Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner The 'price' for greatness

If you read Mozart's letters, you will be struck by the hardships of constant travel, money concerns, poor accommodations, ongoing struggle to find patrons, humiliating encounters, poor instruments to perform on, homesickness etc..
He may have been prolific and a genius composer but he certainly struggled for independence when he could have easily taken up a permanent position at some prince or aristocrat's household, singing their praises and composing salon pieces in return for steady income.

I agree (and I have his letters to his father I think)...

But I'd have to wonder if these hardships made him what he was... If the problems he faced made him even more prolific and amazing composer...

I mean I don't really know many filthy rich who are also prolific composers... I do know a few who were great at composing and thus became rich, but not the other way around!

Yes. Or maybe they just don't know how do to anything else.

To me, the thing about "paying a price" or "making a sacrifice" is mostly about framing things in a certain way, rather than being something real. People just do what they do, and what they choose not to do is basically the stuff of imagination.

It's like a variation of the useless exercise of thinking about what could have been. And oftentimes, there are strong elements of self-congratulation and self-pity involved, it seems to me.

To me, if you don't do all kinds of other stuff in order to learn how to play piano really well and then have a career doing that, it's bogus as a sacrifice, because it's just doing what you really want to do. That's all. If you really prefer doing all the other stuff, then you will do all the other stuff.

When I started this topic part of my intent was to get some of your estimations as to the years and hours per day it typically takes for a talented pianist to reach greatness. Just a ball park average.

My guess is 4-6 hours of practice 6 days a week and at least 15 years of this.

However, when you say great pianist in a complete sense I would think you would then have to consider the size of their repertoire, how well they interpret, etc. Perhaps this might require 30 years of experience and practice. Argerich comes to mind.

I know I'm being somewhat contradictory here since greatness assumes a pianist who 'has it all.'

Bech

how could you possibly put an estimate on it?

It's my understanding that even Mozart didn't become a first-rate composer without great effort. In his letters, Mozart talked about how he had closely studied the works of virtually every major composer, learning what he could about musical style and formulating ideas of his own. According to Mozart, his compositional mastery was the result of long and sedulous study.

I'm trying to pay the price, no one is taking my money. Haha

Almost all the people I've heard of who are doing really well in international competitions and stuff are practicing about 6 hours a day or more. Some people who win big competitions get away with less, but they're rare.

I believe it's impossible to maintain the amount of repertoire concert pianists do with less than 6 hours a day, although I may be wrong...

Thank you, trigalg693. Your statement, 'maintain the amount of repertoire' sure sounds right.
The amount of music a great concert pianist has to know well is pretty amazing. Not possible in just a few years and without thousands of hours at the piano. Not just the music as written but all the small details/nuances.

Too, I'm sure they are often adding pieces to their repertoire.

Would seem that they must nearly be commited to 'living with their piano' or they wouldn't stand a chance.

Bech

The final price: Whitney Houston.

Hardly.

The great pianists or even lesser ones may only have one or two recital programs and a fairly small number of concertos to play during a typical season. So I don't think many spend much time "maintaining" a huge amount of repertoire.

This is not to say they don't have to spend a huge amount of time preparing the works for each season and learning new repertoire. After many years they have a large number pieces they have played in the past and can resurrect as needed. I think there's probably a huge difference between their active repertoire vs. a list of pieces they have learned during their lifetime. And I don't think any of them are devoting their daily practice to maintain pieces not in their active repertoire.