Pianist@20
Pianist is a better magazine thanks to its readers, reflects Erica Worth, as she looks back over the highlights of 122 issues
Editor Erica Worth takes a trip down memory lane and looks back over the past twenty years
With a smiling Leif Ove Andsnes on the cover, Pianist burst onto the scene in late 2001, hitting the newsstands on 19 October. In the editorial for the first issue, I outlined the magazine’s ambitions. ‘Every two months, Pianist will bring you closer to and more at ease with the piano world and help you enjoy your journey and learning experience. Whether you’re an amateur, a fanatical student or someone who gave up years ago, Pianist is for you.’ With a unique mix of artist profiles, piano-related news, educational articles, in-depth maker features and scores to play, we quickly found a receptive readership.
Twenty years on, as we hit Pianist 122, our reason for being remains the same. The anniversary allows us to pat ourselves on the back – we made it this far! – but it also prompts a moment of reflection, to look back and to consider how we arrived here. Much has changed since our first issue and, we hope, improved, because of regular feedback. Looking through the Letters pages over the course of 122 issues, it’s abundantly clear that readers have felt it was their magazine from the start. The column has been a space to share experiences, look for answers, offer advice and most of all share a love for the piano. One reader in issue 3 summed it up: ‘May I first of all say congratulations on bringing out a magazine that I have been waiting for, yes, YEARS.’
From later on, looking back at issue 27, another letter reminds me what makes editing Pianist so worthwhile: ‘It is hard to put into words the happiness that may be derived from making music and the joy the piano has brought. It has turned my life around and made it pleasant once more. Indeed, without music there is no life.’ Other readers tell similar stories. ‘I have taken up the piano at 67, playing at an intermediate level…’ ‘I have recently plucked up the nerve to take piano lessons at the age of 31. Is it possible for me to become even remotely good at the instrument, and I only mean for my own personal enjoyment?’
More recently, the pandemic has produced a flurry of correspondence. For Stuart Ellis, who had been shielding, ‘lockdown has given me a little more time to turn and return to
so many of the pieces, known and little known, that you provide us with.’ In Pianist 114, Ken Smith wrote that he’d plucked up the courage to perform to a Zoom audience.
‘I didn’t get quite the same buzz that one gets when playing in front of a real audience’, he wrote, ‘but it was better than nothing, and they seemed to enjoy it.’ Good for you, Ken!
Readers have often been on the hunt for performers, composers, books and sheet music. If we can’t find what they’re looking for straight away, another reader soon comes up with the answer. One reader remembered a ‘Life of Debussy’ novel with ‘saucy bits’, but not its title (issue 46) – answers came in the next issue (the novel is Clair de lune by Pierre la Mure). Readers are also sticklers for accuracy. Reader Derrick Crossland wrote about hearing the Polish pianist (and former president) Ignacy Paderewski play in St Albans in 1943. His reminiscence inspired a flurry of responses, including this: ‘…either Mr Crossland has a faulty memory or he experienced a paranormal event in 1943.’ (Paderewski died in 1941.)
Knowing the score
Pianist readers are avid concert-goers and listeners (our CD reviews always generate lively correspondence). First and foremost, however, they want to sink their fingers into great piano music for themselves. We never forget that, which is why the Scores section takes up almost half the content of each issue. ‘The variety of music in your Scores section is excellent,’ commented one reader early on. ‘Who would have imagined seeing a blues tune alongside a Beethoven bagatelle?’
I give a lot of thought to the Scores section of each issue, and I take pride in making it as diverse as possible. You’ll never find two Mozart scores inside a single issue – or by any composer, for that matter, unless there’s a big anniversary or something else worth celebrating. Playing through each score before sharing it with you is also both a duty and a pleasure, even if getting my fingers around some of the advanced-level pieces takes some time. But if I don’t practise them, how can I expect you to do the same?
Moving from glossy to matt paper for the Scores from issue 36 onwards proved to be a hit with readers, so we’ve kept it that way ever since. We took another big step forwards in issue 58 when we welcomed concert pianist Chenyin Li to the Pianist family. Chenyin records each piece of the Scores section for the cover album, and I marvel at how rapidly she learns them and then records them with such finesse: our ever-expanding website hosts several films of the sessions which are well worth watching, especially if you’re having trouble negotiating a tricky corner for yourself. Even in this era of downloads and streaming, many readers still value the physical cover CD album, and I can assure them that it’s here to stay.
Learning with the best
‘Helping you become a better player’. It’s on the magazine’s masthead, and it’s still our mission. We aim to cover every aspect of the learning process, and we know that reading these pages will only take you so far. ‘The relationship between teacher and pupil is vital to a musician’s development,’ as we recognised in the very first issue. In Pianist 100, we launched a new column specifically aimed at piano teachers – Kathryn Page’s colourful Piano Teacher Help Desk.
Our in-house teachers Lucy Parham, Melanie Spanswick and Nils Franke continue to give methodical, step-by-step advice on three scores inside each issue. Lucy, the longest-standing of the trio (since issue 54), can occasionally be heard on our covermount album – I love her performance of Rachmaninov’s Prelude Op 23 No 6 inside this issue.
Away from the dots of an individual piece, gaining a longer view and a broader perspective is also vital for developing technique. Since joining the Pianist roster with issue 65, Graham Fitch has addressed such perennial topics as arpeggios (74), pedalling (83-85) and fingering (102-104). I’m equally proud to give you Mark Tanner’s considered wisdom on the merits of slow
practice (96), memorising (issues 77 and 103) and phrasing (114). These teachers have decades of experience behind them which they distil into every issue, getting to the root of a topic or a problem. When thinking about the wisdom of years, how can I fail to mention the late Dame Fanny Waterman? Her six-part series (in issues 50-56) on The Craft of Playing is still worth re-reading.
Along with the guidance of a good teacher, your playing will improve with a piano that you love. How do you find the piano that’s best for you – and that you can afford? During the last 20 years, we have gone behind the scenes and inside the instruments of all the major piano makers, including Bechstein, Bösendorfer, Blüthner, Fazioli, Kawai, Schimmel, Steinway, Roland and Yamaha. We have studied the mechanics of the instrument in our Inside Story series (issues 41-47), reviewed a fair few in our Piano Review series (65-70), thrown a few ‘Dream Pianos’ into the mix (67) and some ‘Unusuals’ (73).
Along the way, it’s been a pleasure to meet many of the people who keep the instruments in shape, the tuners and technicians. ‘People are often quick to criticise our work, but they don’t realise how complex the services we provide are,’ said Ulrich Gerhartz, Steinway’s top technician, in issue 1. Guidance from Gerhartz and other tuning experts has seen us through many articles, including a close look at ‘the vanishing piano tuner’ in issue 47 and a trip to Hamburg to find the perfect concert grand for London’s Barbican Centre in issue 74.
The rise and rise of the digital piano has been a phenomenon impossible to ignore. We have covered everything (well, almost everything) from Yamaha’s award-winning Clavinova series (63 and 97) to Casio’s Celviano Grand Hybrid, with its ‘Hamburg’, Berlin’ and ‘Vienna’ Grand sounds (87). Not so long ago, the concept of ‘hybrid’ instruments was hardly more than a fleeting dream – what if we could combine the convenience of digital with the sound of acoustic? – for makers and players alike. Twenty years on, and the choice for any new piano buyer has multiplied beyond all expectations – which is why a measure of objective guidance becomes more useful than ever. Cast your eye over Pianist’s 2022 Piano Buyer’s Guide supplement, free with the next issue, and you may find what you’re looking for.
No issue of Pianist would be complete without a big-name musician on the cover. We have interviewed or profiled some 300 pianists. A handful have made three cover appearances: Andsnes, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Lang Lang. Once in a blue moon, a duo has made the cover: the Labèques in issue 7, Duo Tal & Groethuysen (43) and the Jussen brothers (99) for special duos issues.
Take a look at me now
Many pianists featured in these pages have gone on to greater things, their youthful, indistinct personalities long forgotten. Does anyone remember that Paul Lewis was once always described as a Brendel protégé? Today he’s such an accomplished artist that his teacherly lineage is of minor importance (he’s been on the cover twice). We have also enjoyed following the career of Lang Lang, who first emerged, baby-faced and smiling, in a New on the Scene feature (1) and most recently appeared as the slimmed-down superstar on this year’s January cover (117).
The life of a professional pianist is by its nature a solitary and often introspective one. Here’s Simon Trpčeski talking to Jessica Duchen: ‘I don’t want to spend all my life in aeroplanes and hotels. I’ve always felt that I’m willing to stop my career and give up if the machine starts to take over’ (27). Jazz pianist Carla Bley admitted to Nick Shave that ‘I have terrible misgivings every day and I still have to practise every day in an attempt to become a piano player. It just escapes me’ (21). However, pianists are entertainers before they are philosophers, and many of them enjoy the limelight. Earl Wild told me (in issue 8): ‘Most people weren’t around when I was, and they don’t know about all the personalities that I met. It was quite a madhouse, I can tell you!’
One personal hero who has often featured in these pages is Martha Argerich. To me she embodies both the philosopher and entertainer elements of a great pianist, even if her reluctance to be interviewed means that the closest I have come to a one-to-one encounter is supplying her with a cup of coffee at Wigmore Hall! One dream fulfilled, though, was the opportunity to interview Menahem Pressler for Pianist 108. The hour I spent in his company lingered with me for days afterwards, even more so his remarks of wisdom and love, filled with the experience of his 95 years.
(Con) artists and amateurs
I admit it, then: Pianist has occasionally been star-struck. We’ve had features on the piano in the
movies (19), how pianists are depicted on film (118), and turned the Pianist spotlight on some famous amateurs, such as ex Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger (71), former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (34) and the UK’s former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls (78).
We’ve had our share of off-beat ‘And finally…’ moments: stories on Norah the Piano-playing Cat (36 and 110) and on the Two Moors Festival, whose artistic director just happened to be filming the arrival of her newly purchased Bösendorfer when it escaped the removals men, flew off the back of a van and crashed on the ground (36, with the happy ending reported in 39). More troubling, however, was ‘The Joyce Hatto Affair’, which began with an obituary marking the death of this prolific yet virtually unknown pianist (31) in 2006 followed by a report on the scepticism (35) which soon began to swirl around a flood of posthumously released recordings. How much did the ailing Hatto actually record? Was she aware of what her loving, but misguided, recording-engineer husband was up to? We will probably never know.
Piano competitions for both professionals and amateurs have often featured in these pages. In 2005 and 2007 we launched our own, the Pianist-Yamaha Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs. I have cherished memories of both competitions. To see a teacher, a physics professor, a lawyer, an IT consultant, you name it, all play to such a high level was a further inspiration and a reminder that music-making on any level shouldn’t be the preserve of the professionals. We can all do it.
Each year since 2016, we have attempted to make our own small contribution to the repertoire with the Pianist Composing Competition. Entries have come from across the globe, competing for the first prize of a new Kawai piano plus the glory of having the score printed in the Scores section. Particularly rewarding winners have included Derry Bertenshaw’s rhapsodic arrangement of Scarborough Fair (2016) and Giuseppe Capasso’s catchy Tango, Blue Habanera (2020). Who will be next? Will it be you? It’s not too late to enter the 2022 competition (see our website for details).
Turning 20 often marks a point when someone finds a purpose in life. It’s fair to say that we at Pianist feel comfortable with who we are, and we hope to inform and entertain you for years to come. I have a long list of future article ideas, and just as one is struck off the list or published in the magazine, another five pop in to my head. Keep reading, keep playing, keep listening, keep learning.