Maurizio Pollini

His technique is phenomenal but it seems a little tense. That might just be an illusion though. I am curious what you think about his physical approach to the keyboard. He sits lower than most pianists and his hand arch is pronounced but he does not look very skeletal. Nevertheless the results are wonderful. Appasionata 3rd Movement Mozart K488 3rd Movement Chopin Op.27 no.2

I love your perception that his arch shape looks good but it doesn't look skeletal. You hit the nail on the head! The shape is there but just from the look you see that INTERNALLY something's not happening. And you hear it in his sound which is, although beautiful, relatively one-dimensional and small - lacking in grandeur. Decades ago I used to wonder why Pollini bored me so much, but now, having gone through all the developments I have, I can see that the musical poverty is mirrored by a physical limitation. Thanks for the post! AFF

I agree with you but in his defense I must say that he plays with a breathtaking intensity that has rarely been matched. He pours a tremendous amount of energy and concentration into reproducing these musical structures and this is exciting to listen to and to watch. His intensity is different from Horowitz's though because he seems to lack a deep sense of CALM. People criticize him for being too "cool" but I sense a very nervous quality in his playing. Horowitz somehow managed to balance these two paradoxical states. I am also curious what you think about his extraneous noises. Gould and Gieseking are the only other pianists I can think of who made as much noise while playing. Do you think that heavy breathing, grunting and singing have any positive PHYSICAL function? Or do these things follow naturally from something else they are doing. With them it seems like a natural part of their music making process.

Kemal's first wife (Brana who also directed my film) was with him in London the one time he heard Pollini and she had the best comment of all: "It was like watching a really good vacuum cleaner repairman fix your vacuum cleaner. Great skill, great concentration, and voila, in the end a perfectly-running vacuum cleaner too!" Pollini has a serious drug problem, he is on countless medications, which may account for the strange impression of emotional distance and nervousness combined. ONCE he didn't bore me, in his Beethoven sonata cycle the first concert of which I heard at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. He actually managed to devote his emotions to the music in a way that moved me. That was nice, to discover that he could play humanly! AFF

I find Pollini boring too. But his Beethoven Concertos are rather good. The sound is not articulated and fully orchestrated as Horowitz would have done it. But for the style I think it is just right. I am also more and more open to different dimensions of music interpretations. We can always ask the best composer of our day to supplement Beethoven's score with more notes, and ask Volodos to play it. But the Rachmaninov-like Beethoven will likely to lose a lot of its simple, direct and raw energy. I think Pollini's Beethoven concertos are very good because he achieves certain height in different dimensions than orchestration. After the entire orchestra is there, and there are already as much orchestration as Beethoven wants. Beethoven speaks from the heart. Horowitz's Beethoven just sound ''wrong'' and not ''Beethoven'' enough. The emotional tension is somehow expressed in a wrong way. But I agree that overall Pollini is a bit overrated. He has an intellectual approach to Beethoven. But pianist like Daniel Barenboim has a better overall intellectual-emotional balance than him.

At this point it may be good to clarify what we mean by "tension," because the term is cropping up here in wildly different contexts. To me, Horowitz does not look tense at all. He is which is not the same thing. He is highly focused. To be that focused, you cannot be tense. Tension would distract you from that focus, diverting your energy into other, less productive channels. The quality of Horowitz's intensity is the antithesis of inhibiting physical tension as we know it. The mistake we all make is to try to create that intensity through physical tension. It just doesn't work. Musical tension is something else altogether. For instance, rhythm and melody are often at odds with each other. Rhythmic vitality generally wants to surge forward wheras melodic singing generally wants to lengthen each note to get maximum "juice" out of it. When we remain aware of these opposing forces, both completely valid and necessary, we can create kind of alchemcal synthesis whereby their struggle creates an incredible musical tension or focus. This is a very good thing! This is what makes music grip us and prevents it from being flat and insipid. There are many of these contradictory dichotomies in music, I only take rhythm and melody as one prime example. There should always be at least one or more of them operational in performance, that's what gives the performance meaning and intensity. AFF

I asked a question in the second half of my previous post that might have gotten lost. What do you think about Pollini's vocalization? A few other pianists, like Serkin, Gieseking and Gould also vocalized very loudly. It seems like it aids concentration and engagement with the music but I am not sure how. What are your thoughts?

Making music at the piano is largely singing. When you vocalize you activate the "singing" mechanisms in your neuromotor organization, which could possibly help your fingers, hands and arms figure out how to make that inert machine they are touching do the same... But some people's "singing" is more like a parasitic contraction. We had one student at our Academy (now in London) who "squeaked" more than sang; after a concert she would hardly have any voice left it was such a strong reflex. But we really worked hard to get her to stop, because it was tension-derived rather than singing derived. As if she were trying to squeeze the music out of herself... there had to be a better way. She succeeded, and her playing got better. Glenn Gould sang because his mother, his first teacher, taught him to - for the reason I mention above. As for Pollini - I don't know! AFF