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What does it mean? When I say musical maturity I mean like Why can't younger children play Chopin?

How are they not musically mature enough to play Chopin? It's one thing that I dont get. I mean what if some 8 year old played Fantasie Impromptu playing every note write and playing the piece right musically. Why isnt that mature enough???

How does one play a piece musically "right"? Paying heed to dynamics and written instructions?

A piece of music is a piece of art, and it must interpreted as such by someone who has experienced life's miseries and warmths. Contrary to popular belief, music does not come from years of practice and instruction by a "master" but by the experiences that motivated the writing of music in the first place.

We could analyze what is happening in a mature performance, such as the use of rubato here or a slight delay there, but I think that would be missing the point. The truth here is that a mature musician has a thorough and true understanding of why certain musical concepts are used as guidelines and how certain things create different emotional responses.

Hearing a master change things about the music seemingly at whim is a short-sighted observation. Alterations and unorthodox playing should be motivated by musical and emotional concerns. Only after years with music is it possible to apply this kind of mature artistic discretion.

That certainly does not mean that I agree with modern teaching methods. Indeed, many student performances seem only products of a synthetic pedantry that serves to stifle more than generate growth in the pupil. If you are to read the opinions and attitudes of master musicians from history, you will see a definite trend in their thoughts. Incredibly important here is the fact that every pupil must be treated as a unique student. Most teachers, it seems to me, have not the immense depth of character and passion that could allow for the effective teaching of every kind of pupil.

This goes beyond music, as well. I care not to hear a performance by someone totally out of touch with maturity on a social and philosophical level, regardless of technical flexibility or repertoire size. This is why an excellent general education and intimacy with foreign culture is also a requirement for a master musician.

Only after the artist has grown into great maturity should they be allowed complete freedom with their interpretations and musical ideas if they are to make a profound impact upon their audience. That is the difference between the master and the student. A constant criticism of one's own work and a recognition and respect for the enormous expenditure of effort required to become great creates a perpetual hollow in the soul, but it is the requirement to be a great artist.

A great teacher can only offer glimpses of the whole; it is up to the student to put the effort forth to understand as much as he or she can.

-Colin

Wow, that was incredibly well said.

That an interpretation be "mature" is a schoolmarm's attitude, and I don't regard it as an enlightened standard for much of anything.

Every growing thing has it's seasons. Do we really want to see red, ripe apples on an apple tree in the Springtime. I don't. I want to see apple blossoms on the tree. Ripe red apples are good in the Fall.

What's exciting about young virtuoso pianists is that they have tremendous flair. And they dare take tempos dangerously fast. Why can't we enjoy it? Why must we scold them? They'll be old soon enough.

In the meantime, there are lots of other old pianists to listen to, who have often developed meaningful and incisive ways around failing techniques. That can be beautiful too.

There's no proper manner to play these things anyway. Musical scores are graciously imprecise about exactly how to play them. Composers don't give the dictum, "mature," and "andante" means at least a dozen different things to a dozen different pianists.

Tomasino

Agreed, well said.

I'd just add that, for many of us, music has meaning (although I'm fully aware that some people deny that it can), and the level of meaning available to a child may not serve the music well. I'd also add that, in some ways, it's also possible to learn about life through the experience of music, and a child may not be (or perhaps should not be) mature enough for what the music teaches. I think there is such a thing as growing up too soon.

Reminds me of something I heard Sir John Barbirolli say about Jacqueline du Pre - something to the effect that though she was often criticised for her excessive displays of emotion when playing, he personally loved it. He said you should have an excess of everything when you're young, otherwise what are you going to pare down when you're older?

very well said....my mom said to me the other day that rachmaninoffs prelude C # min. is a mature piece...im ignorant otherwise so i agree with her...what are your thoughts?

Just a thought here... Maturity is something that comes with time if we allow it to develop. When anyone plays the piano it is an expression of how that person approaches the music. It is not necessarily "mature" -- but then again, when I pick up new music my first several playings aren't "mature" even though I'm hardly a spring chicken. It takes time to play through the music, to find the "voice" with which I want that music to speak while keeping in mind the voice the composer had in mind.

Playing music is a meeting of two minds: the composer and the musician. The more the musician can bring to the party the better the result. This is why music written by very young composers or music played by very young performers tend to have a little less to bring out.

Children, by their very nature, are still developing, and that includes their musical thinking.

Ed

I think the c# minor prelude is a fairly immature piece. Everything about it is straightforward - form, phrase structure, desired tone, articulation, etc...

Hard to escape the irony of the above, considering du Pre's tragically short life and Barbirolli as conductor of her most over-the-top recording, the Elgar Concerto. (Which I happen to love.)

I wonder what she would have made of the Elgar Concerto had she lived to do a remake. You missed out, Sir Simon Rattle...

I don't have much to add to Reaper978's insightful answer on this matter other than to say that,(as with much else in music) this is a subjective matter and that, personally, I believe music in it's highest sense to be a distillation into sound of the human experience. And some musics convey such complex emotions that you just need to have either been around awhile to experience them or have an exceptional empathy with people who have in order to convincingly render them to an audience.

I think "musical" maturity or "maturity in music" is an overrated term. I of course see that the thread here revolves around interpretation (but I see Kreisler cleverly throwing in an example in composition, and this is another thread )

To return to the point of maturity vs. immaturity in music .. my opinion is that it is an overrated term.

If this term or concept exists "maturity", then the closest I think of is "a solid grasp of the music's structure, function, theory, history, performance practice and how to apply this on one's own concept of a piece to get maximal artistic value" (or whatever that means anyway) so I agree with Reaper when he says "The truth here is that a mature musician has a thorough and true understanding of why certain musical concepts are used as guidelines and how certain things create different emotional responses."

This is the only valid scope of explanation to this term IMO.

As for the "emotional maturity" of the performer or how his personality can be described as mature/immature or again if he experienced so & so in his (excuse me) dreaded life and how and when ................ and how this affects the audience's reception of his interpretations, then I can certainly say "None of our business", especially when there is a hint of trying to correlate maturity with age. I won't tell you how many adults I see everyday who are less than many teenagers when compared in mentality, maturity, manners, ethics, courtesy, sensitivity, sympathy and intelligence!!

That is why I would like to ask Reaper to again expand on this:
"Only after the artist has grown into great maturity should they be allowed complete freedom with their interpretations and musical ideas if they are to make a profound impact upon their audience."
So younger "immature" artists are not allowed freedom in interpretation anymore??

Mind you that I won't deny that one's experiences in life affect his views or interpretations of music; I already have seen this happen to me personally as I grow and how my conception of music changes everyday. But again I can't see how will the audience penetrate into my inside to see how the sound is produced through my own life experiences!

Does maturity correlate with slow "insightful" interpretation? Does immaturity correlate with faster flashy renditions?

Hoax!! Everyone in the end picks his preferred style, and calls the other one "immature".

Whether you call it musical maturity or interpreting music with maturity, much of what has been said - and some of it said quite well - can be stated as playing the music with a complete understanding of the music.

A student playing his first Chopin composition is going to have less of an understanding of Chopin's music and the musical persona that is represented in Chopin's music, he will have less of a sense of the "style" of Chopin's writing, than the person who has spent years of studying most - if not all - of Chopin's music.

Even if one is playing Beethoven's Op 2 No 1, one will have a better appreciation - and perhaps, therefore, a better interpretation of it - if one has studied many others of Beethoven's works. One should understand where, in the canon of the works of Beethoven, Op 2 No 1 stands, what it presages, what it foreshadows, what it announces.

Yes, everyone has to have a "first" of each and every composer, and that doesn't mean that one can't play his first Schumann work or first Mozart Sonata and play it quite well. To play it with maturity, conviction and understanding pre-supposes a knowledge of the composer and the greater part of his Å“uvre.

Regards,

i think music maturity involved music understanding, musical thinking and how such understanding and thinking be projected into performing such music. it has to be above technical maturity, without which no music maturity is possible. a kid or prodigy can play a piece technically flawless, but rarely he/she can play with music maturity, which could only happen after certain age.

Note my words "profound impact." Certainly a musician who has not grown into a full musician could deliver a good performance of any material, but I do not think they could profoundly impact their audience as a master could.

I'd like to see your sarcasm after going through heck your entire life.

Aside from this, it is all pointless philosophical musings and intellectual hodgepodge.

-Colin

Musical maturity to me is:

Developing the human capacity to improve the areas of development which are within in you. Confidence, patience, perseverence, self discipline, control, pacing, good practice habits, acceptance, logic. It is also with an emotional response to the music making, and a sense of creativity and imagination.

Betty

You actually think that you've gone through "heck" your entire life because people ignore your interest in classical music? Or am I misreading something here.

heck is not only an environmental system. It is also how one perceives the external, and whatever habits they may have constructed throughout the process of growing up. I personally grew up feeling anxiety, dullness, depression, and anger. It is also a biological effect as my father struggles with the same symptoms.

Beyond this, there is nothing more I could say to convince anyone of anything about my situation.

Much to your disdain, the age of 20th century optimism and anti-emotionalism is drawing to a close, and we are now entering another paradigm of a much more defined and tangible view of people's thoughts and emotions. Sincerity, if you will.

The Suzuki method is largely based on play by ear
method, much like how little kids learn to speak
from their parents etc.

Young child may not have his/her own
interpretation and enough life experience to
interpret a Chopin piece. But if he/she keeps
hearing the same piece over and over again on CD
or from a teacher, I can't see why he/she is not
able to emulate it. Sure enough it won't be the
child's own version of interpretation and
understanding of the piece musically, but if
he/she can successfully reproduce the teacher's
version of interpretation, what's wrong with
that ? At least the child is learning from the
teacher. SOoner or later he/she is going to grow
up and will have a chance to put in his/her own
version of interpretation etc etc.

Nothing wrong in my opinion starting young kids
on Chopin. Didn't Kissin do the Concerto at 12 or
there about ?

Everyone is different. What one likes in a performance varies from person to person.

I started on Chopin very young. When I played, I wanted the audience to feel and cry for what I could not express in words. On the other hand, when I play now as an adult, I play for love and enjoyment for the most part.