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A genie is willing to grant you three musical wishes. Anything goes. I would choose:
1. Watch Chopin compose without him knowing. 2. Attend the legendary 4-hour Beethoven concert. 3. Have Horowitz recordings all Mozart piano concerti and sonatas.
This is actually tough: 1 to take lessons from Chopin 2 to be able to play all the music on my ‘someday’ List 3 to be able to learn and enjoy playing until I am 100 ( well maybe until 105)
1. Hear Chopin playing. Even just a recording would do. Even just with mid-19th century technology.
I've been dreaming about this for ages!
BTW, I had an idea about how Chopin could've actually recorded (albeit not reproduce) his playing with the technology of the time: attach small pens through linkages to each key and the pedal to draw lines on a rolling paper (clockwork mechanisms were available at the time), similar to seismograph. Notice that the velocity/acceleration of each key can be derived as first/second derivatives of the line offset. We can analyze that with a computer and generate a MIDI file to be replayed by a modern player/Disclavier piano. In fact player pianos from the end of 19th century recorded a performance in a similar way. Even though it's not exactly the same as an audio recording, because it will depend on the actual piano, we would still see his rubato, feel, timing, dynamics, pedaling, tempo...
I would easily spend all my 3 wishes to hear Chopin play!
Anyway (egotistical): 2. I want perfect pitch 3. I want larger hands
BTW, when I was a kid, I dreamed about being able to resurrect Bach in modern times and see what kind of music he would produce Or to visit him with a time machine and play him a lot of music from all periods and genres and ask him what he thinks
BTW, when I was a kid, I dreamed about being able to resurrect Bach in modern times and see what kind of music he would produce
Probably 17th century counterpoint.
Yeah, I am afraid so. Especially now. As a kid I thought he would come up with some great new type of music but now being 40 I am strongly convinced he would just keep on with the Art of Fugue volumes 🤣
In order of preference: 1. To have longer fingers 2. Be able to learn music faster and retain it better 3. To have music theory magically implanted into my brain.
1. That musicians of any genre would never again be harrassed for what they choose to wear on stage, and that the atmosphere around classical music performance would relax. As a continuation of this; that people would realize that a relaxed atmosphere around the performances of the most profound works of classical music only aids to the audience's ability to grasp it and to understand its human nature, whereas all that a tightly wound, white bowtie attitude does, is it stops more people from being able to understand classical music, and makes many people already participating in the current classical audiences, uncomfortable.
2. That the vast majority of classical instrumentalists would start to compose and improvise again.
3. To hear Liszt perform Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata.
The last concert I attended before lockdown was a reconstruction of this famous Beethoven concert, in the Royal Festival Hall in London. My reactions to it were: * It was a nicely constructed programme. * It didn't seem a minute too long.
1. Extend the life of Chopin by 50 years 2. Extend the life of Schubert by 50 years 3. Extend the life of Mozart by 50 years
Yes.
Just imagine if Beethoven had the lifespan of poor Schubert. He wouldn't be nearly as acclaimed as he is today without his Middle and Late period yet Schubert managed to do fine without either.
I can't prove this (and I guess I don't know it either) but I think if Beethoven was going to die when he was 31, unless it was something sudden and unexpected, most likely his life course and spiritual course would have been such that he would have been at a later stage when he was 29 and 30 than what he was.
My mildly strong guess is that Mozart and Schubert's greatly growing pathos toward the ends of their lives was related to their being toward the ends of their lives.
I can't prove this (and I guess I don't know it either) but I think if Beethoven was going to die when he was 31, unless it was something sudden and unexpected, most likely his life course and spiritual course would have been such that he would have been at a later stage when he was 29 and 30 than what he was.
My mildly strong guess is that Mozart and Schubert's greatly growing pathos toward the ends of their lives was related to their being toward the ends of their lives.
Well, he was in deep depression and very nearly committed suicide at the end of his Early Period so I can't really say how much his spiritual course would have changed.
1. To be able to play the piano well. I try, but oh dear..... For example, played some Chopin mazurkas yesterday, fingering all over the place, trills all wrong (how come I hadn't noticed the trills problem years ago?), timing - well, you can imagine. I know; practice, practice, practice...discipline, discipline, discipline....metronome, metronome, metronome (I don't have one, hate them etc.)....why isn't there an easy way? 2. To understand music theory, harmonics and all that sort of stuff so that I could write my own music. I read, listen and so on, but while I understand things at the time they all tend to evaporate and leave the brain as empty as before....kind of in one ear and out of the other. Of course, one can accept being an idiot and just enjoy the vast amount of music already out there, I suppose, but it's so frustrating. I have written some pieces which I actually enjoy playing, but in reality I don't really understand what's going on even in them! 3. To sort out my piano replacement.
Sorry, just a long whinge and totally self-centered, but c'est la vie.
1. Hear Beethoven improvising- it brought all his listeners to tears. 2. Study with Nadia Boulanger I can't think of a third right now.
Originally Posted by Mark_C
1. Hear Chopin playing. Even just a recording would do. Even just with mid-19th century technology.
This is a great one!
"Love has to be the starting point- love of music. It is one of my firmest convictions that love always produces some knowledge, while knowledge only rarely produces something similar to love." Arthur Schnabel
