Liberace and the Chopin Polonaise in A-flat major
Liberace playing the Chopin Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53.
Before I begin this post I need to clarify something I wrote yesterday. Although Liberace performed the Chopin Polonaise in A major many times, and also appeared often on The Ed Sullivan Show, he did not play the work on that program.
At the same time, the video above does indeed show a distinct difference in interpretation between the performance yesterday with Van Cliburn and this one.
Physically at 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 meters), Liberace is shorter than Cliburn, and the hand size is not as great, with musical historians thinking that Liberace could only comfortably play an interval of a ninth; these factors are less important however than what both artists bring to the work from the standpoint of interpretation.
As he plays, notice the expression on Liberace’s face. He is more fluid, almost as if his thoughts are caught up with the romance of the music. Do you notice how he sometimes looks away from the keyboard and off into the distance? Compare this to the video of Cliburn yesterday, who looks at the keyboard almost the entire time, focused and concentrated on his hands.
While Liberace seems swept up with the romance of the work, Cliburn has an almost laser-like focus, watching his hands play every note. Different approaches, different styles, yet the same piece of music.
For me there is an important lesson to be learned here, and it is this. There is no right or wrong way to approach a composition. One has to understand his own thought processes, his body, and how to use it to convey what he feels is the message of the music, and this should always be one of the main goals of performance.
The notes on the page reveal themselves differently to each person playing the same work, and in turn those notes and chords are prioritized differently for each individual.
The important thing to remember is that one has to determine in the very beginning, long before the practicing starts, long before the memorization begins, and well before the first performance, something that is best answered by one important question: What does this work mean to me?
From that come all of the other important questions. Why do I want to perform this work? What connection is there between what the composer has written and my own life? What do I think I can bring to my own interpretation, and why?
Ten people reading the same poem will have ten interpretations based on their own lives and how they personally relate to the words. They will all recite the poem in a different voice. They will all say the same words, but in different ways, and for different reasons.
What will be important however is how they connect to the poem. Is it through personal experience? Is it through a word, a line, or perhaps even a stanza that stands out for them as being particularly significant? The answers will be as varied as the people reciting the poem.
In that same way, each pianist, in order to make a work come alive, has to determine its value to that person as an individual. This is something that is accomplished by studying a work, its origins, and even the performances of others to determine where and how it creates personal and specific value for the person playing it. Some things about a particular interpretation will feel exactly right. Others may simply register as things you want to avoid because they don’t feel right for you.
When it comes to interpretation, as we wrote earlier, there are no right or wrong answers. There is only what feels right for you in terms of fully expressing what you believe are the intentions of the composer, and what allows you emotionally, mentally, and then physically to fully tell the story of every single note.
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