Coming from the culture-rich area of the NC Triangle, hearing world-class, even legendary, performers is not unusual. However, I still took notice when I saw in the NY Times that pianist Alfred Brendel would be speaking at NYU. He was the special guest for a week-long residency where he gave two lectures and participated in one "conversation" with notable faculty of NYU. I got to hear his lecture on character in music as well as the "conversation." In the lecture on character, he focused on the Beethoven sonatas and drew connections between structure and character, playing short examples from about ten different sonatas. I found his discussions of the "Tempest"and "Waldstein" sonatas especially illuminating. He referred to one idea of the sonata as "studies in the various passions of man." In connecting structure with character, Brendel would frequently delve into motivic analysis to demonstrate both abstract musical in the sonatas long with unity of character. He characterized the Waldstein Sonata as a work dealing with the perception of space and of three-dimensional depths. A simple example of this would be the beginnings of the first and second movements (not the slow portion). Pianists who simply play the sonata with its technical aspects in mind (namely as fast and as clearly as possible) miss the entire point of the work. Near the end of his talk he referred to the influence of the Krolisch Quartet on his musical concepts.
The following day he fielded questions from Michael Beckerman, Chair of the Music Department at NYU; Paul Boghossian, Professor of Philosophy at NYU; and Kit Fine, Professor of Philosophy at NYU as well as the audience. Most of the questions seemed to grow from Brendel's talk on humor in music. There were some humorous moments involving the use of visual (especially facial) gestures as a cue for listeners for humorous or comedic musical passages. Brendel confessed that he used to do far too much gesturing and had toned that aspect down but still has a tendency to gesture too much.
There seemed to be great diversity in the audience and a good many students. Strangely, I did not see some of the NYU piano faculty that I know. Hmm.
(The Alfred Brendel residency took place at NYU the week of October 18-22.)
No comments:
Post a Comment