Be aware of getting a good piano for your practicing or performances. Otherwise you will be not playing the piano but the piano will be playing you! One of the essential requirements pianists should take care for is their instrument, both for practicing and performing. The well-regulated action of the piano is as important as a perfectly tuned car for a driver of Formula 1. Pianists happen to be often facing some problems with the instrument, particularly regarding the action, which can reveal unevennesses in the technical adjustment of the keyboard in relation to the other workpieces.
It is essential to recognize that the piano action is like the anatomy of the instrument, as arm, wrist, hand and fingers are the anatomy of a pianist. Both mechanisms are based on the leverage principle. Knowing how the action works on this system means understanding our own anatomy by playing.
A well-regulated action has [...]

Competitions, competitions, competitions.
Almost every piano student has tried to participate at least in one piano competition during his music education.
A motivating piano teacher is mostly the first impulse to prepare a specific program of different piano works to perform in front of a jury. The more “pressure” the student is receiving from his teacher, the more he will get his adrenalin pumping for the competition. In other words preparing the program for a high-level performance will create the strong feeling of being compared with other competitors’ playing.
Setting those goals as “I want to be the best pianist” truly chracterizes the striving for a perfect performance to show the achieved abilities on the piano. It happens very often in piano competitions that not the best prepared pianist is the winner, but the one who wants to be the winner. The pianist who is able to reflect his strong winning desire through [...]

Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas represent the ultimate milestone for a pianist. Everybody knows that. Yet there are plenty of different point of views about the right interpretation of this musical testament. Since great pianists began in the nineteenth century to perform Beethoven sonatas as Hans von Bülow, Anton Rubinstein, Artur Schabel, Ferruccio Busoni, just to mention few important names, a tradition about the art of interpretation was born.
Exactly spoken two main streams of performance have been created since then: those who play with extreme fidelity to the written score and those who prefer to let play the spirit of the composer through his work.
For example Anton Rubinstein was known for his fervid playing, his purpose of deliberate piano virtuosity went beyond the score, creating a unique atmosphere for his audience. Rubinstein seemed to directly communicate with the composer while playing, establishing the connection as a re-creator of the composition and [...]

Textual fidelity, accurate reading of the score, focussed analyzing of the notes, meticulous reproduction of the dynamic indications, objective reconstruction of the composition, parsimonious use of the pedal, keen performance…we can go on. This could be the description of the way of interpretation offered by most pianists today in matter of Beethoven piano sonatas.
“Beethoven wrote everything in the score!” – some insiders would certainly affirm that. And it is true.
But most pianists seem to forget, or at least, to let expression completely aside when playing Beethoven.
The musical power of communicating was the real language that Beethoven consequently used to express all thinkable human emotions. From anger to serenity, from sadness to happiness, from pain to freedom, from resignation to joy. Each Beethoven sonata is a reflection of his spirit at that particular time of the Opus number and year thereof. When a pianist is playing his sonatas, then he is [...]

A terrific singing piano tone, a sublime technique, always serving the purpose of the musical message, and a perfect seducing interpretation.
Alexander Isaakovic Cherkassky, known as Shura Cherkassky, was one of the leading personalities among the generation of great pianists of the 20th century. He started his early piano education with his mother Lydia. Later on he became pupil of Jozéf Hofmann.
His concert career lasted through his long life, in fact he was actively performing until his death 1995.
What made his approach to the piano that singular?
He was able to focus on the keys with astonishing concentrating power, his interpretations were full of inventive musical atmosphere, he always created inspiring piano recitals for the audience.
Shura never played the same piece the same way. Spontaneity and freshness characterized his playing, the purpose of creating the music in every single moment drove this excellent artist to the highest level of musicianship.
One of the [...]

This week our cover story is dedicated to a wonderful pianist, who actually was more a fantastic entertainer: Danish pianist, conductor and comedian Victor Borge.
His funny point about famous piano pieces and telling several music jokes have been characterizing his performances.
It is interesting to notice that Victor Borge enjoyed the best music education when he was a child, his teachers were Liszt´s student Frederic Lamond and Busoni´s pupil Egon Petri.
But he discovered quite early that he didn´t really like the serious concert business, so he rather took the more funny path of a music career.
As he said, “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people”.
If you look at his videos, you will certainly not be able to contain your laughter…Victor Borge was right!
In music it´s often about fun…

Next year 2010 two great romantic composers share the celebration of their year of birth, obviously 200 years later.
Robert Alexander Schumann ( June 8th, 1810 ) and Frédéric François Chopin ( March 1st, 1810 ) marked the Romanticism in its musical and mostly piano tradition for a couple of decades in the middle of the 19th century.
Both defined a very personal style of musical expression.
Schumann’s art of composing was focused on the strong character of German cultural influence “Sturm und Drang”, perpetuating Beethoven’s message of a universal impact of music. Due to his early education, Schumann further developed a more personal style between literary ideas and musical representation. This can be heard in his pieces Papillons Op.2 and mostly in the Carnaval Op.9.
Pianists have generally a problem by interpreting Schumann, especially when they have to follow the indications of Tempi in his piano works. Schumann also characterized his state [...]

One of the last great personalities of the piano history left us: Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha.
I remember very well that I had the pleasure to attend one of her recitals in Vienna about 20 years ago. A little woman came on stage, but a big sound came out of the piano.
She had an incredible charisma and a powerful way of communicating with the audience. Her gesture at the instrument was not that kind of visual flashy demonstration of flying hands over the keyboard, rather a perfect choreography of well-thought movements.
Her playing reminds us of the great old piano tradition, as pianists like Josef Hofmann, Benno Moiseiwitsch, Shura Cherkassky, Vladimir Horowitz, Rosalyn Tureck belong to it.
This tradition was characterized by a charming piano sound, full of color and vibrating nuances, letting sing the instrument as the human voice, expressing all emotions of the music and perfectly translating the composer’s message.
The [...]

He was self-critical, self-demanding, objective in front of the music score and devoted to the audience.
Sviatoslav Richter represents one of the utmost exceptional figures in the pianists´history. His teacher, Heinrich Neuhaus, considered him as a “genius pupil”.
Doubtless he belongs to the generation of the greatest pianists in the past century.
His particular dedication to practice, building up his repertoire studying intensively several works of the piano literature, characterized his serious approach to the music.
Sometimes his performances have been criticized as “cold”, without the proper expression of feelings in the music.
But his intention was targeted at an execution of the composer´s work to the letter, he saw himself as an interpreter, being just between the composer´s message and the receiver – the audience.
He didn´t want to “recreate” the work, rather be captured and dissolved in the music.
Richter was enigmatic, a personality outside every normal path of musician. Probably, that´s why he gained [...]

Last week we had the opportunity to assist to a unique classical music project: the YouTube Symphony Orchestra performing at Carnegie Hall. The musicians came from several countries and have been selected through auditioning videos, which they self-posted on YouTube.
That was the first orchestra “made in the world-wide-web”.
Just check your camera, put it in your practice room, choose the best piece you can play and then just record your little audition to get your chance to be a member of a ”virtual orchestra”.
A good idea, a well-organized project, a particular live performance.
Any instrumentalist was no more required to travel personally to an audition, they could just do it from their home, from their practicing room.
Hm, quite interesting but, do you really like this?
It sounds like in doing so, “virtual voyeurs” are allowed to watch me while I am having my private practicing session at home.
Well, I think that a [...]