australiaa n societ s y fo r mumsic education e Transforming the landscape i ncorporated through music creation and performance Simon Tedeschi Let me first say that I’d like to pay respect to the that is enormously deleterious to the artistic traditional custodians of this land upon which process itself. And for me, the artistic process is we stand. inherently progressive. Key to this progressivism In about 2008, I was interviewed by my local is the act and art of improvisation. The ability rag, the Sydney Morning Herald. It was the usual to improvise is integral to the future of classical gamut of questions – about my childhood, my music. And classical pianists are still not putting studies, my prizes, my approach to performing improvisation over other areas, such as rote and even my family. The journalist started off learning, technique, and memory. All of these innocently enough but I smelt a rat when she facets, however, are positively impacted by started asking really pointed questions. She improvisation. wanted a sound byte from me and I had learned Much has been written, studied, analysed and from bitter experience as a young man not to theorised about improvisation – probably by give it to anybody, especially journos. However, many sitting in this conference. However, in many journos do have a way of preying on the intrinsic ways, we veteran classical performers are behind human need to be understood – a byproduct of the eight ball compared to everyday students narcissism, which most pianists possess in spades. who are versed in Kodály. We’ve been swallowed No names mentioned. up so much by the idea of doing music, that we So I was in a bad mood. The journo asked the have lost the meaning of being music – music as following question: ‘How do you feel that you are life force, as a conduit for healing, and as a way of different from your contemporaries?’ I responded bringing cultures together, not further apart. with a firecracker: “most classical pianists couldn’t Just to digress for a minute: about two weeks improvise a fart in a Hungarian wedding.” Not ago, the ASME conference organisers contacted only did that get published, but it also became my manager, Jackie, and asked her to ask me for the headline. To this day, I have never quite lived an abstract for this speech. I had to first log onto that experience down. People still come up to me Wikipedia to find out what the word ‘abstract’ today and ask me what I meant by it. meant. Once I had cleared that up, I was faced What did I mean by it? Well, I was being entirely with another problem. truthful. Under pressure, the truth comes flowing. To be honest, I regularly grow weary of classical I felt that what I said about improvisation not music performers speaking on the important only applied to the arts but to humans generally topic of music education. It invariably goes like – our capacity for originality and innovation in this: the classical piano world had somehow been 1. We have trained our whole lives eroded over recent decades and replaced by a 2. We are effectively athletes, just on a kind of conformity, a conservatism, a timidity smaller muscle group Australian Journal of Music Education 17 Tedeschi 3. We don’t get sponsorship like Ian Thorpe improvise. It is clear to me that the still prevailing 4. The general public doesn’t like us mood of resistance to classical improvisation anymore in the education of a classical pianist is largely 5. Music education not being a compulsory because of a death: part of every school curriculum is the A historical death of one species of musician in culprit order to make way for another. That death took 6. Please give us money place around the turn of the 20th century. It is the I didn’t want to go down this path, because death of the pianist-composer, to make way for there are greater experts than I on the topic of the beast of which I am one: the modern concert the sad intersection of culture and public policy. pianist. Additionally, I didn’t want to fall into the trap of How did this all happen? coming across as a classical musician immersed in In 1828, one of the greatest pianist-composers his own cultural echo chamber, deriding society of the 19th century decided to turn the music for not appreciating him enough. world on its head. Clara Schumann performed So I got thinking. without the score. At around the same time, And I came to improvisation. And Hungarian Liszt did the same thing. And thus was borne Weddings. With lots of farts. the modern virtuoso – the concert pianist who Let me just rattle off a few big names for you: seemed to defy the laws of nature. Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven, Hummel, Bach (of Liszt completely changed what was course), Handel, Clementi, Scarlatti, and Weber conceivable on a piano and raised the bar for – all great improvisers. And I’m not talking about technical feats of wizardry. Liszt was a great the blues, of course, but rather extemporization – pianist-composer, able to improvise 5 part the idea of composition being a living, breathing, fugues, canons, concert etudes and sinfonias. dynamic process. With the repertoire composed by the men and About eight years ago, I was on the TV show women like Liszt - great pianist-composers of Spicks and Specks. Also on the panel was Murray the late 19th century − came an entirely new from the Wiggles. I was given a challenge – level of dexterity and athleticism required on the perform ‘Hot potato, hot potato’ (one of the piano. Slowly but surely, the role of the composer Wiggles’ hits) in as many styles as I could muster. as paramount was eclipsed and the modern I was not prepared at all, but did my best at virtuoso was born. Cortot, Gieseking, Grainger, appropriating the tune in the styles of Beethoven, Gilels, Horowitz, Arrau, Rubenstein, Backhaus, Rachmaninoff and Fats Waller. However, it set Kempff, Michelangeli, Barenboim, Pollini, Argerich my mind on a course of thought that has stayed and more. Of course these men and women were with me for all this time. What is it about classical tremendous musicians as well – but there was musicians – and I can account for 90% of my still an undeniable shift, from musical auteur to pianistic colleagues here – who steadfastly musical performer. proclaim: “I cannot improvise!’ (Usually with a The modern virtuoso, encapsulated by Liszt, Russian accent). was a demigod figure who could play the Of course, the phrase ‘cannot improvise’ is one impossible. And somehow, that switch – from of the biggest furphys of them all. And a cop-out. composer/pianist to concert pianist – gained Like anything, improvisation is a language and a something but also lost something. The ability language is a learned process of biofeedback and to expound on a motif, to improvise a fugue, and cultural reinforcement, a way of integrating old to turn a theme on its head. The performance ideas but in a new way. If you can talk, you can as a spectacular event became the focus, 18 2013, No. 2 Improvisation rather than the music that was written for it to What has this to do with improvisation, you serve. Physicality trumped spirituality. In my may ask? I would argue a lot. The overwhelming view, pianism began to ride roughshod over focus by young pianists on pyrotechnics is at the music. Classical music as a sport was born, expense of sound, control and listening but also with contestants, judges and rituals. There was the act of creation in performance. The sense that vanquishing for the many and redemption for the even a performance of a work that has been done few, the winners of the international competitions to death – with no notes changed - can be an sanctified as archetypical heroes who were so far improvisation. removed from the pithy realities of the music that When I listen to pianists of the first half of the they played. The modern concert artist was born. 20th century – Cortot, Rubenstein, Gilels, Richter, And classical improvisation, in the first half of the Gulda, Michelangeli and many others – I am 20th century, largely died. aware that even though the age of the pianist- Pianism continues to get better and better composer had passed, I can usually recognize every year. I’m now in the rather surreal position each pianist by their sound. Cortot is both where I get to mentor many youngsters as they delicate and brawny. Rubenstein is unashamedly progress through the hurdles of competitions, lyrical, the melody always paramount. Gilels, from repertoire and hopefully, overseas study in the the Neuhaus school in the Moscow Conservatory, hope of attaining a career. As a judge – and I hate is dark and percussive, like the society from which judging – I listen to these kids and let me tell he came. Gulda is a chameleon and Michaelangi you – I don’t ever remember being that good. The is slick and suave. In my mind, these performers sense of control and poise is staggering. But, as were all improvisers in the sense that they had a with everything, the situation is nuanced. Have broad palette of unique brushstrokes that they the younger generation lost something along employed, and their sound was as unique as their the way? The ability to make music as opposed to personality. These musicians were not composers reproducing it? but they recalibrated the work through their I am reminded of the great Romanian pianist own unique aesthetic.