[CAUT] Schnabel

[Horace Greeley]

Hi, Fred, Laurence,

Some years ago, I worked with Karl Ulrich Schnabel (who was at UCSB 
at the time) for a series of master classes and seminars for which he 
was one of the "Master" teachers.  Although it's been a fairly long 
time, I think that what Fred notes was certainly a major part of how 
he approached things.

Clearly, there was also the concept of the perfection of technique, 
but that was, at least as far as I remember, always secondary to 
understanding that each piece (sometimes each passage within a piece) 
may well have "something different to say" each time it is 
approached; even by the same pianist playing the same piano.

We're fortunate, I think, to have a fairly large number of examples 
of how this can unfold over a lifetime of performance in the number 
of recordings we have of some very different pianists over a very 
long span of time.  Even making huge allowances for all the different 
variables that come into any performance or recording situation, as 
well as differences of health, stamina, etc, different performers 
obviously perform differently at different points in their career.

Warm regards.

Horace


At 11:14 AM 8/10/2010, you wrote:

>On Aug 10, 2010, at 9:49 AM, Laurence Libin wrote:
>
>>Fred, what did Schnabel mean by this? Laurence
>>>
>>>"I am only interested in music that is better than it can be
>>>played."  Schnabel
>
>
>         i think the idea is that there is more in the music than can be
>conveyed by any single performance or interpretation, that it always
>has more to explore and discover. But there are a couple other ways of
>looking at it, too.
>Regards,
>Fred Sturm
>fssturm at unm.edu
>"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." Twain
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