Solitary Confinement: Part 2

This is to clarify/expand on my last post. If you haven't read that post, then read it here. For the record, I'm trying to state my opinions and thoughts very clearly. The problem is, I get super-excited about things. When I do get super-excited about things, I tend to dash off a blog post about it and leave it at that. And my super-excited mind doesn't always articulate things very well. So please bear with me as I start trying to be more serious about this blog. That's all.

Anyway, here's a clearer idea of what I was trying to say.

People used to sit around and play classical music in parlors. They would sit around after dinner and sing Schubert lieder together! Like in Jane Austen novels! Somehow, classical music has completely shifted away from that communal mentality. I think that part of that shift has to do with the ever-growing gap between classical music and popular music, but that's a post for a different time. (I have all *kinds* of things I could say about that.) The real problem, I think, is this intense aura of ceremony and pomp in which classical music has cloaked itself. Classical music is only performed in the most formal of settings. There is a stage. There is a spotlight. There is a soloist.

I feel as if there's this idea that any performance of classical music has to be a spectacle. My argument is not with the spectacle itself, but with the fact that classical music is only ever performed in this setting. Classically trained musicians never play together in informal settings, at least as far as I am aware. If we do play in informal settings, it's as practice for playing in formal settings. All of the solemnity is stifling. I'll go back to folk music, as I did in the first post. Folk musicians will sit around and play music for each other. I think that's really nice. I think classically trained musicians should do that as well. I think it would be good for them, myself included. I truly believe that not only would a more appreciative sense of the music evolve out of that idea, but that a more distinct comradeship would develop among classically trained musicians.

(For the record, this little post took me a cumulative six hours to write because I kept going off on all sorts of excited tangents about Liszt's rock-stardom and why people feel afraid of classical music and the barriers between performer and audience. I hope you appreciate my succinctness.)

Solitary Confinement

I read this article the other day. It really made me feel better about the 4+ hours I spend locked in a practice room every. single. day. I've always been introverted, but my lack of social-ness is something I've been thinking on lately. I'm not trying to imply that I need to overhaul my life. I'm a quiet person, and I like spending time by myself. But I think pianists often tend to drift into a sort of isolated, self-absorbed cocoon. I'm trying to remedy this for myself by doing more collaborative work. Accompanying is always fun. I'm taking ensemble next semester. (The ever-talented Mario Barbosa and I are duo partners, and we are going to shake Baylor to its very foundation with our phenomenal piano duo skills. Just fyi.) It will be good.

However, I do think this is a problem (for lack of a better word) among classical musicians, or at least pianists. And I do believe that it is limited to classical musicians. I read this little post on the same day. He's essentially saying that folk musicians have something going on with this whole community thing, that they tend to value communion with other musicians over individual talent. I don't have much insight into the world of folk music, so I can't comment on its verity. (My fiance is a folk musician of sorts, but he's as much a musical perfectionist as I am, so he might not represent the general idea very well.) I don't think that pianists should all suddenly stop caring about playing well, but it might be nice to get back to that original communal role of music.

Soviet Russia, You Did Something Right

Seriously. I don't understand how people are not heralding Kabalevsky as a composer of genius. I've been listening to his other music this week, and it's really wonderful. There's very little recorded music of his that I can find, and it's unfortunate. He wrote vocal orchestral works called "Revenger of the People" and "A Letter to the 30th Century" and "Poem of Struggle." I can't find recordings anywhere. I can't even find scores anywhere. It is immensely frustrating. *But* I have been able to find a few symphonies. His second symphony is my favorite of the few that I've found. It sounds like a really well-done film score. There's some great imagery, and the instrumentation is fantastic (in my humble opinion).

His efforts to bring music-making to children aren't recognized in the way that they should be. I played some of his children's pieces when I was in high school, and they are so charming. Intermediate level literature so often falls into this trite, banal rut. Like children are incapable of appreciating any sort of sophisticated musical character. I think it's ridiculous, and I love that Kabalevsky took children and pedagogy seriously.

I kind of want to write a really amazing biography on Kabalevsky. I can't find a single book on Kabalevsky or his music. I can't even find a poorly written book, much less a well-written book. But I feel that to do the proper research, I would really have to learn Russian. The real question is, do I love Kabalevsky enough to learn Russian? Or rather, do I love Kabalevsky enough to deal with the Cyrillic alphabet?