Why Must Pianists Play from Memory?

[Scott]

As one whose memory has failed on too many occasions, I found this thoughtful Guardian article by Susan Tomes, pianist extraordinaire -- founder of Domus and member of the Florestan Trio -- fasctinating. I wonder if others have comments about it?

Scott Morrison

--

ALL IN THE MIND

Play from memory and you might forget what note comes next. Use the score and you'll perform better. So why the snobbery about sheet music, asks pianist Susan Tomes

Friday April 20, 2007
The Guardian

I recently went to a party where our host regaled us with a compilation of concert recordings in which famous pianists had suffered from horrible memory lapses. Everyone fell about with laughter at the sound of celebrities going hideously off the rails, but, as a pianist, I found it an uncomfortable experience. The struggles of Curzon, Richter and Rubinstein with memorisation had become a spectator sport.
Playing from memory in public is a fairly recent fashion. Before the late 19th century, playing without the score was often considered a sign of casualness, even of arrogance. The custom of playing from memory developed along with the growth of a body of classics that everyone agreed were worth preserving exactly as their composers had intended. Teachers encouraged students to memorise them. Many young players memorise easily, but it gets harder as time goes on. As the pianist Charles Rosen put it: "With advancing age, memory becomes doubly uncertain; above all, what begins to fail is confidence in one's memory, the assurance that the next note will follow with no conscious effort."

Clara Schumann felt that playing by heart "gave her wings power to soar", but many musicians find it so stressful that they play less naturally than they would with the score. And the pressures are much worse today than they were in Clara Schumann's day. After a century of recording, the record-buying public has been trained to expect perfection, whereas earlier audiences didn't mind if things went occasionally awry.

The burden of memorisation falls particularly on solo instrumentalists. I've always played from memory in solo recitals and concertos, but I play chamber music from the score. Chamber groups are not expected to play from memory; those that do - like the Kolisch Quartet in the 1930s, or the Zehetmair Quartet today - are regarded as spectacular exceptions. Nor are symphony orchestras expected to play from memory. And no one suggests that playing a chamber work or a symphony with music on the stand prevents a performance from being superlative.

Conductors sometimes conduct from memory, but they themselves don't have to make a sound, so many mistakes go unnoticed. Opera singers have to memorise, but they have the help of prompters, discreetly feeding them the next line. Songs have words, and because words are our everyday language, they help singers to memorise. Abstract music is also a language, but one whose immediate meaning is less clear-cut. Scientists now agree that memorising music is more complex than memorising words, and the challenge is multidimensional for those who also have to play instruments.

It's not as if composers require musicians to memorise. In Beethoven's day, his pupil Carl Czerny apparently had such a phenomenal memory that, as a teenager, he could play all his master's works by heart. But Beethoven disapproved, saying it would make him casual about detailed markings on the score. Chopin was angry when he heard that one of his pupils was intending to play him a Nocturne from memory.

Others felt it would be inappropriate to play without a score, Mendelssohn, who had an amazing musical memory, was nevertheless modest about it. When he visited London and took part in a performance of one of his own piano trios, the piano part was missing. "Never mind," he said, "just take any book of music, place it on the music desk, and have someone sit beside me and turn the pages, and then no one need know I play from memory." Liszt, though gazing heavenwards in contemporary drawings of him at the piano, appears to have played only half of his repertoire from memory. And when he played his own compositions, he used the score to demonstrate that these were seriously worked-out pieces, not fleeting improvisations.

The growing taste for watching soloists play from memory has actually narrowed the breadth of the repertoire. Vladimir Horowitz, for example, played a huge number of works at home from the score, but only performed a small repertoire from memory in public. Today many soloists won't commit themselves to more than a handful of works each season, no doubt partly because of the burden of memorisation. In the past few years, I've successfully memorised several solo recital programmes, each lasting about two hours. Had I allowed myself to use music, I could have performed the programmes much earlier, and with equal interpretative power. It was the sheer effort of memorising that added months to the process.

Secure memorisation has several elements that interweave unpredictably for the player. There is analytical memory, an understanding of the music's structure. There's photographic memory, which enables the player to "read" the visualised page when it isn't there. And there's physical memory, perhaps the most dependable kind, but one for which there's no shortcut. In performance, muscle memory will carry you along when something distracts you, or when you have a moment of doubt. Indeed muscle memory can enable you to play the whole piece while thinking about something else entirely (as I discovered when putting in my hours of piano practice as a child). But to develop it you simply have to play the music over and over, for a long period of time.

I recently gave two performances of the Schumann piano concerto. For several weeks before the concerts, I privately played the piece by heart without problems at least once a day and felt very secure. At the first performance, however, with an orchestra of 60 musicians and 2,000 listeners, I had several terrifying moments of insecurity. Worse, they were in places in the piece where I'd never had trouble before. So the following day I hammered those places into my memory. At the second performance, I had another couple of nasty moments - but in completely new places.

Must musicians waste so much of their time and emotional energy on memorisation? If we've prepared the music thoroughly, does playing it from memory really add an extra dimension that is worth all the pain?

[lukeottevanger]

Fascinating reading, thanks, Scott. I've always had problems memorising - not only that, but I've always sensed the problems that lie behind it: the risk of memory lapses of course, but also the limitations it imposes on the number of pieces one can play, for starters (that's one reason why I've never really made much attempt to memorise, in fact- perhaps I could do it if I really tried). Nice to see Tomes confirm that I'm not alone in feeling that way, and good to see her put some historical perspective on it - her examples are fascinating. There is a fallacy, I think, that only without the score can one really 'fly free' - but I don't think that is true at all. After all, the presumption of publicly performing a piece, either with or without the score, presupposes that one knows it intimately; if a book in front of you means that you don't risk a lapse, helps you with intricate details, and at the same time has meant that your repertoire as a whole is larger - well, more power to you, I say!

[Maciek]

It is a thing I could never understand either. I have not learned a single piece by heart since leaving music school. Of course, I'm an amateur, so I had no need for that but I also felt it would be a waste of time/energy.

Didn't Richter often play from sheet music?

[jochanaan]

On the other hand, playing from memory helps if you don't have a page turner!

Also, there is nothing to prevent instrumental soloists other than pianists from memorizing too.  I played the first movement of the Mozart oboe concerto from memory on my senior recital, including a cadenza I had written--without lapses or flubbed entrances.

I find that, once I've got the music's technical aspects worked out, my hands, lips, etc., know what to do without my having to think about it, with only a little help from my mind.  I only flub when I worry too much.

[MishaK]

I disagree with some points in the article. I memorize pretty much everything I play for no other reason than the fact that I hate having to read the score.  Seriously, though, whether or not memorization makes sense is an individual question. For some the page turning is more of a distraction than the memorization is a burden. It is also the case that the added effort of reading the score drains energies from the mind that should go into producing a spontaneous, flowing performance. The examples of musicans playing or conducting from scores are nonetheless exapmles of people who have for all practical purposes memorized the score and are just using it as a safety net.  I disagree with the pedantic view that detailed score instructions are hard to memorize. I find that dynamics, phrasing and accents are the easiest thing for me to memorize. What is much harder for me to remember are the middle voices in thick chords and fingerings for nasty passages. Speaking of which, the author is incorrect in his belief that muscle memory is reliable. Indeed, the frightful moments in concert he describes are episodes where the pianist didn't fully mentally memorize the score and relied on muscle memory which failed. Muscle memory is invariably the first thing to fail in a moment of stress (or under the influence of alcohol or drugs  ). You really have to know where each note is. You can't rely on your fingers to do it for you. For me, the test of whether I have fully memorized a piece is whether I am able to start anywhere in the piece. If that works, it's there.

[jochanaan]

...Muscle memory is invariably the first thing to fail in a moment of stress (or under the influence of alcohol or drugs  ). You really have to know where each note is. You can't rely on your fingers to do it for you. For me, the test of whether I have fully memorized a piece is whether I am able to start anywhere in the piece. If that works, it's there.

Hmmm...I'll have to think about that a bit.  Maybe a holistic approach is best--indeed, I feel that it is, especially while you're learning a piece.  I teach my students to be aware of every aspect of the music at all times: notes, dynamics, phrasing, overall shape, intonation (pianists, be glad you don't have to worry about THAT! ), underlying beat--everything that goes into great music.  Once you've got this good habit, memorization is easy.

But I don't feel that having the music in front of you necessarily takes away from a great performance.  Indeed, there may be a sense of discovery in seeing things you never noticed before, or that you have seen a hundred times but suddenly take on new meaning...

[MishaK]

I absolutely agree, jochanaan. I didn't mean to say one form of memorization should be followed and others ignored, only that muscle memory alone is a recipe for disaster.

[lukeottevanger]

I find that, once I've got the music's technical aspects worked out, my hands, lips, etc., know what to do without my having to think about it, with only a little help from my mind.  I only flub when I worry too much.

From the prespective of one who is both a string player and a pianist, I must say that memorising is infinitely easier on the cello. Without ever having to concentrate my mind on it, I was always able to play most of my repertoire from memory. In part this is because there's 'less to do', notewise. But I think it's more that one is directly creating the notes (and using big physical gesture to do so) rather than pressing buttons that make the notes for you. IOW, on the cello I 'hear' the music internally and it almost plays itself; it doesn't work so directly for me on the piano.

It is also the case that the added effort of reading the score drains energies from the mind that should go into producing a spontaneous, flowing performance.

Possibly - but for me I don't find that reading a score is any effort whatsoever, whereas memorising places strains and worries on the mind which inhibit far more.

But I don't feel that having the music in front of you necessarily takes away from a great performance.  Indeed, there may be a sense of discovery in seeing things you never noticed before, or that you have seen a hundred times but suddenly take on new meaning...

I like that alot. And I think there's real truth to it. I suppose, for me, there's also the connected fact that I am absolutely in love with printed music! And I want to look at it as much as I can!

[mahlertitan]

because Composers don't play their pieces by looking at scores.

[lukeottevanger]

because Composers don't play their pieces by looking at scores.

What, none of them? Never? Never mind that the article itself mentioned how important playing from the score was to Beethoven and Chopin.

[knight66]

because Composers don't play their pieces by looking at scores.

I have seen film of Britten play his own music from the score when accompanying singers. Also, the article points out that Liszt only had about half his music memorised, the rest of his piano music he played from the score. Chopin played from the music. The composers that I have been conducted by used their scores.

People's brains function differently. For some memorising is no problem. For others it is a complete chore and undermines confidence.

I have general memory problems anyway; but to have to learn an entire concert full of pieces without being allowed to use the music at all would have meant I would not have bothered.

The music can get in the way, but if you are sufficiently inside it, I see no reason why it cannot be there for the purposes described by Luke.

Mike

[mahlertitan]

well, if you can play from memory, you must be over all the "technical" problems associated with the piece. SO, you are more aware of the style, your personal interpretation.

[Guido]

Hmm - interesting about piano vs cello memorising... I think you are right about the movement thing - there are far more ways in which your body can be oriented or arranged on the cello, rather than the piano, and as you say, the sound is far more directly produced. Each register has its own unique physical feeling, as does each interval, which could be said to be true of the piano, but far more subtly.

I never memorise stuff consciously, but can play large swathes of the piece I have played before, often to my surprise. I'm not sure whether I think its pointless or not. I think a music stand can put a barrier between the audience and a soloist. I wouldn't object to it even slightly in solo recitals, but string concertos can seem a bit weird with music... Not  always of course and it's all down to the performer really, and the repertoire. Its just a fact that tonal music is easier to memorise than atonal music (it would be truly remarkable to play Carter by memory!)

[MishaK]

well, if you can play from memory, you must be over all the "technical" problems associated with the piece. SO, you are more aware of the style, your personal interpretation.

Not necessarily. One can have memorized a piece completely, yet still have technical problems in executing it. I think you too are confusing mental memory with muscle memory.

[Iago]

I always believed in Toscaninis famous comment about having the score in your head, rather than your head in the score.
According to what I've read, Toscanini had the following scores commited to memory.
1. All the Beethoven Symphonies
2. All the Brahms Symphonies
3. All Puccini and Verdi Operas
4. Many violin and piano concerti
5. The entire Wagner "Ring", + Lohengrin, Meistersinger, Tannhauser, Tristan and Isolde, Parsifal and the Flying Dutchman.
6. Dozens and dozens of overtures and preludes by various composers.

I was witness to HvK conducting "Die Walkure" at the Met in 1968.
He had the score on the stand in front of him. But he never opened it.

[Maciek]

Can anyone confirm (or annul) that statement I made about Sviatoslav Richter? I think I read an interview with him somewhere where the interviewer asked him about this and he replied that having to commit everything to memory would mean needlessly reducing his repertoire. There was also a question about lighting - why he would insist on only using a small lamp next to the piano and turning all the other lamps off during recitals (he said he wanted the intimacy). But this had to be more than 10 years ago (the man was alive), so I could be mixing things (or pianists ) up.

[Maciek]

Oh, and just an aside re what Iago said: My 2 favorite Polish conductors (Henryk Czyż and Jan Krenz) both conduct (or conducted - only Krenz is still alive) without the score more often than not. But it may be just a special ability they have, not necessarily linked to their being great conductors. But it may be otherwise too. I don't know.

[MishaK]

It's not that unusual. I've seen Barenboim conduct rehearsals (!) from memory. Maazel supposedly also has a stunning memory.

[greg]

yeah, in one of the books I have it says Maazel is fluent in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian- i'd almost kill a guy to have that kind of memory

i have a question- are modernist scores like Boulez's 2nd Sonata also played without the score? that would seem pretty hard.......

[Scott]

Can anyone confirm (or annul) that statement I made about Sviatoslav Richter?

Yes, from about 1980 on, after an embarrassing memory lapse, he played with score and with the intimate lighting you mentioned.