"Pianistic" writing: is it all in the hands of the beholder? (2024)

Re: "Pianistic" writing: is it all in the hands of the beholder?

Briarcliff Manor, NY, USA

Well, alas, I'm just an amateur and dilettante whose field of study was languages and linguistics; even worse, in adulthood I've found myself in that lamentable category of folks without the good fortune to have musicians (any musicians, never mind professionals!) as peers.

I've really enjoyed this discourse (at least up to the point that it's come to include some ad hominem acrimony), though it hasn't really explained how pianistic should be defined or why many pianists would so describe a given composer's "idiom" while others deny it. Is there a physical or physiological basis for what different composers—and, likewise, pianists—find comfortable? Or is it just a matter of exposure and experience?

If "pianism" and "pianistic" are concepts upon which even pianists cannot agree—or, indeed, even agree to disagree!—then perhaps we should at least agree, as a matter of mutual respect, not to use those terms at all and leave them to musicologists.

(FWIW, I, too, would love to know which composers were left-handed, and wonder why something so potentially insightful goes unexplored and unexamined.)

Steven

Re: "Pianistic" writing: is it all in the hands of the beholder?

Betelgeuse, baby!

Well, sotto voce, the term "beauty" is used all the time, even though people may disagree on what is and isn't beautiful. In the same way (and in the spirit of your thread's title), I suppose nothing will stop the term "pianistic" being used, even if it can be somewhat imprecise. I do believe to a certain (though somewhat ill-defined) extent that "pianistic writing" is indeed "in the hands of the beholder." And just like arguing beauty, it's all shades of gray rather than a sharply divided and distinct black and white.

Besides, this whole Brahms thing is nothing. Can you imagine the sort of debate that would come about if the pianistic idioms of Boulez, Carter, Messiaen, Cowell and Ligeti were being discussed?

Re: "Pianistic" writing: is it all in the hands of the beholder?

"Out there" to me means "somewhere beyond my computer screen"; you know, as in, out there in the countryside, out there in cyberspace, out there beyond my neighborhood, out there in the larger world, etc., etc.

That I somehow am the "know it all" when you are certainly as at least as adamant as I am in your position is a mystery, to put it mildly. I can't see any good reason why I should say that suddenly the nature of Brahms' piano writing has changed in my view, when it hasn't. I still think it is basically not grateful writing for the player in the way that the music of some other pianist/composers is. I don't think I need to present your point of view along with mine, seeing that you are speaking for yourself without my help. Never once have I said that there aren't people who disagree with me about this; you are providing ample evidence of that fact and I don't see why I should be obligated to represent your position as well as mine.

You bring up the idea of "preferring an idiom". I don't think that's the kind of thing I mean when I talk about being "pianistic". For example, a pianist could prefer Bach's idiom, but that wouldn't, and logically couldn't, be about piano writing at all.

You've said you think that the idea that Brahms' writing is relatively "unpianistic" to some of us may be due to lack of long term exposure. But that actually supports my point - if there's something about it that requires a much larger learning curve to get it to fit comfortably under the fingers than other music (outside of considerations of musical style and such), then it may be some issue with the writing for the piano in itself. And I think that can be tangibly felt when I am playing through the music.

For a counter-example, some years back I started collecting Szymanowski scores and was amazed at how difficult some of the music was, particularly the 3rd sonata, but the interesting thing is that it rarely felt "unpianistic" to me. I can't play much of his music, but it still feels "natural" under my hands when I try reading through it. And that was true from the beginning. But on the other hand, I've known Brahms' op. 76 b minor Capriccio for probably forty years now, and it still feels vaguely "wrong" under the hands. You can believe this is due to some flaw in me, which is fine, but from my point of view, having played piano for over fifty years, and having explored the music of a lot of different composers, I feel comfortable with my assessment that the issue is more likely to be something about Brahms' writing for the piano.

I have no idea why this idea gets you so riled up. It's not about the quality of Brahms' music at all, but simply about how it feels to play it, which I would have thought was basically a subject that would be more interesting than controversial.

Re: "Pianistic" writing: is it all in the hands of the beholder?

Eryri/Manchester

I haven't been on the forum for a while . . .

I believe that a piece is as pianistic is as you make it yourself. For example, when I'm learning a piece and encounter a bar thereof I have trouble with, it is natural to feel the bar awkward or "un-pianistic". However, if I were to return to the piece a couple of months later, whereby my technique will be more capable, that passage may seem to "fit" my hands quite nicely; - that so being - pianistic.

If you play a chord of C F C fingered 1 3 5 it can seem at first quite unpianistic, however, once you're used to that sort of emplyoment of the hand then it can get just as pianistic as C F C fingered 1 2 5 (or almost!).

Does anyone else see it like that?

Re: "Pianistic" writing: is it all in the hands of the beholder?

Eryri/Manchester

Re: "Pianistic" writing: is it all in the hands of the beholder?

Briarcliff Manor, NY, USA

hopinmad, thanks for trying to bump this moribund thread.

Unfortunately, I think that it was mainly of interest to the participants who had begun debating pianism in that "Brahms Hungarian Rhapsody [sic]" thread—and they had already expressed their respective viewpoints here to the point of exhaustion by the time you came aboard.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's contributions, and have reached the conclusion that the issue was more-or-less a tempest in a teapot, after all.

Maybe one day I'll get around to reading Charles Rosen, but in the meantime this seems to be a satisfactory summation:

Thanks to everybody who offered their comments!

Steven