Off Sides and Pianos.....

To paraphrase that old quote about fighting and hockey games, “I went to a concert last night and a music lesson broke out!”. I drove down to St. Mary's college last evening expecting to listen to the piano of Brian Ganz, but came away with so much more. What a treat to take part in one of his "concerts" Besides his virtuosity on and enthusiasm for the piano, he has a great sense of humor (important to me) and will actually talk to the audience. He is very good about explaining the music and the composers. You end up sort of feeling you're just sitting in his living room rather than at a "concert" with a invisible wall between the stage and the audience.

He began the evening explaining that while he has an 18 year old mind, it’s encased in a much older body and his back has been bothering him lately, causing him to perform “less acrobatic” pieces than he originally planned. He started out with Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 5 in F minor, but before he started he chatted a bit about although the piece was written for the harpsichord it was “translated” to the piano. He felt that in "moving" anything from one medium to another, the translation should play to whatever the strengths of whatever the “new” form was. He felt that (one of the) strengths of a piano was the use of the pedal and so that would be different from the original and to listen for that. He then played the piece ably assisted by Beverly Babcock playing the “reduction”,(with accomplished page turning by young Jonah Yeh).

The next “lesson” was three dance pieces by Chopin, a Polonaise, a Waltz, and a Mazurka, and he explained the differences – Polonaise was “majestic”; the Waltz “natural and flowing, with lots of kinetic energy”; and the Mazurka “strange, dark, with lots of rhythmic elbows”. Sure enough, they were exactly as he characterized them. After playing those, he asked for Chopin requests from the audience (nobody asked for Misty) and played three of them (besides the Minute Waltz, I missed the titles). Then he talked about his next piece which was The 18th Variation of the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, by Rachmaninoff. He politely asked if anybody knew the "theme", and then said he would play it for us anyway, which he did, just a few measures of a melody (musically smart people please ignore my lack of correct terminology – I’m an engineer for heaven’s sake) with three sort of phrases. He then said, let’s vary this, and played it “backward”, and then “upside down”. Neat stuff, and when he performed the piece by golly you could hear exactly what he demonstrated!

Then a couple more etudes,(”Aeolian Harp” and “Revolutionary”) by Chopin, and before each he talked about what was the challenge for the pianist in each one. Melody in right hand with “voices”, or how the left hand had to do the “cushion of chords”. Finally a piece for 4 hands by Shubert featuring both of his and Beverly’s.

You know, I could have gone to the concert and heard the “pretty music”, but with Brian’s remarks you begin to realize (welcome to the party, Mr. feeder) there are layers and subtleties that I would never heard. I came away with a much better understanding and appreciation of the music and its history (and a huge respect for Mr. Ganz’s talent).

If you would like more, Brian is doing a “piano talk” today at noon. (St. Mary’s Hall). Anyway, just another evening of nothing to do in Southern Maryland.

Okay, we'll try to veer back to food territory where we can

DFD