Julian Loida is a Boston-based percussionist, collaborator, and curator. In September 2019, he released his first full-length studio album, which he describes as a celebration of the shy and introverted. The album features original compositions for vibraphone, piano, other percussion instruments, and ambient vocals. In this episode, we discuss Loida’s development as a musician, his past projects, and specifics around crafting a ten-track album of new works.
The music heard in this episode: “Silver Lacquer” “Absent” Partita No. 2 in C minor (Bach) played by Glenn Gould “You Will Be Missed” “Wisterian-Hysteria” “Ashé”
The last episode of Art Music Perspectives delved into performers’ experience of pain and discomfort in playing the music of Galina Ustvolskaya. In this episode, we’ll explore how listeners can experience pain, often at the hands of composers who purposefully create sonically-uncomfortable listening experiences through sound.
My guest this episode is: Maria Cizmic, author of Performing Pain: Music and Trauma in Eastern Europe
The music heard in this episode is: Ustvolskaya, Symphony No. 2 Meshuggah: Demiurge Maryanne Amacher: Chorale
Soviet composer Galina Ustvolskaya wrote music that seemed to defy the rules of pain/injury prevention for pianists. Her pieces frequently ask the pianist to play with the edges of the hands, the clenched fist, or the forearms. Additionally, the expressivity of her works is extreme, with dynamics reaching cacophonous levels. Even so, what draws musicians to play her music? How did her music fit into late-Soviet society?
My guests this episode are: •Maria Cizmic, Professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies at the University of South Florida; author of Performing Pain: Music & Trauma in Eastern Europe •Tom Curry, Professor of Tuba & Euphonium at UW-Madison •Iva Ugrcic, Director of LunART Festival (Madison, WI) •Satoko Hayami, Collaborative Pianist
The music in this episode: •Bach/Busoni, Chaconne •Ustvolskaya, Piano Sonata No. 6 •Ustvolskaya, Composition No. 1 (“Dona nobis pacem”) for tuba, piccolo, piano; featuring Tom Curry, Iva Ugrcic, and Vincent Fuh. Curry’s debut solo album is available from Summit Records: https://www.summitrecords.com/release/alight-tom-curry/
Every prelude and fugue has a different type of difficulty (almost making each one its own etude), but certain moments just stick out for their tedium. Even though I’m not very far into Book 2 (page 20 of ~140), measures 24-25 of the C# minor fugue are trouble!
Hand switching for the alto line (the penciled-in swoops representing when the left hand should take the notes written in the treble line)
Conceiving of a fingering that doesn’t require the hands to be crisscrossed or on top of one another. A good rule is thinking of the thumbs as barriers, even if they’re not being played––within a set hand position (which here change every measure) the lefthand thumb should not rise above the righthand thumb, vice versa.
Nontraditional fingerings for scalar passages that require the hand to be “scrunched.” Example: beat 4 of measure 24, above. The right hand plays the F# with the pointer finger, followed by an E with pinkie finger.
Henle’s recommended fingerings: This could be content for a separate post. In general, the editor’s fingerings do help out, but they forgo “better” fingerings for a strict adherence to pedagogical rules, namely don’t place the thumb on a black key. In almost all repertoire, I disregard this rule about 75% of the time because fingering decisions can become quite easy with that allowance. The other 25% of the time, there is, in fact, a good reason for the avoidance of thumb on a black key. In the case of the Henle Edition of the WTC, they’ve decided to be consistent (sometimes to a fault) on a fingering system, which may be best for younger students who may need the structure that fingering rules provide. In general, though, I feel their printed fingerings can crowd the page in those moments and force the pianist to change hand positions when it’s not necessary.
Overall, I found this prelude and fugue to be more difficult than Nos. 1 and 2. With more time, I would find ways to better color the opening half of the prelude (which I consider a Romantic version of the C Major Prelude in Book 1). I feel there are better ways to think of phrasing that either play down or enhance the tenor-voice notes; the ties in the right hand also have the potential to be a bit more interesting, perhaps with embracing them as suspensions.
The fugue is generally difficult, for reasons I’ve outlined here.
In my very first post about recordings of the Well-Tempered Clavier, I stated reasons for my avoidance of one particular specialist of the work. I find myself now writing about that very specialist, Glenn Gould.
Like my process of learning the C Major Prelude, I surveyed the same three albums (Schiff, Tureck, and Papastefanou) for my study of Fugue No. 3 in Book 2. There are a couple of very specific elements of these pianists’ recordings that I love: Papastefanou’s cadenza-like close to the rhythmic build-up of the fugue, Tureck’s consistently nimble articulation throughout. In contrast, Gould’s rendition was off-putting: excessively slow, pedantic, still in its practice-stage. As heard in the video below, his articulations are inconsistent, differing from one phrase to the next.
Before I explain my change of heart, I should mention that I find this fugue among the most difficult for several reasons. First, the rests in the theme make it difficult to distinguish the intent of certain pitches––sometimes they seem meant to provide harmonic structure, other times they’re meant more literally as melody. Second, the overlapping of voices after the first three pitches, and the inverted countervoice in measure two, make it difficult to “stretch” your listening to hear the theme as inclusive of the somewhat-buried sixteenth notes. Third, the rhythmic build-up (eighths turn to sixteenths, which turn to thirtyseconds in the final page) implicates the tempo; start the movement too quickly and you’ll inevitably end up with a fast-rolling snowball. A slower tempo also plays into the difficulty of especially “stretched” listening.
The C# Major Fugue’s opening two measures, taken from the Busoni edition
It’s the embrace of the third difficulty that makes Gould’s recording striking. His final lines, in the compounding of the thirtysecond-note motive and in a slower stacking-up of thematic entrances (such as those beginning around 2:15 in the above video), give the entire build-up a sense of payoff that I don’t personally feel when the tempo is too quick. Papastefanou’s recording finds a way around this problem by creating cathartic, cadenza-like flourishes out of the running thirtyseconds in the penultimate line. Schiff accentuates the gravitas of the thematic entrance in the bass voice during the same line, which is also a work-around. Gould, in contrast, makes the working-out of thematic and motivic material the musical highlight, so much so that the running lines (ornament-like, the fastest rhythmic material of the piece) actually seem to act as a denouement to the movement.
The final lines, including the running thirtyseconds in the penultimate line (the most rhythmically-active point of the movement)
Tempo-wise, craftsman Gould began with the end in mind; artist Gould allowed the compounding development of motives to be the apex of the movement’s essence (arguably the musical intention of every fugue). It’s in the careful synthesis of the two that makes his interpretation most compelling.
Overall, the C Minor Prelude & Fugue in Book 2 is quite straightforward; I found experimenting with various articulations, touches, and dynamics to be a rather easy and fun process. For example, in starting the piece, I tried out a few different versions simply by changing the articulation type in each hand. Here, you can hear staccato articulation in each hand (1), followed by full legato in each hand (2), followed by a lighter legato in the sixteenth notes with two-note slurs in the eighth notes (3). Use the small arrow on the right side of the video image below to cycle through each version. Press the center of the video to play/pause the recording before cycling to the next.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnHydUkgbYQ/
I chose option 3 because I think it best showcases the ability to play different articulations in each hand. During moments of similar intervallic content, I continue with this articulation throughout the piece; in other instances of eighth notes (usually instances of more stepwise motion), I use a more detached/staccato touch.
Difficulties
With the two-note slur for eighth notes, it can be difficult to taper the second note of the slur enough. Even if the second note is softer, it can still sound overbearing (especially since the second note of each beat is often the same pitch throughout the measure).
In measures 1-2, the second eighth note of each beat is almost always a C.
It’s also interesting to note that after measures 1 and 2, the Busoni Edition begins marking beats 2 and 4 with accents, with the off-beats as staccatos. Although I didn’t consult this edition until after I’d learned the movement, I think he’s on to something, as a fast tempo can give those beats a sense of propulsion into the larger beats of 1 and 3:
Busoni may have imagined the accents giving harmonic emphasis, which acts as a kind of leading tone to the larger beat. It should be noted: I’m having a difficult time finding recordings of pianists who play it this way.
The C Minor Fugue is one of my favorites, as I’ve always felt Bach’s slow, minor movements are the most beneficial for building polyphonic ears. In the post about my process for learning fugues, I pointed out the importance of building muscle memory through the mindful stretching of the fingers to reach certain intervals (i.e. it’s not just learning that finger 5 goes to finger 2, for example. It’s about feeling that stretch, both physically and mentally). This is a great fugue for that kind of deliberate practice––it’s shorter, the theme doesn’t involve any extended stretches of “fast notes” (such as the C Major Fugue), and (theory-wise) the movement offers some interesting ways of stacking motives.
My biggest difficulty was in the latter of these three features. More specifically: moments of rhythmic augmentation––that is, stretching the theme into larger rhythmic values. Instead the theme’s standard eighth-note introduction, we can see it written in quarter notes in the left hand at the bottom of the first page. When the theme (which I also label the melody, at times) becomes wider in rhythmic value, it becomes difficult to hear it in the same way as I heard it when it was in eighth notes. Basically, my mind doesn’t seem to want to stretch that far, to hear it across two measures rather than one. Here is the first instance:
The left hand (tenor voice) stretches out the theme (seen in the right hand) to quarter notes.
While a first-time listener might be able to hear the left hand as the theme, my goal is to first hear these theoretical features of the music, myself, as they’re happening. Second, I must find a way to broadcast those clever moments to the audience through technique. In general, it’s difficult to bring out a theme that is written in a middle voice (in this case, the tenor voice). However, I’ve found the true difficulty lies in the stubbornness and impatience of the ear.
