High Quality Videos Of Hamelin

His pianistic mechanism is one of the greatest in history and he moves as intelligently and gracefully as any pianist I have seen. He plays with wonderful finesse, power and structural clarity. One thing I don't find in his playing is the nervous energy of a Horowitz, Gould or Pollini that absolutely compels you to listen. To me he represents a new type of pianist in the best sense of the word, one that doesn't quite fit into old categories like virtuoso, mystic, poet and intellectual. Of course, all great pianists defy easy categorization but this seems to be particularly the case with Hamelin. What are your thoughts? Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No.10 Liszt Un Sospiro Berg Sonata Part I

I admire Hamelin he is a pianist of his own time trying to promote contemporary music everything he does is impeccable. He also has an interesting approach working with ideas of Ganz and a Godowsky-enthusiast.Mind-wrecking stuff. Here is Rubinstein with #10 one of his war-horses in the old times. The harsh sound is due to the recording his sound was warm and delicious.

One practice technique he uses is called symnetrical inversion. Basically from the note d, the pattern of white keys and black keys is the same going up and going down. The left hand can then play the mirror image of the right hand, (the exact same fingerings and the contours are switched around). Another one he demonstrates in a DVD called No Limits is of practicing a passage slowly with full armweight on each note. This helps imprint it on the mind and muscle memory. I think he also took a lot of ideas about piano technique from Busoni's piano exercises. Part of Busoni's approach was a focus on the shapes, patterns and variations because these occur all over the piano repertoire and also help us understand how each composer scores for the piano. A great electric guitarist named Shawn Lane worked with the same idea. This video gives a short but fascinating glimpse into his mind. My intuition is that there is a physical movement correlate for each pattern. It would be interesting to see if this idea could develop into a more substantial theory about instrumental virtuosity.

I'm sure his technique is very very good in one sense. But I believe he achieves his speed and power by comprising the orchestration a little bit. I agree that playing should be as effortless as is necessary, but he "sounds" easy, which is not the same as physically being relaxed. Horowitz is relaxed most of the time, but the emotional tension is tremendous. Some of the pieces, like Chopin-Godowsky etudes, are indeed incredibly difficult. But they don't SOUND that beautiful. As Hamelin is the only famous pianist having played the entire circle in public, perhaps the piece is just too difficult to sound good. Or perhaps there is a physical limit. So in some ways perhaps very few if any could match him, in terms of being able to play those passages at such a speed. And he apparently does that with little effort. Look at Volodos' playing and choice of repertoire, such as Saint Saens - Horowitz Danse macabre, or his arrangement of Rachmaninov's Italian Polka. They might not be as difficult as those Chopin-Godowsky or Alkan pieces to PLAY, but they are just as difficult to make them sound the way Volodos does. Which approach would you prefer? I love Horowitz, Argerich, Volodos's playing a lot more because they push the boundary of orchestration to serve music, not mastery of difficult passages for its own sake.

I think it is unfortunate that Hamelin is treated as a mechanical virtuoso who just plays long difficult music for no good reason. He has a very keen musical mind, a huge sonority and a sensitivity for color. Of course his fortissimos are not as explosive and thrilling as those of Horowitz and Nyiregyhazi. If you read my first post carefully you will find that I did acknowledge a certain absence of nervous energy in his playing. I also never praised him for being more "effortless" than other players because he clearly concentrates very intently on the structure and content of the music he is playing. He moves very EFFICIENTLY and gracefully but that does not mean he is inert or expends no energy. Some people might prefer a very different approach to music-making but I think what he does has real MUSICAL value. Color and orchestration by the way are not sufficient or necessary conditions for good music-making. They are only important insofar as they aid in communication of musical CONTENT. In some cases a fairly monochromatic approach may serve the music better. Take the third movement of Beethoven's Op.26 for example. The important thing is to have the CAPABILITY to do both. Hamelin tries to serve the music and leave his own personality out of it. This is certainly a valid approach to music making. I am more interested in discussing some of the ideas presented in my second post about developing virtuoso technique by using little "bites of information" instead of conventional exercises. The mental component of piano technique, which I think consists in forming hierarchies consisting of these atomic bites, converges with the kinesthetic component at this point.

I just want to add some more specific points about Hamelin's playing in the videos. In Un Sospiro he controls the bass and melody lines beautifully so that the listener can clearly perceive the phrase and harmonic structure. I also think he renders the theme with beautiful timing and good taste. It always comes through clearly even when the right hand is playing fast arpeggios. Sometimes he opts for a harp like sound and other times a throatier sound. A player without his technical command would have difficulty making the sections continuous. But with Hamelin I clearly perceive the continuity and the basic idea that generates the composition. In the Hungarian rhapsody maybe his playing lacks extreme variety of character. His right hand scales with the trills at the end are wonderful. I like the way he introduces the bizzare exotic new idea around 2:29, which by the way reminds me of the 6th hungarian rhapsody. The imitative polyphony is also clearly played. The final octave section is nearly flawless but not as electric as it could be. Hamelin's style isn't about mechanical speed but about polyphonic and structural control. His all-encompassing technique allows him to get straight to the musical structure. As far as his physical technique goes, his hand truly hovers and floats over the keyboard. He sits much higher than Horowitz and Gould and I wonder if that lack of resistance makes his playing sound a little too "easy." But he knows what he is doing and his artistic aims are not the same as theirs.

A fascinating discussion. I don't like Hamelin's hand. I can see that there is something lacking in it. He doesn't have as much orchestration as Alvin wants because believe it or not (and it's hard to believe when he can play so many notes so quickly and with such exquisite tone), the grasping function is not fully present in his hand. Many have said he is mechanical but doesn't play musically. This is a misperception. He plays extremely musically but the limitation imposed on his musicianship is physical in nature - ironically one way of expressing it is that he is not mechanical ENOUGH: he achieved great results with 95% of a full technique so he didn't bother going for the last 5%. He's a fine musician who didn't quite go the whole hog in terms of using his hand, which is why there is such a diversity of reactions to his playing, from sheer pleasure and admiration to dissatisfaction. Let me be clear, I can't play 1% as well as this so I have no right to criticize - but his virtuosity is more of speed, accuracy and control of tone than of orchestration. For the kind of orchestration Alvin seeks, you need a further development of the hand and you need to set it up a little different. If he sat lower he would have more chance of discovering that quality which is what I call REAL virtuosity. Thanks for a stimulating look at a really great pianist! AFF

I don't like the fact that he's not even TRYING hard enough. Take his Hungarian Rhapsody No.10 LISTEN to his octaves and see how he's doing them. I think his contact with the key, even in loud and big sound, is not firm enough. You can tell from the ''loose'' sound. Then look at how he's doing his octaves. I think there are 2 broad kinds of approaches to chords that creates very different (but equally effective) sound. One is the "skeletal" approach, exemplified by Horowitz, Argerich, Cziffra, etc. Because of great alignment, their hands are ultra-loose, and muscular contract is instantaneous, though may be explosive. This gives very electrified sound, creating the tension and excitement not just by orchestration but by The other school loves the rich, singing tone. They create tension by tensing their hands somehow and give the 'rich'' tone by creating a very controlled sound. If they need to articulate, they do the variation AFTER the initial action (depressing of the key) is done with great care, then throw away their hands from the keyboard if they need a staccato. In other words they always caress the keys, even in loud chord (except perhaps when they play Prokofiev) This school is exemplified by the young Kissin, Zimerman, Ivo Pogorelich. Pogorelich surprised me with his careful but very effective touch, even in staccato. I mention Kissin because he's the only pianist I know of who can play at that speed and volume sticking to this method. Another pianist I think of is Murray Perahia, but in the fast and loud parts, he seems to revert to the first approach, which he's not very good at. Apparently it is so much easier to orchestrate in the 2nd way. Cziffra is second to no one when it comes to getting the skeletal arrangement right and stay loose, thus he can play really really fast. But most pieces he left something to be desired. The loud sound lacks the tension. Most pianists choose this way to orchestrate, and make the piano "sing''. On the other hand, the 2nd way has a more severe limitation in how fast it can go. I think Kissin is simply physically strong. There are middle roads, or roads I find more intriguing. Take Volodos and Richter, who see no limit in speed yet able to produce the ''rich'' tone. Volodos is particularly amazing in that his sound is very thick and rich even in fast passages. It contrasts with horowitz's electrifying sound. I found it quite hard to understand what he's doing. But I can see him tensed more than is necessary a lot of the time, perhaps intentionally. Perhaps that's secret to his rich sound? Richter is looser physically, and that also reflects his powerful, plain-speaking to his art. Hamelin is very loose and manage to play everything quite nicely, sometimes poetically. But he could have done more on two fronts (if not both together). He could either change his alignment a bit, and make the contact more confirm and thus approaching the electrifying sound of the former style, or he could "grasp" more with his muscles, which are doing very little right now. But he doesn't seem to care. Therefore I think he somehow sounds like a deflated version of the young Kissin, perhaps a bit faster because he has more muscles to spare.

Thanks for a very perceptive post, Alvin. But here, don't you mean it's so much easier to orchestrate the FIRST (skeletal) way? I would say with the second (Hamelin) way it's easier to get beautiful tone. But isn't it harder to get multidimensional sound? All best, AFF

I think it is easier to orchestrate with the skeletal way if you want to orchestrate as much as Horowitz would like to, and as extreme as he does it in terms of articulation and change in volume. But for most of us I find it easier to sound right with more muscular grasping. Right maybe i'm talking about beautiful tone here. Pieces like Chopin, the ''round'' tone is very desirable. I myself found it almost impossible to sound right by loosely throw my hand on the keys with skeletally aligned hands. It sounds too ''metallic''. I think that's why Horowitz's Chopin is not very cherished. Neither is Cziffra's. Without judging how they handle the phrases and the larger structure, just the sound alone they sound not too right. (nevertheless, there's still something very interesting to listen to in Horowitz's Chopin, and his late Mazurka performance are stunning and sound right to me.) For some strange reason Argerich got it! I think there's no contradiction to both approaches actually. I'm trying to apply more pressure and muscular contraction while maintain the skeletal alignment. Not easy at all!