Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont, pianist » classical music

Mozart’s Sonata Kv 330

Pierre-Arnaud — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:00:48 +0000

Next week, I will give a recital in Prague. On the program, the famous Mozart’s sonata in C Major Kv 330. This sonata has been played many times, and by the biggest names… making it hard to tackle it, and even more difficult to assume in concert. Because yes, it’s actually the first time I’m going to perform Mozart in public!

Mozart has left us 20 sonatas for piano, of which the most famous are certainly, the A Major Kv 331 and its “Turkish march”, as well as the one said to be “easy”, in C Major Kv 545. Easy? Not really… Mozart’s work is for me one of most difficult, requiring an absolutely perfect and natural playing, as well as an extraordinary subtility. For a pianist, playing Mozart means to bare his own soul.

This sonata Kv 330 is the tenth of the composer and has notably been immortalized by a certain Vladimir Horowitz. Fascinating, this sonata has turned me on since I was a kid, I used to listen to Horowitz with my tape player I carried everywhere in the house. Next tuesday, my biggest wish would be to be up to this piece, and once again reveal to the public the Master’s genius.

Classical music against “undesirables”

Pierre-Arnaud — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:00:07 +0000

The municipality of Trois-Rivières in Québec has found a strange way to secure the local underground parking. The authorities have indeed installed headspeakers, playing around the clock classical music in the stairwells of this big parking lot.

With a high sound level, the municipality intends to disturb and drive anyone seeking refuge in the parking lot away. According to the city’s spokesperson, more and more homeless and drug-addicted individuals settle down there, mostly in winter, causing a feeling of insecurity among the structure’s users.

Of course, the spokesperson admits that this displaces the issue rather than resolving it. But, what seems to be the most comical is to use classical music as a repellent. It’s certainly more peaceful than the “Malodore” used in Argenteuil, but I find it difficult to accept that classical music might be considered as a potential repellent.

Imagine one second the discussion which could follow from this… “I am sure that if we blast on repeat Mahler’s 5th symphony by Karajan, homeless would run away faster rather than with Mozart’s piano concertos by Perahia.” Surrealist, isn’t it? I’m certain in any case that the result the municipality wanted to obtain is the total opposite of what these composers had wished for…

Does all of this seems normal or am I the only one to be offended by this absurdity?

The end of classical music?

Pierre-Arnaud — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:00:45 +0000

This topic has already been discussed extensively: classical music is a thing of the past and is thus doomed to extinction. Don’t you see all those “white hairs” in concert halls?

Thanks to a post in muse affiliée, I’ve recently discovered an article by conductor Leon Bolstein, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.

Against all expectation, this article was published in the Wall Street Journal and confirmed what I was thinking: no, classical music isn’t dead, but quite the opposite, concerts are going well. The number of concerts has exponentially increased during the last forty years, the number of professional orchestras too. More and more young people learn to play an instrument. “An ageing public” you’d say? Classical music has never been a young people’s affair until now, and efforts made to rejuvenate the image of classical music and get new audience have just begun to bear fruit.

Would the sound reproduction be an impediment to the live concert? Would the multimedia change the culture consumer’s behavior by allowing him to do his own home-concert? Though conceivable, this trend won’t grow and won’t be harmful to the concert, but quite the opposite. No hi-fi system will replace the unique experience of the live performance. On the contrary, discs and mp3s can make a new audience go to concerts.

These days, live performance is going well, even if we’d have to find a more flexible concept of concert allowing an audience less accustomed to the concert ritual to swell the ranks of classical music lovers. Hard to please a potential audience without dissatisfying the existing one, but with time we will make it.

And now a question for you, dear readers: how should we improve classical music concerts?

Do pianists only listen to Classical music?

Pierre-Arnaud — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:00:49 +0000

I’m often asked the question “what do I listen to besides Classical music?” Sometimes, people offer me to relax with such-and-such Classical music work. When I explain them that it might stress me out, they seem a bit taken aback.

What do I listen to? Well, actually I don’t listen to music much. Working a lot, I also need to rest my ears and can’t of course listen to Classical music without considering it a bit from a professional perspective. Finally, listen to Classical music somehow means to me to work again.

I otherwise listen to a lot of Jazz, more particularly Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau (still pianists you may think, even if I also listen to a lot of Mehldau in trio). Pop music-wise, to tell the truth, I don’t really listen to it much, even if I have preferences from another generation. For example, I very much like Brel, Gainsbourg or Dutronc.

Which leads us back to the first question. I would answer: no, we don’t. We listen to other genres as well, and I noticed that Jazz was a frequent answer among pianists.

And you, what do you listen to? Only Classical music or something else?

Do you know contemporary music?

Pierre-Arnaud — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:48:37 +0000

Lutoslawski, Xenakis, Britten, Carter, Penderecki, Kurtág, Lindberg, Dutilleux, Ligeti, Murail, don’t all these names say anything to you? You surely don’t listen to music known as “contemporary”. “Contemporary” even if it’s quite obvious that any music was one day contemporary. But when one speaks about contemporary music, it’s especially about the music written since the second world war.

The contemporary music is too little known, sometimes even ignored by some listeners, or worse by musicians themselves which don’t understand it and get rid of it before having made an effort of comprehension. Because this is where the problem lies. Our ear, little accustomed to this type of music has grown up with popular musical forms and classical music, and has completely assimilated the music known as tonal, without really realizing it (by means of cinema, advertising…). This said, the deficiencies of our ear towards today’s music can be filled. By listening to contemporary music, one discovers unknown soundscapes, often of a very large variety; this involves to listen actively and do a small personal research.

To penetrate the world of contemporary music, it is to agree to enter the field of the “unexpected”. The listener can sometimes be diverted by the lack of melody, but it’s actually this classical structure of melody/accompaniment which is questioned by some composers. I would say that the contemporary music is a research on the language. If this seems inefficient or non-aesthetic to you, then question first the way you listen, and remember that at a certain time the sharps and flats did not exist, the increased quart was seen as a “diabolus in musica” and all the elements we now find in classical and popular music were perceived as noise, as an atrocious cacophony. In his time, Wagner wrote noise, so Mozart did.

Many works composed for more than fifty years by musicians of classical education could reach a larger audience than the current one. The keys which would make possible to appreciate them lack, and so the listener doesn’t manage to enter this “unusual” world, but more importantly, by ignoring this world he threatens its existence. Ask yourself the question about the composers, whether the law of supply and demand must manage the musical researches, therefore, whether the composer must write the music the public wishes to listen, or if the composer is free to transcend the “law” to reveal his genius.