Haydn Piano Sonata in c minor, hello old friend, I've missed you. It's been a while, probably 15 years since my fingers have attempted you, but amazingly you are still there, lying dormant, waiting. My fingers have not forgotten you and neither have I. Haydn’s piano sonatas, so often overshadowed by Mozart’s and Beethoven’s offerings, but so full of grace and delicacy, muscularity and depth of feeling. Having browsed through some more contemporary and ‘popular’ piano music (think Nyman) I am so happy to delve into this music that sits so perfectly under my fingers. No awkward twists and turns that make little sense under a human hand, this music lives when it is played and what a feeling to again dive into it. I played through one of Messiaen’s Vingt Regards the other day and felt such happiness to be back inside this music, these crystalline sounds and inspired construction. And then there is Bach, always Bach. From my first Minuet from the Children’s Bach, to the slow movement of the Italian Concerto, to the dense complexities of some of the more hairy preludes and fugues, I always come back to Bach.
My relationship with the piano is a fraught one. There is love and
loss and guilt and self-criticism and love and disappointment. Do other
musicians (lapsed and otherwise) feel this way? I look at my piano and I
can almost hear it calling out to me, my fingers yearn to play it, there is
something like an ache of longing and also an avoidance, a reproach, a turning
away.
I recently read Anna Goldsworthy’s beautifully written book Piano Lessons (that it has taken me this long to ‘get
around’ to reading this book is testament to my avoidance of things
piano). Reading about Anna’s journey in music from childhood to adulthood
led me to reflect on some parallels but also some notable differences. At
what point had the joy and love for playing being overwhelmed by anxiety,
self-criticism, loss of confidence and eventually an abandonment of my musical
mother tongue? When did it stop being about the music? I can
remember the stress of competing in Eisteddfods and music competitions, the
nervousness that served no purpose other than to distract me from playing my
best, the disappointment at knowing I could play better but hadn’t, the feeling
of letting others down, then the scathing self-criticism only enhanced by a
throw away comment from a music teacher; “didn’t you want to win?”
My self-confidence took a further battering when I arrived at ‘The Con’
and was overwhelmed on a daily basis by the technical mastery of many of my peers.
Their pianistic pyrotechnics left me in awe and also in no doubt that my own
musical skills were inadequate: that I was inadequate, with nothing to offer as
a pianist in the face of such obviously superior musicianship. No one
talked about the love of music, what a gift it is to share with others.
Music was reduced to a competitive sport; accuracy and technical proficiency
and virtuosity were valued above all else. Performing in front of anyone
became of trial to be overcome, and an activity that inevitably reinforced my
own sense of inadequacy and failure as a musician. At the end of second
year I decided I wanted to major in composition but I convinced the faculty to
let take a double major and keep having piano lessons. I remember clearly
that I did not want to give up on the piano, it was still my musical lifeline
and I was not ready to cut off this part of myself. I made it through to
the end of fourth year, passed my final piano exam with a credit and walked
away. I never played in public again, or indeed in front of anyone,
except the occasional piano student. Composing music became my primary
musical outlet, one that I convinced myself was a much better fit – I could
write music and someone else could play it.
I still played occasionally for myself, but less and less as my
technical facility lost its edge; enjoyment gave way to frustration and the
piano collected dust. But I have always come back to the piano.
When I lived in Edinburgh and had access to a Steinway grand, I would wait
until weekends when no one was around, take a pile of music and spend a couple
of hours revisiting loved pieces and untangling new ones. Work and young
children served as further distractions and kept me away for a time and I
sometimes felt, with sadness, that playing the piano was lost to me, that I had
let it go and was past the point of getting it back. “What a waste” was a
comment often repeated by my mother, a phrase which in many ways twisted the
knife but also failed to understand the connection between the years of
learning to play the piano and my current musical life as a composer. One would
not be possible without the other. Piano was where I learnt to ‘speak’
music, now I use that language in another way.
A couple of years ago I took up the cello, wishing to learn a new
instrument, and enjoyed immersing myself in a new set of technical challenges
and the rewards that come from expressing oneself in a new way. At the
back of my mind this sometimes felt like a willful betrayal, another form of avoidance.
Why was I spending time learning and practicing the cello when my piano sat
untouched? Why was I struggling to learn to play a simple tune on the
cello when I could launch into something much more musically complex and
satisfying (however rustily) on the piano?
Having had little time for either instrument over the last six months,
it is the piano that I have returned to. I feel like I am reconnecting
with an old friend, long avoided and undervalued. But I am also making a
very conscious decision to let go of all the ‘baggage’ associated, for me, with
this instrument. Self-criticism, and reproach, disappointment,
frustration, guilt, feelings of inadequacy… be gone. I’m done with you:
you never served any purpose anyway.
I am playing the piano because I enjoy it and if I play it for someone
else, it will be so I can share something, not impress them. And if I
make a mistake or if my rendition of the piece is less than ‘perfect’, that is
OK because I will be playing the music with love and that’s the important
thing. Not musical pyrotechnics, not aiming to be better than someone
else, not misplaced perfectionism. I want the music back, the joy of
playing the piano, the technical challenge, but more importantly the sense of
satisfaction of bringing some little black notes on a page to life. And
I’ll be happy to share that, if anyone wants to listen, and just as happy to
have it for myself.
And here’s the thing: I never wanted to be a concert pianist or a
chamber musician or any kind of performer. I just knew that whatever it
was that I was, it was about music. And somewhere along the way a part of
my musical self was sidelined, shamed into submission and left in a corner to
gather dust. So, I’m sorry old friend, it wasn’t your fault, or my fault,
you’ve been waiting patiently and we’ve got some catching up to do.
