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Re: Increasing standards of playing?
Cristalle has made some good points. I disagree with your first point.
A couple nights ago I was talking to a friend of mine who's studying piano
at the local university. She made an interesting comment, along the lines
of
"standards of playing piano have risen since the last
generation of pianists." As an example she gave Ravel's Gaspard,
saying that twenty years ago there were only a handful of pianists in
Canada who could play it and now "everyone" (well, of course not
literally everyone!) plays it. (She just learned it last year, for
example.)
I don't think you can take Gasping Gaspard as an indicator of any kind of
standard. Pieces fall in and out of favour. It is quite likely that in ten
years "everyone" will be playing something else.
Do you think (as I do) that it's mainly due to Glenn Gould's favorite
activity: the splicing and editing of recordings?
snip
But because the public has gotten
used to hearing an artificial, edited technical perfection, they have begun
to demand this not only in recordings but in concerts as well, putting more
pressure on performers to acquire extreme technical polish.
You could be right. It has been my experience that when I "let myself go"
during a performance and get into the music I make blunders. If I am
carefully trying to avoid finger slips the music sounds bland.
Or have more prodigies appeared in the population, for some inexplicable
reason
Perhaps with mass media we are more aware of musicians from other countries.
Also, until recently, air travel made concertizing outside one's own
continent easy.
And, finally, do you really count this as an "increased standard of
playing?" Just because more pianists can play repertoire that is
famous for being difficult, does it really mean they're better
pianists, or just more technically fluent? It seems to me there are
more important things in piano playing than technical brilliancy.
Agreed. Glenn Gould was always famous not only for his technical brilliance
but his personal interpretations. Competitions tend to produce clones.
Making music is more important than technique.
James
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