John Bald/language and literacy

Interlude: Patrick Hemmerle at Wolfson College, 19th May 2012

Cambridge is blessed with some of the finest classical piano music in Europe in the person of Patrick Hemmerle, first prize winner at the Paris Conservatoire in 2002, and now, in his early thirties, showing a maturity of interpretation, delicacy and power that bring out the full meaning of pianoforte.

This concert consisted of Frank Martin's Eight Preludes (1947-8), Chopin's 24 precludes, and as encores, Gluck's Melodia (arr Scambati) and the final movement of Beethoven's Tempest sonata. Every element, from Martin's seismic base chords to the most delicate lyricism in the Chopin and Gluck, to the pace of the Beethoven, was brought out impeccable technique and timing, combined with studied passion. Other pianists are more famous than Patrick (for the present) but it is simply not possible to play this music better.

Liking or not liking the pieces is almost irrelevant - I'm not sure Martin, in what Mr Hemmerle described as his "Protestant austerity",  would have wanted his music to be liked. Even the Chopin, for all its ecstatic moments, reflects the dark side of life, including Chopin's own life, in a way that is not always enjoyable, and may not be intended to be so. As performance, however, Mr Hemmerle's is high art, and this was reflected, for once, in  high denomination notes in the retiring collection.  Chapeaux bas, mesdames et messieurs...

Piano Practice - more speed, less haste.

But not too much more speed. Learning involves the formation of networks in the brain which organise, control and use our knowledge, skills and understanding in more ways than we can fully understand. Memory is crucial, and not only what is formally recognised as memory. It is behind what the Germans call Fingerspitzengefuhl, which depends on such intimate knowledge of something that the finest adjustments can be made so quickly that they appear instinctive, though they are in fact second nature rather than first.

I suspect that talent in music is used to refer to the ability to develop such control very quickly, and I. alas, am rather slow. I earn my living as a linguist and literacy teacher, and this slowness, according to my piano teacher, Patrick Hemmerle, has helped me to understand other people's problems, and so develop solutions to them. I learned French slowly too, having to take the book home and study each day over the Easter holidays in order to get to first base in the language. I had similar patterns of learning with German and Spanish, though with similar results. Definitely, and with perhaps too much regret, the tortoise rather than the hare. 

The Siloti arrangment of Bach's B minor prelude (here by Emil Gilels) is a case in point. It has variations on chords in the left hand that usually involve a stretch, as the chords either don't begin with their root note, or have an extension at the top beyond the octave. So we need to know the whole chord and the notes in it in order to understand what we are trying to do. Then there is usually just one step change between phrases, but this entails another change in a recurring pattern in the right hand. Why does one pattern fit and another not? Patrick then says, as always perfectly correctly, that I need to anticipate these changes, though I have started to do this. We can only anticipate something if we know it's coming, or likely to come. So, even more thorough knowledge - we need to know what we are doing, what we are about to do, and how to move from one to the other.

(He did say, though, on my second lesson, that my right hand phrasing was "très bien", which is about the highest praise given in French academic circles. This has taken a lot of work to relax the hand, which was tense because I was worried about hitting wrong notes. It was knowing exactly what the right notes were and being able to hit them that removed the tension. This took time. My wonderful French teacher, Frances Holmes, told me that he had never been able to lose the tension in his hands, despite reaching a high level on the piano. "It's in my  character," he said, and his character was one of extreme conscientiousness and meticulousness.)

In other words, for me to play anything, I have to know it, as the French say, like the inside of my pocket. So, I suspect, does everyone else. It's the path to this knowledge that causes the problem. The Siloti doesn't sound too bad, though. I wonder if Mr Gilels takes it just a shade more quickly than I'd like to...?

 

Joanna Macgregor, Bach Goldberg Variations. Wonderful

I've always found Bach's Goldberg Variations difficult, no, impossible to listen to with any enjoyment. I've heard the most famous recordings, including Glenn Gould's, and felt put upon by the sheer weight of the music, its complexity, and the difficulty musicians have in playing it. 

So, Joanna Macgregor's lightness, speed, tone and above all her consummate understanding are a revelation. Letting Bach breathe  is a particular challenge in these pieces, and Ms Macgregor achieves this from the first bars, replacing the tension that comes through most performances with peace. She matches pace, tone and technique flawlessly to the widely varying demands of each movement, realising each as a distinct work of art and  as part of the whole. It never flags, is never too fast, above all never boring. Bach said he wanted to set free the soul of the musician. This is the result.

Piano update - slow progress, and my brilliant teacher, Patrick Hemmerle

Patrick has me play a scale a day, four octaves, first with left hand, then right, then together. He usually moves the scale on each lesson, wants me to make my fingers work hard and not press too much with wrist. Roger Ward's recommendation of a complete set of arpeggios each day has been useful. Patrick says I'm good at arpeggios, but the truth may just be that I've practised them a lot.

Pieces - Beethoven's Pathetique, slow movement, one of the glories of the world. V hard to place hands at first, then v hard to read. Still not sure of all the chords and harmonies, but I find it essential to understand them in order to play it. Still not clear to me how one chord moves to another, but sounding a little bit like Beethoven now, so encouraging. Also La Mer (Trenet) and A Nightingale sang in Berkely Square, from sheet music, and found both v hard. Patrick says the latter is as hard as Schubert. Patrick is unusual as an artist in that he admits to finding piano playing hard work. He has just been made an Associate of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and is broadcasting on French radio. Get to see him if you can - he is world class, and I'm still not sure how he finds the patience to teach me.

One tip he recently gave me is that, if I find something hard to read, say an awkward chord, I should pause slightly before playing it, rather than snatch at it. I've passed this on to my reading pupils.

A year on (piano)...

It's been a long time since the last update. Yesterday and this morning, I played from memory a Schubert impromptu, a Beethoven sontina, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, and Solfegetto by a younger Bach. In other words, progress. A few wrong notes, which I correct, but I now think I'm winning, and have got past something like the tipping point that exists in reading teaching, where a child suddenly finds they know enough to use what they know to work out what they don't.

How have I got there (or thereabouts...)?   My two teachers, first Roger Ward, and later Patrick Hemmerle, have had the patience and understanding that characterises the finest teachers. Roger in particular helped me through the phase during which I had to read and understand one note at a time, and went at it pig-headedly, the determination leading to progress, but very slow progress, held back by my tendency to try to play things at final tempo as soon as I'd worked out the notes, and getting frustrated as a result. Patrick has also told me more often than I can count to play more slowly, and I've now just about managed it. The change came about as I was looking bleak failure in the face, and simply could not afford to fail - I've tried and failed too often at music in the past, with guitar and accordion, and time has now run out.

But I was also understanding a bit more. The Schubert was a huge task. I had to build up each chord one note at a time, and it was excruciating. Add to that that I didn't much like it, at least the way I played it, and neither did my wife. Holding down one bass note while playing another was equally difficult. Patrick sat beside me on one lesson, and must have said "lift your thumb" twenty times before I understood that it was just my thumb I had to lift, and not the other finger as well. The second part of the impromptu had big, angry chords - Schubert had every right to be angry - and again, I had to put each of them together one note at a time, with some complicated harmonies. "Je vous prie, concentrez-vous", said Patrick. So I did. Again and again and again. At least there was no way I could play this piece too quickly - the challenge was to play it at all. Patrick played it for me, and I liked it better, which helped. But I was taken to the limit of my persevernce, over several weeks, and was very close to giving up. An American inventor, Edison, apparently said that most people give up when they are close to success. I didn't believe it. But then I went back one week and played the first part of the impromptu from memory. Not well, you understand, but from memory. Patrick was surprised. Then the second part, some weeks later. "This will take you some more time, I think, till you become comfortable with it."  And so it has.

Similary the sonatina. This is apparently a common piece for children to learn at about the age of 11 or 12. I found it very difficult too at first. I told Roger I was doing it, and he thought it was a good piece for me to build flow and evenness. He also liked the Schubert, which he saw more as a "touch" piece. Whenever  I could, I put the Beethoven to the end of a practice session, and so skipped it. Patrick was not pleased. He'd picked this piece carefully for me. Once again, I was enjoined to concentrate, and, as soon as I could stagger through the first page, to learn it by heart.

Patrick's technique for learning by heart is interesting - you practise two bars at a time, over and over until you can play them from memory. Then two more. On these pieces I found it very hard to learn more than four bars a day, max, and sometimes just two.  But eight days, sixteen bars, and I didn't forget what I was learning.

The soniatina is in two main sections. The first is fairly brisk all the way through (and I played it too briskly to start with). The second is a rondo, starting quickly  and with some awkward fingering, then with a delightful slow section that I found even more difficult, and a return to the brisk part. I found the key to being able to play the whole piece lay in beginning to see how much of it was composed of split-up chords. Once I could see these, I was not quite so stuck picking out one note at a time. The awkward fingering involved a kind of toggling on a higher and lower F, and, as a clumsy soul, it took me weeks to build up the necessary co-ordination. I still have an idea that a lot of this piece involves toggling between chords, and not just adding decoration. Patrick said I didn't need to understand all of teh notes and chords to be able to play it. I'm not sure. Maybe most people don't, but if I don't fully understand something, whatever it is, I can't learn. More on this later.

Patrick Hemmerle CD, recorded at Trinity College Cambridge

Following his acclaimed series of concerts in Cambridge colleges, Partrick Hemmerle has produced a CD of his lyrical and powerful interpretations of Bach preludes, Chopin ballades, Brahms and Albeniz. The sound quality is not quite what Phillips manage for Mitsuko Uchida, but the playing is world class, perhaps particularly in the Chopin, and a friend to whom I gave a copy says it has the feel of a live performance. £10 + pp from Patrick Hemmerle at 11 Porson Court, Cambridge CB2 8ER. Patrick has a few slots available for pupils - if you would like to be taught, or have your child taught, by a first-prize winner at the Paris Conservatoire, with a string of international prizes and concerts to his name, contact Patrick on 01223 300738. Patrick is a great teacher as well as a great player - humorous, clear, kind and thoughtful, with excellent and economical ideas on practice.  Just as long as he can still fit me in...

Beginnings

My friend from university was persuasive. Come and house sit for us for a week. Lovely countryside, nice pubs. True enough, but...a dog to look after, so we couldn't go too far. There was a piano, and in the stool some beginners' music. Easy tunes - one note in the bass, usually, and a simple melody. I'd failed at more things than you could count in music, beginning with the guitar. My teacher, whom I met when I'd just started teaching myself, was a brilliant player who has now made a niche for himself in jazz, but he could never explain to my why the guitar was strung as it is, and I could never get the hang of why the same note could be all over the place on the fretboard, depending on what string you were playing. On the piano, a C was a C was a C, always in the same place, before two black notes. To move up, you moved up, not sideways, and likewise to move down. My efforts were by no means good, but at least I knew what I was trying to do. I slowly moved through the book.   

At the end of our house-sit, we went home via Bath. A young man in the piano shop showed me a Clavinova, which, he said, was good for beginners and would cost around £800. The Clavinova has a slightly different touch from the piano. but only slightly, and has realistically weighted keys. It was better than the Yamaha upright in my friends' house. As it was too expensive to deliver from Bath, I bought one through the Internet for around the same price - model D120, three pedals and lots of extra voices - two types of jazz piano, jazz organ, two nice harpsichords, vibraphone, two church organs, built-in metronome and demonstration pieces. Also a headset, essential to an adult beginner who doesn't wish to be thrown out of the house. Not only people are disturbed by wrong notes - our Dalmatian used to howl to high heaven when I played the accordion, and did so too when I started the piano. I'm pleased to say he now howls less.

Patrick Hemmerle - pianist and teacher

My new teacher is Patrick Hammerle, 1st prize winner at the Paris Conservatoire in 2005. Patrick is a brilliant young pianist and an equally brilliant teacher, combining patience, a sense of humour and sensitive match of his teaching to what I need to learn. Patrick is developing a solo career as an international concert pianist, and has space for more pupils. I recommend him most highly. For more details, email Patrick on pianopat@free.fr