I don't think anyone had trouble with my 'A.S.'

'Specially since I've said the most wonderful things about him here...

It was only the AP that stumped me.. Thank you Kreisler for indulging me .. Coincidentally I happen to have recently played one of his compositions. My teacher had a lot of nice things to say about him!! perhaps he was also having a bad day..
You know one thing is interesting about this aspect of the culture of classical music. People teaching "masterclasses" get away with the poor behavior and uninhibited temperament, because they are allowed to.It is accepted as part of the "toughen up the student" deal.
In my line of work, "masters" used to have the same attitude, even harsher.. The most common motto is "what does not kill you can only make you stronger".. "Breaking egos" and treating trainees as if they were slaves are not uncommon and are often considered a rite of passage. The culture is changing slowly especially with the "invasion" (not always welcome) of women. I don't know if that is the case in music.

Having said this, teaching is not an easy job and patience is not endless.

Argerichfan, you were not so subtle about AS's Id. No worries..

I am happy many have chosen to speak up and especially in this thread which I believe deserves more attention. For many years, I have completely believed in expressing one's true emotions and beliefs. I will tell one story that led to my disappearance from a piano performance class (I have never liked playing so much but I always tried when I had to).

Years ago, a teacher/pianist with a heavy name and plenty of weight to it, came to give a masterclass. However this was a more contemporary repertoire since I was at that point specializing in more modern works.

I was second to last in performing one of the easier Stockhausen Klavierstucke pieces. This teacher/pianist by the way, has recorded and played this piece, and was giving masterclasses on this composer at the time.

No more than 3 bars into it, I highlighted 3 mistakes he made. He later tried to correct me while I felt I was right. Somehow we continued and then i highlighted his horrible dynamics. He later encouraged the idea of removing notes to facilitate interpretation, I found this awful and repugnant! I hated this class by now.

He was now becoming harsh and actually told me, " I am the teacher." I then replied how I felt and said the blunt truth, "You are not a composer, I am." Although I felt out of line, I dislike feeling like someone is better than me simply because of his name. I can respect with what I see with my own eyes and if I can vividly testify to someone's amazing knowledge or technique . More or less, the professor was immensely frustrated and then asked for a drink of water and left. I did as well only seconds later.

I am not a very courageous person in real life, but music will take demons out of me.

The very first post of this topic was criticized but the truth is many 'masters' suck, they're not even good. I do not consider almost any living pianist a master at this moment, only few I will not name. Pianists , for the most part, have little knowledge of more complex understanding of compositions and their structures.

Mr. Daniel Baremboim is one of the few who knows Beethoven's music left and right. One cannot really claim to know more about Beethoven's sonatas than this man at this time of life, he is simply amazing, and will leave pianists dumbfounded as how he spots all their mistakes, proven right from the score!

Standing up is sometimes what makes one's voice resound louder than ever.

John Cage's reply to his 'master' Schoenberg is one of those quotes you cannot ignore, and this how I feel for the most part. People should always be themselves, and only in this case should the ego be allowed to speak loud in efforts to stress the importance of non-comformity or unjust respect of someone not worthy of it.

'After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, "In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony." I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, "In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall."'

-John Cage

... ... ... ... ...

I am sorry in case my views are in harsh opposition to others' opinions.

This is a very interesting observation.
Many pianists of the "Golden Age" of piano-playing had studied composition and were composers, themselves, albeit usually of ear-tickling "lollipops" which they would include in their recitals as encores. I would hazard a guess that many of today's performers don't even have the skill or imagination to compose a cadenza for a concerto should the need arise.
Many of the outstanding conductors of the past...Walter, Schuricht, Klemperer, Beecham, Harty, Silvestri,Martinon, Kubelik, Dorati, Kletzki (to name just a few) were also skilled composers.

It must be hard to enjoy music with such an attitude.

With whom have you discussed? What is "knowledge of more complex understanding"?
"Understanding" music is only partially an intellectual thing to most people. Being able to let the music speak to you directly, without filter, and to convey the same feelings to listeners, is something that should not be dismissed.

This is a very interesting observation.
Many pianists of the "Golden Age" of piano-playing had studied composition and were composers, themselves, albeit usually of ear-tickling "lollipops" which they would include in their recitals as encores. I would hazard a guess that many of today's performers don't even have the skill or imagination to compose a cadenza for a concerto should the need arise.
Many of the outstanding conductors of the past...Walter, Schuricht, Klemperer, Beecham, Harty, Silvestri,Martinon, Kubelik, Dorati, Kletzki (to name just a few) were also skilled composers. [/QB][/QUOTE]


W-d
I am not sure I understood your point. Are you saying that for a pianist to achieve real mastery of their instrument, he/she must be a composer as well? Does the composition or improvisation of "ear lollipops" really imply that the pianist has achieved that next level of excellence? are they (the lollipops) not, at least in part, a reflection of the recital culture of those days? (where are they called golden by the way?)
I appreciate the point about the ability to compose a cadenza and ( or other composition) as an indicator of greater musicianship. And obvioulsy greater musicianship leads to enhanced understanding of the structure of a piece, but the leap to a better pianist is not as intuitively evident to me.
what about the quality of the composition? I am not sure that composing lollipos enhances one's pianism.. we are not talking Lisztian transciptions obviously. And the great conductors who you cite have not, to my knowledge, achieved a great mastery of composition. Their works are not commonly played. Is this relevant?

W-d
I am not sure I understood your point. Are you saying that for a pianist to achieve real mastery of their instrument, he/she must be a composer as well? [/QB][/QUOTE]

No. But what I do feel is that a solo pianist (or any soloist or conductor for that matter) shouldn't be merely a reproductive "instrument" and that each should bring his own imagination and understanding of the processes of composition to a performance. I confess I find many of today's performances either dull "urtext"-type reproductions or misguided in other ways (often in the matter of extreme tempi when the damage to the "structural" effect of the piece suffers) because the performer hasn't really understood the piece from a composer's point of view.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by pianovirus:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by William Penafiel:
[qb]The very first post of this topic was criticized but the truth is many 'masters' suck, they're not even good. I do not consider almost any living pianist a master at this moment, only few I will not name.[/b]

I would partially agree. Many masters today are more technicians than they are musicians and I believe the difference between now and the so-called "golden age of piano playing" is the emphasis on right notes. Pianists today put such an emphasis on playing extremely fast and hitting all the right notes and not enough emphasis on music making. I saw a pianist last year that was from Juilliard and her Brahms Sonata sounded more like a Liszt Etude because she took the tempo about twice as fast as what was intended. But with all this in mind we cannot forget about the masters alive today, there are many. Here's a list:

1. Emmanuel Ax
2. Andras Schiff
3. Daniel Barenboim
4. Vladimir Ashkenazy
5. Evgeny Kissin (not quite there but will be)
6. Murray Peraiha
7. Leif Ove Andsnes
8. Martha Argerich (although she is a technician)
9. Richard Goode
10. Alfred Brendel
etc.

None of these people on this list suck. They all bring something interesting to the table with their playing.

For me, there is probably not a single well-known pianist whose playing I would attribute with this label. Sure, I also have my favorite performances of some pieces, but does it mean that I can't enjoy a solid, maybe less inspired (to my ears) performance from many other pianists? And even if I dissent with an interpretation: would I consider my taste so general as to say that it's a bad interpretation? (exception: deliberately "original" performances)

And in addition to that I suggest to add to your list thousands of pianists world-wide whose playing is mainly heard in their regions. It's the gifted people who chose not to live the life of a traveling virtuoso (or who were not lucky enough to win the right competition at the right time). People who give maybe a dozen concerts a year around their region or country, have a class of pupils besides that and who don't record CDs (I could mention a number of them regions in which I have lived). Many of them are wonderful musicians, they care for right notes as well as for deep musicality probably just as much as any famous "golden-age" pianist.

In summary, to me, most famous pianists deserve to be famous. But there are also many unknown ones who would deserve the same.

The question here, however, is one of teaching.

I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine the other day in which we agreed that being an excellent player does not necessarily make one a good teacher.

I've told the story before, but years ago I got to pick up Ann Schein from the airport. She's a brilliant teacher and performer who taught at Peabody for many years. Upon discovering I taught mostly kids between the ages of 8 and 15, she commented on how important that was and that she herself would have no idea what to do with the average 9-year old. She knew how to refine technique and musicianship at the top levels, but did not feel qualified to tackle other things.

So some performers are great teachers, and some are not. And some teachers are good with one kind of a student but not with another.

Also, some teachers are great in private but not public. Teaching a studio lesson is much different than a masterclass. Teaching a studio is as much about managing repertoire, performances, and educational/career choices as it is about the music. Masterclasses tend to be all about the music. One of my favorite masterclass teachers once refused to hear a Beethoven sonata from someone because I had played it for him in class earlier in the semester. She was upset and asked why. His response was that he spent an hour telling the class his ideas on the piece when I had played it a few weeks ago. In other words, the class wasn't as much about my performance as it was about the piece. That's why he's good at masterclasses.

On the other hand, the reason I dislike V.F. so much from my earlier post is that he presumes to "know" the hearts and minds of students after having only known them for one 10-minute piece.

A big problem, one that I think Penafiel is getting at, is that pianists are often quick to think they can teach when they have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Just because you can play the complete Beethoven sonatas doesn't mean you know how to help another person discover them in a way that's right for them.

My path to Beethoven's Op. 110 is different than Barenboim's. He's a far better pianist than I and probably never had to work through any of the challenges that I would face in learning it. Whether or not he would have the insight to help me is unrelated to his abilities as a performer.

I accompanied a masterclass last week and caught myself thinking:

"Well, that's great if I wanted to play it like you; but I don't want to be a carbon copy of you, so this class is pretty much pointless. It's not that I don't understand the meaning of 'fermata,' it's just that I don't want to wait as long as you. I actually did consider waiting longer - I'm not an idiot - I chose my interpretation thoughtfully, so get off my case about the STUPID FERMATA. Besides, Szeryng and Oistrakh do it the same way I do, so it's not like there's no precedent. I was actually hoping you'd pick up on the fact that I'm having trouble with *this* part, but either you don't care or didn't notice, in which case why are you even pretending to be a teacher?"

I once played for a very famous organist, someone I had idolized for years.

I played Bach; she criticized everything I did! It was a very frustrating experience.

I was extremely dejected, especially since she had seemed so nice to the other participants. I wondered if maybe she was getting tired.

My colleagues eased the pain by pointing out that her Bach interpretations are not entirely idiomatic.

Did she have a famous brother by any chance?

No trouble - I was just surprised to find you're old enough to have attended a masterclass with Artur Schnabel...

My mother isn't even old enough to have attended a Schnabel masterclass.

That said, along with Busoni, I can think of few other pianists from the past I would have loved to have attended a masterclass with. Just imagine! Schnabel might have told us about his studies with Leschetizky (and his classmates like Friedman), his early career in Berlin (what an exciting music climate that must have been!), his subsequent immersion in Beethoven and Schubert...

:)

The point I am getting at , is exactly what Kreisler so perfectly said. Just because a pianist, a concert pianist can play , let's say Rachmaninov's 3rd concerto, does not mean he is equipped to teach it. Being a composer I can explain things to you that a pianist, NOT COMPOSER/PIANIST, could never teach you simply because all the pianist knows is the technique and sound, ignoring teh structure and the pillars of the work.

Naturally I am quite a rebel but I have been willing to attend some masterclasses in the past that did not ruin my day at all, because the teacher knew so much about the piece that it made me envious of how analytical his view was.

There also cases where someone, a teacher specializing in contemporary works attempted to give me a free class on Bussotti's Pour Clavier which I simply adore. I immediately knew this professor know nothing but the technique and it bothered me, especially after having talked to Bussotti himself over this piece. Bussotti loves this piece with all his heart.

MY POINT: A master class should be taught by a MASTER! , not someone who can play piano, because many people can play piano. Very few are able to teach.

I think it's kind of harsh to say that a composer/pianist only knows technique and sound (of piano I assume). I think Percy Grainger is an excellent example of a composer/pianist who can compose outside of his instrument. It might also be a little bold of me to include Beethoven in this list as well.

Big generalisation here, William, to say that pianists who aren't composers can't understand the structure of a work, or just ignore it. I certainly don't think that's true.

And anyway, all generalisations are inaccurate .

I have to agree. It's not as if compositional form is difficult anyway -- if it were outrageously complicated it would be impossible to hear and therefore a fairly useless exercise.

My experience is that every person has his/her own outlook on life and one teacher's teaching can be absolutely useless, while at the same time incredible to someone else.

Having said that, I have heard many masterclasses from modern masters who don't seem to have a clue about anything at all. I even heard a well known up and coming pianist give a class and completely get the whole concept of "delaying the melody" wrong, by just playing the bass early all the time. Far more than half of the piano teaching world are "naturals" who don't even know how they themselves do it.

Kreisler,
I guess that is why there is a science and art of pedagogy and why people get degrees in education. But I would argue that a masteclass by its format is not well suited for transmission of instruction via pedagogically correct strategies. You don't (or should not)play in a masterclass in order to learn a specific technique or to hone a particular skill or a practice a difficult passage. The idea is to get exposure to an expert and get a critique about the performance of the piece from their perspective.. Disagree with the master if you like but a pianist preparing to be a performer must contend with an audience with a wide spectrum of musical literacy and tastes..getting acquainted with a professional's viewpoint or interpretation is then beneficial even if you choose to retain your own interpretation.

The counterpoint to this argument is indeed the undeniable existence of poor masterclasses, due mostly to the poor communication skills of the expert and the poorly defined role of a masterclass "provider".

I have always thought of masterclasses as being more for the audience than the player. (in my mind having an audience is part of the definition of masterclass) The masterclasses I've played in have not been of lasting importance in my mind except as an overall experience. The reality is, the setting is not conducive at all to retaining and applying advice and comments, nerves etc. contribute to a shallow understanding of what the teacher is saying. And from the teacher's point of view, if they give good masterclasses, the more generally they talk about technique and interpretation, the better. I played Chopin's first ballade in a masterclass and the teacher literally spent 30 minutes on one bar, one chord. A professor told me afterwards that he thought it was an abysmal class because it was too specific.

In short, I agree with you!

hmm .. there is a coming masterclass by a Spanish pianist next week in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina for 'B1 level' whatever that means.. perhaps the first time they have such a thing in my city.

I wonder if it is worth it .. or even if I can make it.

I played in a master class once where Mr. Famous brought out the best in the worst students (how sweet) and the worst in the best students.

He was fishing for graduate students. If he actually accepted anybody who shined in that class, I'm sure he rapidly became disappointed.

I have always thought of masterclasses as being more for the audience than the player. [/b][/QUOTE]

My experience in attending over 100 masterclasses is that they were almost always more for the player. What makes you feel they were more for the audience?

My experience in attending over 100 masterclasses is that they were almost always more for the player. What makes you feel they were more for the audience? [/b][/QUOTE]

Because it's a far less useful environment for learning than just a private lesson would be.

Because it's a far less useful environment for learning than just a private lesson would be. [/b][/QUOTE]

That's true, but that doesn't mean it's more for the audience.

What does the fact that the time could be "easily spent in private" have to do with anything?

No one's denying that a private lesson *could* be more useful than a master class for the student(although even this is not necessarily the case because the student loses the chance to play a piece in public). But this does not logically mean that a master class is more for the audience.

Whether it's more for the audience or for the student is a matter of opinion not logic. I happen to think it is more for the student based on the very large number of master classes I've seen.

What I meant to say was more "effectively" spent in private.

I see we agree about who the masterclasses are for...

Actually, I meant to say the masterclasses are more for the student and have changed it in my last post.