[CAUT] Keith Kirchoff

[Albert Picknell]

David Skolnik <davidskolnik at optonline.net> wrote:

> For the most part, Cowell seems to have escaped most of the
> responsibility for this musical assault (a description, not
> a judgement).  What were the composer's dynamic
> instructions, and was Kirchoff accurately observing them?
> exceeding them?  or perhaps holding back?  the
> horror!  the horror!


Excellent point, and excellent questions.  It is apparent that there are composers as well as performers who are ignorant of the limitations of certain musical instruments, such as pianos.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, Keith was every bit a gentleman when he was here, and I can only reconcile that fact with his tendency to treat pianos very roughly by assuming one of two things: either he really likes this particular kind of repertoire and is simply doing what the score tells him to do, or he just doesn't know better.  Like a four-year-old who uses a nice new coffee table as a workbench and a valuable marble sculpture as a hammer.  Perhaps Cowell didn't know better either, unless abuse of the piano is exactly what he intended, and constitutes some kind of artistic expression in itself.

In my experience, most of the players who exceed the limits of the piano are young ones.  Most of the more established artists I've worked with can do a full day of rehearsing or recording, even of fairly "heavy" repertoire, and barely create a slow wave in a couple of unisons.  Perhaps the overly rough ones weed themselves out by means of the damage they coincidentally inflict on their own joints, muscles, bones and nerves.

Cheers,
Bert


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