Journals Summary about Stylistic Interpretation

1. Journal: “Illuminations of the Past, Innovations of the Future: Piano Playing and
Building’ in the Twenty-first Century” (by Asher Ian Armstrong)
Source: Clavier Companion (June, 2009)

In this Journal the writer narrates his own experience at the Muziekinstrumenten
Museum in Brussels. Since his point of view there is a group of keyboard instruments
along a quite extensive repertoire created for them the XIX century which we are not
taking in consideration nowadays. It is clear that it’s not possible to apply all historical
interpretation criterias to the way that we perform and study pre-modern piano
repertoire. However it would make us closer to the composers of the period to be fully
informed about an spectrum of repertoire/instruments that usually we don’t pay
attention because we are focused on the repertoire that is only possible to play at a
modern piano. Examples of disquisition would be an extensive catalogue written for
pedal piano (a mix between an organ and a regular piano) with works written by Alkan,
Schumann, Gounod, Liszt, among others.
At the same time to come back to the past it seems to be the new trend, since
Barenboim asked to a piano manufacturer in Belgium (C. Maine) to build a piano with
straight-stringing mechanism. And further research revealed that Beethoven’s period
pianos were closer to harpsichords than our current pianos, who amazingly offer other
sound possibilities. Because of this is important to be as informed as possible. Not to
change an entire way of how we play music from the Classicism, for example, but to have
a closer experience as interpreters and to bring that to the students when we are
performing and teaching.

2. Journal: “The Beethoven Piano Sonatas: Frequently Asked Questions” (by Peter
Takacs)
Source: Clavier Companion (March, 2009)

Since this is the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birthday, the writer addressed to
very specific topics regarded the reading and interpretation of Beethoven’s sonatas, a
quintessential part in the piano solo repertoire of all times. Between them: editions,
fingering, pedaling, tempo, and changes (very little ones) that might be resolved by
reading and knowing Beethoven’s production. I believe that everything that is said in
this article is very interesting but it’s addressed to be aware of the sources and how to
use them. For example it is mentioned the book “On the Proper Performance of all
Beethoven’s Works for the Piano”, by C. Czerny. This is an important source of study
since Czerny was Beethoven's disciple.

3. Journal: “Subverting the Pianistic Psyche: Learning Approaches to Webern’s

Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24”

The topic of this journal discusses certain repertoire that is not traditionally
considered to have stylistic nuances, something very interesting is stated: musical
education in general terms (but mainly for pianists in this case), is pitch-centric focus.
 This in a plenty of occasions means to twist the actual content of the music (in terms of
articulation, rhythm accuracy, or further details) in order to learn pitches. According the
writer, this learning method is mostly related with Tonal Music system. The main
conclusion of the writer is that since rhythm has as much importance as pitches, some
commonly used procedures applying some rhythmic patterns to learn pieces might not
be very useful in this cases. Or at least, that it’s very important to apply since the very
beginning articulation and dynamics in general, because in this piece -along with every
single one in a similar style- this elements are a constitutive part of the poetry of
Webern’s language than they can’t be neglected.

4. Brief Journal: “First steps into RAGTIME” (by by Meg Gray)

Source: Clavier Companion (December, 2019)

This brief article comment on Tickling’ Toes written by Florence B. Price, a very
important African American composer. This piece is specially useful to introduce
ragtime with students who are not advanced enough to play Scott joplin’s ragtimes.
Since the point of view of the form of the piece and the textures that are presented the
piece fulfil every characteristic that a ragtime should have. And also, it has written a
wide range of articulations, that probably students have been playing in Baroque
repertoire.