young prodigy that clearly outshines a repeat performance years later?

A few examples were given in this very thread.

Have you also thought about how the newer recording quality of the Gould goldberg could have potentially affected your judgment? Also, the first time you heard it, did you know that it was the older Gould playing it? Too many confounds here. Also a young prodigy learns very many things about music as he lives more years.. that by itself can contribute to a better interpretation later. So chances are high that the older pianist might have a better interpretation because of all this added musical experience, greater experience playing the piano, among other factors that people seem to want to present as the primary factors.

Why I am stooping down to this is uncertain but you went further in the other thread and disputed the premise that music's main objective was to express emotion.

Yes I did. I said it doesn't make sense to claim that it is the main objective when there are so many other factors that people don't even stop to think about.

Btw, you didn't have to stoop to make that statement.. you could have said it in a less condescending fashion. Next time you stoop, expect no response.

Do you accept that emotion is anobjective of music? What are the "other factors that people don't even stop to think about." And what percentage are those "other factors" to the emotional component?

As for being condescending, I am 20 years older than you and no longer wish to suffer the cliched boastfulness and posturing of the other thread.

It also helps that the second Kissin recording is of better sound quality.... and I'm thinking that this is one of the factors that causes a more favorable opinion of the recording.

The things Tim Adrianson mentioned in his post earlier in the thread have nothing to do with the sound quality, because the sound quality of both recordings is sufficiently good not to distort or obscure the things he talks about. He pretty much says what I was trying to say about the difference between the two Kissin recordings, but he said it better.

Firstly there's the issue of whether one agrees that one interpretation is significantly better than another; secondly, assuming one agrees that there is a difference, there's the issue of trying to determine the likely dominant factor(s) for the difference.

I think the sound quality is relatively unimportant. There are many vintage recordings that have lousy sound (Rosalyn Tureck's Bach Partitas, 1949-50; many older recordings of Schnabel etc...etc...) that still outshine much of what's come since. There are limits obviously - some archival recordings are so terrible that it's impossible to tell what's going on - but this isn't what we're talking about here.

Personally, I don't find the two interpretations much different. Kissin has a better control over his intentions in the 2nd one, that's all IMO.

It's also a studio recording, not live like the first one.

He plays the accompaniment too loudly in the earlier recording and the melody doesn't really sing out. Yevgeny does a much nicer job of voicing and shaping the melodic lines in the latter recording.

With that said, I've got a 1989 recording of an 18-year-old student of the legendary Russian pedagogue, Lev Naumov, who owns Kissin in both Op. 39/1 and Op. 39/5. Quite astonishing playing.

No, no.. none of that matters. Its all emotional maturity for sure.. and emotional maturity is primary.

Maturity and restraint are wonderful qualities indeed, if one is lucky enough to have them.

I did read the entire Life experiences, personality and emotion in music thread as it unfolded, but I wasn't able to get involved in the discussion at the time. I reviewed that thread again today. Here are some thoughts...


We can assume for a moment that an excellent research study devised in the future could give a meaningful measure of emotional range, depth, and subtlety experienced by people as they mature. I suggest it would only be relevant to this discussion if sufficient demographic breakdown existed in the results, with artists in a separate group. Looking across the whole population, it would not surprise me if most people do not mature much emotionally beyond a certain age, and that if they believe they do, the explanations you have suggested for this seem reasonable. But let's focus on those who have dedicated their lives to the arts: musicians, painters, sculptors, dancers, poets, authors (of fiction), actors. To me it is obvious that those people tend to be more emotionally sensitive and open (than the average population), and are thus likely to show evidence of increased emotional range, depth, and subtlety as they mature. And it also seems obvious to me that the artists most famed and highly regarded are probably those who keep evolving the most and hence keep having fresh things to communicate to the public, and that a major component of that communication (not denying the intellectual and the visceral) is emotional.

While you probably do not agree with the last part of what I've just said, I think you might agree that artists are worth considering as a special group, by what you said on the same page of the thread:


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That is interesting. What happened when the listeners weren't manipulated in advance by being told what emotion was going to be expressed, and when other elements of performance were varied, individually or in combination, rather than just vibrato?

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I don't think they did. They were pretty adamant about a general proposition, but I didn't see anyone phrase themselves in such an absolute way.


I see a huge difference between most music having an essential emotional component (with which I agree), and the composer "trying to communicate emotion primarily". My impression is that the whole issue of what music "primarily communicates" was a sideline started by something david_a said, which slanted the discussion towards the process of composition rather than the result.


Even if we agreed that some youthful compositions might be played as well or better by youthful performers, how does that invalidate anything? But the works that persist in the repertoire, and that tend to lead to these kinds of conversations, are usually mature works.

Is it really emotional maturity, or is it just a matter of EXPERIENCE, which includes knowledge and depth of knowledge of music, life experience and just knowledge in general, emotions, and possibly many other things?

Even though I did cover some of them in my original post, for clarity, below I give direct responses to various factors that I found in the previous Life experiences, personality and emotion in music thread...

------------------------------------


Covered in my first post -- not applicable in my case, as I had formed my tastes independently before discovering that my and critics' tastes very often coincide.


Covered in my first post -- not applicable in my case, as I hardly listened to classical music, nor studied, nor practiced, during my extended break.


Covered in my first post -- only applicable if my subconscious had been developing improved taste and skill in classical music while listening to occasional rock and roll oldies.


Covered in my first post, and clarified in a follow-up post -- as I pointed out, it is a mistake to focus purely on playing. What I was talking about is true even if I had never played a note in the last few years, and never played a note again in my life. What I was describing was more: 10 years more of living --> hearing and feeling music so much more vividly --> evokes greater levels of emotion in me as a listener (including me as a performer, envisioning the music before I even play a single physical note at the piano, when talking about piano music) --> (optional final step, which is not crucial to the thrust of what I was saying at all) playing much better. I described these subjective matters in very good detail, enough that unless one believed me to be deluded or lying to a quite remarkable degree, I thought them worthy of consideration and discussion.


That seems unfalsifiable, doesn't it? Other than conveniently being a subject in a sophisticated research study in the future, how could anyone ever disprove your explanation?

You also discussed recordings revealing their age and listeners having a bias through knowing which was by the older performer. What I didn't see you consider, but I have experienced myself several times, is listening to exactly the same recording years after hearing it previously, and hearing very different things in it. And, as I have already explained, I didn't have a better ear through more training or experience of listening or playing because I took a long break from classical music and came back, and things sounded and felt different on my return.


No.

I think it's emotional maturity insofar as the emotions are more controlled and in perspective. Young performers tend to just let it all hang out from the start - as fast as possible, as intense as possible. Older performers hold some of their intensity back. Then, by doing so, when they want to turn it on in a big way they still have some room left.

This is not expressed very precisely but hopefully people know what I mean.

Have you listened to Aimi Kobayashi's Waldstein Sonata from her CD debut? She does precisely what you said about holding back...and she was only 12 when she recorded that CD for EMI in New York.

[/quote]

Have you listened to Aimi Kobayashi's Waldstein Sonata from her CD debut? She does precisely what you said about holding back...and she was only 12 when she recorded that CD for EMI in New York. [/quote]


No I haven't heard that - and as soon as I'd typed that previous entry I thought 'well there must be lots of exceptions'. It does seem to be a common trajectory though don't you think? I'm not saying its universal by any means but those composers who start strong and *get better* often seem to improve because they get more of their emotional artillery under control.

You actually believe I was fooled by studio quality, or that many others were as well? That's asinine - have you heard any Rachmaninoff recordings (of his Chopin, say)? Does that sound bad to you compared to some random pianist who recorded it with DG?

So I just listened to them back to back again. The version by the older Kissin is just better. It's better technically and artistically I would say. I'm not saying the earlier recording is terrible but it's clearly not as good.

So I think the big question is: when was this second recording from? 1989 or 1995? If it were the 1989 version, I'd be curious to hear the 1995 version.

I agree that sound quality is not that important when a pianist's playing is of such high quality as Rachmaninoff's or Sofronitsky's were, for example.

I only pointed out that since the later Kissin recording was recorded in a studio, it's more likely that he was able to have more control over how he wanted his interpretation to sound. I'm sure there were many other factors that would have had an effect on how his playing was transformed over the course of one year; life experiences, state-of-mind, etc. He may have been more nervous than usual when he played in Japan a year before, depending on circumstances, his environment, or he could have just learned the piece.

He recorded a selection of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes in '95. I'm pretty sure he didn't record the Rach Etudes after 1988. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, anybody.

The best recording I've heard of this piece, as well as the first Etude from Op. 39, is by a little-known Russian pianist named Sergei Tarasov.

Ooh! Looks like I was wrong and this new info changes things a bit:

His first recording of the Etudes were in 1984 when he was only 12! Wow! The CD wasn't released until 1995.
The second recording was the live recital in Suntory Hall in Tokyo in 1987 at age 16 (the first Vid).
His second recording was recorded in May 1988 at age 16 and released a year later in 1989. This is his only studio recording. He also played the Rach 2.

With this new info, we see that not even a year lapsed in between the two recordings. So this isn't valid for any argument about musical maturity.

For those of you who question my source, it was Kissin's own official website maintained by one of his relatives (I think it's his cousin). http://www.kissin.dk/discography

That makes better sense and really is all I've been trying to drive through people's heads. I emphasize overall experience, which among many other things might involve emotions but to attribute so much importance to emotional experience (eg: of direct experience having lost a loved one) to me just doesn't make sense. Musical experience, experience working with other musicians and people, knowing how human beings work in general, etc are all factors. Emotional experience may very well be a factor but for people to say that the primary objective of music is communication of specific emotions and that it follows that an older person with greater emotional experiences can interpret a piece better than he could in his younger days.

I have nothing more to add really. I tried to ask the same question that you have asked here OSK, only tried to explain myself in great detail.

I believe you meant May 1988...unless he's a time traveller.

Oops! I did mean 1988.

Kissin looks 10 or 15 years older in the second recording. It can't just be only one year.

Obviously the picture doesn't match up to Kissin's age. The picture was from a review from a Carnegie Hall concert in 2007.

I'm sure the recording is not from when that picture was taken.

Do you ever feel ANYTHING when you play? That tightness in your gut when you feel the music so strongly? Emotions that you just didn't feel as deeply 5-10 years ago while playing the same piece? Didn't that change ANYTHING in your playing at all? You're not made out of stone, you know.

Hardly anyone did. You and a couple of other posters repeatedly steered the conversation that way in the previous thread, but that wasn't the main thrust of the discussion, and hardly anyone agreed with your phraseology. It wasn't until the 162nd post of the previous thread that anything along those lines was mentioned:


You then took up the reins and repeated this idea with various wordings, including discussing whether music is an "efficient" or "precise" or "coherent" "way of communicating". By including the word "specific" in your latest post, you have added another twist (it could have been inferred or not, previously). You are misrepresenting the views of those stressing the importance of life experience in music-making.


There's one of the strongest proponents of the idea that life experience enhances interpretation, clearly disagreeing with your wording. This "primary objective" stuff is a sideline from the main discussion. Plenty of people disagreed strongly with what they perceived as a repudiation of emotion as a crucial part of most music, and I think that's probably the only general thing one can say about the sideline.

P.S. I've realized that in an earlier post I mistakenly attributed a quote about 1960s research on audience perception to you rather than kevinb; sorry.

From what I've read of Kissin's career, the 1987-88 season featured the longest tour of concertizing he had ever done up to that point, and he was travelling and playing all over Europe, including working with various distinguished conductors for the first time. So I don't find it surprising that he could have developed a great deal during that single year. Op.39 No.5 had already been in his repertoire since at least 1984, yet some of us hear a big difference between the 1987 live performance and the 1988 recording. It's quite possible that musical experience was a catalyst, for example, if a conductor encouraged him to make more out of a particular melodic line in a "busy" passage, and his memory of the difference made him more keenly aware of the beauty of the melodies in Op.39 No.5 when he returned to it. Whatever the catalyst, I hear more going on in the 1988 recording than merely bringing out the melody more, or a result of improved technique or deeper thinking.

Assuming we could somehow pinpoint and quantify influences/causes, I can imagine that life experience and the resulting enhanced "emotional palette" might sometimes contribute, say, only 10% to a new interpretation, yet that aspect could still be keenly felt by some listeners. Sceptical scientists might point at the 10% and say, "10%, therefore not a dominant factor at all, case closed." But inputs and outputs do not necessarily align proportionately. To give a simple example that is well known and scientifically verified, a very high note, a note around middle C, and a very low note, can all be played at an identical volume as measured by an oscilloscope, but the middle note sounds louder to us because we are wired to hear most clearly in the region around middle C.

My impression is that many lovers of classical music notice when an interpretation leaves them unmoved emotionally, no matter how much they can praise the technique and musicality and thoughtfulness; then a pattern is noticed that some musicians change in this respect as they mature. Of course there will always be exceptions. Toscanini is regarded by some as a musician whose performances became less emotional in old age; I believe Neville Cardus described it as "a hardening of the musical arteries."

I'd be interested to know what various concert pianists think about this topic; I think it would make a good "symposium" feature in International Piano, if it has not already been done.

You claim I was misquoting people when I argued against "communication of emotion being the PRIMARY aim of music" and yet state that Angelina disagreed with my wording when that is exactly what she wrote in her response, i.e., that while it is not the ONLY goal (I never said that these people said that it was the ONLY goal,..what I was arguing against was their claim that this was the primary goal), it was most certainly a primary goal of music. I see no misquoting anywhere on my side. ALso, it was never a sideline.. That was always the point of discussion in that thread.

Anyway, like I said, we discussed that to its very end in that thread.. I have no idea why you're digging it all up again. My only point here in this thread was that presenting a couple of videos, one with much better audio quality, and played by a person with more musical and technical experience, and claiming that most of the improvement in interpretation was because of "emotional maturity" or "life experiences" (whatever those are) is just indefensible. I wouldn't object had she just presented these and stated that she liked the second recording better..If you want to refute that, please do so. I'm not interested anymore in the primary, secondary, only discussion.. I had made all the points I wanted to there. Quoting bits and pieces from my posts there does nothing to start a useful discussion.

I said "misrepresenting", not "misquoting", and the distinction is important. As far as misrepresenting goes, absolutely -- the moment you write "communication" instead of "expression", you are applying a significant twist. Combined with the word "aim" (or "goal" or "objective"), the focus is suddenly on what composers consciously set out to do through their music, rather than on the result itself, the music, and its interpretation and perception. I'm not suggesting that you misrepresented anyone intentionally. What I observed several times in the previous thread was that you would state something you disagreed with and discuss from there, but each time your statement would tweak the discussion slightly away what people had been saying, due to the wording. I don't believe for a second that you did so intentionally, and I imply no dishonor on your part, but that's what I saw. You did it again in a recent post by saying "specific emotions" rather than "emotions" in your summary of what people had been saying.


For starters, she wrote "only goal" in quotation marks. That's a well-established way of conveying, "someone else's words, not mine." She talked about a "primary goal" rather than an "only goal", which is a repudiation of "only goal", and notice also that she says "express", not "communicate". Big difference.


You said "emotion", she said "something - WHATEVER that is". That is also disagreement.


Discussion of "primary goal" or "primary objective", and thus suddenly talking about something the composer consciously sets out to do -- the twist -- didn't come along until the 162nd post of the thread. What was there from the beginning -- the original discussion -- was talking about the interpretation of music and if life experiences are involved. Nothing like "primary goal" or "primary objective" was mentioned or suggested in your original post starting the thread, and it was not brought up for a long time.

All the original poster said was:

"Thoughts on the performances? I thought this would be a pretty good example how one's interpretation can change with age, I found it really interesting."

That seems defensible to me. If you are including her second post too, I think that giving an opinion and inviting others to give theirs is absolutely fine, and is what this place is about. That includes cases where the opinion is stated with a confidence that would not pass muster in a peer-reviewed scientific journal... because this is a music forum.

An appropriate response is to listen to the recordings with an open mind and comment on what you thought of the performances. Did you do that -- discuss what you thought about the differences between the two performances? When presented with a fresh comparison, it makes sense to discuss the differences you hear first, and then their possible causes second, yes? Bear in mind that chobeethaninov has provided info that the performances are less than one year apart. (I think it is significant that Kissin's first major tour of Europe took place between the recordings.)

She was obviously carrying on from the life experiences in music thread that I had started where I had asked her for examples where emotional maturity can be irrefutably shown to have influenced interpretation. I was merely stating that this did not amount to any kind of proof whatsoever. Now you can do all the nitpicking you want.. good night.

Also Julian, please don't tell me what an appropriate response is. I'm not really preaching to you, am I? As for all the distinctions that you mentioned, I really think all of that is irrelevant. If I set my mind to it, we could continue playing the game of connotations and semantics for a really long time. I've done it before and I'm sure you know that its not a pleasant exchange to get into. So I won't respond to that post because I think it will be a waste of time both for me and for you.

You always think you're right, don't you... relax... have a conversation without feeling superior to us all...

I find it remarkable that anyone who emphasizes precision would be dismissive about the difference between saying that there is nearly always emotion in music, as part of asserting the relevance of life experience, and saying that the primary objective in music is to communicate specific emotions. The first is on topic, whereas the second was never said by anyone asserting the relevance of life experience, and it skews the role of the composer, and the performer, and the music itself. It is flat-out wrong to cite the second as if it is a fair summary of what was said by those asserting the relevance of life experience.

You continually post along the lines of "people have been saying..." and then give a skewed version of what was actually said, before going on to debunk your skewed version. One logical explanation is that there is a tendency to reframe "dissonant" concepts in a more comfortable way, into terms that fit the way one sees and categorizes things. Thus, in these discussions, you tend to push shades of gray towards black and white distinctions, because you have a natural aversion to shades of gray. I'm sure you could write expertly about this cognitive bias stuff, given your interests. As you might say, please don't get angry, just consider the logic. I do not pretend to be certain about the cause(s) of the skewing, but I think it is a possibility worth considering.


This wasn't and isn't a game to me. Besides, I only get involved in very long debates when there is some meeting of minds regarding the basics, and the sentence quoted at the top blew that out of the water.