I’ve never had very good piano technique.
When I was little, I liked to play my piano music as loud and fast as possible, no matter what the song. Being of limited ability, this seemed like the best way to demonstrate proficiency, and besides, I thought things sounded better loud and fast. (Perhaps this explains my enduring love for the Ramones.)
Occasionally, my friend Jon and I would compete to see who could play “Fur Elise” faster, and over the years we gravitated toward songs that promoted a breakneck approach to music, like “Solfeggietto” by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. My piano teacher, who happened to be Jon’s mother, scrawled exasperated notes on my sheet music that said things like “Slower” and “Softer,” but to no avail. The truth is, it’s actually easier to play all of your piano music loud and fast than pay attention to things like dynamics and tempo. And it’s way more fun.
As an adult, I’ve never outgrown my fascination and love for rock music, and that’s mainly what I listen to. But I have accumulated a small collection of classical music CDs: Bach, Beethoven and, of course, Rachmaninoff, the great Russian composer, who wrote the sort of swift-moving, crashing, tumultuous music that Jon and I loved. Of course, there’s a big difference between “Fur Elise” and Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto No. 3,” which I could never dream of playing. (In the 1996 movie “Shine,” the young piano prodigy loses his mind while trying to master this difficult piece.)
On Wednesday I trekked up to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center to see the Philadelphia Orchestra, which is the sort of wholesome artsy activity I like to do at least once or twice a summer, and having missed the New York City Ballet it seemed doubly important to support the orchestra. The program had something for everyone: Mendelssohn, for a friend who likes Mendelssohn, and Rachmaninoff, for me.
The Saratoga Performing Arts Center is one of the more pleasant concert venues that I’ve ever been to, particularly if you’re there for the orchestra.
The lawn, which is where I sit, is never all that crowded, and you can spread out a picnic blanket full of food without feeling like you’re encroaching on anyone else’s personal space. Even more remarkable, at the orchestra you get treated like an adult. You can just waltz on in with a bottle of wine and drink it openly while watching the orchestra, because nobody is going to treat you like a parolee from Attica Correctional Facility and search you for contraband, like they would if you were attending, say, a Nine Inch Nails concert. Even better, you can act like an adult, and not resort to devious behavior like smuggling vodka into SPAC in a water bottle. And, best of all, you can avoid the dreadful experience of drinking beer in that muddy prison behind the bathrooms where they corral all the beer drinkers during rock concerts.
In any case, my friends and I had prepared such a feast for Wednesday’s orchestra program that I almost forgot we were going to SPAC to hear music. What I really wanted to do was eat, and as soon as I got there I dove into the salads, goat cheese, cherries and apricot bars we’d brought with us. But then the Philadelphia Orchestra started playing, and the food, delicious as it was, gradually receded from the forefront of my mind, because all I could think about was the music.
The Mendelssohn and Janacek pieces were very good, but nothing could compare to the Rachmaninoff, which featured a pianist, Nikolai Lugansky, who is now my personal hero, and not just because he would crush me and Jon in a three-way “Fur Elise” race, or because he has giant hands that are perfect for playing Rachmaninoff. Lugansky brought everything to “Piano Concerto No. 3” that you could possibly want. His hands flew around the keyboard, doing seemingly impossible things, but the fact that he could play the music faster and better than everybody else isn’t what made him so impressive. He invested the piece with passion and intensity, even during the quieter, softer sections, making it a perfect marriage of skill and emotion. Just watching him was exhausting.
As an adult, I sometimes play my old piano music for fun, and I still ignore my piano teacher’s comments and play the music however I want. I’m happy to report that my approach hasn’t changed at all, even though I’m long past the point of trying to impress anyone. I still like things loud and fast, and so that’s how I play.
Foss Forward makes a weekly appearance in print, in The Gazette’s Saturday Lifestyles section.
