Well, this has brought some interesting responses!
As you watch the video, scanning across the collection on top of the piano, are we tuners surprised by the condition of the piano? Tuning this piano is not a priority in the Muti studio.
As Jim Ialeggio and Ed McMorrow highlight, how we experience music and the objective sound waves are not necessarily the same thing.
Schnabel wrote about hearing the music in multiple overlapping layers during the performance as he negotiated the differences between his ideal of the music, what the piano was really doing, and his attempt to correct and reconcile the differences.
An elderly member of the Berlin Philharmonic said the sound of the musicians changed as soon as Furtwangler walked into the room because "now they heard themselves the way he heard them."
In terms of the magic of our work, my current delusions favor what happens between the movement of the hand and the moment the hammer leaves the string. That is where it seems the player, the composer, the audience and the instrument can enter into something that seems like a responsive collaboration.
Or maybe it's just my imagination...or the need of my heart for something to believe for a moment.
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Ed Sutton
ed440@me.com(980) 254-7413
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-30-2020 07:45
From: Peter Grey
Subject: Ricardo Muti Plays Piano
I have found that people who read music VERY well tend to be less critical about tuning. OTOH those who don't READ so well but play largely by ear tend to be more critical of the tuning. Although not universal, it is an observation I have made over time.
Pwg
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Peter Grey
Stratham NH
603-686-2395
pianodoctor57@gmail.com
Original Message:
Sent: 12-29-2020 23:09
From: Edward McMorrow
Subject: Ricardo Muti Plays Piano
I had the same experience you described Jim. The thing about really good performers is they can also "suggest" what one should be hearing to an audience, an the audience can be receptive. In fact we will never fully escape this conundrum because we always want to "hear" more if our sensibilities are duly needy for musically intelligible experiences.
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Edward McMorrow
Edmonds WA
425-299-3431
Original Message:
Sent: 12-29-2020 22:12
From: Jim Ialeggio
Subject: Ricardo Muti Plays Piano
Classic...excellent musicians, with outstanding ears...they have learned not to listen to their horrible sounding pianos. They create the sound they want to hear in their brains, and the actual real sound becomes superfluous, at least for them. I remember doing this with the horrible pianos I played and owned before becoming a tech. I would play along, making up the sounds my awful pianos weren't making, in my head, and also singing along like Gould, for the same reason, partially.
When I figured out I was making the sounds all up cognitively, and never actually experiencing the sounds I craved, is when I became a tone junkie and entered the nether world of tech-dom. I wanted to hear the sound not just pretend I heard the sound. Its been all downhill since then...not really...but it took 15 years to create the sound I wanted to hear.
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Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026
Original Message:
Sent: 12-29-2020 19:43
From: Susan Kline
Subject: Ricardo Muti Plays Piano
Just a built in vibrato ...
Original Message:
Sent: 12/29/2020 5:51:00 PM
From: Peter Grey
Subject: RE: Ricardo Muti Plays Piano
Get a tuner in there! 😢 Ouch!
Pwg
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Peter Grey
Stratham NH
603-686-2395
pianodoctor57@gmail.com
Original Message:
Sent: 12-29-2020 16:42
From: Ed Sutton
Subject: Ricardo Muti Plays Piano
What does he hear?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLiutQDH09Y
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Ed Sutton
ed440@me.com
(980) 254-7413
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