Murray Perahia Piano Master Class

.. at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall in Evanston Sat. Oct 13th 3 pm; free admission.

http://www.pickstaiger.org/event/murray-perahia-piano-master-class

And I can't go.

He performed here in Phoenix last weekend - and I wasn't able to attend, doggone it !!!

Actually, he will perform October 7th, in Scottsdale.

Excellent !!!

i love his bach; maybe my favorite bach interpreter on the piano. not too hot and not too cold, just right.

Perahia gave a public master class at Juilliard yesterday. I was happy to be fortunate enough to attend. It was pretty intense: three hours in duration, with each of three students allotted about an hour each.

Beethoven op 109
Chopin Barcarole
Brahms Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel

I thought Perahia gave helpful comments on the pieces and, seemingly, helpful feedback to the students.

Perahia is an extremely busy guy - the Juilliard masterclass on October 3, the performance in Scottsdale on October 7, and the performance in Evanston on October 13.

My piano tuner tunes the concert grand at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts. Tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 10:30 a.m. he will briefly meet with Perahia in Scottsdale to see what tweaks need to be made to the piano for the Sunday evening performance. Then at 11:30 a.m. the tuner will meet with me to inspect a privately owned grand piano we are thinking about purchasing for our church. Gee - he'll hear Perahia play at 10:30 a.m. then me at 11:30 a.m. What a letdown that's gonna be !!

He's in Santa Barbara (at the UC) Thursday Oct 11th, if any of you are around!

Wow, I am glad I saw this. I will go to his performance tomorrow if there's still a ticket available. I'm wondering if your tuner is the same person I use (John G). If it is, it's a small world.

John G. it is. Small world indeed !!

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Lucky you. I just went to his website and while he has a very busy schedule, he is not playing at many venues in the U.S. In November and December he will be performing in Europe (mostly Germany) and Israel.

Nice! I wish I could go, but it's the same time that I'm playing in the pit for our opera production. I did get to see him a couple years ago playing all the Chopin Etudes and it was a great concert.

I am quite excited! I think there's a master class that is being kept closed/secret! I wish so much that I could just observe quietly from a corner in that studio or auditorium or wherever it is being held......

my fortunes changed and i was able to attend, and it may well have been the single most fulfilling master class i've ever watched/attended.

first of all perahia is an absolute premier world class pianist, perhaps my favorite pianist of the living, certainly my favorite interpreter of bach. second, his knowledge of the music is astounding, second to none, musicologists included.

3 pianists (students at NU i presume) performed; a movement of a beethoven sonata (#27 in e minor), a schumann fantasy and a brahms scherzo. subsequent to each performance perahia returned to the stage from the audience and provided his input. he played the passages he wanted to focus on from memory, and the amount of artistry and subtlety he proffered was awe inspiring. he would frequently say "sorry" when stopping the student to interject a comment, which i found utterly charming -- the maestro apologizing for stopping the student to give his sage advice.

if i were to boil his comments down to 4 points, i would say they were the following:

balancing consistency and emotion

thinking in measures/phrases not notes

rubato as the lilt of a conversation, a personal style

counting

Can you explain what he meant by "counting"?

i'll try.

he asked the students, "you are counting, aren't you?", but i don't believe he meant counting strictly by the time signature always, but sometimes counting the phrases in a way so as to capture the entire expression.

For example, if the time sig was 4/4 with 4 consecutive bars of triplets (1 and ah 2 and ah 3 and ah 4 and ah, 2 and ah 2 and ah 3 and ah...) he wanted the student to count it as "one" (silent: andah2andah3andah4andah) "Two" (silent: andah2andah3andah4andah) "THRee" (silent: andah2andah3andah4andah) "FOUR!" (silent: andah2andah3andah4andah), assuming the 4 bar passage was a crescendo.

if it was 3 phrases of 4 bars each you would be counting the phrases, one, two, three, four, Two, Two, Three, Four, THRee, TWo, THRee, FOur, and so on, so the focus, once again, is on the complete musical statement, not the individual notes or bars.

My teacher always did this with me when I was younger and I never understood why until much later . Now, I use it with my choir so they start thinking in terms of phrases rather than measures. It's quite effective for stretching a phrase.