Performing from memory

[Ein Heldenleben]

What about other keyboard players? Organists generally appear to use music, not sure about harpsichordists, though George Malcolm ALWAYS used music. Is it just a matter of convention? I remember Perlemuter in a RFH recital having a memory lapse and having to walk off stage to consult the score!

I’ve never been to a harpsichord recital. I did once assist at a harpsichord recording and indeed a Vlado Perlemuter recording. Neither player had a score . The harpsichordist didn’t play a single wrong note ( he really was exceptional ) and VP a very few smudges. In some ways I think recording is more stressful than performance precisely because the artist knows they can retake. You can get that awful feeling that the whole team is waiting for you to get things right. At least with a performance you know the moment is over and can’t be replayed .That’s been my one experience of “red light fever” as it’s known.

[RichardB]

Whether performers use a score or not is surely a matter of what repertoire they play. It's extremely rare for a soloist to give the premiere of a new work from memory, whereas I would imagine very few pianists would need the music in front of them to play a Mozart or Beethoven concerto.

[CallMePaul]

Whether performers use a score or not is surely a matter of what repertoire they play. It's extremely rare for a soloist to give the premiere of a new work from memory, whereas I would imagine very few pianists would need the music in front of them to play a Mozart or Beethoven concerto.

In about 1993 when I lived in London, I saw Pollini at the Festival Hall. He used a score for a work (can't remember the title and I've long lost the progtramme) by Nono, but played the rest of the programme - Beethoven, Schoenberg and Chopin - from memory.

[gradus]

Whether performers use a score or not is surely a matter of what repertoire they play. It's extremely rare for a soloist to give the premiere of a new work from memory, whereas I would imagine very few pianists would need the music in front of them to play a Mozart or Beethoven concerto.

Confirmed yesterday evening by a performance of Mozart pf conc 19 with a string quartet - effectively a Mozart piano quintet. Sheer delight from Martin Andre and the quartet led by his wife Joana. They're performing nos. 20 and 23 using the same forces if you can get to the Islington Festival: https://www.islingtonfestival.com/

[ahinton]

Louis Kentner used to learn a piece off score before playing it. Whether he then played it from memory is not clear but it wouldn’t surprise me if he was capable of that. Some people’s sight reading is so good that they can almost imagine the piece in their head and then recreate it through the fingers. It’s said that Horowitz and Jin Ogdon could just about sight read anything.

Having worked with John Ogdon I can certainly onfirm his sight-reading abilities - but there's a fundamental difference between brilliant sight reading and the ability to perform from sight - but which I mean the ability to make interpretative decisions without the time in which one might imagine them to be made - and this is what John Ogdon had in spades compared to almost all other musicians (with the possible exception of the soprano Jane Manning); how he did this I know not but, having witnessed it in practice, I can confirm that John could figure out what he thought was necessary to do with a piece just by leafing through it before setting his unique fingers to the keyboard...

[Ein Heldenleben]

Having worked with John Ogdon I can certainly onfirm his sight-reading abilities - but there's a fundamental difference between brilliant sight reading and the ability to perform from sight - but which I mean the ability to make interpretative decisions without the time in which one might imagine them to be made - and this is what John Ogdon had in spades compared to almost all other musicians (with the possible exception of the soprano Jane Manning); how he did this I know not but, having witnessed it in practice, I can confirm that John could figure out what he thought was necessary to do with a piece just by leafing through it before setting his unique fingers to the keyboard...

Having heard about his phenomenal interpretative abilities I almost wonder whether he could read several bars ahead of playing. Didn’t Harrison Birtwistle say he once witnessed him sight reading the Boulez sonata ?

[Bryn]

Having heard about his phenomenal interpretative abilities I almost wonder whether he could read several bars ahead of playing. Didn’t Harrison Birtwistle say he once witnessed him sight reading the Boulez sonata ?

Which one? I would presume the 2nd.

[teamsaint]

Uchida played the Schoenberg Concerto from the score at the 2015 proms.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Which one? I would presume the 2nd.

The one that a music student tactfully talked me out of buying at Blackwells Music store helpfully suggesting the Berg instead …

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Returning to choirs singing from memory, there was a Mahler symphony TV broadcast at last year’s Proms. Most of the choir sang without music but seemed rather diffident, so the experiment wasn’t much of a success. Those who’d sneaked a score in seem far more confident.

Intrigued mainly by the alleged sneaking in of scores - by two choirs who sing said Mahler symphony almost every other month - I had a quick look at this on iPlayer, and must have blinked when the miscreants were on camera. That said, I agree that the choir seemed largely diffident, but having regularly sung at the RAH - on stage proper as well as increasingly frequently up the back somewhere thanks to some health and safety jobsworth, as well as an underpowered tenor section who needed to be further forward - I have to say that it's a heck of a job to project involvement from where they were, even with - as we had in the good days - a chorus director who was sharp on that.

[jonfan]

Whatever is best for the performer(s) is a good maxim. Mackerras was asked why he always used a score in concerts, ‘because I can’ was the reply!
I wonder though if there’s truth in the notion that a good sight-reader is a poor memoriser and vice verse. I can make a good shot at new music placed in front of me on the piano but I can barely manage the National Anthem from memory. I’m racked with jealousy when I hear a pub pianist rattle off numerous tunes without a score in sight!

[Lordgeous]

I'm in the latter category but my sight reading is !?$&!! In my teens, as a promising pianist, I was once asked to be accompanist for a Brass Band competition (individuals, not whole bands). Imagine my horror to discover every piece put in front of me was in 7 flats or more! Yes, I exaggerate, but for someone used to the lovely 'sharp' keys it was a nightmare. How I fumbled through it I'll never know! Incidentally, my father, who didn't know one note from another, and couldn't read (music), could play any popular tunes of the day expertly by ear, but only in 'sharp' keys! Maybe it ran in the family!

[silvestrione]

Angela Hewitt played Book 2 of the Well-Tempered in Cambridge, with an ipad flat on the top of her Fazioli ( so no visible page turning! She did it with her foot). I do find page turning in a solo recital distracting.

I do not think Richter played half as well, once he changed to using scores...(half? I mean, not quite so well).

Curzon played Brahms PC1 in Bournemouth with a page turner. I was very young at the time, but I already found that distracting, and enjoyed the encore more (Moment Musicaux in F minor)!

[ahinton]

Angela Hewitt played Book 2 of the Well-Tempered in Cambridge, with an ipad flat on the top of her Fazioli ( so no visible page turning! She did it with her foot). I do find page turning in a solo recital distracting.

I do not think Richter played half as well, once he changed to using scores...(half? I mean, not quite so well).

Curzon played Brahms PC1 in Bournemouth with a page turner. I was very young at the time, but I already found that distracting, and enjoyed the encore more (Moment Musicaux in F minor)!

In that case, what do you feel about chamber ensembles performing from the music?

[Pulcinella]

Angela Hewitt used an iPad here in York for the JSB French Suites in 2017.
That was the first time I was aware of their use.
Very unobtrusive.

Being a page turner for someone is a huge responsibility!