January 6, 2013
Schubert’s Goodbye to the Piano
by BMINT STAFF
Paul Lewis关于舒伯特的阐释：
Paul Lewis is a pianist who appeals to cognoscenti. After a three-year traversal of the 32 Beethoven Sonatas at major venues, he moved on to a two-year consideration of the mature Schubert’s piano oeuvre. BMInt is very pleased to recommend Lewis’s upcoming Celebrity Series concert to our readers. The notable Liverpudlian will conclude for Bostonians the cycle of Schubert’s works he began in 2011. The program at Jordan Hall on January 12th at 8:00 pm will consist of Piano Sonata No. 19 in C Minor, D. 958, Piano Sonata No. 20 in A Major, D. 959, and Piano Sonata No. 21 in B-flat Major, D. 960. BMInt’s publisher recently had a conversation with the artist.
Lee Eiseman: You’re depicting the end of Schubert’s life in music with the three last sonatas, his final statements for the piano. This is appropriately the end of your Schubert cycle and is likely to be something really special. Hearings of D. 958, 959 and 960 together ought to be among the most memorable musical experiences one can have. Will you talk to BMInt readers about Schubert, the end of his life, and the end of your Schubert cycle?
Paul Lewis: I have been concentrating on the last six years of his life, basically from the time that he received his diagnosis of syphilis. This perhaps was his death sentence, when he came to the realization that he wouldn’t live long.
There was something that changed in the music at that point, not to say in any way that the music prior to that point was shallow at all, or lacking in emotional depth, but there was a different kind of darkness that came through, and in fact the sonata he wrote at the point at which he received the diagnosis, February, 1823, was the Sonata in A Minor, D. 784. It is staggering, and there’s nothing that prepared for that kind of musical language. It just came out of nowhere: the starkness of it, the anguish—it’s austere. Something had really started then. Whatever ideas we have of what Schubert was going through, or how he reacted to that news, his music certainly seems to reflect it. The music that he was composing certainly can be heard as his reaction. So that’s why I started at that point; the music becomes very interesting. There’s a thread of darkness that runs through from that point to the end of his life and by the time you get to the last three sonatas it reaches a different level altogether. If we take the first of the three, the Sonata in C Minor, there’s a sense of looking back into anguished times about it. If you think of the last movement as the sense of being pursued— it’s about trying to run from something but being unable to escape. Then we go into the Sonata in A major, which conveys the beginning of some kind of acceptance. At the very end of the piece, one of the most heartbreaking moments in the last three sonatas as a whole, he can’t let go of the main theme of the last movement; it’s like trying to say goodbye to an old friend though knowing it’s going to be the last time. And at the end, the Sonata in B-flat seems to look in a completely different direction. There’s a point at which in the slow movement Schubert really turns a corner and leaves all this trouble behind and looks to hope. There’s an emotional logic to these last three sonatas. So despite the fact that they make a very long, demanding program—demanding for the listeners as well as for the player—it would appear that because on the manuscript he labeled the sonatas as Sonata 1, 2 and 3, he was very likely suggesting that he meant these three pieces as a set.
To me the 2nd movement of the B-flat is as profoundly sad and moving as anything he ever wrote. But there is a sense that there is something beyond that sadness. Is it looking forward to a release from suffering, or backward to a nostalgic past?
Schubert’s music is full of nostalgia. There’s a lot of looking backwards. When we listen to the way he combines and contrasts major and minor tonalities, often placing a major tonality in the context of a minor one, the major seems sadder in a way because you have the feeling that you’re looking into the distance at something you can’t have anymore. That to me is a sort of overriding feeling there when he contrasts these two tonalities. But in the slow movement of the b-flat towards the end when you come out of the c-sharp minor into the c major, there’s something different: it’s not just sadness. Rather it’s like seeing the light somewhere—going towards something different. And then out of that come the Scherzo and the last movement. There are a few flashes of darkness, but there’s no real sense of turning back. It goes in a different direction. Something unique happens in this last major piano piece he wrote —a real turning point. It’s something quite unique in his output.
Do you have any feeling why he didn’t go on from the Wanderer Fantasy to do anything else in that vein? Do you see any of that work in any of these three last pieces in terms of virtuosity and cyclical construction?
No. I mean really it was Liszt who took that on board and developed that thread. He was the only one, though Schubert’s next major piano work after the Wanderer Fantasy was the Sonata in A Minor, D. 784. This was the pivotal work where everything changed.
If I think about the piano writing, something comes through in a piece like the Piano Trio in E-flat—especially the last movement—where you can state that it’s virtuosic with a point, with some sort of message, not just vacuous for virtuosity’s sake. There’s a real sense of involvement, of joy of playing the instrument which is different. I feel it is different from most of the late sonatas. That may be more connected to the Wanderer Fantasy.
Now I have a question for you about style from one of our reviewers. He says that, particularly with violinists, there are historically several schools of technique. Do you think that is true for pianists and how would you place yourself in the context?
I don’t think about that very much. I think it’s more up to the individuals to find their way to play their instruments connected to what they want to get across. You can say for sure that there are certain ways of playing the piano that have been passed down from various teachers and maybe those ways or those styles of playing take on a kind of nationalistic identity of some sort—I just don’t know what a British school of playing the piano would be, for instance.
When we want to characterize someone’s personality as being within a national stereotype, we can do that with musical approach as well, but it doesn’t tell me very much. It’s entirely up to individual musicians to find the ways of playing their instrument which most easily facilitate their ability to convey their message. That’s more important to me than more arbitrary schools of playing.
Some pianists are known as colorists and that’s seemingly about micro-subtle techniques of pedaling, but what’s the opposite? What do you call someone who isn’t a colorist? I’ve never heard anyone referred to as a non-colorist or a gray-ist.
I suppose that equals dull if there’s no color . Sounds like something we don’t want to listen to. There has to be color, but some performers rely too heavily on coloring. If the performance is more about showing off a palette than about serving the message of the music, I don’t get it.
Color, as much as the technique just to push down the notes, always has to be at the service of the message. Of course colors have to be audible. But you cannot always make them so obvious, and so it’s not that we’re hearing a succession of colors, but we’re hearing something that makes sense and conveys an emotional message that we recognize.
And has it sometimes been impossible for you to achieve what you want in that department on a particular piano in a particular hall?
Oh yeah. I mean every piano is different in every hall. Put the same piano in a different hall and it’s a different piano, you know? Every time you sit down it’s different and I think we as pianists—some of us drive ourselves completely crazy with this. I don’t. I’ve gotten to a point myself where I think it’s important to try and step back. I try and prepare as much as I can in advance. If I know a venue and that there’s a particular piano in the venue that I like then I ask for that piano, if there’s a piano technician that I know and I’ve worked with before and I know that I liked their work I’ll ask for that piano technician. So you do what you can to make sure that the piano is in the shape that you would ideally like it to be. If not then you have to look at a different set of options. Do you want to fight with it all night? Maybe that’s not a particularly good idea. Another way to do it is perhaps to try to play to the piano’s strengths. To drop a little bit of what you’re expecting from your own way of playing and do it differently. Just try to be flexible. Because, after all, you’re the only person, the performer, who knows what you’re trying to do. Everybody else is listening from, if anything, a more advantageous viewpoint really. So they’re not comparing what they’re hearing to what’s in your mind—what you’re trying to do. So in fact there’s no loss there and if you try to play to the piano’s strengths and do what the piano can do best I think it’ll end up being a more pleasurable experience for everyone—for all involved. This is an endless topic with pianos, and piano technicians are driven up the wall by pianos and it’s just a vicious circle really.
[ 本帖最后由 Phase 于 2013-1-11 16:20 编辑 ] 原帖由 Phase 于 2013-1-11 15:51 发表 http://bbs.headphoneclub.com/images/common/back.gif
Paul Lewis关于舒伯特的阐释：
Do you have any feeling why he didn’t go on from the Wanderer Fantasy to do anything else in that vein? Do you see any of that work in any of these three last pieces in terms of virtuosity and cyclical construction?
.....
No. I mean really it was Liszt who took that on board and developed that thread. ....
武大佬同学，请学习这个。
李斯特的钢琴创作，很大程度上受到舒伯特启发，另据关于李斯特钢琴奏鸣曲的维基文章：
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_(Liszt)
For instance the exposition is a sonata form which starts and ends with material in B minor, containing the second part of the exposition and development wandering away from the tonic key, largely through the relative major D. In using this structure, Liszt was influenced by Franz Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy, a work he greatly admired, performed often and arranged for piano and orchestra. Schubert used the same limited number of musical elements to create a broad four movement work, and used a fugal 4th movement. 原帖由 Phase 于 2013-1-11 15:51 发表 http://bbs.headphoneclub.com/images/common/back.gif
这两个人的死因，都有说法是梅毒
舒伯特肯定是死于梅毒，他感染梅毒的原因，有人推测是嫖妓。
贝多芬的死因，现在已经无法确切考证了。有几种可能，梅毒是其中之一。他耳聋的原因，也很可能是梅毒。他感染梅毒的原因，应该是遗传。
但是，尽管他们感染梅毒，甚至嫖妓，他们仍然是伟大的音乐家。我心目中，他们的人格也并没有玷污。单身年轻男人，没有女性伴侣，去嫖妓释放性欲，不侵犯任何人，应该得到宽容。
我们可以同情宽容托尔斯泰小说《复活》里面的妓女，也应该同情宽容因嫖妓感染梅毒、英年早逝的舒伯特。 原帖由 wudanao 于 2013-1-12 13:57 发表 http://bbs.headphoneclub.com/images/common/back.gif
舒伯特的钢琴作品很长时间都不受演奏家重视，我觉得这个已经很能说明问题了。
首先，我们讨论的重点是你的“舒伯特作品的历史贡献，其实除了歌曲，其他作品对后世产生的影响都很有限”的结论。
交响乐，Simon Rattle已经说了，舒伯特第9影响了布鲁克纳和马勒。
现在谈钢琴作品，你的“舒伯特的钢琴作品很长时间都不受演奏家重视”的看法，并不完全准确。起码，Wanderer Fantasy 就经常被李斯特演奏。OK，李斯特是“基石”，舒伯特不是，可是舒伯特影响了李斯特。
你说：“维基百科里面通篇提到舒伯特的也就那么一句话，还是某一个分析家个人自己的看法而已。”同学，那是介绍李斯特钢琴奏鸣曲的维基百科文章啊，里面提到舒伯特，哪还不说明问题？ 再请看这个：
http://www.musicallyspeaking.com/franz_schubert.html
Scubert was the last of the Viennese Classical masters. By the time of his death, in 1828, the revolutionary spirit of Romanticism had fired the imaginations of the most ambitious musicians, who now sought out more extravagant modes of expression and more dramatically conceived compositional forms. Although most of Schubert’s music lay unknown for decades after his death, it was eventually rediscovered and came to exert an important influence on the music of the late 19th century. Brahms (who helped edit many of Schubert’s compositions for publication), Dvorak, Bruckner and Mahler all learned from Schubert’s harmonic procedures and his expansions of Classical forms, particularly the symphony.
关键词：伯拉姆斯、德沃夏克、布鲁克纳、马勒，都学习了舒伯特的和声，以及他对古典形式，尤其的交响乐的扩展。
“除了歌曲，其他作品对后世产生的影响都很有限”？显然不符事实。 再请读这个：
http://www.classical.com/composer/Franz_Peter_Schubert
Although between 1821 and 1828, over 100 opuses had been published, less than a quarter of Schubert's total output was published during his lifetime. Of those works that were, more than two thirds were songs; the famousUnfinished Symphony, for example, was not performed until 1865.
Yet Schubert's influence on the remainder of the 19th century was immense and arguably rivalled or exceeded that of Beethoven. Based on the traditions of the Viennese Classicism of Mozart, Haydn and early Beethoven, he developed his own uniquely expressive style, particularly suited to song, but equally effective in instrumental works.
这个评论家认为，19世纪舒伯特作品发表后，他对该世纪的影响，达到甚至超过贝多芬！ 楼上你不能这样……你这样找有利论据当然是能够找到，但是舒伯特的大部分钢琴曲木，尤其是奏鸣曲被长期忽视确实是事实。
舒伯特的奏鸣曲比贝多芬难弹好很多，一不小心就会被乏味的重复结构给捉住，而且他的4个乐章经常虎头蛇尾，基本上都是第一二乐章比后面两个好很多，这状况直到最后几首奏鸣曲才略有改善。近代开始广泛演奏舒伯特是从舒纳贝尔开始，莱氏向舒纳贝尔推荐的时候曾经说过“这舒伯特的15首奏鸣曲几乎无人知晓，完全被人遗忘了，而你或许会喜欢他们。”而李赫特要弹舒伯特的时候，学校的教授也说：舒伯特！多么冗长的音乐，弹舒曼更好点。
而反观歌曲，舒伯特的数十首歌曲都被李斯特改编成了钢琴作品，根据史料唱的人也是络绎不绝，他也因此被称为艺术歌曲之王，后世也再没有出现过一个艺术歌曲造诣超过他的人。 记得看谁杀死了古典音乐的作者写，施纳贝尔之前，不仅仅舒伯特奏鸣曲无人问津，连莫扎特的奏鸣曲也是孩子演奏的专属，贝多芬常被演奏的也仅月光热情等几首。 不过一直到现在，海顿的键盘奏鸣曲都很少在音乐会上出现，好像比斯卡啦踢还少一些。:)
[ 本帖最后由 Phase 于 2013-1-12 17:30 编辑 ] 原帖由 wudanao 于 2013-1-11 05:13 发表 http://bbs.headphoneclub.com/images/common/back.gif
贝多芬最有诗意的作品我觉得是他的第4钢协，还有他的不多的几首艺术歌曲
贝四钢协太优美了，还有大公 原帖由 gspbilly 于 2013-1-12 19:23 发表 http://bbs.headphoneclub.com/images/common/back.gif
贝四钢协太优美了，还有大公
贝四钢协也有不同的演绎风格的，老兄听一下39年季泽金的演绎非常的有活力和火力，指挥是伯姆；哈斯基尔47年的演绎则是非常的优美。 刚在YouTube上看了一段Paul Lewis于2011年11月在阿姆斯特丹接受采访的视频。在被问到贝多芬和舒伯特作品的差异时，Lewis回答说贝多芬通常会在作品中提出问题，并最终在作品的结尾为问题找到答案。舒伯特也在作品中提出问题，但他从不刻意去寻求答案而是让其自由发展，所以往往在作品结束之后不仅没有回答问题，甚至引发更多的问题。 真心喜欢音乐普及好贴哈！ 好帖 ，学习很多。
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