In Praise of Accompanists

[Ralph]

calendarlive.com http://www.calendarlive.com/printeditio ... l-calendar
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Just who does set the bench mark?
Debate rages on whether successful lieder require a seasoned accompanist or if virtuosity can fill the bill.
By David Mermelstein
Special to The Times

April 30, 2006

WHEN Ian Bostridge, the English tenor, and Leif Ove Andsnes, the Norwegian pianist, take the stage at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Wednesday, they will be furthering a great tradition — and a great debate.

Their program will feature lieder by Schubert and Beethoven, with the pianist accompanying the tenor. And the word "accompanist" stands at the center of this controversy: A successful lieder performance requires a delicate balance, and what sort of pianist best serves the art form remains in dispute.

"Playing for a singer requires a lot of self-abnegation," Bostridge said recently from his home in London. "The voice is a fragile instrument, and you have to think about accommodating it."

Andsnes, speaking from Norway, echoed those sentiments.

"When you work with an instrument, you don't have the danger of getting exhausted," he said. "Voices have to be nurtured — you can't just go on for hours and hours."

That helps explain why there's a branch of pianism devoted to accompaniment. Its self-effacing practitioners, often scholars and coaches as well as players, are particularly attuned to the needs of singers. (Not for nothing did Gerald Moore, the 20th century's most famous accompanist, title one of his memoirs "Am I Too Loud?")

But these players are rarely known outside music circles. Instead, pianists such as Andsnes, Alfred Brendel, András Schiff and Vladimir Ashkenazy, who made their names as soloists, help fire the public's interest in lieder, often dramatically increasing the star power of a singer-pianist pairing.

Naturally, being elbowed aside by more celebrated musicians doesn't thrill professional accompanists. Graham Johnson — who, like Andsnes, has performed and recorded with Bostridge and who was something of a mentor to him — is arguably the most esteemed such pianist today, and a noted authority on art song.

"If a solo pianist can do my job simply by opening up the score and playing the music better than me without thinking, then why should people take the trouble to study accompanying?" the London-based Johnson said via e-mail. "Someone once had the gall to ask me to give a few tips to a solo pianist over the phone, as if this were all it would take to get the guy on the right track."

Andsnes doesn't disagree about preparation. "Of course, you have to study the repertoire," he said. "But that's true with everything. If you devote your life to Beethoven, you are better at that than at playing Tchaikovsky."

He takes exception, though, to the notion that only professional accompanists should partner singers. "To be honest, I've never understood the distinction between accompanist and soloist," he said. "I'm just a musician. And I've always found that you get the best result in lieder when you have a real pianist at the piano. Of course, it's good to look at the text, but apart from that, it's much the same as making chamber music with any other instrument."

That term, "real pianist," cuts to the heart of the matter and is a phrase Johnson as good as anticipated.

"I get upset about this issue," he wrote, "because it insultingly supposes that the art to which I have given my life is something anyone who is a good pianist can do. No, the implication is it can be done better by a soloist, because virtuosity governs all. And from there, it's a short distance to consider an accompanist a pianistic butler, a loser who plays cringingly for tyrannical soloists in the hope of another crumb from the table."

*

High-profile collaborators

THE pairing of lieder singers with more renowned musical figures is nothing new. Go back to the art form's roots as a public affair and you'll find the revered Elena Gerhardt getting her start at 20 accompanied by Arthur Nikisch, then music director of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

In fact, several of the last century's most acclaimed lieder singers formed nonexclusive partnerships with famous musicians, including English contralto Kathleen Ferrier (with conductor Bruno Walter as pianist) and German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (with Edwin Fischer, Walter Gieseking and, less successfully, Glenn Gould). But no one did more to focus the spotlight on the keyboard than Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the German baritone whose name is virtually synonymous with lieder singing and who in a 40-odd-year career ending in 1992 worked with players as diverse as Brendel, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Sviatoslav Richter and Leonard Bernstein.

Speaking from his London home, Brendel, who has also played for baritones Hermann Prey and, more recently, Matthias Goerne, credited Fischer-Dieskau with recasting the role of accompanist from lackey to collaborator.

"The unequal partner is something of the past thanks to Fischer-Dieskau," he said. "Onstage with Fischer-Dieskau, there was the ideal give and take. You knew that he listened to you as much as you listened to him."

Yet singers face significant challenges working with pianists as famous, or more famous, than themselves. For American soprano Barbara Bonney, the issue is control. "It can be very exciting to have the stimulus of a huge personality at the piano," she said. "But it can also be a bit of a tug of war when it comes to interpretation."

And booking two popular artists is twice as hard as booking one. "It's never easy to find dates with these people," said Bostridge, referring not just to Andsnes but also to his other "star" piano partners: Mitsuko Uchida, conductor Antonio Pappano and composer Thomas Adès. "You have to plan a long, long time in advance."

Moreover, even solo pianists especially committed to lieder can indulge in this passion only so long. "What you have to realize when working with soloists," said Bostridge, "is that however much they love song, their priorities lie elsewhere."

Indeed, the well-received series of Schubert songs that Bostridge and Andsnes have recorded since 2001 is scheduled to conclude this year. Then Andsnes plans to turn his attention to Beethoven's piano music.

Perhaps that's why Bostridge, presumably like many other singers, feels a certain loyalty to his longtime accompanist, Julius Drake, who will play 40 of the tenor's 49 recital dates this season.

"Everything else is a bit adulterous, really," said Bostridge. "Julius is used to me, and I'm used to Julius. That has advantages."

Asserting the benefits of both approaches, the tenor opts to celebrate diversity.

"Gerald Moore couldn't play the piano as virtuosically as many colleagues, but there's something extraordinary about what he could do," he said. "They are different musical experiences, but one doesn't want to rank them. The important thing is that the music comes out fresh each time."

[Lance]

I could not agree with the content of this more! The role of the "accompanist" has changed, as noted, mostly because of the work accomplished by Gerald Moore and further supported by such an illustrious singer as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

There were other superb pianists who truly enjoyed being the pianist for great singers. Alfred Cortot did this often, and more recently, aside from the ones mentioned in the original article, Garrick Ohlsson, Ivan Davis, and Alicia de Larrocha piano-partnered some of the world's most distinguished singers. Even Vladimir Horowitz partnered Fischer-Dieskau at Carnegie Hall during one of their festive occasions. Rudolf Serkin, on occasion, performed with at least one or two great singers. But it is agreed, all those mentioned are, first and foremost, solo pianists who have chosen their paths. If they perform in lieder recitals, it's because they want to, not because they have to.

My wife and I had an occasion to be adjudicators at a local contest on Saturday. Over the weekend we heard 18 young musicians: pianists, singers, a saxophonist, a xylophonist, a clarinetist, and a flutist. Some were heard as an instrumentalist and singer. It was interesting to listen and observe the quality of each of these young artists who performed with a wide variety of pianists. Where there was a well-established and very fine pianist, known for his/her work as an "accompanist," that performer seemed to do better because of the pianistic support. Where pianists were less accomplished, so was the performer.

[Donald Isler]

And, of course, when Artur Schnabel was a young man he was, at first, less well-known than his wife, the contralto Therese Behr, whom he accompanied.

[Lance]

And, of course, when Artur Schnabel was a young man he was, at first, less well-known than his wife, the contralto Therese Behr, whom he accompanied.

Yes, and it illustrates the true all-embracing art of a pianist the caliber of Artur Schnabel. It is generally agreed that Mme. Behr-Schnabel was well past her prime when these recordings were made. Schnabel's name, of course, in those years of the 1930s was on the tip of any piano lover's tongue. He, no doubt, helped to "sell" those recordings, which might have otherwise experienced poor sales based on Mrs. Schnabel's renderings alone.

Some years ago I was involved in a situation with a top line concert pianist whose wife was a singer who wanted to get her degree. While studying for her degree, she and her pianist (not her husband) gave the final recital. This was one of the few times the degree was not allowed to be issued by the institution. Sparks flew, of course. The next time she gave the recital to gain her degree, her famous husband "accompanied" at the piano and the degree was allowed. Sometimes it is not what you know but who you know. But in all fairness to the singer, I would have to say the second recital was, most decidedly, far better prepared vocally and artistically and was the better one all the way around.

[Corlyss_D]

No question, the accompanist is as important as the singer. I don't want to hear some solo star that accompanies singers once a decade, either. I want a guy who does it regularly. Ditto chamber music.

There are pianists who are known principally for backing up singers: Moore most certainly, Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, Irwin Gage, to name a few. Back in 1967 I had the privilege of seeing a young Martin Katz when he was with the Army Chorus, accompaning a young Jessye Norman when she was a student at Catholic U. in the Philips Collection Sunday Concert Series. She forgot her lines. He covered for her subtly and leaned over to softly give her the lines. That was my first clue, even before I was ever aware of Moore, as to how significantly the pianists "partnered" the singers. I began from that time to pay more attention to the pianist. Some universities' Music Schools have even established "collaborative piano programs" to promote the art.

As the Music Academy's first Distinguished Alumnus from the collaborative piano program, what would you like people to know about your field?

Katz: Well it's really fantastic that an "unsung" profession like mine is recognized, put on the front burner as it were, even for just one evening. I've had the wonderful opportunity to see how the public's perception of my specialty has changed during these 30+ years. Audiences and impresarios seem to be more aware of us, aware of our contributions. A little more than a year ago, Musical America magazine created an accompanist award and I was the first lucky recipient. Now this honor comes my way. I feel I'm representing everyone who's ever done what I do---none of us decided to do this for wealth or fame, but it's sure great to be noticed officially very occasionally. http://www.musicacademy.org/Alumni/Alum ... zalum.html

I was impressed by the pianists who gave master classes at the Wassermann this year: all of them stressed the importance of taking every opportunity to accompany singers. Spencer Myer, about 30 yrs old and a New Yorker, said he loved accompaning singers, even if it was just for auditions, and never missed a chance to play a recital with a singer. Roberto Plano, only 24, assured us he was going to start doing it more often because he learned as much from it as he did from playing chamber music. Krieger allowed in passing as how his entre to 19th century Romantics was thru their songs. And surprisingly, all of them spoke about accompaning singers as though it were undiscovered territory - perhaps it is to kids who've focused on a solo piano career and been the stars of their families for most of their lives.