“The Pleasure Of Small Differences” | tonebase Piano Artist Feature
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One of the delights of classical music is that we’re never just listening to a great piece, but to another artist’s interpretation of it.
When I gaze at a Picasso or read Dostoyevsky, I’m the sole interpreter. But I can’t listen to a Chopin Nocturne without at the same time experiencing how the performer feels about it!
What great pianists do when they learn a piece of music is a fascinating process that requires a high level of physical, psychological, and emotional control.
It’s also the main theme of tonebase Piano.
Without our incredible Artist Roster, we would have very little to teach you about the instrument. It is their collective wisdom that enables us to provide guidance on how best to approach piano playing.
Since my teammates and I began building tonebase’s new piano platform in May, I have had the privilege of producing videos with two dozen outstanding pianists — each one a unique artist with a distinct perspective on piano playing.
In doing so, I got to know them a bit better off-camera — their personalities, their senses of humor, and, most of all, what they think about music. So, while we put the finishing touches on the new platform, I wanted to take a moment to tell you more about who will be teaching you.
For all that pianists might have in common, artistry resides in their differences. Freud may have called this “the narcissism of small differences” — and he wouldn’t be totally wrong.
I have observed that when individuals share the same vocation, like music, they sometimes exaggerate their differences to claim an advantage.
But on the flip side, much of the fun of participating in a community of classical musicians and listeners is that — while we all might love the same piece — we disagree about how it should be played or heard. For professional pianists with as much experience as tonebase Artists, those disagreements are a crucial part of what shapes their distinct identities.
Many of the great artists of the past — whether musicians, authors, painters, playwrights, etc — had very sharply delineated aesthetics and world-views. Brahms and Wagner were perhaps the most famous musical rivals, and it’s a good thing they were: without their fervent conviction, we might never have Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto or Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.
Garrick Ohlsson
One of the first things Garrick and I talked about upon meeting was precisely this kind of rivalry.
He mentioned how much he admired the playing of Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz — two of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. Yet, he pointed out, they’re complete opposites as interpreters: Rubinstein, noble and direct; Horowitz, colorful and dramatic. One was an orator at the piano; the other a diva.
Garrick himself is quite the distinctive artist, and one of the greats of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Although he’s known for his Chopin interpretations (he won the competition in Warsaw in 1970 and has since recorded every single piece Chopin composed), Garrick himself admits that he and Chopin are very different musicians.
When I interviewed him on camera, Garrick pointed to the contrast between his and Chopin’s physiques. Chopin was frail and played with what critics referred to as a “small sonority.” (“The general opinion is that I play too quietly, or rather too delicately for those accustomed to the banging of the Viennese pianists,” Chopin shot back.)
Meanwhile, Garrick is so tall and brawny he can’t even fit his legs comfortably under the piano when he performs, and his sonority could be measured on the (Sviatoslav) Richter scale.
And yet Garrick is an exquisite Chopinist. His style needn’t be Chopin’s, just as Rubinstein’s needn’t be Horowitz’s. His lessons for tonebase on Chopin’s First Ballade and Third Scherzo, among several other contributions, demonstrate his probing mind and sensitive aesthetic.
For all his majestic impulses, Ohlsson can be extremely delicate — and in those moments, he and Chopin overlap.
Simone Dinnerstein
While Garrick launched his career by winning what is arguably the most prestigious competition in the world, Simone Dinnerstein did the opposite.
In 2007, she released an album of Bach’s Goldberg Variations that she paid for herself. Remarkably, it was picked up by Telarc, and — even more improbably — it jumped to the top of the charts (and not just the classical chart — she was outselling the White Stripes).
She has since signed with Sony Classical and released several more albums, much of them dedicated to Bach’s music. So, it was a thrill to produce lessons and workshops with her on Bach’s great D Minor Keyboard Concerto.
Simone comes from a family of artists. Her uncle is a celebrated visual artist, as is her father, Simon (she’s Simon-uh, by the way). Having been raised by aesthetes, I wasn’t surprised to find that Simone approached her interpretations like that of a creative artist, always searching for the right proportions and colors.
In Bach, this means experimenting with different articulations and phrasing strategies, and treating each phrase like it’s a puzzle in need of solving. You can get a taste of that experimentation in the video I captured of her behind the scenes, warming up for her first lesson.
Legendary Professors
One of the biggest thrills of building tonebase Piano has been working with legendary artists who are living messengers from the golden age of the piano. The first was one of my own Juilliard teachers, Jerome Lowenthal.
Jerry, as he insists I call him, studied with not one, not two, but three of the most important pianists of the 20th century — three distinctive artists whose temperaments and aesthetics that couldn’t be further apart: William Kapell, one of the greatest American pianists of all time, is hailed for his intensity of interpretation and wide-ranging repertoire; Eduard Steuermann was the preferred pianist of Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School; Alfred Cortot was the great French poet of the piano.
There’s something of all three of these disparate figures in Jerry, who embraces a versatile and eclectic approach to piano playing. What unites his approach, whether he’s playing Sweelinck, Chopin, or Webern, is his dedication to the “narrative” element in music. For Jerry, we must play music like we’re telling a story, otherwise he’ll “fall asleep.”
If Jerry feels like he’s speaking to you while he plays, emeritus Eastman professor Rebecca Penneys feels like she’s dancing with you. Growing up, she was torn between pursuing ballet and piano. While piano won out, she never forgot how liberating she felt in pointe shoes, and she still carries that freedom with her at the instrument.
Arie Vardi is one of the leading professors of piano worldwide, counting numerous famous pianists as his students (Yefim Bronfman and Yundi Li, for starters). He has also interviewed many of the great pianists of our time on Israeli television.
For Arie, piano playing requires knowledge of the whole repertoire — not just the piano repertoire, but symphonies and operas too. (Chopin and Horowitz would agree: they both loved the opera and strived for the same lyricism in their sound.)
From spending time with Arie, I also learned the value of diligence. I met him for coffee the morning following our production, and afterwards finished up some work near where he was practicing.
I heard him run through,Chopin’s “Thirds” Etude, the G Major Prelude (which might as well be an Etude), and several other finger-twisting pieces, all from memory. They were immaculate.
He only had lessons to teach that day, and I wondered what he was practicing for. He said, “Nothing in particular, I just need to keep my fingers in shape.” He’s 82, but plays like he’s 28.
The Next Generation
If the tradition of classical piano playing is to have a bright future, two things need to happen:
- You, and many more like you, need to keep studying it, listening to it, and loving it (tonebase Piano can help with that!)
- A talented few need to rise to that level of mastery that deserves to grace the concert stage and recording studio, delivering the next generation of momentous performances and interpretations.
I’ve been so fortunate to have gotten to know many of these next-generation stars during my seven years at the Jail Yard (I mean, “Juilliard”) and ever since. As I was deciding who to reach out to when assembling the initial tonebase Piano Artist Roster, I thought it was important to include their voices.
Anyone who thinks they can’t learn anything by a 20-something pianist needs to watch one of Nicolas Namoradze’s lessons.
Winner of the prestigious Honens Competition in 2018, Nico is decades ahead of his age in terms of maturity. Hailing from Georgia (the country) and studying in Budapest, Vienna, and Florence, Nico speaks in a distinctly cultured, and cosmopolitan manner. He exudes intelligence and refinement, but communicates in a pragmatic, down-to-earth manner.
If he disguised himself as a senior citizen and gave a master class, we would all be praising this man’s wisdom and decades of experience. But, no: he’s just a 26-year-old genius.
30-somethings can be pretty accomplished, too. Henry Kramer, silver-medalist at the 2016 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels gives lessons on Chopin’s Etude Op. 10 №2 and Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy that make you feel like you could actually wrap your hands around these impossible pieces.
Or, watch tonebase Artist and recent Leeds Competition winner Louis Schwizgebel perform Beethoven’s 1st Concerto with Charles Dutoit. Just as impressive as his performance is his thoughtful and thorough dissection of the piece.
Louis also splits Chopin’s 24 Preludes with Fei-Fei — Concert Artist Guild winner and Cliburn Competition finalists — who brings a rare energy and erudition to her lessons (not to mention unbelievable chops). While Fei-Fei has had many mentors and older influences, she also counts another younger tonebase Artist among her inspirations: Andrew Tyson.
As Fei-Fei will tell you, Tyson is a pianist’s pianist. He plays with more freedom and spontaneity than the rest of us would dare. In a way, he studied with Cortot like Jerry did, in that he had his Chopin discs playing on repeat throughout his teens.
At the piano, he’s 100% liberated from any outside pressures — peers, teachers, society — as well as from internal hindrance — physical, mental, emotional. The result is a classical pianist who sounds like he’s improvising every 200-year-old note he plays.
His lessons are demonstrations in how to be free while playing other people’s music, but without losing sight of the core of the composer’s message. In fact, it’s the strong individuality of his perspective that allows this “old music” to sound new and fresh all these years later.
No, I won’t ever play like him, and I’m guessing you won’t either. That’s okay (I’d rather listen, honestly). What matters is not how much better or worse we are compared to other pianists (contrary to what the average Juilliard student might think); what matters is what we can learn from each other.
When it comes to a subject like piano, where there is never a “final answer,” this communal learning is an end in itself!
