“Put all your soul into it, play the way you feel!"
—Frédéric Chopin

Many pianists define a successful performance as one where they don’t play any wrong notes. To some extent that is true, but I would like to, as part of The Lightbulb Moment this week, expand on this idea and share some of my own thoughts.

Playing a work is like delivering a message where every word is important.

This is why I think that as a pianist part of my job, and my obligation to an audience, is to make sure that I share with them all the meaning that a work has for me, as a way of letting them experience the language living inside the notes of the composer. One certainly wants to play the right notes and to play with precision. However, this is never enough. If technical mastery is what builds the house, emotion and feeling are the furnishings inside it. Every note should lead somewhere, every silence should carry meaning, and every phrase should tell part of a larger story.

A pianist must make sure that each piece is like a diamond. A diamond cutter takes a rough stone and examines it thoroughly in order to map out every single part of it. He then makes precise angled cuts so that the diamond shines as brightly as possible. The goal is to make these cuts catch as much of the light as they can. The final step is polishing the facets of the gem so that they sparkle as brilliantly as possible.

For a pianist, every note, every chord, every harmony must be like that diamond. It must be cut carefully so that the entire gem shines. However, the best diamonds, like the best performances, don’t just shine.  

They inspire.