Prof.
Jerzy MARCHWIŃSKI
A Few Reflections on Partnership in Music
This presentation was originally named The Lecture on Partnership in Music.
However, I insisted to replace its name with the current one: A Few
Reflections on Partnership in Music.
Lectures are generally associated with the atmosphere of science and it
is commonly expected that the presented concepts will tend towards
generalisation with the focus on seeking regularities and uniform, patent solutions.
The atmosphere of reflections is quite
different as it flourishes when given a certain degree of freedom; it allows
for individual, personal concepts which, even if absolutely right, still ensure
some space for spontaneity and individual perception of a problem. I would
venture to suggest that reflections allow one to approach a mystery without the
obligation to fully explore it and give it a name.
For my personal convenience, I use a simple, or even simplistic image to
compare science with art. It is a crossword puzzle. If you want science, you
just need the vertical and horizontal words to fit together. And in art? The
horizontal is perfect, the vertical fits fine, but there’s no art whatsoever!
The reflections which I would like to share
with you now belong to the world of art, even if they do not dwell directly in
the world of sounds. However, they refer to the unique reality of a group of
people marked with the stigma of art and the mysterious capabilities which are
called talent or just an ability, irrespective of their depth. In fact, it
would be difficult to find the one and only solution which would be totally
fair and correct. This space allows for the mystery of intuition and special
sensitivity.
Naturally, that universe rests upon the foundation of professional
skills and special knowledge which can be learnt and acquired. You can learn a
profession. However, nobody succeeded yet in learning a talent! I am deeply
convinced that my reflections fall into
the category of profession and they might prove useful for those who seek their
own place in the artistic world which is a difficult place to dwell in.
Personally, I think that there are three ideas which bind people
together and form a significant aspect of their successful living together.
They are love, friendship and partnership.
The Internet repository clearly points to the privileged position of
love in literature. Geniuses of the pen have used a sea of ink for the purpose,
starting almost from the dawn of human history, and the trend continues. Just
think about the Song of Songs by Solomon, Greek mythology in bulk (or
almost), innumerable poems, epics, novels and parables.
Although the concept of friendship is
present in the Iliad, the Bible and the works of outstanding writers including
Cervantes, Goethe or Krasicki and Prus to mention some Polish novelists, but it
is just a fraction in comparison with love.
How about partnership? The literature is
silent. Only recently, some journalists began to mention it. It is quite
surprising, considering that human partnership seems to be a patent and
efficient guarantee of successful cooperation and coexistence with others and
it seems to offer the greatest chance to create a mutual version of reality.
Love is not so reliable, as “it is a
gypsy's child, and it has never, never known the law.” For
that matter, friendship may also fail to survive the confrontation with various
very challenging situations.
I sometimes think that partnership is still waiting
for its Shakespeare or a philosopher similar to Kotarbiński. My own Reflections
are just a tiny, unprecedented and pioneering prelude to something which has
not yet been called into existence. After starting to work on it, I was amazed
to realize that the concept of partnership in music is not so distant from
human partnership in general and actually, they seem exactly the same if one
sets the paraphernalia of music aside. Therefore, the topic of partnership in
music has become for me an excuse or a tool for exploring the fascinating, vast
phenomenon of partnership as a universal concept.
More than 60 years from now, an outstanding
artist Edmund Kossowski who was at the height of his potential at that time,
made a recording of the Winterreise with
me, a fresh graduate of the State Academy of Music PWSM. That recording, now an
archival one, became the leaven of my lifelong passion for partnership and so
called accompaniment. From the very beginning of our work together, I have been
aware that Franz Schubert’s song is a single piece written for two performers –
the singer and the pianist, and that both are shouldering the indivisible
responsibility for the optimal performance of that masterpiece.
Another personal discovery was the
awareness of the fact that all the performances of music are either solo pieces
or team work in partnership with others and there is no other option. I am
positive that partnership forms the best and most creative foundation for
ensemble performances.
Just a few
words about the accompaniment and the accompanist and their role as the art and
the service. The so-called accompaniment constitutes an integral part of a
musical work and similarly to all the other parts it has to be performed
impeccably, in the perfect context of the relationship between the leading and
supporting element. Let me examine Chopin’s Nocturnes as an example: the right
hand there weaves the leading chant of the Nocturne and the left one is the
accompaniment which supports it. However, if the left hand’s accompaniment is
done poorly, it will spoil even the most exquisite flow of the right hand.
Actually, there is no need to analyse the Nocturne as an example. Even the
simplest Alberti Bass can be performed shamefully or ideally, it can either
corrupt the performance or create it. A pianist who is performing so-called accompaniment
should never part with the awareness that he is an artist and a co-creator of
the performance who is drawing from the whole palette of his skill as a
professional pianist.
The artistic work should not be marred by any problems stemming from the
relationship between the performers, as such relationship should always be
established partnership-wise. Things get
tangled when the relationship between the so-called soloist and accompanist is
burdened with negative connotations. In schools of all levels including the
academies, the teachers, even the highly respectable ones, commit an alarming
mistake when they encode in their students’
perception a concept of a pianist/accompanist who is there just to provide
a service. It happens even while working on
Sonatas which are still commonly defined as instrumental works with
piano accompaniment. This scandalous deformation can leave a lifelong scar even
on renowned artists.
Regrettably, the ordinary relationship between a privileged performer
and an accompanist who is obligatorily subordinated is still an issue, even in
the trivial sense. Such disparate
relations between the performers translate into the artistic effect of the
performance. There is a noticeable difference in the quality of Mozart’s songs
performed by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf with an accompanist, Gerald Moore, even
though he is named the emperor of accompanists and by the same Schwarzkopf with
Walter Gieseking, the king of pianists of that era. It seems that the reason is
purely psychological: one can either be a partner, understood as one of two
equally important performers, or an accompanist, even if his contribution is of
perfect quality.
These were but a few initial, rather sketchy reflection. Now, time has
come for the most important part – a definition of the fascinating phenomenon
of partnership, quoted in extenso from
my previous texts.
My personal Decalogue, or rather Dodecalogue
of Partnership in Music is a list of fundamental values which offer a
chance for developing successful partnership and does not require any special
commentary or elaboration. Although its reflections are purely personal, their
contents seem universal enough.
The Encyclopaedia
Britannica of 1990 defines partnership in the following way: “Partnership, voluntary association of two
or more persons for the purpose of managing a business enterprise and sharing
its profits or losses”.
Britannica, possibly the
best encyclopaedia worldwide, has provided a definition which seems perfect.
Nothing more, nothing less. It encompasses everything, clearly and concisely.
However, just after
having read it I have recalled an excellent, wise and significant story told by
Abba Eban, about an inquisitive student who asked his master, a Rabbi, if the
whole Torah could be reduced just to one sentence. The answer was, “Yes, naturally: ‘What is hateful to you, do not
do to your neighbour’. This is the whole
Torah. The rest is a commentary”. (I suspect that the reply of the master was spiced with a
philosophical smile!).
Partnership seems to
constitute a bit similar case. The encyclopaedic definition provides an essence
reduced to one brief sentence, and obviously it can always be supplemented with
a commentary. Naturally, the commentary you are going to read now is personal,
as I would never venture to think, even for a moment, about providing a
universal one.
Let me begin from a
reflection that everything good between people, does not happen by itself. All
the culture and all creative relations between men require effort, involvement,
wisdom, persistence, even devotion and other similar, related values.
From among a number of
values I decided to choose twelve of the most important to discuss in my
personal commentary, without arranging them in any hierarchical order. Just a
kind of “The Dodecalogue” of
Partnership in Music. I hope they may
serve as a list of elements necessary to create a reasonably coherent whole.
The indispensable, basic
condition for a musician is to achieve the highest possible level of
professional skill. I do not mean here any universal benchmark, but rather the
current level which allows the partnership between pupils, between students,
and between already mature artists.
Here are 12 values:
The first value: Shared responsibility for the whole performance
To keep things orderly,
let me first quote a great definition of the music work by the wonderful,
invaluable professor Kazimierz Sikorski: „Although a music work is a unity,
it consists of many elements: melody, rhythm, harmony, dynamics, agogics,
articulation, counterpoint, form and emotional contents”.
A soloist performs a
musical work on his own, at his sole responsibility. His is the success and his
is the failure. He does not have to reckon with anybody or anything.
The responsibility for a
partner-like ensemble performance is of dual character: besides the part of the
work performed by an individual artist, it concerns also the value of the whole
work. Therefore performer should be constantly aware that his contribution, if
meagre, will degrade the whole performance depreciating the effort and
involvement of the other participants.
The second value: Reciprocity
It is impossible to
imagine a one-sided partnership, or similarly, a one-sided friendship. Both
relations absolutely require reciprocity. Perhaps only unrequited love is
imaginable in some sense. But any expectations of happiness and success on the
part of an infatuated person are his or her personal problem, and the
responsibility is also his or her.
The third value: Understanding the partner
I perceive understanding
both, in the literal and wider sense. The understanding in the literal, simpler
sense also seems quite significant, perhaps contrary to appearances, because every person, even if speaking the
same, native language, expresses his thoughts and chooses his vocabulary
following a characteristic pattern. Each of us has an individual sense of humour
and a style of approaching others. Various, quite common misunderstandings
which often are so irritating, mostly result from such seemingly trifling
details.
The wider meaning of this
aspect which reaches deeper into the domain of psychology, embracing the
knowledge of individual features of a partner including his temperament and
personality.
Gender differences can
also be significant. My musical partnership with a man or a woman often felt
slightly differently. It could be considered insignificant from the purely
professional viewpoint, but at the same time it is one of the nuances which may
affect the comfort of being together.
The fourth value: Openness to dialogue
I quite enjoy the adage that two monologues do
not make up a dialogue. True enough, that the dialogue simply is not there,
when each of the performers is focused only on his part without any contact
with the utterances of the partner. This may concern equally the musical
dialogue and a dialogue of everyday co-existence with another person.
The fifth value: Readiness to understand the otherness of the partner
Although it is generally
known that every man is unique and one of a kind, this fact is surprisingly
often forgotten in everyday relations. This is particularly true for a
long-lasting arrangement with one or more partners. The understandable
differences may turn often into a problem when initial attraction gives way to
almost unavoidable irritation.
Also, it is not so easy
to accept the fact that the readiness to understand the otherness of the
partner is reciprocal; my partner should be equally willing to understand my
idiosyncrasies identically as I understand and accept his.
The awareness of this
phenomenon is invaluable as it greatly facilitates all and any ventures into
this delicate and extremely sensitive territory.
The sixth value: Internal space
I mean primarily the
space for thoughts which allows for relatively conflict-free co-existence and
collaboration with a partner, free from doctrines, narrowed aesthetic
preferences, world-outlook bias, moral and even historic encumbrances, not to
mention traces of racial connotations.
Such space provides also
a considerable luxury[J1] [J2] [J3] [J4] of working with a partner,
ensuring almost absolute guarantee of the freedom of artistic expression
without any risk to the comfort of being together.
The seventh value: Ability of hearing the partner and oneself at the same time
This ability is one of
the fundamental differences between solo and ensemble performance. The fact
that the soloist hears only himself is by no means a discovery. In turn, an
ensemble performer must – really must – hear himself perfectly and at the same
time hear and understand the part performed by his partner. I am quite sure
that it is not only an ability but also a skill which can be taught and
practised.
I do not see any special
reason to explain how important and valuable such hearing is for the fascination
in the creation of performing art. Well, this obligation of hearing and
understanding oneself and the partner should actually refer both to performing
together and to ordinary, everyday being together with another person,
shouldn't it?
The eighth value: Good manners in togetherness
It might be worthwhile to remind that good
manners should be obligatory for being together with another person in any
circumstances, both in professional and in private life. Any joint or shared activity creates demand
for good mannered behaviour and reciprocal communication, particularly in the
atmosphere of tension and involvement in the work.
The ninth value: Tactful reduction of tension
It seems
obvious to me that certain tensions are unavoidable in any partnership, even
the most comprehensive and perfect. It would be naïve to think that partnership
is just cakes and ale forever.
The tensions may stem from the
richness of human nature, but they may also result from seemingly trifling
situations which sometimes carry a hidden potential for a more serious
conflict.
When such
tensions do emerge, the ability to solve them tactfully is simply priceless.
Perhaps it is also worth remembering
that certain discomfort experienced by me in the proximity of another person
can be mutual, and the partner may also feel uncomfortable with me. (Ah, this
reciprocity requirement in partnership never ends!)
The tenth value: The ability to accept compromise
Any attempts at
uniformity usually end up in a failure. The compromise seems an obvious
approach to the sensitive issue of divergent aesthetic preferences.
I find it highly
comfortable to acknowledge that the interpretation of a musical phrase does not
necessarily have to be identical for all the performers in the ensemble; all of
them are but professionals and, possibly, none will propose any musical
nonsense.
Certain divergences and
interpretation nuances stem from understandable individual differences, and
they can even make the performance more attractive and colourful. This is the
very space for compromise which allows for the otherness and the comfort of
speech.
The eleventh value: Respect and confidence in the partner
In addition to the obvious
respect for professional skill, this refers also to purely humanistic values,
to the approach to life, interactions with others as well as the ability to
cope with challenges and various co-existential problems – in brief, to all the
facets which combine into a full personality.
The twelfth value: Understand imperfections of my partner... and myself
The English adage Nobody is perfect is not just a handy
phrase. The understanding and acknowledgement of this obvious, albeit
inconspicuous truth protects against harmful irritation, let keep the distance
from my own imperfections and possibly prevents destructive frustration and
excessive quandary.
As it has already been
said, my commentary to the encyclopaedic definition is personal or even
authorial. The dimension of the concept of partnership and partnership in music
in particular is huge and it seems necessary to try to arrange its various
elements in some order. The ones which have been presented here hopefully
provide a compact and quite precise image of this absolutely fascinating
relationship gracing my professional and private life. Such type of partnership
will be discussed further on the pages of this essay.
I am aware of the fact that my
reflection on Partnership in Music may be considered
as idealistic and not necessarily find its imaging in reality. However, in my personal struggle I sometimes
console myself with the thought that even the Decalogue with its “Thou shalt not kill”, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” or “Thou shalt not steal” quite often fails to reflect
the actual relations between people.
Following my private Decalogue, I have been calling “Thou shalt be a partner”, for more than half of a century now, and
yet “Be an accompanist” is what I can
so often still hear around!
Blog: Jerzy-Marchwinski.Blogspot.com
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