Introduction - There Is an Audience! |  Curation of a Different Setting: "Kjærlighetsbrev"  |  Influence on the Later Performances

“[…] no artist, no poet, no philosopher and no musician whose thinking occurs in the highest sphere would degenerate into vulgarity

in order to comply with a slogan such as ‘Art for All’. Because if it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.”

(Arnold Schönberg)1

Introduction - There Is an Audience!

After my first concert, I started to focus differently on the audience. Reflecting on reception became a turning point that influenced both how I played in later performances and how I set up the concerts. I realised that I was engrossed in the poem texts and the score and busy developing a dialogue with the singer and shaping the sound on the piano, and I started to wonder if I actually managed to bring across my ideas. Of course, I was not entirely ignorant about the audience before. I was for example occupied with clarity in my playing, I translated the texts for them, and I also gave a spoken introduction to each opus I played, but after the first concert, I started to question if this was enough.

As I knew most of the audience of the first concert, I could ask them how they experienced it, what they thought about the performance, the repertoire and the set-up. Although I sensed I had not reached the audience sufficiently, I received positive feedback on almost all aspects of the concert. Some listeners commented on the length and the relation between the first and second half. They would have preferred a shorter concert or a better balance between the two halves, perhaps without a break so the connection between the works could have been perceived more clearly, as they found the contextualisation interesting. The audience was divided on the length and content of the spoken introductions. Some found them too long and thought the presentations of the individual poems was unnecessary as they already had the written translations, whereas others felt they helped them to understand more of each song and had a lot to say for the overall experience. While they liked the clarity of the speaking, they missed a more engaging presentation that would convey more of my enthusiasm for the subject. Some thought it would have been better if the first singer entered the stage after the introduction. Interestingly, only one audience member remarked that he also would have liked to hear the singers say something. Another audience member commented that she, inspired by my project title, found it fascinating to follow the interaction between singer and pianist. Whereas some listeners came to the concert because they were interested in this rarely performed repertoire, others were surprised by the music that they found demanding to listen to, although they experienced the performance as exciting and fascinating. Some thought that the singers’ sickness slightly diminished the quality of the performance, but the general impression was very positive. One audience member commented that she had heard Opus 15 once before and thought it was uninteresting and meaningless, but now she was caught from the first note. Another one enjoyed the way I created atmospheres and colours. One of the singers remarked after the dress rehearsal that she could indeed hear me play the words when I rehearsed with the other singer.2

Her remark and the feedback from the audience seemed to imply that I managed to convey at least some of my ideas through my playing. Through my point of view, I perceive a performance differently than the audience. Often when I feel I struggle, I seem to reach the audience more than I expected. Nevertheless, my own impression of the first concert was that I should be able to communicate more and get through to the audience on another level. After my intense study of the repertoire and particularly the words, I wanted the audience to understand more, to feel my euphoria of revelation and to share my newly discovered love for the intriguing poetry. I realised that every audience member has their own intentions when they come to a concert, but I wondered if what I do was more easily accessible to them if I made them feel closer and more involved.

Curation of a Different Setting: "Kjærlighetsbrev"

For this reason, I curated a slightly more experimental concert in March 2016 with a mixed program of German Lieder from the turn of the 20th century and later that included Schönberg’s Opus 2. We held the concert in a café and read poetry for and with the audience in addition to our performances of the songs. This way, we wanted to create a more informal, intimate and relevant atmosphere for this kind of repertoire.

I got inspired to have the concert in a café through accompanying “Operapub” in Stavanger, where singing students and former students perform opera arias in a pub once a month. The piano is horrible, and noises from the bar disturb the performances all the time, yet the setting seems to contribute to a much more intimate atmosphere than a normal concert. I found a café that even had a grand piano and asked one of the singers who sang with me in the first concert to join me. Because she lived in Stavanger and we had worked on parts of the repertoire before I started the project, the organisation was easier than for my first concert. I wondered if it was possible to create a similar atmosphere to that of “Operapub” with a more serious program of Lieder, which to me appear much more condensed with quickly changing nuances that can be difficult to convey to an audience. In addition to Schönberg’s Opus 2, we performed Lieder by Korngold, Reger, Mahler and Strauss, but no atonal works, so the challenge to communicate more with the audience would be manageable. I reasoned that if we were successful, I might be able to transfer our strategies to music that is even more demanding for the listeners. Besides, I wanted to scrutinise my playing in a concert with only tonal repertoire and compare it to what I did in the first concert of the project.

As the text is less important and the music and the performers’ virtuosity are more in the foreground in opera arias, they seem to be more readily accessible to the general public than Lieder, even when they are sung in a foreign language. For this reason, I wanted to give the audience an access point into the Lieder we performed by reading related poetry of the time in Norwegian translations for and with them between the songs. This way, I hoped to make them feel more comfortable with both the complexity and the emotional depth of the repertoire. In addition, I gave them written translations of the song texts, though this time I translated them only into Norwegian, so they would not be distracted by too much and partly irrelevant visual information. Both the singer and I introduced parts of the repertoire and read some of the additional poetry to give the audience the chance to get to know both of us and experience us as equal performers. In our short, spoken introductions, we tried to provide the audience with an understanding of the song texts the way we perceived them.

As only a few people came to the concert, probably because it was right before the Easter holidays, it is difficult to evaluate the success of our strategy. Although we emphasised that we wanted to reduce the usual distance between the performers and the audience, that we wanted to share rather than to present, we struggled to involve them. They decided to sit at tables at a distance from the piano, and only one audience member could be convinced to read a poem. Although they seemed to be intrigued and enjoyed the concert, they had, of course, expectations of their own that contributed to building up the barrier between them and us.

I realised that while I could give the audience access points into the music through the setting and the way I presented it, I had to accept that there is a gap. The performance I produce is “thinner” than my concept of it, and the “listener will interpret the performance by his/her expectations and horizon of knowledge”.3 As each person in the audience has their own agenda, I cannot control what they get out of my performance. In hindsight, I also understand that most of my feeling of not having reached the audience in the first concert had to do with not understanding the music sufficiently. I sensed that something was amiss yet attributed it to something else. I find that I often sense intuitively as a performer that something is not quite right and when I then start to work on it I end up somewhere completely different. Curiously, my wish to “telepathically” convey all my ideas to the audience and the experimentation with “Kjærlighetsbrev” sent me on the right track and refreshed my view on my playing as it helped me both in my process of realising that I had played Schönberg’s music too intellectually and made me question how and what I can communicate with the audience.

Influence on the Later Performances

Despite the mixed success of “Kjærlighetsbrev”, I took with me some impressions into the planning of my later concerts. I realised that I had to shorten the concert programs I had initially planned. I also decided to involve more singers in each event as I thought the higher variety of voices and faces to relate to might make the performances more exciting and keep the audience’s attention. In addition, I reflected on what kind of insights I wanted to convey to the audience outside the actual performance and which way of presentation would be most effective.

Because of the complexity of Opus 15 and the foreign language of the texts which play such a vital role, it was challenging to make the performance meaningful for an audience of non-native speakers. Even though I decided against performing a Norwegian translation of the songs, I found it important to give the audience access to the meaning of the poetry. For the second concert, I rewrote some of the earlier translations and wrote new translations for the rest of the repertoire with the goal to make them easier accessible. I decided to create more straightforward concert programs with translations into only one language to reduce the amount of irrelevant information that would take the audience’s attention away from the performance. I also realised that I might enhance their experience by not talking too much and letting our performance speak more for itself instead, so I decided to limit my talking to short introductions into each contextualisation and give the audience an understanding of how the works we performed are linked to each other. Although insights into the performers’ work can add the little extra to a concert introduction, I found it more suitable to communicate these issues in my lecture-recitals because of the complexity of the repertoire that demands a lot of attention from the listeners. I also thought that I could reach a different kind of audience with a different set of expectations in the lecture-recitals, in which I showed some of my ideas about the poetry and its importance for both performers, focussed on challenges we encountered in our collaboration or discussed the question if the pianist needs different skills or techniques to play this kind of repertoire, whereas I wanted the music to be central in the concerts. I had the lecture-recitals and concerts on two consecutive days so that those who were interested could first hear about our views and then experience the issues I talked about and presented with selected music examples in the broader context of the concerts.

Nevertheless, I found it essential to personally present the program in the concerts, both to make the audience feel welcome and to make them experience the equal status of the pianist who often seems withdrawn behind the piano. Ideally, I would have liked the singers to participate in the introductions to let the audience experience us as truly equal partners, but none of them wanted to join me as they were very aware that this was my project. However, I still think I might have stimulated the audience to reflect on the relationship between the two performers by giving the introductions myself.

I was aware that my introductions, the way I “narrated” the entire concert, would affect how the audience perceived the performance. As this repertoire is rarely performed, I did not want to limit or spoil their experience by highlighting particular features of the music and, for example, give them a formal analysis or tell them too much of what they will hear. After the first concert, I also avoided talking too much about the poetry and trusted that my translations and our performance would be enough to help them understand. I wanted my introductions to give them access points into the music without forcing them to listen in a specific way. I counted on the different contextualisations to provide them with new insights and experiences like they did for us performers and on the performance itself and the atmosphere to communicate our understanding of the music.

As a collaborative pianist, I am not used to presenting the program during concerts, and therefore, I feel uncomfortable with speaking on stage. Although my limited experience might be related to the traditional role allocation on stage, curiously also most of the singers expressed discomfort at speaking before a performance, which was another reason they did not want to join me in the introduction of the program. Speaking requires us to take on a different role on stage. It necessitates a different kind of mindset and concentration that can disturb our mental preparation for the performance of the music. The situation feels different in a lecture-recital, in which my primary goal is to share my insights verbally and illustrate them through the way I play the music. Here, the speaking seems less challenging, but the performance rarely feels “magical” although the audience might be given intriguing insights. In a concert, however, the energy resulting from the compilation of the repertoire and the atmosphere of the entire event contribute to enhancing the experience of the performance.

As the foreign language made the speaking even more difficult for me, I felt it was necessary to have a manuscript. I realised that good concert introductions require practice and experience, similar to the performance of the music. Preparation in the practice room is helpful, but I continue learning through every performance on stage. Each performance negotiates the curious balance between being created at the moment when “it counts” and never being fixed or final. A kind of result-oriented thinking is deeply ingrained in me as a performer. I practice with the goal to “get it right”, to make my concept of the music audible, and to be in control when I present something for an audience. However, both in my oral presentations and in my playing I must find the right balance between making it work in the best possible way at that moment and daring to take risks and improvise. The latter will make the performance more interesting for the audience as the perception of the performers’ striving can contribute to the “magic”.

My experimentation with “Kjærlighetsbrev” also enhanced my understanding of the importance of the setting of a performance. I felt that the rather big concert hall of the first concert did not make the reception easy and found the intimate atmosphere of the café much more suitable. However, I also had to consider the acoustics of the location, and as a pianist, I always depend on the availability of a good instrument. I found the settings of the later concerts, especially that of the second and the final one, much more appropriate.

In these two concerts, I played on a Bechstein grand piano from 1890. While it was not especially announced, at least parts of the audience were familiar with the instrument being from that time, and this knowledge might have influenced their perception of the performance, although the piano could not be called “authentic”. Opus 15 was premiered in the Ehrbar Hall4 and was thus probably played on an Ehrbar piano. Schönberg got an Ibach piano in 1911,5 and Steuermann mentioned a Schweighofer piano that the Society for Private Music Performances used.6 The Bechstein piano influenced the two performances substantially. As the instrument has no dampers over c3, the sound stays quite long, and it is difficult to play clear staccato in the higher register. The piano has no middle pedal, and the dampers are very noisy when the pedal is released too quickly. The carvings in the music stand allow for a different perception of the sound than the “wooden plate” of modern instruments. Although the instrument felt nice to the touch, I could sense a resistance in the mechanics that made it difficult to play very softly. My second singer and I associated the instrument with a “third person” in the ensemble that was pleasant but had a will of its own, particularly in the rehearsals and a little less so during the performance.

I also considered placing the audience differently in relation to us performers and each other. Since neither of the two locations had fixed seating, I could place the audience the way I wanted. One of the challenges with the traditional set-up is that the singer’s interaction with the audience is more immediate as she faces them and can communicate more directly through her gaze and gestures, whereas the pianist sits sideways and is partly obscured by the instrument for half the audience. No positioning of the instrument would ease these difficulties, and the way the sound is projected determines to a certain degree where the audience should be in relation to the piano and thus the pianist. The traditional set-up also clearly marks a boundary between performers and audience. However, it is not easy to remove this boundary. Depending also on the acoustics of the room, the piano and particularly the voice can be very loud, and it would be uncomfortable for the audience to sit too close. In the third concert, for example, we decided to remove the first row of seats when we tested the acoustics as we realised that even when the singers limited their dynamic range, their voices could become uncomfortably loud. While it might be interesting for the audience to sit between the singer and the pianist to sense our communication more directly, collaboration becomes more challenging the further apart the partners are as we depend on small visual and auditive cues from each other. I briefly considered the use of electronic sound transmission. It might, for example, be interesting for the audience to hear a performance from the singer’s or my perspective. We could record a performance with each of us wearing binaural microphones, and transfer the sound to another room where the audience could sit and choose which way they wanted to hear the performance. Although this might be an intriguing experience for the audience, I felt that it would take away the intimacy and close communication that I find essential in a performance of Lieder for which the sound should not be modified through recording, and the audience should be in the same room as us performers. I got caught in the impossible wish to share my concept of the music virtually telepathically, and there is no technology to allow that. I realised I had to scrutinise the link between my ideas and the way I play the music if I wanted the audience to “understand” more. While the outer settings are important for the way the audience perceives a performance, the “magic” will not happen if the performance itself is empty.

During the project, particularly after the first concert, I became aware of many preconceptions I had about what I do as a performer. In many presentations of my project, I emphasised that I wanted to find strategies for practising and performing Opus 15 in a meaningful way. My increased awareness of the audience made me listen to my playing in another way, and I realised that certain automatisms could indeed make the performance “thinner” and less communicative.

For a start, I noticed that in ensemble performances, in particular, I can easily forget about the audience, as there is already someone with me on stage with whom I share the music. I play music because it gives me pleasure, and it is easy to just “retreat” into the dialogue with the singer which is meaningful for her and me but not necessarily for someone on the outside. Although the audience might still get something out of observing this dialogue, it might be less convincing for them. In an ensemble, the “magic” can at least partly happen already in the practice room, and therefore I might be less inclined to search for it during a performance. Of course, I should not reach out to the audience by consciously exaggerating expressive elements or in another way that would be alien to the content of the performance, but I believe that an awareness of them and a wish to communicate result in a different mental state, which can lead to a more convincing performance that carries conviction.

Watching the video of my first concert, I noticed that I often unconsciously moved my hands and body unnecessarily much. My body movements help both my partner and the audience to read my expressive intentions. I can, for example, indicate how I perceive the general character and level of energy or the way a phrase gravitates.  However, my body movements are closely connected to my sound production and my perception of tempo. If I try to convey too much through my body rather than through the sound itself, my gestures do not longer make sense, and the performance becomes both stiff and overly energetic. In the practice room, I tried to pay close attention to the way I sit and move to avoid extra movements when a tone was already played and could not be changed and to give myself room to listen to the connections between tones rather than to try to “make” them with my body. At other places, additional body movements do not necessarily disturb the playing, but they do not add anything to it either. I observed, for example, a tendency to raise my hands with a flourish at each ending. While I practised with an increased awareness of body movements after the first concert and tried to make sure that they and my expressive intentions would not be “wired wrongly”, I did not want to overcontrol them during the performances as that would have taken away too much of my attention from the moment. 

Audio example 1: Arnold Schönberg: Vier Lieder Op. 2, No. 1 “Erwartung”. Kersti Ala-Murr – soprano, Friederike Wildschütz – piano, Friederike Wildschütz – recording and mixing. Recording from “Kjærlighetsbrev”, 18.03.2016, BådeOg Sandnes.

While the first concert became a little stiff and boring, in “Kjærlighetsbrev”, I was hyperaware of the audience and tried to play very expressively and communicatively. In the first concert, I thought of the music as too abstract and intellectual. Although I understood the emotions of the poetry, I was not familiar enough with Schönberg’s sounds yet. I realised that Opus 15 was more difficult than it looked. As an accompanist who occasionally has to play repertoire outside the “comfort zone”, it can be easy to forget that there is more to a performance than making it work. Apart from the complicated parts of the eighth and fifteenth song, the cycle was not difficult to learn, but I discovered that it was challenging to play it well. Having performed it once also contributed to having more energy and mental capacity to listen on a deeper level and thus to discover and grasp the evolutionary development of Schönberg’s way of composing in my second contextualisation.

Although my playing of Opus 15 became more expressive and communicative throughout the project, I think that this way of playing has to develop out of an understanding of the music rather than being superimposed on it. Schönberg wrote: “[…] art can only be created for its own sake. An idea is born; it must be moulded, formulated, developed, elaborated, carried through and pursued to its very end. Because there is only ‘l’art pour l’art’, art for the sake of art alone.”7 The danger of expecting this music to be difficult to understand for an audience is to add something foreign both to my way of playing and to the way I introduce the repertoire that would limit the audience’s experience. I agree with Crispin’s opinion that “[…] performers who focus upon this repertoire [that of the Second Viennese School] must continually tread the finest lines in their advocacy. Always driven by their own commitment but never allowing their desire to reach out communicatively to an audience to tempt them into an ingratiation that is alien to the music’s essential character.”8 I must accept that not everyone will understand everything I try to convey through my performance and trust that if I have a clear concept of what I want to do, I will open a room into which the audience can enter. Repetition of the repertoire in different contexts like I did in my concerts can also contribute to new insights for them.

The change in my awareness of the audience became a turning point that led to slightly different set-ups of my concerts but most importantly started my process of playing Opus 15 more expressively. While the initial change seems very small, it was a turn towards a new understanding that affected the rest of the project. The “link” to the audience became one of the aspects I realised I constantlymust re-assess and negotiate in every performance.