Brilliant, practical, and humorous conversations with one of the twentieth-century's greatest musicologists on art, culture, and the physical pain of playing a difficult passage until one attains its ...rewards.Throughout his life, Charles Rosen combined formidable intelligence with immense skill as a concert pianist. He began studying at Juilliard at age seven and went on to inspire a generation of scholars to combine history, aesthetics, and score analysis in what became known as "new musicology."The Joy of Playing, the Joy of Thinking presents a masterclass for music lovers. In interviews originally conducted and published in French, Rosen's friend Catherine Temerson asks carefully crafted questions to elicit his insights on the evolution of music-not to mention painting, theater, science, and modernism. Rosen touches on the usefulness of aesthetic reflection, the pleasure of overcoming stage fright, and the drama of conquering a technically difficult passage. He tells vivid stories on composers from Chopin and Wagner to Stravinsky and Elliott Carter. In Temerson's questions and Rosen's responses arise conundrums both practical and metaphysical. Is it possible to understand a work without analyzing it? Does music exist if it isn't played?Throughout, Rosen returns to the theme of sensuality, arguing that if one does not possess a physical craving to play an instrument, then one should choose another pursuit. Rosen takes readers to the heart of the musical matter. "Music is a way of instructing the soul, making it more sensitive," he says, "but it is useful only insofar as it is pleasurable. This pleasure is manifest to anyone who experiences music as an inexorable need of body and mind."
The biography of Margaret Darling Kilpinen (1896–1965) represents the fields of music history and women’s studies. It brings forth a woman who is of pliable but also strong character. She was active ...for over four decades in the musical life of Finland. What kind of professional role, combining performing and pedagogical work, was she able to build for herself? She was the wife of a well-known, strong-willed composer who had many ties to Germany, and also the mother of a daughter. How was she able to keep up her own artistry? The book deals with Margaret’s role as a solo and lied pianist, her long career as a pedagogue in the Sibelius Academy and as a harpsichord player with a part in the rise of old music in Finland in the 1930s. There is also the microhistorical angle: While looking at Margaret as a person and her life, general tendencies and attitudes among the cultural circles of Finland of her time are revealed. The main source material for the book, which is available for use for the very first time, has been the correspondence between Yrjö and Margaret Kilpinen.
In common with other professional musicians, self-evaluation of practise and performance is an integral part of a pianist’s professional life. They will also have opportunities to listen to and ...evaluate the performances of others based on their own criteria. These self-constructed perspectives towards to a piano performance will have an influence on both self-evaluation and external evaluation, but whether differently or similarly is not known. Consequently, this research study aimed to explore how judgements on the perceived quality of a performance are undertaken by professional standard pianists and what criteria are applied, both with regards their own performances as well as the performance of others. Participants were six professional pianists (3 men, 3 women) who were based in the United Kingdom (Mean age = 31.5 years old. SD = 5.1). They were asked to play individually six trials of a piece of R. Schumann’s “Träumerei” Op. 15 No. 7 in a hired hall for recordings. Then, within 2 months, each participant was asked to come to a self-evaluation session to listen to and evaluate their own six recordings, using a Triadic method as a Repertory Grid. For the external evaluation focused session, the participants were asked to return again to evaluate a further six recordings made up of ‘best’ recordings as selected by each participant from their own individual self-evaluations. Analyses of the resultant data suggest that there was no significant difference between the participants in their overall ratings in the external phase, but that self-evaluation showed significant individual differences amongst several participants. The performance criteria in both self-evaluation and external evaluation predominately overlapped with each other in terms of musical factors, such as tone quality, phrasing, and pedalling. The ranking of the performances was highly correlated with perceptions of overall flow, tone quality and pedalling. It appears that pianists apply similar criteria to decide performance quality when evaluating their own performances as well as others.
