Four Kinds of Playing: Number One

I'm not going to write about all four right away, and I'm not sure there really are four. In any case, I'll start with straight classical playing, the kind that I was trained in until I gave up the clarinet when I was in college and wasn't good enough to get into the university orchestra. At the time, the only kind of musician I could imagine being was a classical musician.

Recently we hosted a concert in our home. A friend of ours is a classical singer. She had prepared a recital of Lieder with an excellent accompanist and asked if we would be volunteer our living room and grand piano. We agreed. Indeed, we have had quite a few chamber music concerts in our living room, and our piano has been played by some superb musicians. (I always feel that when a master plays an instrument, the instrument absorbs some of the mastery.) I thought, though, that it would be only fair to ask a small favor in return, so I prevailed upon the pianist to accompany me in a short piece, “Danse,” by Darius Milhaud for alto saxophone and piano. You can hear a fine performance (not by me) of that sweet piece on this website: http://www.dcmusicaviva.org/recordings/documents/dance.mp3

Playing a piece like that demands, first of all, precision. You have to play all the notes exactly the way the composer wrote them, in time, in tune, articulated the way it's indicated on the printed page, with the correct dynamics. The challenge for the musician is to play as accurately as possible and, at the same time, to play the piece expressively, not mechanically.

Last year Judith and I attended a Scarlatti and Bach marathon, which was part or the Israel Festival. Six young pianists took turns playing, and we were enthralled not only by the excellence of their performances but also by the palpable differences in their approach – even though they were all playing the notes “as written.” It was a great lesson in interpretation.

My performance went okay. I was nervous and came in wrong a couple of times, but the accompanist never blinked and stuck right with me, and I don't think anyone in the audience noticed. If I had had more time to rehearse with him and develop a musical rapport, it wouldn't have happened. I enjoyed myself, but only so much. My conclusion was: I don't want to spend time and energy in preparing a recital of classical saxophone pieces (and imposing it on my friends), My self-image as a musician has changed.