“Three Pianists” | A Note From Ben

I’m a few hours away from giving an all-Beethoven recital in a lovely, intimate venue at a college in rural Pennsylvania (my piano travels send me far and wide, indeed). While the piano is being tuned, I thought I’d update you on some of my adventures over the past week.

Leon Fleisher

Last Friday I had the privilege to meet Leon Fleisher at his home in Baltimore, before going to lunch with him and his wife.

Fleisher turns 92 this year, but his mind is still sharp and he continues to dedicate himself to teaching and performing. Although our meeting was primarily intended to prepare for upcoming his production, we nevertheless took detours to talk about everything: his early performance career, his debut with George Szell, traveling to Italy to study with Artur Schnabel in his teens, and — what he’s most proud of — his children (there are an inordinate number of harpists in his family, I learned).

The walls of Fleisher’s home tell the story of a life of musical prominence — photographs of him with presidents and Supreme Court justices, candids with Lenny Bernstein, a shrine to Schnabel, and a life sized oil painting of his wife sitting at the piano, her beloved dog resting at her feet.

During the conversation, Chopin’s First Ballade came up and Fleisher launched into a discussion of the opening bars of the work. He told the story of an early edition of the piece that omitted the famous dissonance. He called out the notes one-by-one, both as Chopin intended them, and as they had been foolishly “corrected.”

“This editor just did not understand Chopin’s genius.”

Needless to say, I look forward to capturing this kind of spontaneous wisdom from Fleisher on camera in a little over a week.

Boris Berman

After a few hours in Baltimore, I headed back north to spend the weekend directing a shoot with Yale Professor Boris Berman.

Berman literally wrote the book on Prokofiev, so I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t produce a lesson with him on the great Russian composer. Berman focused on Prokofiev’s 7th sonata, performing and teaching the second movement, and using the work as a case study in a larger discussion about Prokofiev’s life and aesthetics.

The second day with Berman was dedicated to technical and musical subjects. Drawing from his book “Notes from the Piano Bench,” Berman broke down the topics of sound and touch in meticulous detail, while dissecting common technical problems and demonstrating ways of solving them. For each topic, he had several carefully chosen excerpts from the repertoire that he used to demonstrate his point.

Berman brings both intensity and charm to his teaching, and he was truly a joy to work with. I can’t wait to share with you his endless insights into piano playing.

Seymour Bernstein

A couple days after the Berman production, I had a morning meeting with Seymour Bernstein at his studio on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Bernstein is a uniquely gentle man with fiercely independent view points, whose longevity as a pianist and teacher is close to unparalleled. With a twinkle in his eye, he greeted me and showed me inside his nest.

Although we were only meant to meet for a little over an hour, and mostly discuss his production, I ended up staying for three. For the first two, I played various pieces from my Beethoven program for him, and he proceeded to give me an impromptu lesson that I won’t soon forget. He asked repeatedly:

“How softly can you play that note?”

For Bernstein, soft playing is the most beautiful and most difficult challenge at the keyboard, and one that separates artists from amateurs.

It was evident that Bernstein had spent the better part of a century thinking profoundly about the piano, its its physical requirements, its emotional demands, and its incredible compositions. He seems to have a well-substantiated theory for every marking in Beethoven and Chopin. “That diminuendo means slow down,” he would claim, “and I have irrefutable proof.”

Later in our meeting, he proceeded to show and tell me about various objects in his home. First was a replica of the cast Chopin made of his left hand.“Look at this, look at this,” he said, balancing Chopin’s hand on top of his. “It is believed by some that I was in fact Chopin in a former life,” he said with a wink.

He also had Schumann’s tea kettle. “Schumann used this to pour tea for Chopin and Liszt!” He keeps it near his piano, and has students touch it for good luck.

Two production days down, and six (!) more to go, with four more artists. This trip has only just begun. By next week at this time, I’ll have worked with Bernstein, the legendary Gary Graffman, and will have just arrived in Houston to work with the phenom Vadym Kholodenko, gold medalist of the 2013 Cliburn.

Taken together these artists stand for nearly four centuries of knowledge and experience as pianists and teachers. In the 20–30 hours of footage I capture of them, I hope to share as much of that wisdom as I can with you on tonebase.

Stay tuned. More to come!

Peace, Love & Chopin’s hand,
Ben