What really helps me is talking to the audience about the piece (of course only if possible). Since I love to speak in front of people, this has always worked to make me feel much more comfortable before I even start playing. Edit: You can even see it in my own videos, sometimes I am still talking when the recording started :D
I completely agree - speaking to the audience is so helpful for me as well. And it helps me focus on those things that I love about the repertoire! -Robert
@@tonebasePiano Exactly. As I already said, I uploaded videos of me playing Rachmaninoff, and some of them are live performances where the recording started while I was still speaking :D I always speak about the beauty of Rachmaninoff's music and that I hope to be able to evoke some of these emotions in the audience. When I played Rach 2 for an audience in my video, 1st movement, I pulled off the best performance I ever had!
I had to give a weather briefing for all the top brass at NAS Marietta, Georgia, USA. There were multiple captains (O6) of the various US Navy fighter squadrons in the room included the Commanding officer of the base, himself. Altogether there were about hundred officers in the briefing room. I was a lowly second class petty officer- an enlisted position, not an officer. Before the brief I decided to practice my 😅briefing before my chief- (which is a senior enlisted position). He completely disagreed with the format that I was using. I began to get rattled by this insistence to form because my briefing was going to be very soon!! I had to quickly gather up newly reprinted weather charts and began to scribble up the charts Fronts, low pressure, high pressure etc. I had to scribble them all on at this last second! Thanks Chief!! To add to this another enlisted girl came in a totally also joined in the feeding frenzy of criticizing my format. She was lower than me and constantly manipulating in a showy, narcissistic manner, while constantly rotating around showing off her figure. This rattled me further , but I was at least able to order her away. She skulked away further stressing me out!! It’s as if she wanted to rob me of my performance confidence along with the chief! It’s still hard to think of the devastating experience that her and the chief’s behavior fostered in me in the last minutes before my brief!!!!! I had only but one advantage- I had been doing practice weather briefs for years at our Navy weather computer sent and away from an actual weather office. Somehow all this briefing skills came back to me after a gap of years in which I had a baby. I ran to the briefing room. I stuck chats on a briefing board as others briefed on various squadron activities. It was now my turn!! I engaged the Commanding Officer with “Captain today your golf forecast is…” And the room exploded in laughter! I pretended that my scribbled weather charts were not a mess but were clean and tidy. I bluffed every conceivable confidence. I basically acted!! I won the brief! I heard back from my chief that they had LIKED MY BRIEF!! And Chief says to me “See what happens when you follow good form.” Right, Chief!!
I went for it, and my attitude: "If you can do better, come do it!" Nobody wanted to come to the bench of the pipe organ, so they were stuck with me, and I earned my pay.
During my fist cello recital, I was playing Saint-Saëns’ Allegro Appasionata and didn’t have the second page of the sheet music. My mind went blank. I remember thinking, “well, I guess I’ll improvise.” I remember making things up. My teacher came up to me after the recital to congratulate me. I was utterly exhausted. I told him how awful I felt about messing up the piece. He looked at me confused, saying, in effect, “you played correctly.” Apparently, my “improvisation” was memorization disguised by fear.
One little remark: when she's talking about having "average memory", she's clearly not talking about average memory as compared to all humans in all walks of life. It's implied (and later specified) that she is talking about her memory as compared to other professional musicians. This is quite a different group of people, with a way higher demand on and training in memorization. Like, a semi-professional tennis player is likely average in the class of semi-professional and professional tennis players, but is better than 99.999% of the humans who ever walked or will walk the Earth.
@tonebasePiano Amazing what Maria Joa Pires, did, but all proves one important thing, that many people in the world don't acknowledge, and that is the incredible brain ,the True GOD JEHOVAH created, everytime I play my digital piano, iam always reminded humbly speaking how amazing our brains are, created by the almighty God JEHOVAH, greetings from wales uk 😀
To add some context to the comments below, based on Pires’ complete interview that we see only extracts from: This particular scenario took place at the public rehearsal the afternoon of the day of the concert, not at the concert itself. In the interview she also says that the last time she had played K.466 had been about 10 months prior. This context also explains the actions of Chailly as it is hard to imagine a conductor consciously exposing his/her soloist to a similar kind of risk in an analogous concert situation… Not withstanding the public rehearsal setting, Pires’ feat is extraordinary!
@@AffordBindEquipment Yes. In fact, I’m sure I didn’t post this. Now I have to check my security settings. Thanks for responding to it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known about it.
I was watching that happen to Tianxu An live. Even the announcers were confused when they read the upcoming programme, then "corrected" themselves, much to the amusement of all the Russian speakers in the hall, including the conductor. All the while Tianxu An stood off-stage, looking a little concerned, with the conductor reassuring him with a smile. I feared the worst, and then it happened. Tianxu An showed nerves of absolute steel and did himself proud.
@@tonebasePiano I was watching the live stream is what I meant. Unfortunately I wasn't actually there. But it was one of those moments when you feel like you're the only person who seems to realise that everyone else is not on the same page - literally!
I haven't had this exact situation. The closest I came was a coaching with flutist Carol Wincenc for my official New York debut recital. I had programmed Copland's Duo for flute and piano. The first movement has an extremely awkward page turn, so I'd set up a copy of page two so that I could turn at a convenient moment. I flipped the page only to discover that the rest of the pages were not in order, the middle had gotten separated. In that moment I made the decision to keep playing from memory; though I had performed the piece before, since it's a duo I had never thought of it as a piece to memorize. I reasoned that it was a good test for a disaster in concert. Somehow I was able to play the first movement without stopping. So I guess I had internalized the music from practice, the prior performance and having listened to the premier recording multiple times.
I am a dual degree student in engineering and piano performance in college (who a few months ago actually had the MASSIVE honour of playing for Maria Joao Pires at a masterclass!). All the points you describe are spot on, whenever you’re learning a new piece or a new programming language - engaging with the material, really making sure you’re concentrating, and make sure you achieve comfort in what you learned before moving onto a new chapter or piece. Edit: What Artymiw said - that’s EXACTLY what I have been doing to combat stage fright! Now, I still feel “nervous” right before going on stage, but that isn’t really worry that I might fail and cause disappointment to my audience - it’s just shivers of excitement, joy, and gratefulness that I have the ability to share some of my favourite pieces of music with them!
I also was a dual degree student but what's the point of this? You will always be a bad pianist and a bad engineer because you don't have commitment to anything. While pianists are practicing 8 hours a day, you may practice, maximum, 4 hours and you obviously will not get the same results they do. It's sad, but it's true.
@@justadude641 I see where you’re coming from, and frankly, I see you’re trying to intentionally disparage me or make me regret my choice. (Let me tell you, I don’t.) Of course I’m aware that dual degree students will on average have less amount of time to devote to either. But both disciplines are ultimately quality over quantity. I practise ~2 hours on weekdays and ~5 on weekends, which is less than the average piano major. But I try to practise efficiently, and once I get past these time frames, I just don’t get productive anymore. Same goes for engineering stuff (problem sets, research, etc.) I need a change of scenery, and the other discipline provides just that. As a matter of fact, this summer I got an author position for a research paper under a very renowned professor and won a prize in the biggest international music competition in my state. I am fortunate that I attend my college such that I can still pursue both at a sufficiently high level, and my equal passion for both disciplines made me continue in this program. Yes, it is sometimes stressful, but so is everyone else in college. I never thought of dropping one or the other.
This is SO valuable and on target. Nothing more frustrating than working with a teacher who gives no thought to performance anxiety and REFUSES to at least acknowledge that mental glitches , like in golf, is always the largest part of the game/
I was lucky to attend her concert in April where she played Beethoven’s 4th. The performance was impeccable. Great respect to her for still being actively on tour and offering the highest standard performances
I always hated recitals because I was afraid I'd forget something in the middle of the piece. That was back when my muscle memory wasn't that good yet. One time my piano teacher said "If you feel insecure, just leave out the repetitions." At the recital I played every repetition, I was so so proud of myself. For Pires the main feat was overcoming the shock - once she got in the zone, it was all muscle memory.
In NYC, I studied with German Diez, who immigrated from Cuba to study with Claudio Arrau. They remained close for decades. German told me that when Arrau recorded the Liszt First with Ormandy/Philadelphia, he thought that he was supposed to play the Beethoven Third. On the spot, he proceeded to play the Liszt in one take.
What i do during a crisis is light my hair on fire, take off all my clothes, run around outside naked, screaming “i can’t take this anymore”. But that’s just me.
Beautifully put together - some essence touched upon here. Pires brings tears to my eyes. Just after some nauseating BBC World Service programme on 'manifesting', it's good to get to the miracle without glib answers.
Thanks for sharing this video! I knew already what problem Mrs. Pires had to Face. And indeed this also happened to Alicia de Larrocha. She was due to play Mozarts KV 595, but after arriving the conductor told her, she had to play the second Rachmaninoff concerto. Lucky for her she had both the second and third concerto on her repertoire. So she quickly repeated some difficult passages and had a discussion with the conductor, after which she played the full Rach.2 concerto till the end. She must have had a extraordinary memory.
As a portuguese guy I think the presenter guy is portuguese too just for the correct way he pronnounces Maria João Pires. A woman which my country is very proud of.
Thanks for your nice comment! I am indeed half Portuguese, and grew up listening to and loving Pires. It was a pleasure to get to honor her with this video!
Another beautiful video. The points you make are beautiful. The way you make them is beautiful. The experiences of learning and growth which you describe are in their own way beautiful. The materials and contributions you draw on here are beautiful. And I've decided that the brilliant curly-haired musician guiding us through it all is also rather beautiful.
It's impressive. But we shouldn't forget that the d minor is one of the most popular Mozart concertos and Pires for sure played it countless times over decades. After all she's most famous for playing Mozart. There are certainly less frequently played concertos she would have had more problems to pull off from memory without preparation. After all she stopped in last minute so she would have had very little time to prepare the concerto she had expected, too.
This happened to Lili Kraus, again with Mozart. At one point, she needed to consult the conductor’s score and very briefly explained what had happened. She simply said, “Don’t lose the magic!” She then sat down and completed the concerto. What poise!
I'm not that knowledgeable in classical music and haven't heard of Maria before. but my jaw literally dropped here. what a feat! Meus parabéns, Maria João!
It's not important what you are doing... the person who is in there mastery... will get to the point where life proofs the skills of resilienz... to show that the Master plays the Piece of Lifemastery in the Moment of "Here and Now" That was one beautiful Exaple, of the Art of Life ❤❤❤
My most difficult passages that I couldn't get right during the day... before I fell asleep, I would picture my hands doing it perfectly, and then when I woke up, I could play it bc I had been over the page so many times that I was able to memorize what was writen and the notes that needed to be there and where my hands had to be on the keyboard.
Great video, great analysis and great pianist Maria... can you tell me where I can watch the whole performance of Maria in that particular concerto? Please?
There's a story, probably apocryphal, that Karajan once came to the podium at the Berlin Phil, ready in his mind to conduct the stormy Beethoven 5. Instead, the program said Beethoven 6, a rustic, light, joyful composition, which every player had on their music stands. Seeing Karajan's tempestuous, almost furious, face as he came to the podium, the orchestra realised this was not the look of a man about to conduct the pastoral Beethoven 6, and the concertmaster took control and gave the orchestra the head-nods and lead-ins they needed to co-ordinate. Of course Karajan knew the Pastoral backwards, and he quickly shifted gears, but not before he had given a up- and downbeat to the 5th. Great story if true, though I can't find any verification. Just a story from conducting class at music school.
I am a SuperCoach) and teach superlearning. This involves (1) organising your learning space and tools, (2) encoding - this is done using various note-taking mechanisms and they are usually chosen to make use of the learner's unique gifts, (3) gaining meta-learning through re-orchestration of the material - what you get when you merge your learning with omeone else's - and then doing mulltiple passes through the content in different ways to allow the brain to engage with it and understand it from all angles, (4) production.
I am completely stage-phobic. And it doesn't depress me because I don't hold desire to perform for groups of strangers. And why do something musical that I am not going to enjoy, that I am frankly going to very genuinely and strongly dislike? It serves no purpose. It would be literally the opposite of therapeutic and cause harm, emotional injury. I believe the whole purpose of music, any art, is to create a mutual pleasure response. Anything I write I am very happy for others to take and perform. Others that are at-home on a stage, that are relaxed to be able to perform at their best, and not at their worst due to anxiety and distress 🙂
I have been with my wife in Tel Aviv auditorium, and Maria Joa Piraes play Beethoven piano concerto n 3 under the direction of Zubin Metha, Will not forget for a life time this, and after we meet her at the artist exit, as extraordinary is as musician she is as a human being Miracle happens
Il grande Richter ha detto e fatto la cosa giusta : perchè precludersi la musica suonando a memoria con questo vezzo di Liszt per dimostrare di essere chissa' cosa... i miei migliori concerti sono stati con lo spartito davanti. Concordo pienamente. La vera protagonista è la Musica ragazzi.
I’ve been able to memorise all my clarinet repertoire since I was a young boy; I can’t tell you what my process is - I don’t even understand it myself. I also learnt piano as a child but was never able to memorise anything. A crazy thing did happen recently; I was stumbling through some Chopin when suddenly a jar smashed in the kitchen. In that brief moment of shock, I suddenly realised I was playing fluently on piano. I’m yet to find how to effectively ‘unlock’ that part of my brain (without smashing lots of jars!!)
Perhaps you have the muscle memory for the pieces but because that’s subconscious, you think you don’t know it thoroughly? As Pires says in the video, there are two types of memory involved in mastering a piece. Trust your muscles!
I met Chailly in Leipzig. Nice chap. He signed the cd i had of him doing Rach 3 with Argerich. I like Pires Schubert impromptus album called 'Voyage' or some other very appropriate name!
Happened to me once during an orchestra concert in the first violin section, but the complete opposite. It was for Palladio, and I wasnt in chamber orchestra, but I was in the first violin section. I knew of Palladio from beginning to end, as I was fascinated with the entire piece. The thing was that my group was not informed that the chamber orchestra was going to play this piece. I didn't arrive late but I didn't arrive early enough either and so when I got to my seat in the first violin section we did not have Palladio. But I remembered all of it. So I was very confused and concerned because the chamber orchestra started playing Palladio and we were playing that night with them, but again I didn't know that my group was not playing with them. I just thought that we were missing the sheet music. So as they start playing I start playing from memory and absolute panic. And we finally get to the park where the first chair violinist has their solo, and I remember looking up at the conductor and she was just staring daggers at me. Apparently this piece was only meant to be played by the chamber orchestra, not my group a violinists who sat behind the chamber orchestra. Mind you this was a high school concert but my high school was recognized amongst the top of orchestra players in the country. So my teacher and conductor obviously upset that I was playing a gambling with joining the chamber orchestra was not something she was okay with. Fortunately I did get through the piece and I think that's why the conductor did not end up chewing me out after the concert saying something like that. I shouldn't have been playing or something. But I didn't realize until halfway through that the violinists around me weren't playing because I was just so focused on remembering the notes in my head and listening to those around me. I literally felt like if I looked up I would forget my notes. It's really crazy how that happens sometimes because, I would have never imagined that I could remember that entire piece, but out of panic it was like everything in my brain just turned on. I don't regret it though. Even if I pissed off my conductor.
I would love to know what, exactly, a concert pianist is thinking about when he/she is playing. Does the mind wander at all? What is the interplay between mentally seeing the musical score vs. the more motoric operation of muscle memory, or is it an unconscious meandering between the two? Does the mind wander utterly away from the moment? Like wondering "what if Rachmaninoff were sitting in the audience... what would he be thinking? What if my former lover or deceased relatives were in the audience or even listening in mystically from another dimension?"
What I gather from the episode is that, even in an emergency situation, it is prudent for soloist and conductor alike to have at least a short conversation on how the piece goes. Not to do that is disrespect towards the orchestra, in the first place. If one of them came up to the rehearsal with the wrong piece what would have happened?
I have seen this exceptional video so many times ! It still inspires me as a musician, as a sports performer and as a human ne being. And what management of the situation by the great and reverred conductor, Ricardo Chailly ! He found the exact few words to address the situation while conducting ! What you have shared can be extended to various similar contests. Thank you.
If you play a lot of pieces, you develop a memory from one part to the next of each piece. The difficult part is only to get it right the first time, if you have to re-remember it, which typically takes an hour, because you play it and just do here and there some minor or major mistake, that you quickly fix. Her fear here was to do those, but the "pause" gave her enough time to pinpoint to those areas in the piece she struggles with. She therefore could perform it.
Are you memorizing what the fingers are doing, or are you memorizing the sound of the music? This is key. With a hard-fought, life long search, I realized that if you memorize the sound, rather than the physical, "fingering" aspect, it is easier to perform. Way easier. The pianist reached back to retrieve from her *memory* how the concerto sounded.
I don't necessarily agree that sound memorization is necessarily superior - I find that playing from sound memory can result in a certain fragility, particularly for difficult sections which may sound quite different if even some small details are off (e.g. voicing is often crucial in dense textures). The risk for me is then that any small error/disturbance may mess with the sound I'm expecting, throwing me off further and causing more errors, etc. For those sections, I find it very useful to be able to play "mechanically" for a moment to properly recover. So while I generally like to memorize by sound, I intentionally work on memorizing movement information and even some individual notes (e.g. targets of large jumps) for critical passages as well. That being said, I agree there is a huge difference in my musical expression when playing from sound rather than physical memory, so I aim to use the former as much as possible, just while also having the option to consciously take control and focus on the physical motions if necessary. I'm only an amateur player by the way, so take all of the above with a grain of salt - probably less relevant for professionals who practice until they never make mistakes :P
Not really an 'important' performance - more of a lunchtime rehearsal with audience. You can tell from the conductors rather casual dress, 1:18, with a towel draped over his shoulders. Still an impressive achievement!
it seems you still do not know the details about this story despite it being retold dozens of times.This was NOT a rehearsal but a *lunchtime concert* to an audience of ~2000 people. There were indeed rehearsals with the original pianist, but he was replaced by Pires the at last minute. Chailly asked Pires to play the night before this concert and there was no time for further rehearsals. This concert was part of a series of music events in Vienna and took place at lunchtime in a less formal setting, hence the casual dressing of the conductor and orchestra.
I think at first he was trying to lean into comedy too hard and it wasn't quite working, but he's finding his style (and it makes jokes land better when they do happen)
However inspiring and impressive, i am not suprised. As a rock guitarist, dictating from memory is standard. Granted most rock songs are not as ornate as mozart, however some are.
The conductor did not change the concerts order. it was the order of concerts, by announcer, who made this mistake. The conductor started how it was planned. The announcer said otherwise, then correcter himself...only in Russian. Performer got confused. Very bad mistake from the announcer.(
@@Gabrimedde That is not correct. This concert was part of a series of music events taking place in Vienna, with 3-4 performances each day. The clip is not from a rehearsal but from a lunchtime concert scheduled for that day, with an audience of ~2000 people. The original pianist had to be replaced at last minute and Chailly invited Pires the night before this concert took place.
2 million bits of information enter our brains every second of the day, and we retain all of it, in our subconscious mind. Our concious mind - I shall call it the frontal cortex for simplicity's sake - can only focus on 2 to 12 bits of that information, which it does for about 4 seconds, after which those bits pass into the back of the brain to be filed away with other things from our past, that it relates to. The rest also passes through but it forgotten by the front of the brain and is filed where the back of the brain thinks it should be filed. So, when you learn something, it is all there, in your brain. You just have to get out of the way of remembering it. Stop judging yourself, fearing your ability and deciding you are some kind of fraud. Dropping your boundaries, is the key to flow. Pires knows she has a tendency to get the piece wrong, so she should know to check - without monotonous regularity - before each concert by getting it in writing. Then this would not happen.
@@tonebasePiano Videos haven’t been necessary for some years. Often a given performer’s audience appeal is based on distractions from what they’re actually doing-distractions that can easily belong more in Times Square than in Carnegie Hall. “Whatever gets butts in the seats” may be a contemporary mantra but, in the process of being good for business, I’ve observed that something else can suffer that’s much more important.
@@ColinWrubleski-eq5shWhen Jarrett turned up the only piano at the venue had multiple defects: some keys didn't work, the pedals were defect etc. He had to improvise his concert taking these obstacles into account. It was recored and became his best selling record. Fun fact: as he plays the first tones, the audience laughs: those were the notes of the audience bell of the theatre they just heard, which he used to start his improvisation with.
No one could have just given her the sheet music? If she's already played it before, she probably just needs the sheet music to go off of. As a singer, I would be able to do this, but u might not be able to do this without sheet music
There is nothing exceptional there, considering the context. Once you played a piece 50+ times on stage, you will be able to pull it anytime. Especially if it is not something which requires high virtuosity or a special training, as Mozart concertos.
You love the sound of your own voice. Wish I just had seen the episode. Well, remember this was a dress rehearsal. So she could allow herself to go with the flow.
he makes similar content on his own channel (Ben Laude), indeed it's pretty weird they didn't mention that they were changing host (or maybe they did and I missed it)
@@maxime1768 Yeah, don't like this host, was kinda hoping it was a one time thing, before it was more music related to me, now it seems more like pseudo-smart content.
Oh man, when Maria João Pires put her hand on her face with that look of exasperation. 🤦🏻♀ I can only imagine what that would've felt like. Interesting story that I had never heard of. Thanks for telling it! It would be awesome if you made more "this crazy story in classical piano actually happened" videos!
It's exceptionally unprofessional for the orchestra to not be clear as a bell about the expectations given she was an emergency sub at the time. Exceptional incompetence and unprofessionalism. Typical artistic directors.
What are your strategies for performance anxiety?
And thanks again to Noa Kageyama - you should all go check out his work!
What really helps me is talking to the audience about the piece (of course only if possible). Since I love to speak in front of people, this has always worked to make me feel much more comfortable before I even start playing.
Edit: You can even see it in my own videos, sometimes I am still talking when the recording started :D
I completely agree - speaking to the audience is so helpful for me as well. And it helps me focus on those things that I love about the repertoire!
-Robert
@@tonebasePiano Exactly.
As I already said, I uploaded videos of me playing Rachmaninoff, and some of them are live performances where the recording started while I was still speaking :D
I always speak about the beauty of Rachmaninoff's music and that I hope to be able to evoke some of these emotions in the audience.
When I played Rach 2 for an audience in my video, 1st movement, I pulled off the best performance I ever had!
I had to give a weather briefing for all the top brass at NAS Marietta, Georgia, USA. There were multiple captains (O6) of the various US Navy fighter squadrons in the room included the Commanding officer of the base, himself. Altogether there were about hundred officers in the briefing room. I was a lowly second class petty officer- an enlisted position, not an officer.
Before the brief I decided to practice my 😅briefing before my chief- (which is a senior enlisted position). He completely disagreed with the format that I was using. I began to get rattled by this insistence to form because my briefing was going to be very soon!!
I had to quickly gather up newly reprinted weather charts and began to scribble up the charts Fronts, low pressure, high pressure etc. I had to scribble them all on at this last second! Thanks Chief!!
To add to this another enlisted girl came in a totally also joined in the feeding frenzy of criticizing my format. She was lower than me and constantly manipulating in a showy, narcissistic manner, while constantly rotating around showing off her figure. This rattled me further , but I was at least able to order her away. She skulked away further stressing me out!! It’s as if she wanted to rob me of my performance confidence along with the chief! It’s still hard to think of the devastating experience that her and the chief’s behavior fostered in me in the last minutes before my brief!!!!!
I had only but one advantage- I had been doing practice weather briefs for years at our Navy weather computer sent and away from an actual weather office. Somehow all this briefing skills came back to me after a gap of years in which I had a baby. I ran to the briefing room. I stuck chats on a briefing board as others briefed on various squadron activities.
It was now my turn!!
I engaged the Commanding Officer with “Captain today your golf forecast is…”
And the room exploded in laughter! I pretended that my scribbled weather charts were not a mess but were clean and tidy. I bluffed every conceivable confidence. I basically acted!!
I won the brief!
I heard back from my chief that they had LIKED MY BRIEF!!
And Chief says to me “See what happens when you follow good form.”
Right, Chief!!
I went for it, and my attitude: "If you can do better, come do it!" Nobody wanted to come to the bench of the pipe organ, so they were stuck with me, and I earned my pay.
Legendary “fuck it we ball” moment.
During my fist cello recital, I was playing Saint-Saëns’ Allegro Appasionata and didn’t have the second page of the sheet music. My mind went blank. I remember thinking, “well, I guess I’ll improvise.” I remember making things up. My teacher came up to me after the recital to congratulate me. I was utterly exhausted. I told him how awful I felt about messing up the piece. He looked at me confused, saying, in effect, “you played correctly.” Apparently, my “improvisation” was memorization disguised by fear.
What? That's really unbelievable 😮
One little remark:
when she's talking about having "average memory", she's clearly not talking about average memory as compared to all humans in all walks of life. It's implied (and later specified) that she is talking about her memory as compared to other professional musicians. This is quite a different group of people, with a way higher demand on and training in memorization.
Like, a semi-professional tennis player is likely average in the class of semi-professional and professional tennis players, but is better than 99.999% of the humans who ever walked or will walk the Earth.
The best part of this story is Maria's face of utter dismay upon realizing she must pull off a Nobel at the Olympics.
This comment wins my internet for today!
@@michaelfoxbrass Yes, it had me laughing nervously.
She went from a turbulent moment of fear and indecision to a point of absolute calmness and focus. Sometimes the fire tempers us.
A Portuguese (and World) treasure, and the best part, she is still with us! Great video, thanks for sharing.
@ptdive Happy you enjoyed it! She is absolutely a treasure, and is one of my favorite pianists. I hope to see her live someday!
-Robert
@tonebasePiano Amazing what Maria Joa Pires, did, but all proves one important thing, that many people in the world don't acknowledge, and that is the incredible brain ,the True GOD JEHOVAH created, everytime I play my digital piano, iam always reminded humbly speaking how amazing our brains are, created by the almighty God JEHOVAH, greetings from wales uk 😀
❤
@@adrianthomas6244wtf mate 😂
To add some context to the comments below, based on Pires’ complete interview that we see only extracts from: This particular scenario took place at the public rehearsal the afternoon of the day of the concert, not at the concert itself. In the interview she also says that the last time she had played K.466 had been about 10 months prior. This context also explains the actions of Chailly as it is hard to imagine a conductor consciously exposing his/her soloist to a similar kind of risk in an analogous concert situation… Not withstanding the public rehearsal setting, Pires’ feat is extraordinary!
9lll😂
@@iluvpepithanks for making this clear.
@@AffordBindEquipment : I hope I’m not being hacked. I don’t remember posting this comment.
@@iluvpepi I thought the comment was a little odd!
@@AffordBindEquipment Yes. In fact, I’m sure I didn’t post this. Now I have to check my security settings. Thanks for responding to it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known about it.
I was watching that happen to Tianxu An live. Even the announcers were confused when they read the upcoming programme, then "corrected" themselves, much to the amusement of all the Russian speakers in the hall, including the conductor. All the while Tianxu An stood off-stage, looking a little concerned, with the conductor reassuring him with a smile. I feared the worst, and then it happened. Tianxu An showed nerves of absolute steel and did himself proud.
@LisztyLiszt Wow! That must have been wild to experience in person! Absolutely, what he accomplished in that situation was absolutely amazing.
@@tonebasePiano I was watching the live stream is what I meant. Unfortunately I wasn't actually there. But it was one of those moments when you feel like you're the only person who seems to realise that everyone else is not on the same page - literally!
the fact that he was able to react and to play made me cry.Really.He is a special person.
Strangely I feel like the mix-up really helps to fuel the piece with true dispair. You can feel the stress and hear it
This is such an amazing story! She's just a brilliant pianist.
I haven't had this exact situation. The closest I came was a coaching with flutist Carol Wincenc for my official New York debut recital. I had programmed Copland's Duo for flute and piano. The first movement has an extremely awkward page turn, so I'd set up a copy of page two so that I could turn at a convenient moment. I flipped the page only to discover that the rest of the pages were not in order, the middle had gotten separated. In that moment I made the decision to keep playing from memory; though I had performed the piece before, since it's a duo I had never thought of it as a piece to memorize. I reasoned that it was a good test for a disaster in concert. Somehow I was able to play the first movement without stopping. So I guess I had internalized the music from practice, the prior performance and having listened to the premier recording multiple times.
😳 great story, well done handling that moment!
@@tonebasePiano Thanks. Still doesn't quite measure up to a concert in front of an audience of thousands and: "Wait...KV 466?!?!?"
I am a dual degree student in engineering and piano performance in college (who a few months ago actually had the MASSIVE honour of playing for Maria Joao Pires at a masterclass!). All the points you describe are spot on, whenever you’re learning a new piece or a new programming language - engaging with the material, really making sure you’re concentrating, and make sure you achieve comfort in what you learned before moving onto a new chapter or piece.
Edit: What Artymiw said - that’s EXACTLY what I have been doing to combat stage fright! Now, I still feel “nervous” right before going on stage, but that isn’t really worry that I might fail and cause disappointment to my audience - it’s just shivers of excitement, joy, and gratefulness that I have the ability to share some of my favourite pieces of music with them!
Wow u r very gifted !!
I also was a dual degree student but what's the point of this? You will always be a bad pianist and a bad engineer because you don't have commitment to anything. While pianists are practicing 8 hours a day, you may practice, maximum, 4 hours and you obviously will not get the same results they do. It's sad, but it's true.
@@justadude641 I see where you’re coming from, and frankly, I see you’re trying to intentionally disparage me or make me regret my choice. (Let me tell you, I don’t.) Of course I’m aware that dual degree students will on average have less amount of time to devote to either. But both disciplines are ultimately quality over quantity. I practise ~2 hours on weekdays and ~5 on weekends, which is less than the average piano major. But I try to practise efficiently, and once I get past these time frames, I just don’t get productive anymore. Same goes for engineering stuff (problem sets, research, etc.) I need a change of scenery, and the other discipline provides just that.
As a matter of fact, this summer I got an author position for a research paper under a very renowned professor and won a prize in the biggest international music competition in my state. I am fortunate that I attend my college such that I can still pursue both at a sufficiently high level, and my equal passion for both disciplines made me continue in this program. Yes, it is sometimes stressful, but so is everyone else in college. I never thought of dropping one or the other.
@@justadude6414 hours is x6 more than Pires practices! Many musicians believe than even 4 is excessive
@@bennyksmusicalworld👏🏼
This is SO valuable and on target. Nothing more frustrating than working with a teacher who gives no thought to performance anxiety and REFUSES to at least acknowledge that mental glitches , like in golf, is always the largest part of the game/
Absolutely, the mental practice is just as important, if not more so, than the physical.
What a terrifying moment. Yet she prevailed! Brava
I was lucky to attend her concert in April where she played Beethoven’s 4th. The performance was impeccable. Great respect to her for still being actively on tour and offering the highest standard performances
Wow, it must have been magical to hear her play that live!
I always hated recitals because I was afraid I'd forget something in the middle of the piece. That was back when my muscle memory wasn't that good yet.
One time my piano teacher said "If you feel insecure, just leave out the repetitions." At the recital I played every repetition, I was so so proud of myself.
For Pires the main feat was overcoming the shock - once she got in the zone, it was all muscle memory.
In NYC, I studied with German Diez, who immigrated from Cuba to study with Claudio Arrau. They remained close for decades. German told me that when Arrau recorded the Liszt First with Ormandy/Philadelphia, he thought that he was supposed to play the Beethoven Third. On the spot, he proceeded to play the Liszt in one take.
one of my mentors Bill Barclay says a very similar thing.. "nerves is excitement without the breath'
That’s a beautiful way to think about it!
What i do during a crisis is light my hair on fire, take off all my clothes, run around outside naked, screaming “i can’t take this anymore”. But that’s just me.
Sounds like a very good coping strategy...😅
Yeah. Me too…calms me right down.
Beautifully put together - some essence touched upon here. Pires brings tears to my eyes. Just after some nauseating BBC World Service programme on 'manifesting', it's good to get to the miracle without glib answers.
This was by far the best Tonebase video...in subject and cinematic techniques as well
Thanks for sharing this video! I knew already what problem Mrs. Pires had to Face. And indeed this also happened to Alicia de Larrocha.
She was due to play Mozarts KV 595, but after arriving the conductor told her, she had to play the second Rachmaninoff concerto. Lucky for her she had both the second and third concerto on her repertoire. So she quickly repeated some difficult passages and had a discussion with the conductor, after which she played the full Rach.2 concerto till the end. She must have had a extraordinary memory.
As a portuguese guy I think the presenter guy is portuguese too just for the correct way he pronnounces Maria João Pires. A woman which my country is very proud of.
Thanks for your nice comment! I am indeed half Portuguese, and grew up listening to and loving Pires. It was a pleasure to get to honor her with this video!
Another beautiful video. The points you make are beautiful. The way you make them is beautiful. The experiences of learning and growth which you describe are in their own way beautiful. The materials and contributions you draw on here are beautiful. And I've decided that the brilliant curly-haired musician guiding us through it all is also rather beautiful.
It's impressive. But we shouldn't forget that the d minor is one of the most popular Mozart concertos and Pires for sure played it countless times over decades. After all she's most famous for playing Mozart. There are certainly less frequently played concertos she would have had more problems to pull off from memory without preparation.
After all she stopped in last minute so she would have had very little time to prepare the concerto she had expected, too.
Exactly, she played that concerto at least 100 times before. Thats enough to be able to pull it anytime, anywhere.
This happened to Lili Kraus, again with Mozart. At one point, she needed to consult the conductor’s score and very briefly explained what had happened. She simply said, “Don’t lose the magic!” She then sat down and completed the concerto. What poise!
The human brain is powerful! ❤
❤
I'm not that knowledgeable in classical music and haven't heard of Maria before. but my jaw literally dropped here. what a feat! Meus parabéns, Maria João!
She was “simply” gigantic! She was able because she is a true talent!
I didn't knew about this moment from Maria! The video was really inspiring, it was great!
It's not important what you are doing... the person who is in there mastery... will get to the point where life proofs the skills of resilienz... to show that the Master plays the Piece of Lifemastery in the Moment of "Here and Now" That was one beautiful Exaple, of the Art of Life ❤❤❤
My most difficult passages that I couldn't get right during the day... before I fell asleep, I would picture my hands doing it perfectly, and then when I woke up, I could play it bc I had been over the page so many times that I was able to memorize what was writen and the notes that needed to be there and where my hands had to be on the keyboard.
I love you, Maria :) You've got guts! :) :) :)
Her "Nocturnes" Album is the best rendition of Chopin's work I've ever heard.
Only 40 min a day, wow! Even if there are 2-3 sessions of 40 min, it's still absolutely impressive.
Yes, I loved this detail! It really reminds you of the importance of being fully present in your practicing!
Great video, great analysis and great pianist Maria... can you tell me where I can watch the whole performance of Maria in that particular concerto? Please?
I must admit that I also have not been able to find it. If anyone knows, chime in!
Thanks for sharing this story, greetings from Portugal
There's a story, probably apocryphal, that Karajan once came to the podium at the Berlin Phil, ready in his mind to conduct the stormy Beethoven 5. Instead, the program said Beethoven 6, a rustic, light, joyful composition, which every player had on their music stands. Seeing Karajan's tempestuous, almost furious, face as he came to the podium, the orchestra realised this was not the look of a man about to conduct the pastoral Beethoven 6, and the concertmaster took control and gave the orchestra the head-nods and lead-ins they needed to co-ordinate. Of course Karajan knew the Pastoral backwards, and he quickly shifted gears, but not before he had given a up- and downbeat to the 5th. Great story if true, though I can't find any verification. Just a story from conducting class at music school.
only the truly greats can handle this on the fly!
Great video, It was kindve trippy realizing 5 minutes in that you are my old piano teachers son lol
I am a SuperCoach) and teach superlearning. This involves (1) organising your learning space and tools, (2) encoding - this is done using various note-taking mechanisms and they are usually chosen to make use of the learner's unique gifts, (3) gaining meta-learning through re-orchestration of the material - what you get when you merge your learning with omeone else's - and then doing mulltiple passes through the content in different ways to allow the brain to engage with it and understand it from all angles, (4) production.
I am completely stage-phobic. And it doesn't depress me because I don't hold desire to perform for groups of strangers. And why do something musical that I am not going to enjoy, that I am frankly going to very genuinely and strongly dislike? It serves no purpose. It would be literally the opposite of therapeutic and cause harm, emotional injury. I believe the whole purpose of music, any art, is to create a mutual pleasure response. Anything I write I am very happy for others to take and perform. Others that are at-home on a stage, that are relaxed to be able to perform at their best, and not at their worst due to anxiety and distress 🙂
I have been with my wife in Tel Aviv auditorium, and Maria Joa Piraes play Beethoven piano concerto n 3 under the direction of Zubin Metha,
Will not forget for a life time this, and after we meet her at the artist exit, as extraordinary is as musician she is as a human being
Miracle happens
sheeeeeeeeeit
she is the legend
Il grande Richter ha detto e fatto la cosa giusta : perchè precludersi la musica suonando a memoria con questo vezzo di Liszt per dimostrare di essere chissa' cosa... i miei migliori concerti sono stati con lo spartito davanti. Concordo pienamente. La vera protagonista è la Musica ragazzi.
Wow!
Loved this.
Every musicians nightmare.
From Johnny delly
Thanks for watching!
I’ve been able to memorise all my clarinet repertoire since I was a young boy; I can’t tell you what my process is - I don’t even understand it myself.
I also learnt piano as a child but was never able to memorise anything.
A crazy thing did happen recently; I was stumbling through some Chopin when suddenly a jar smashed in the kitchen. In that brief moment of shock, I suddenly realised I was playing fluently on piano. I’m yet to find how to effectively ‘unlock’ that part of my brain (without smashing lots of jars!!)
Perhaps you have the muscle memory for the pieces but because that’s subconscious, you think you don’t know it thoroughly? As Pires says in the video, there are two types of memory involved in mastering a piece. Trust your muscles!
I met Chailly in Leipzig. Nice chap. He signed the cd i had of him doing Rach 3 with Argerich. I like Pires Schubert impromptus album called 'Voyage' or some other very appropriate name!
Pires' Schubert is really really really good!
Happened to me once during an orchestra concert in the first violin section, but the complete opposite. It was for Palladio, and I wasnt in chamber orchestra, but I was in the first violin section.
I knew of Palladio from beginning to end, as I was fascinated with the entire piece.
The thing was that my group was not informed that the chamber orchestra was going to play this piece.
I didn't arrive late but I didn't arrive early enough either and so when I got to my seat in the first violin section we did not have Palladio. But I remembered all of it.
So I was very confused and concerned because the chamber orchestra started playing Palladio and we were playing that night with them, but again I didn't know that my group was not playing with them. I just thought that we were missing the sheet music.
So as they start playing I start playing from memory and absolute panic. And we finally get to the park where the first chair violinist has their solo, and I remember looking up at the conductor and she was just staring daggers at me.
Apparently this piece was only meant to be played by the chamber orchestra, not my group a violinists who sat behind the chamber orchestra.
Mind you this was a high school concert but my high school was recognized amongst the top of orchestra players in the country. So my teacher and conductor obviously upset that I was playing a gambling with joining the chamber orchestra was not something she was okay with.
Fortunately I did get through the piece and I think that's why the conductor did not end up chewing me out after the concert saying something like that. I shouldn't have been playing or something.
But I didn't realize until halfway through that the violinists around me weren't playing because I was just so focused on remembering the notes in my head and listening to those around me. I literally felt like if I looked up I would forget my notes.
It's really crazy how that happens sometimes because, I would have never imagined that I could remember that entire piece, but out of panic it was like everything in my brain just turned on.
I don't regret it though. Even if I pissed off my conductor.
Estive no recital dela na sala São Paulo e é incrível como ela tira tantas cores de um instrumento preto e branco
I would love to know what, exactly, a concert pianist is thinking about when he/she is playing. Does the mind wander at all? What is the interplay between mentally seeing the musical score vs. the more motoric operation of muscle memory, or is it an unconscious meandering between the two? Does the mind wander utterly away from the moment? Like wondering "what if Rachmaninoff were sitting in the audience... what would he be thinking? What if my former lover or deceased relatives were in the audience or even listening in mystically from another dimension?"
What I gather from the episode is that, even in an emergency situation, it is prudent for soloist and conductor alike to have at least a short conversation on how the piece goes. Not to do that is disrespect towards the orchestra, in the first place. If one of them came up to the rehearsal with the wrong piece what would have happened?
Great Channel! I would really love to see the whole performance of that concert and I never found it .. did you? Thanks for a very interesting video.
I have seen this exceptional video so many times ! It still inspires me as a musician, as a sports performer and as a human ne being.
And what management of the situation by the great and reverred conductor, Ricardo Chailly ! He found the exact few words to address the situation while conducting !
What you have shared can be extended to various similar contests.
Thank you.
If you play a lot of pieces, you develop a memory from one part to the next of each piece. The difficult part is only to get it right the first time, if you have to re-remember it, which typically takes an hour, because you play it and just do here and there some minor or major mistake, that you quickly fix.
Her fear here was to do those, but the "pause" gave her enough time to pinpoint to those areas in the piece she struggles with. She therefore could perform it.
Are you memorizing what the fingers are doing, or are you memorizing the sound of the music? This is key. With a hard-fought, life long search, I realized that if you memorize the sound, rather than the physical, "fingering" aspect, it is easier to perform. Way easier. The pianist reached back to retrieve from her *memory* how the concerto sounded.
Seymour Bernstein says similar thing. "You are not playing from memory. You are performing with your ears"
watch?v=tPsdMvCPFpI
I don't necessarily agree that sound memorization is necessarily superior - I find that playing from sound memory can result in a certain fragility, particularly for difficult sections which may sound quite different if even some small details are off (e.g. voicing is often crucial in dense textures). The risk for me is then that any small error/disturbance may mess with the sound I'm expecting, throwing me off further and causing more errors, etc. For those sections, I find it very useful to be able to play "mechanically" for a moment to properly recover. So while I generally like to memorize by sound, I intentionally work on memorizing movement information and even some individual notes (e.g. targets of large jumps) for critical passages as well.
That being said, I agree there is a huge difference in my musical expression when playing from sound rather than physical memory, so I aim to use the former as much as possible, just while also having the option to consciously take control and focus on the physical motions if necessary.
I'm only an amateur player by the way, so take all of the above with a grain of salt - probably less relevant for professionals who practice until they never make mistakes :P
❤ Thank you
Indescritível! MARAVILHOSA ❤
They could have at least provided her the sheet music during a break?
Not really an 'important' performance - more of a lunchtime rehearsal with audience. You can tell from the conductors rather casual dress, 1:18, with a towel draped over his shoulders.
Still an impressive achievement!
it seems you still do not know the details about this story despite it being retold dozens of times.This was NOT a rehearsal but a *lunchtime concert* to an audience of ~2000 people. There were indeed rehearsals with the original pianist, but he was replaced by Pires the at last minute. Chailly asked Pires to play the night before this concert and there was no time for further rehearsals. This concert was part of a series of music events in Vienna and took place at lunchtime in a less formal setting, hence the casual dressing of the conductor and orchestra.
Fascinating
I still miss the other guy, but this guy is starting to grow on me. I'm pretty sure it's the hair...it just fits the overall idea...
I hope the other guy comes back for some videos, though
@@jadalmatamoros6368 he started his own channel, and it's doing pretty well. look up Ben Laude
I think at first he was trying to lean into comedy too hard and it wasn't quite working, but he's finding his style (and it makes jokes land better when they do happen)
Well, this happened in the open rehearsal, not the concert itself 😅 Maria João Pires is one of our country's biggest treasures 😊
Good thing it has such a long intro.
Great video!! 😊
Quite inspiring!
Perfect Play - i Like This piece ❤ See you
However inspiring and impressive, i am not suprised. As a rock guitarist, dictating from memory is standard. Granted most rock songs are not as ornate as mozart, however some are.
Excelente
11:13 Oh my God, Lydia Artymiw looks so much like my grandma! And my grandma's name was also Lydia!!!
We wonder if @NPOKlassiek can release (again) the concert recording?
What movies are represented in this video?
Specifically the one with the young woman in a white dress?
That's from the movie "Nocturne"!
The late, great Clifford Curzon always used to play with a score. Pires could have done the same!
The conductor did not change the concerts order. it was the order of concerts, by announcer, who made this mistake. The conductor started how it was planned. The announcer said otherwise, then correcter himself...only in Russian. Performer got confused. Very bad mistake from the announcer.(
So they had no rehersal or conversations about which concerto they were performing that evening? Nobody had scores in their hands?
@@Gabrimedde That is not correct. This concert was part of a series of music events taking place in Vienna, with 3-4 performances each day. The clip is not from a rehearsal but from a lunchtime concert scheduled for that day, with an audience of ~2000 people. The original pianist had to be replaced at last minute and Chailly invited Pires the night before this concert took place.
2 million bits of information enter our brains every second of the day, and we retain all of it, in our subconscious mind. Our concious mind - I shall call it the frontal cortex for simplicity's sake - can only focus on 2 to 12 bits of that information, which it does for about 4 seconds, after which those bits pass into the back of the brain to be filed away with other things from our past, that it relates to. The rest also passes through but it forgotten by the front of the brain and is filed where the back of the brain thinks it should be filed. So, when you learn something, it is all there, in your brain. You just have to get out of the way of remembering it. Stop judging yourself, fearing your ability and deciding you are some kind of fraud. Dropping your boundaries, is the key to flow. Pires knows she has a tendency to get the piece wrong, so she should know to check - without monotonous regularity - before each concert by getting it in writing. Then this would not happen.
Sometimes you just have to wing it.
I would have fainted😂🤣😂
9:37 is that from The Fly movie??
This think this was inspiration for the "whiplash" movie.....
I am not able to do it
so brutal... omg
I get nightmares where I’m coming onstage and suddenly notice that, by the way, I’m totally naked.
@mylesjordan9970 perhaps it’s for the best that there’s no video evidence of this nightmare coming true for any famous pianists!
@@tonebasePiano Videos haven’t been necessary for some years. Often a given performer’s audience appeal is based on distractions from what they’re actually doing-distractions that can easily belong more in Times Square than in Carnegie Hall. “Whatever gets butts in the seats” may be a contemporary mantra but, in the process of being good for business, I’ve observed that something else can suffer that’s much more important.
the other perfect example of this is Kieth's Jarrett's Koln concert.. the back story is amazing..
What’s the story re: Keith Jarrett Koln Concert?
More details, please...!^^
Wow - that would make a great video, thanks for the idea ☺️
@@ColinWrubleski-eq5shWhen Jarrett turned up the only piano at the venue had multiple defects: some keys didn't work, the pedals were defect etc. He had to improvise his concert taking these obstacles into account. It was recored and became his best selling record. Fun fact: as he plays the first tones, the audience laughs: those were the notes of the audience bell of the theatre they just heard, which he used to start his improvisation with.
Had a panic attack just watching this!
No one could have just given her the sheet music? If she's already played it before, she probably just needs the sheet music to go off of. As a singer, I would be able to do this, but u might not be able to do this without sheet music
There is nothing exceptional there, considering the context. Once you played a piece 50+ times on stage, you will be able to pull it anytime. Especially if it is not something which requires high virtuosity or a special training, as Mozart concertos.
❤❤❤
I saw this video about a year ago.
we don't know where memories or information is stored.. don't assume that it exists somewhere in the 'brain'
actually we do know
Smartest pianist players
As a classical musician this is terrible. I couldn't imagine
Must not be a super formal concert. The conductor had a towel around his neck, like creepy Levine.
Who doesn't want to major in performance psychology
You love the sound of your own voice. Wish I just had seen the episode. Well, remember this was a dress rehearsal. So she could allow herself to go with the flow.
Btw what happened with the other guy ? he disapeared out of the channel out of nowhere it seems.
he makes similar content on his own channel (Ben Laude), indeed it's pretty weird they didn't mention that they were changing host (or maybe they did and I missed it)
@@maxime1768 Yeah, don't like this host, was kinda hoping it was a one time thing, before it was more music related to me, now it seems more like pseudo-smart content.
@@matheusbarrelWe have the best of both worlds since Ben Laude has his own channel. Lots of great content there, too.
Again?
Oh man, when Maria João Pires put her hand on her face with that look of exasperation. 🤦🏻♀ I can only imagine what that would've felt like.
Interesting story that I had never heard of. Thanks for telling it! It would be awesome if you made more "this crazy story in classical piano actually happened" videos!
Absolutely, it’s terrifyingly relatable
I’m a pianist and I really don’t think it was such a big deal. She has been playing it for 50+ years and played it earlier that year.
It's exceptionally unprofessional for the orchestra to not be clear as a bell about the expectations given she was an emergency sub at the time.
Exceptional incompetence and unprofessionalism. Typical artistic directors.
A real human being resolves the crisis with grace.
A modern human being used the crisis to ask for likes and subscribers.