- Alright, it's Changyong Shin who's gonna come out
and play for us some of Beethoven Opus a hundred and one.
Hi, good. (mumbles)
(audience applauds)
I've asked him to play the first three movements,
because if he does, the floor will applaud him
and it'll be time to go on to the next person.
So, I ask him to forgive me for that.
We're not gonna hear the glorious Fugue
with Beethoven's first low E in it.
When he finally had a piano that could play bellow F.
He'd been waiting for it for his whole life.
And just in case you thought, just in case you thought
he was mistaken, he write contra E.
(audience laughs)
He says, I know what I'm doing.
I've wanted this for years.
Those damn piano builders, they didn't build it,
and now they've done it, and boy am I happy.
Here it is, and I want it,
and if you don't have one, screw you.
(audience laughs)
("Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101" by Beethoven)
(audience applauds)
Onward, onward.
Thank you.
(audience applauds)
And not because I wouldn't gladly hear the rest of it,
because your playing is really splendid.
It's a great pleasure to hear you do all of this.
What I'd like to do Changyong,
is to spend a few minutes talking about
some very, very specific details of the march,
and then go to the metaphysical part
of this afternoon's presentation,
which I think is a useful thing.
I hope you will find it so, as well.
Coming back to the marschmessig.
Three observations.
One of them...
Happens to be the subject of an article
that I recently wrote.
Which bears the title, Beethoven's trills.
How to begin them, how to end them.
Seems like a fairly simple sort of question,
but it's anything but simple.
But I'm gonna cut to the chase,
as far as the ends of them are concerned.
And say this the statistical evidence
of what I'm about to say is better than 90 percent.
And that statistical evidence is that Beethoven,
as a general rule, notates the termination
of a trill only if the first of its two notes
or the second of its two notes
or both of them require an accidental.
When both of those notes do not require an accidental,
as a general rule, he does not then notate the termination.
This is something which I think
is particularly important to emphasize,
not only in this group of people in the room,
but to those of you in the ether, who are watching this.
Because this is not a generally acknowledged fact,
and it should be.
Because, again, I am one of these people that--
I tell the wonderful musicians here at Juilliard,
with whom I have the privilege to work--
That I'm the kind of person, always,
who's looking for smoking guns.
That is, to find some passage in a piece
which finally proves, without a doubt,
what the composer really meant.
Now, in your particular case, it happens at bar 16,
where you have trills on an A and on an F,
where there is no termination.
And two bars later, you have trills once again on As,
and in this particular case, he writes out the terminations,
and the first note is a G sharp.
And so he writes it because it requires a G sharp.
Because otherwise, you might have
played it with a G natural.
He's not telling you whether to play
the termination, but how.
And therefore, the distinction between the first case
and the second case is frivolous.
It'd be like, Du-Du-Du Du-Du-Du,
and then Du-Du-Du Du-Du-Du.
The most famous case of this comes
at the end of the Hammerklavier Sonata,
which fortunately and conveniently is here.
Where what you have is--
(plays piano music sample)
It so happens that the only after beats that are notated,
the only ones of those nachschliege,
are the ones that require an accidental.
I've heard musicians try to explain metaphysically
why it's so important to play
none, none, none, one, none, one.
I don't think the core of Beethoven's expression
lies in whether you terminate a trill.
That's whether you put a fork on the left side
and a knife and a spoon on the right side.
This is not where expression is vested.
That's what I would say.
I don't want to take up the rest of the time.
So I'm offering it to you,
for your delectation or for your refusal.
It's okay with me Chongyong if you don't like it.
We're still friends.
Now, the next thing I want to talk
about is a little bit different.
And it comes from my switching back and forth
between the Steinway, which I love more than anything,
and period pianos, which I play from time to time.
And when you start to work with period pianos,
and particularly with pedalings on period pianos,
you understand why Beethoven often holds pedals
for a very, very long time,
which would be very muddy on a piano of today.
And as it turns out, the release of a pedal,
when you get to here, is not written in the manuscript.
He does not say where to release the pedal.
And I wonder--
(plays piano music sample)
This whole passage--
I think maybe--
(plays piano music sample)
It seems to me that's where the fateful thing happens.
But if you're going to play--
(plays piano music sample)
And suddenly there, you clean the pedal,
it's still in the music that we've been hearing.
Tababararam--
Teee--
Parumparum--
Suddenly it gets so excited and so vivacious.
Now, obviously, if you're gonna make that work,
you're gonna have to pull the pedal back just a little bit.
Because you don't want a lot of resonance.
Want to try it?
(plays piano music sample)
Go back, go back, go back.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Maybe actually just, you know--
Some, just to get into it.
Yeah.
(plays piano music sample)
Again, all I can do is put it on the table.
You can take it off the table or just leave it there.
I won't be offended.
But what we're talking about here
is the rhetoric of the piece.
What he's saying, and how he wants to say it.
And in the absence of that asterisk in the manuscript,
telling you where to lift the pedal,
I think it's an open question.
And anything else would be arrogant.
So there it is.
It's a possibility.
And I have witnesses now.
All right.
The last of the three things
has to do with the figure of the dotted quarter
and the two 16ths in the trio,
which is bothering you far more than it should.
It seems to me that the way you're doing it,
with the 16ths, a little too fast--
(plays piano music sample)
And this strange little pause in the middle of it
is actually a subterfuge, if I may say so,
because what it has to do with is your fear
of what's gonna happen when you get to the bottom
and suddenly have to jump down
and play it with the left hand there.
And so if you've been playing the whole time--
(plays piano music sample)
Then that's not difficult.
But you're solving the problem in a way
which is musically compromised.
Because really--
(plays piano music sample)
I mean, why would you--
(plays piano music sample)
It sounds like a hiccup.
You see?
So this, and--
(plays piano music sample)
You know, it's something which is in itself very easy.
So why don't we go to the place that's difficult?
And the place which is difficult here--
(plays piano music sample)
Is that.
Now, why is it difficult?
And this is something, now, which is not about aesthetics.
It's about piano playing.
It's about your central nervous system.
When your composer, Mr. Beethoven in this case,
tells you to jump as he does here,
such a distance downwards,
and appears to give you no time to do it, you freeze.
Your heart rate goes up.
Your adrenaline shoots through the roof.
And you're terrified.
Well, I mean, any sane person would be terrified.
Because what happens if you miss it?
Schnabel would say, yeah, what does?
There's a story I could tell you about that,
but over a beer sometime.
In any case, the trick is that in most of the cases
where the composer is prescribing a sudden
and really difficult and arbitrary skip,
what your hand is doing immediately before that
is absolutely next to nothing.
You're playing in the same register the whole time.
Bambabadaam--
So guess what you're gonna do?
You start playing-
Basobasasobasaso--
And as soon as you've got your hands there
and you've started it, you're gonna take your eye
and move it straight down to there.
And you're gonna stare at that C down there.
And then--
(plays piano music sample)
And your body is gonna say, hey, I can do that!
Wow!
Cool!
You know?
And now I will have saved you 20 hours of practicing,
which I like to do.
You know?
You can read a nice poem and have a cup of good Chinese tea.
It would be much, much better for you.
Alright, now let's get to the real matter at hand.
Do you think this piece begins at the beginning?
Do you?
I mean, I understand.
It says, Sonata, Opus 101, and the first thing you see is--
(plays piano music sample)
But is that really the beginning of the piece?
I mean, can you imagine--
It's winter time in Vienna.
And the snowflakes are falling.
And your carriage got stuck in a hole at one point,
and so you're late to the evening.
And as you pull up to the Palaz Schwartzenberg on the Ring,
you can see the chandeliers with all the candles glowing,
and you ascend the stairs, and you're really apologetic,
because you're quite late, and you gently open the door.
And as you open the door, you realize there is rapt silence
in that huge room of the Palaz Schwartzenberg.
And everybody is listening to Ludwig van Beethoven,
who is playing for them, and at the precise moment
that you open the door, you happen to hear--
(plays piano music sample)
So maybe this opening is about what happened to you,
and not what happened to him.
And if so, wouldn't it be interesting to try to imagine
what the music would be of this beginning?
If it actually existed?
Would it be as simple as--
(plays piano music sample)
Maybe.
But maybe the music went on
for a little bit longer before that.
But, you see, you don't really have to play
too many guessing games with that.
But once you have the idea that the piece is just emerging,
and it's not starting like a swimmer
who puts his foot against the swimming pool,
to get an extra stroke, winning in the Olympics--
You know, you're not gonna launch into--
(plays piano music sample)
Because it's not that kind of piece.
Because most pieces that don't begin at the beginning
begin in a way which is a little dreamier.
I mean, otherwise, how could you get--
(plays piano music sample)
See, there it is again.
There.
I knew that was gonna come--
I knew.
There's unfinished business in this piece!
And by the way, he wrote this piece after he wrote the first
of the two cello sonatas, Opus 102.
So the order of publication is this sonata,
and the cello sonatas.
But the important thing to understand is that--
(plays piano music sample)
With a catastrophe of--
(plays piano music sample)
That!
And then--
(plays piano music sample)
And suddenly what do you get?
(plays piano music sample)
And you're in this dream world.
(plays piano music sample)
Searching for something.
And when you find it, it will turn out to be
the most obvious thing you could ever imagine.
Because--
(plays piano music sample)
And there it is.
And the whole time, Beethoven is saying,
do you know what the answer is to this question?
And everyone says, I have no idea.
And he says, well, it's--
(plays piano music sample)
Duh!
Ludwig, you're kidding.
That's the answer?
Yeah.
But it's so obvious!
Yes, but you didn't guess it, did you?
(audience laughs)
That's the thing about Beethoven, you see.
There is here a mystery, which is unfolding in this opening.
And you turn it and look at it and gaze at it.
You contemplate it from this side.
(plays piano music sample)
And then you try another direction.
(plays piano music sample)
Let's try something else.
(plays piano music sample)
And the whole thing is so flexible
and so inscrutable and so mysterious
that you have to keep on swirling and trying to find.
And when suddenly you go past
the sweetest smelling rose that you have ever encountered
in any place in the world and you're coming along here--
(plays piano music sample)
And that perfume of this sound--
(plays piano music sample)
You can't get enough of it.
You try to walk away from it, and then--
(plays piano music sample)
There it is again.
I mean, this--
Can Beethoven himself have imagined
that he would be the person who wrote--
(plays piano music sample)
And he's writing this?
(plays piano music sample)
I mean, it's incomprehensible.
It's an absolute miracle.
All right, you play.
Play a piece that has no beginning.
(plays piano music sample)
No, no, no, wait.
You're not asking a question enough.
You know how it goes.
You know, if you have--
This is one thing, but--
(plays piano music sample)
You know?
It's very fragile.
You have to be very careful.
She's a young girl.
She's never fallen in love.
You're experienced.
She's not so experienced.
She tells you, be gentle to her.
(plays piano music sample)
Yeah.
You see?
And that's the point.
The point is--
You did it very well.
To understand that this--
(plays piano music sample)
Is one thing, and--
(plays piano music sample)
Is something else.
And please don't ever play--
(plays piano music sample)
You see?
You have to know where the music
is continuing and where the music
is suddenly blowing from another direction.
Because this piece is so fragile.
All right, onwards.
(plays piano music sample)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, that's big, Changyong.
That's very big.
You know?
(plays piano music sample)
No.
Aw!
Oh, you scared me for a minute.
You've got to scare them for a minute!
You know?
Suddenly the music is very earnest.
Because you can play--
(plays piano music sample)
Please, please, please, please.
I'm very fragile.
I need your help.
You know?
The music is pleading.
It's so delicate.
You know?
So these moments of intensity are absolutely overpowering.
This is the most intimate music
that anyone has ever written.
You know?
Beethoven was the second person
after Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach to say,
Look, I'm not gonna spend the rest of my life
drawing portraits of you people out there,
because I don't know you as well as myself.
So I'm gonna tell you about what I thought,
what I dreamt, what I was worried about, what I long for.
And in telling you what I care about
more than anything else will change your lives too,
because what's important to me should be--
If it's not important to you already,
it will become more important when you understand my music.
You've gotta listen to this.
This is important.
It's about you.
It may seem to be about me,
but in the end, it's about you.
This is the reason that we we play music
by dead white men, everybody.
(audience laughs)
Because it's about us!
You know?
Only the stupid people don't realize that it's about us.
They think Mission Impossible Number 3
is more interesting than this Beethoven sonata.
We've got to prove to them that they're wrong.
Out of enlightened self-interest,
they can't afford not to listen to this music.
It will save them heartbreak.
It will save them trauma.
It will save them, period.
It will bring them salvation.
It will bring them consolation.
This is what we have to do.
So aim as high as you can.
(plays piano music sample)
Yeah.
So the whole time, you're thinking--
(plays piano music sample)
What is this gonna be?
It has to glow, that chord.
So you practice for 15 minutes,
playing nothing but that chord.
How much arm weight?
How much finger pressure?
How slow?
How quickly?
When does the pedal go down?
All of those things.
You know--
The French Chef, he's got his herbs and spices
and his stock and all of that.
And you've got your fingers and your arms
and your brain and so on.
You're concocting something
which is delicious, just like him.
(plays piano music sample)
And get more enthusiastic as it goes on!
And time to say goodnight!
Sleep well.
Lovely dreams.
Yes, and change the pedal absolutely metrically.
Change the pedal on the downbeat, and the second beat,
but not with the 8th note.
Okay?
Because if you do that--
(plays piano music sample)
We hear the vibration, and we hear the syncopation,
and we hear the meter.
If you just put it down in an irregular way,
we don't understand that it's against the beat.
After awhile, we hear bee-bah, bee-bee--
And it sounds like it's absolutely in tempo.
Okay.
Already spoken about all of that.
This is the same.
Molto espressivo, you have A minor,
it's the most terrifying thing,
and then he rescues us and it's fine.
And here, where his face is twisted with agony at the end,
and suddenly a few words of calm and of consolation
and human warmth make everything possible.
And again, the syncopation of the pedal.
I just have to watch the time,
because already I'm in trouble.
Alright.
So you're here.
(plays piano music sample)
And suddenly he tells you right away--
You have to be careful
not to use so much soft pedal in the first movement,
because then you don't have a unique sound here.
I know you can do everything as beautifully as you did
just a few moments ago without your left foot.
And you must save it, because this--
(plays piano music sample)
You know?
You want to get the feeling
that you've got one square millimeter of your fingertip,
which is touching the keys.
It's not really so, but imagine it.
And that tiny amount that's touching the key
is what's producing this incredibly--
(plays piano music sample)
You make them listen.
You make them listen harder
than they've ever listened in their life.
This is important.
This is the moment.
You know?
Because you ask a rather normal question.
(plays piano music sample)
Until something happens.
Which I think, oh my God, oh my God, G natural.
What does that mean?
What does that mean?
What it means, my dear friend,
is that the gates of heaven are about to swing open.
That is what's gonna happen.
When you hear this--
(plays piano music sample)
You think the ray has come down.
It's going to be all right.
And God tells us, fear not, for I am with thee.
Be courageous.
Start again.
All right, all right, I'll try again.
I mean, there's never been music like this before.
Never!
You see?
It's gotta be that shattering.
It's gotta be that astounding.
It's up to you.
(plays piano music sample)
Yeah.
You see?
Completely unhurried.
Allow each sound to expand into the next.
You're doing something very good with your pedal,
which is that you're putting it down rather slowly.
If you put it down rather slowly,
it allows you to get the connection--
(plays piano music sample)
With a minimum amount of fade between the chord.
So you get less accentuation on all of those,
and it allows the jaw of the listener to drop and say,
this is not like anything I've ever heard in my life.
You know?
As happened in the first movement, you see,
just the way you got this--
(plays piano music sample)
You see?
It's all turning full circle.
Only we haven't figured it out yet.
We don't figure it out until--
(plays piano music sample)
You say, now has come the moment.
Now it is there.
And then--
(plays piano music sample)
Then we can go out and party.
Except he has a little trick up his sleeve.
That little nasty fugue, and its low E,
which has to be something for another time.
Bravo.
(audience applauds)
These are brave people, you know?
They are brave, putting up with a maniac like me.
Whoo!
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