In the Kammersaal, Again

This afternoon I went to a piano masterclass with Dr. Sandu Sandrin. It took place in the Kammersaal from 11:00 to about 5:00, but when I came it had adjourned for a lunch break. So I took out Aristotle's Poetics -- I have it in my handbag not because I want to show off in public, but because I figure that when I'm bored somewhere I'll be likelier to read it -- and read. A student was practicing Beethoven's Sonata in A flat major (Op. 110). I knew the beginning already because Papa has played it, but it's in the back of the second volume of the sonatas, which I consider as a sort of mysterious wilderness, like the depths of the Amazon, or of Africa while it was still uncharted.

And this student was the first to play when the masterclass resumed; he just played one movement of the sonata through at a time, then repeated it, interrupted by the commentary and suggestions of Dr. Sandrin. He played very well, again with unassumingly good technique, nicely ("schön" is the right word, I think, somewhere in between "nice" and "lovely"), with varied dynamics, and no apparent memory slips. Best of all, I ended up really liking the sonata and wanting to play it myself. But the chords were too hard. I suspect that many students use too much forte as a trick to get more into the spirit of Beethoven's sonatas; it works, but it imperils the ear drums and doesn't really do justice to the music. The professor who was doing the masterclass mostly got the student to play with more nuanced dynamics.

Then a student played a piece by Schumann. She was fond of the forte too, but her dynamics were altogether fine. And, as the professor said, she brought out the inner voices really well. She did, however, overapply the pedal, if I remember correctly. Like the other students, it was really good how absorbed she was in the music. Except when the students' piano professors (for some unfathomable reason) were whispering (though very quietly) to each other, the room was silent, and one could hear the birds twittering outside. But on the whole I didn't particularly like the atmosphere of the piece, so I let my mind wander again.

The third student played a theme with variations by Rachmaninoff. By the end of it I was reminded of the pun, "Argh, man; enough!" She seemed to have trouble understanding how to play the notes, though she played them all, in good time and expressively enough. The rhythm was hard to distinguish. Also, I would never have guessed that the piece (which did not much appeal to me anyway) had been composed by a Russian, though, like the few other works by Rachmaninoff that I've heard, it is in itself very Russian-sounding. Dr. Sandrin did say that she understood the harmonic structure well. Oddly enough, when he started going through the piece with her, she played much better -- not necessarily because of his corrections, which were more about other things. She used too much pedal on the lyrical parts, and he did not, for example, address that. Anyway, my mind was doing lots of wandering during the Rachmaninoff, but I still enjoyed the masterclass.