CONDUCTING FROM THE PIANO: A TRADITION WORTH REVIVING? A STUDY IN PERFORMANCE PRACTICE: MOZART’S PIANO CONCERTO IN C MINOR, K. 491 Eldred Colonel Marshall IV, B.A., M.M., M.M, M.M. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2018 APPROVED: Pamela Mia Paul, Major Professor David Itkin, Committee Member Jesse Eschbach, Committee Member Steven Harlos, Chair of the Division of Keyboard Studies Benjamin Brand, Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Music John W. Richmond, Dean of the College of Music Victor Prybutok, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Marshall IV, Eldred Colonel. Conducting from the Piano: A Tradition Worth Reviving? A Study in Performance Practice: Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C minor, K. 491. Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), May 2018, 74 pp., bibliography, 43 titles. Is conducting from the piano "real conducting?" Does one need formal orchestral conducting training in order to conduct classical-era piano concertos from the piano? Do Mozart piano concertos need a conductor? These are all questions this paper attempts to answer. Copyright 2018 by Eldred Colonel Marshall IV ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF CONDUCTING FROM THE KEYBOARD ............ 1 CHAPTER 2. WHAT IS “REAL CONDUCTING?” ................................................................................. 6 CHAPTER 3. ARE CONDUCTORS NECESSARY IN MOZART PIANO CONCERTOS? ........................... 13 Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major, K. 271 “Jeunehomme” (1777) ............................... 13 Piano Concerto No. 13 in C major, K. 415 (1782) ............................................................. 23 Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466 (1785) ............................................................. 25 Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 (1786) ............................................................. 33 Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major, K. 595 (1791) ....................................................... 44 CHAPTER 4. THE BENEFITS OF THE PIANIST-CONDUCTOR ........................................................... 54 Benefit 1: The Soloist becomes More Involved in the Score ............................................ 54 Benefit 2: The Orchestra Invests More into the Score ..................................................... 62 Benefit 3: The Unification of the Soloist and Conductor .................................................. 65 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 68 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................................. 72 iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF CONDUCTING FROM THE KEYBOARD Is conducting from the piano “real conducting?” Is this ‘outdated’ performance practice worth reviving? The historical context in which this paper attempts to answer these questions takes place between 1777 and 1808: from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major, K. 271 “Jeunehomme,” to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, op. 58, and Choral Fantasy, op. 80. The Mozart concerto is Mozart’s first “mature” piano concerto; the Beethoven pieces are the last ones that Beethoven premiered as both pianist and conductor. In 1808, Beethoven specifically wanted to conduct the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 4 and engage a separate soloist. However, he could not engage a pianist to play. Thus, he played and conducted the premiere himself.1 However, he was able to find a separate conductor and pianist for the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, op. 73. Friedrich Schneider played the piano; Johann Philipp Christian Schulz conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.2 Not only did Beethoven seek a separate conductor for this truly symphonic concerto, he also forbade cadenza improvisation for the first time. From this point forward, a new tradition of piano-concerto performance practice was born: equal and distinct roles for pianist, conductor and orchestra. From this point forward, pianists performed Mozart piano concertos, when performed throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, in this Beethovenian manner: separate conductors and pianists, with cadenzas pre-planned and prepared. 1 Leon Plantinga, Beethoven’s Concertos: History, Style and Performance (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999) 213-216. 2 Michael Steinberg, The Concerto: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) 71. 1 In the early 20th Century, a growing sense of historical awareness led a few pianists to revive the pianist-conductor practice. Ossip Gabrilowistch famously conducted from the piano, especially in his capacity as music director of the newly formed Detroit Symphony Orchestra. However, he did not limit his double-duty tasks to Mozart. He performed Romantic and contemporary concertos in the same manner. Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 from the piano with the Berlin Philharmonic. Daniel Barenboim credits Edwin Fischer as his role model and inspiration for taking up the mantle in Mozart concertos.3 Bruno Walter once recorded Mozart’s D minor piano concerto while conducting from the keyboard. Further, Walter trained Van Cliburn on how to do the same with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, as a memorial to Dimitri Mitropoulos. Conducting this concerto from the piano was Mitropoulos’s specialty.4 Leonard Bernstein conducted a handful of Mozart piano concertos from the piano, in addition to 20th Century works like Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G, and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F. Sir Georg Solti, in the last phase of his career, took to conducting a small selection of Mozart piano concertos from the piano. Despite a few big names, few conductors doubled as soloists until the 1980s and 1990s, when major record labels began engaging non-conducting soloists, like Murray Perahia, to lead their own studio recordings of Mozart piano concertos. Since then, soloists of a certain career rank began to engage themselves in conducting from the piano despite their lack of conducting experience and training. As a result, new questions have arisen as to whether conducting from 3 Harold C. Schonberg, “Pianists at the Podium – Old Tradition, New Interest,” The New York Times, April 26, 1987. 4 Howard Reich, Van Cliburn (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1993) 222-225. 2 the piano is a distinct discipline, separate from modern conducting and solo-piano playing, or if it is achievable only if the orchestra contains experienced players who can play without a conductor. In short, are conductors necessary in a Mozart piano concerto? Is the pianist/conductor an encroachment onto their territory? In his book Orchestral Conducting, Adam Carse illuminates the evolution of the standalone modern conductor via three paths. In the church, organists were also the choirmasters and led from the organ bench as they used their hands, heads and other extremities to keep the choir together.5 The concertmaster and the cembalist/harpsichordist dually led the secular orchestra, and the keyboardist mostly led opera performances.6 In his treatise on music Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen, C.P.E. Bach writes, The klavier can completely take the place of the time-beating conductor who is common today only in extensive musical performances. The sound of the klavier – which is surrounded, quite wisely, by the musicians – can be clearly heard by everyone. I, myself, know that even in large and diffuse orchestral performances, where many voluntary and mediocre musici participated, all have been kept in order merely by the tone of the klavier. The klavier gives the music the harmonic backbone and the strict, rhythmic direction. [It was best suited] to maintain the necessary evenness of the beat not alone with the other basses, but in the whole music…should someone hasten or drag, he can be most readily corrected by the keyboardist, for the others will be too much concerned with their own figures and syncopations to be of any assistance.7 Bach wrote this in defense of the keyboardist-conductor as the question of orchestral leadership grew. As violins became the prime instrument, it seemed natural that the first chair of the violin section would be responsible for the musical leadership of the orchestra. However, 5 Adam Carse, Orchestral Conducting (London: Augener Ltd., 1935, Second Edition) 87. 6 Ibid., 92-93. 7 Ibid. 3 he would have to contend with the Kapellmeister, who was the keyboardist and most often the composer.8 J.N. Forkel emphatically believed the keyboardist to be the leader of the orchestra, and his view was the norm in Vienna and Mannheim.9 In France, the opposite view was the norm: from the violin comes the orchestral leadership. Even after the emergence of the modern conductor, nineteenth Century French musicians believed that keyboardists made poor conductors who could not keep time; they preferred that a conductor be a violinist.10 The German Kapellmeister tradition continued until the nineteenth Century, as the standalone conductor increasingly became a specialist and not necessarily the composer. The old Kapellmeister-concertmaster relationship morphed into the modern conductor-concertmaster relationship. In piano concerto performances, the bulk of the leadership fell to the pianist, mostly because the pianist was also the composer.11 There is evidence that eighteenth and