Valentina Lisitsa

Stellina wrote:

Are you referring to his Liszt or to his performances in general?

In general. An artistic, emotional, or intellectual point of view is always missing in the works he touches. If we want, it's "his style" not to include it. It's like listening to a magnificent orchestra without a conductor or a piano played by an autoplayer. Never a smudged note, never an error. Everything perfect, tested, polished, and smooth.

Substance is not lacking, but the sense of substance is.

There is no inner, human, or spiritual depth; a meaning of importance, of real value, is absent. He interprets works of great drama and depth without interpreting anything; his hands slide over them like in the most common of activities, like rolling out dough.

He doesn't play as if it were the last time he could do so, but as if it were a common pastime, a common job—and art is the antithesis of normality.

Davehammerklavier wrote:

In general, an artistic, emotional, or intellectual point of view is always missing in the works he touches. If we want, it is "his style" not to include it. It's like listening to a magnificent orchestra without a conductor or a piano played by a player piano. Never a blurred note, never an error. Everything is perfect, tested, polished, and smooth.

Substance is not lacking, but the sense of substance is.

There is no inner, human, or spiritual depth; an important meaning, of real value, is absent. He interprets works of great drama and depth without interpreting anything; his hands slide over them like in the most common of activities, like rolling out dough.

He doesn't play as if it were the last time he could do so, but as if it were a common pastime, a common job, and art is the antithesis of normality.

Cute and poetic, but how can one tell if someone plays as if it were the last time? I was quite taken by the technical component, given the titanic feat of playing this piece... and I would be lying if I said it didn't give me a shred of emotion. Is it something too subjective, or can one truly say that someone has musicality and not just technique?

I forgot, can you suggest a listening of this same work by a performer whom you consider more musical, perhaps highlighting the differences with Valentina and some references in those moments to the score or to Liszt's thought. It would be very helpful for me. Thanks in advance.

I didn't want to be cute or poetic, just to express a feeling of my own. Personally (that is, as far as my personal way of feeling and conceiving art is concerned), what Lisitsa does when she sits at the piano is out of place from the first to the last note, including "pianist-like" movements or any other aspect; and she is in very good company with many other "pianists"...

You cannot explain it or say it with a comparison. They are things that are felt, not explained.

How do you understand? This is the problem of our present. To understand; to comprehend the undertones, to go deep. We behave like when we listen to a foreign language in which we know a few words, falling into the error of perhaps seeing the speck and not the log. One no longer confronts truth, authenticity; there is a tendency to flee from them, and thus this way of presenting classical music flees as well. The lack of reflection, of thought, prevents growth, prevents maturation; it is a condemnation to mediocrity, to the middle ground. I am sure that in ninety years these pieces will all be played in exactly the same way.

This pianist is not to blame, she is also likable, but she fully expresses the current average perception of reality, of emotions, of feelings, of art, of language, of our time, which, in artistic terms (except for very rare exceptions), is truly forgettable. In fact, day after day, event after event, it forgets itself.

Ok, someone to remember will be there... right?

Davehammerklavier wrote:

If we want it to be "his style," don't put it.

It would be called aesthetics; for example, not many people like Pollini's recordings of various Chopin pieces... it's not that because of this he plays for pastime, probably even this is the antithesis of normality. Or do we expect that anyone plays like others who preceded them?

ttw wrote:

It would be called aesthetics, for example not many people like Pollini's recordings of various Chopin pieces... it's not that he plays for pastime, probably even this is the antithesis of normality. Or do we expect everyone to play like others who preceded them?

Of course, and it is complex. Perhaps the real problem is the widespread tendency to associate music with a matter of pure and low "entertainment" or as a dainty backdrop for the bored.

It doesn't matter whether an artist is liked or not, but whether they make true art or not.

So paradoxically anyone could do it ... and yet not everyone reaches where she has reached. Granted, there is better out there... but whether it's truly rubbish ... I don't know...

There are always shades of gray, there are different levels of greatness among artists... but it's always artists we are talking about...

Stellina wrote:

Ok, someone worth remembering must be there... right?

Blessed Michelangeli?

ttw wrote:

So, paradoxically, anyone could do it ... and yet not everyone reaches where she has reached. Sure, there is better out there... but whether it's truly rubbish ... I don't know...

I didn't say it's rubbish, but that she has a conception of music different from mine. (But I'm not the only one...)

I must say that there are some interpretations of Lisitsa where Davehammer's interpretation fits me perfectly. I have encountered this somewhat in the Chopin studies. In other pieces I do not find this, for example in Rachmaninoff. I listened to some of his preludes played by Lisitsa and was very fascinated. I invite you to listen to this prelude op. 23 no. 5.

In the cantabile, in my opinion, she is fabulous.

Open content (youtube)

Premising that I like Lisitsa even without understanding much, I know that technique (if it can even be separated from the rest) is her most prominent characteristic and, as every pianist does (this is my belief), she highlights her strongest side compared to the rest.

Davehammerklavier wrote:

Never a blurred note, never an error.

At first glance, I didn't understand this sentence. Then, reading the other posts, I understood that you meant that, since there are neither flaws nor errors in her performances, it means she looks more at the speck than at the beam? using the same words. Did I misunderstand??

I find that what I am about to quote fits perfectly, perhaps it can be a further answer or point of view on the matter:

One commits a grave error assuming that the > of a singer, an instrumentalist, or a conductor can be developed without intimate and constant contact with art itself, before which technique must be nothing more than a tool. Nowadays we are truly hypnotized by the problem of >; notable progress has been made regarding the understanding of its foundations, especially based on new biological theories. Today we are able to achieve greater results in less time than some decades ago - both in piano playing and in skiing. With this difference: that we have had better skiers, but not better artists, in fact worse ones, because the essential has been forgotten, namely the immediacy of the capacity for artistic expression. A technique that becomes an end in itself no longer follows directives, but dictates them. A standardized technique generates a standardized art. [Wilhelm Furtwängler - Dialogues on Music]

I think it also embodies the thought of Davehammerklavier

Thank you Frank....but I would say that what the great Conductor says does not embody our friend's thought. This is how I interpret it, and much of what I suggest (either to a student or in a Tutorial..) aims to mean and would like to disseminate exactly this: That, as Furtwängler says, technique cannot be developed except through contact with Art itself, Music. Now, in the case of such a great pianist, the opposite certainly cannot be true. Only through a deep understanding of Music can one, if ever, achieve such high technical results. This is what I believe. Even if Lisitsa or anyone else were to "exhaust" themselves perfecting difficult passages through grueling "training," they would not achieve such results. I would say, instead, that certain choices are rather formal. Sometimes an artist who is "formalist" and not "expressionist" (as I like to classify in my own way) renounces certain expressive forms of the phrase and focuses on the juxtaposition of sound forms. They choose, for example, a single part that "stands out" against an almost monotonous and linear expression. Pollini's style follows this path. I believe the Great [one] is quite capable of making some Chopin phrases more expressive... but, by choice, he renounces, or rather embraces, a form of reading that seeks to nullify all that expressive research that has dictated everything up to him. It's not that Cortot's interpretations are throwaway, but they belong to another era in the history of interpretation. I believe that within the scope of the Author's style, one can frame and choose an updated performance style, even within the scope of one's own personal style. The pianist in question, although young, I think has traveled this path. One may disagree... or not feel as she does... but I find her coherent. The great conductor says something immense again: better skiers... but not better artists....Immediacy forgotten!!!!! The Musician who immediately establishes contact with the work to be performed is on the right path. Many schools insist on the preparatory nature of studying passages, rhythmic variations, and exhausting, cult-like efforts. For me, one risks losing contact with musical meaning forever. Of course, we cannot imagine a great name sitting at the piano and FIRST AND FOREMOST making contact with the work.... even while accepting some imperfections. But that is how it is. The improvement and perfection of the performance is not secondary... but is "on the side." In short, one could talk for days and perhaps remain in opposing positions. This is simply my opinion, but I wanted to take inspiration from the quote intelligently provided by Frank to give my own "reading" of those words. Thank you

Frank reads my mind. I am sincerely satiated, disturbed, nauseated by this "worldized" and frivolous conception that has taken over all the high art of the new generation, of which I also belong, due to age.

Perfect technique, clothes with slits up to the buttocks, glossy covers with stripper-like poses, abstinent masters who encourage this way of making music, stupid kids joking, laughing, or sweating like camels while they play: one can't take it anymore.

I am for a Sacred Art, intense and total, made by a few chosen ones, directed towards and useful to everyone. "Music is my religion..." said Jimi Hendrix, an artist who was anything but cultured.

Instead, what do emerging artists think of music outside of what they are told to say? A pleasant pastime? A game? A job like any other? A refinement to show off?

Has anything important remained, something fateful for those being brought to light today? Is it only aesthetics at best?

I recently attended a Grigory Sokolov concert. I will remember it forever.

The technique, the most minimal, invisible part to which almost no attention was truly paid, was absolutely perfect.

Davehammerklavier wrote:

dresses with slits up to the buttocks, glossy covers with stripper poses

That limit has already been exceeded for quite a while... read here

http://www.pianoconc...ano-tutte-nude/

Davehammerklavier wrote:

Frank reads my mind. I am sincerely satiated, disturbed, nauseated by this "worldized" and frivolous conception that has taken over all the high art of the new generation, of which I also belong, due to age.

Perfect technique, clothes with slits up to the buttocks, glossy covers with stripper-like poses, masters in abstinence who encourage this way of making music, stupid kids joking, laughing, or sweating like camels while they play: one cannot stand it anymore.

I am for a Sacred Art, intense and total, made by a few chosen ones, directed toward and useful to everyone. "Music is my religion..." said Jimi Hendrix, an artist who was anything but cultured.

Instead, what do emerging artists think of music outside of what they are told to say? A pleasant pastime? A game? A job like any other? A refinement to show off?

Has anything important, something fateful, remained for those being brought to light today? Is it only aesthetics at best?

I recently attended a concert by Grigory Sokolov. I will remember it forever.

The technique, the most minimal, invisible part to which almost no attention was truly paid, was absolutely perfect.

Hi... these things you say were also said by Chopin. He too, in the period he lived through, had to confront this conception of seeing art. He too could not stand that cold pianism, made of exasperating technique and which, in his view, served only to exhibit the pianist's skill at the expense of the beauty of the music and the motive that drives one to make music, namely art....made more of sense and content than of notes, notes and notes, which must serve to express. He said that in the end, after having studied an infinity of notes, notes to make art, only simplicity remained, but to do this, one had to study much—indeed, immensely.

The marketing component is certainly there and it shows. Unfortunately, we live in times where everything is considered a "product" to be sold. It is difficult today for a musician, especially a young one, to escape a certain form of communication (which, beyond clothing, often concerns gestures) that is instrumental to marketing. If you want to record, if you want to make yourself known at high levels, you cannot do without it. Lisitsa, perhaps, will not exempt herself from this logic.

That being said, while respecting Davehammerklavier's point of view, the conclusions he draws regarding this pianist's "style" seem out of place to me.

I too feel close, in terms of sensitivity, to a sacral, almost "ascetic" vision of art, but I do not understand what the judgment of "superficiality" given to Lisitsa is based on.

It is obvious that these are matters of personal taste and, according to mine, Lisitsa's merit lies not so much (or only) in technical cleanliness as in the variety and beauty of her timbre, in the purity of the voice she manages to draw from the instrument—a consequence, in my opinion, precisely of her gestures, which are so particular and evident as to seem "ostentatious" (and perhaps for this reason they are misunderstood and criticized as a sort of commercial gimmick). And excuse me if that is little.

Pure aesthetics for its own sake? Entertainment? Or rather a touching (as well as refined) performance? You decide:

Open content (youtube)

Judgment is based on feeling. Isn't that what art is for? To communicate the incommunicable?

Lisitsa is the only one among the new ones who makes me feel a bit of tenderness. It's like seeing a fish out of water forced to do something they do well, but aware of not having that "plus," those qualities that make a perfect pianist also an artist. In a certain sense, her approach is "humble," almost as if she wanted to make every note understand how great the composers were and how she is, ultimately, just a simple pianist privileged by her work.

As rightly mentioned by the Maestro in a previous post, all these attempts at "neutrality," experiments of "humility in the face of the greatness of compositional genius," have always had the peculiarity of leading to interpretations that, sooner or later, are forgotten.

The artist and performer who remains fixed in memory and in the heart is not the one who "reads" the work, but the one who lets themselves be permeated by it, who becomes, metaphorically speaking, the work they interpret.

One could then investigate all the psychological, cultural, and scientific aspects of this approach for decades. The fact remains that, quite simply, it works.

Davehammerklavier wrote:

...all these attempts at "neutrality", experiments in "humility in the face of the greatness of compositional genius", have always had the peculiarity of leading to interpretations that, sooner or later, are forgotten.

The artist and performer who remains fixed in memory and in the heart is not the one who "reads" the work, but the one who allows themselves to be permeated by it, who becomes, metaphorically speaking, the work they interpret.

Philology must not be an end in itself, but I think that today it cannot even be neglected.

Just as a great actor does not put their own personality ahead of that of the character they portray, so the performer, to allow themselves to be "permeated" and to become "the work they interpret," must not place themselves in front of, but behind, the composer.