As part of my Book Reorganisation activity, I came across the book
- “Notes from the Pianist’s Bench”, by Boris Berman, Yale University Press (2000)
Berman is “Internationally known as a concert pianist and highly respected as a piano teacher,” says the blurb on the back of the book.
As I remember, I bought the book after attending a lecture of his at ANAM (the Australian National Academy of Music), here in Melbourne.
I now have gotten around to reading it in full. It is a marvellous book.
It is full of insights helpful to me as a pianist and, potentially, as a composer (if I ever get my act together).
For example, with regard to phrasing, he advises the pianist to ask themselves, “Does the phrase develop elaborate the preceding one or serve as an answer to the preceding question? Does the tension increase or the conflict resolve in the new phrase?” (page 63). These are questions that a composer could just as well ask themselves when in the process of writing the ‘next phrase’.
I can add that the level of Berman’s teaching is far more sophisticated than I have had from any one of the five instrumental teachers of classical music I have trained under in my time. And of the three piano teachers, only the wonderful Mrs I. Fox (in the mid 1980s) came any where near what Berman offers.
Internet Resources
As a complement to the Berman book, I have been discovering some marvellous resources on the subject, on the internet. This includes
- The Tonebase academy, which I have not yet signed up to, but which makes available various sampler clips on Youtube
- Podcasts — The Sticky Notes Podcast and The Chopin Podcast.