Well, I'm not sure I see how excessive belittling or praise can be seen as appropriate from one's primary teacher, but not from a masterclass teacher. I will say that when I teach, I'm pretty gentle. And I will grant that some teachers (both in masterclasses and private lessons) are excessively degrading. However, I will also say that I also disagree with coddling students who are attempting to become professionals (as surely just about anyone who plays for Mr. Pressler is). Music is a tough business. Many businesses are tough. You have to be able to handle criticsm and people directing displeasure toward you. That's life, whether you're a musician, a politican, a businessman, a grocery store clerk, a waiter...

CherryCoke, you are well trained !!



My teacher has not heard of that one apparently!

As I said before, this "putting down the student / trainee" act is not the sole province of music master classes.. It used to be that surgeons (male variety) would fling instruments across the room and berate their trainees (and nursing staff) regardless of who is witnessing their behavior. It was/is considered part of the territory and 'building character'. As nurses became more organized they started to complain about being disrespected and the behavior was curbed down significantly.. So it is a matter of what is considered acceptable by the norms du jour.. I should add that despicable behavior towards trainees continues at much lower frequency and amplitude, as the latter do not have unions ( or teamsters )and it is considered to be excellent for one's backbone..
I believe the same applies to music. Bad behavior during master classes is tolerated and will continue until morale is improved..
I never understood the science underlying the pedagogical value of such..

The difference is that at least in a private lesson the student is not publicly humiliated. And surely there is a middle ground between nastiness and "coddling"?

Most of the master class givers I've seen seemed to be able to find that middle ground.

I think another part of the problem is that students in master classes or members of the audience cannot afford to be critical of nasty master class teachers during the naster class.

Something like the problem in tennis around 25 years ago when a certain tennis player routinely insulted umpires and distracted his opponent. The problem was that he was also one of the best players in the world so tournaments(sponsors)could not afford to have him defaulted.

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have certainly shown that one can be a sensational player and play with great intensity without being verbally abusive.

If a "Master" needs bad manners and verbal abuse to make his point, maybe he should not be giving masterclasses. Pedagocically , it makes no sense at all.

As a former student of Pressler, I think he was an enigma - a very nasty person often, though a brilliant man who was often charming and generous. This proved a damaging combination for a number of his young artist students. Unfortunately, he was harder on some than others. Actually I think he was nicest to some of his very best students. The differences had to do more with personality than talent - he had a great deal of trouble with independent thinking or challenges from students. One of his most successful students once told me that she never disagreed with him. If you listen to Pressler's interpretations. they are highly molded, leaving little to chance. Nor was he a risk taker in repertoire choices. He took that approach to teaching as well. I found him the most helpful in repertoire such as Ondine which calls for great precision of touch. I think he felt justified, in his teaching, in trying to control and mold by any means necessary. For instance, he used coloured ink in student scores. I once took one of these scores to a lesson with Sebok. Pressler had put in hairpins indicating how to shape the phrase. Sebok didn't refer to the markings. He simply asked me to play the phrase. Then he said, "Try the following. Play it with the dynamics the other way around". Which I did. Then he said, "Now you have a choice".

It sort of reminds me of one of those great pirate oriented T-shirt slogans. Something to the effect: "The beatings will continue until morale improves".

Heard him once long ago when his trio was at its peak. As others have stated, a superb chamber musician. However, he also played a solo piece (a Beethoven sonata, I think, but it was long ago). Whatever piece it was, both my wife and I were surprised at how poorly he played.

Then back to the trio and the magic returned. A superb tone and touch that blended so well with the strings!

Lovely story. I only know of his work as a collaborative pianist and sometime soloist (I heard marvelous Mozart concerti in his hands).

Did he talk at all about playing from the score as opposed to from memory?

Not to bad-mouth a reputed performer and teacher, I was not impressed with his solo performances, only his collaborative work. Once I attended his solo recital. He performed with music: Beethoven sonata in G major, Chopin Nocturnes, and some other standard pieces that I cannot remember now. With his extensive performance and teaching career, I would expect him to perform those pieces from memory. Moreover, he also played almost like he was reading them.

I saw him give a master class to two students a year or two younger than I. He wasn't nasty to them. He was just like some other guest artists that came to do master classes. Although, every last time he gave them something to fix, they did it to his liking on the first try, something I probably could not do.

Although, one of my friends who played for him did the Liszt E Flat Concerto, and he started conducting at the accompanist... Who was a former student of his. The audience laughed out loud about it, and then a big smile came over both of their faces.



You can NOT BE SERIOUS!!

We used to bring our pieces to lessons usually already memorized, so it wasn't a topic much discussed. This was standard rep of course. His tendency was to work on a small group of pieces and polish them highly, so memory was less problematic with all the repetition. I say repetition but it's not the right word, because, while things were so controlled and shaped, he was also extremely insistent that one should never play anything twice exactly the same way. This was the most creatively wonderful thing about his teaching. He would stop you in disgust if you took a repeat or repeated even a small motive without finding something different to say the second time. If he had any discomfort with memorization, I never knew about it. My impression was that he was much less comfortable or confident playing solo repertoire than chamber music.He was angsty about his solo career, and it is true that the solo stuff didn't sound as well. My impression was that he actually didn't have a big expansive sound for big solo music. I don't know why this was, but now that I look at some of his fingerings, I think he must not have had a huge reach, for one thing. It's been interesting thinking about him with this forum. I studied with two other great teachers after him. I base my sense of creative identity more on the confidence they gave me. However, I will always have a place in my heart for Mr. Pressler. He was unquestionably a very inspiring artist on many levels. As unnecessarily abusive as he could be, he was always doing so in defence of the idea that art was something very noble and wonderful and rare that one had to make a huge journey to find. The pendulum has swung the other way in these times.