A select group of European conservatoire piano students were invited to stay with Maria Joao Pires at her (former) farmhouse in Portugal. Lucky them :) Excerpts from an award-winning documentary.
People who complain about her teaching, understand this: they go to her because there is something about her art that resonates within them. They listen to her to discover more about what it is within their hearts that appreciates her music. If she ever becomes irrelevant in their musical journey then they will no longer look to her for answers. There is no reason to criticize her because the students came to learn from her. Teaching is an art as well. She is sharing herself and that means it's unique to her. Teach how you teach and let your students listen to you.
I happen to know many pianists who go to masterclasses with famous pianists only to put their names on the resume. Can't blame them, that is the nature of the business.
These are very advanced students and here they can get ideas and advice from a master how to play better. I think they are sounding a lot better when she works with them! But they are artists also, and can decide what to adopt and what to do in their own way. Very fascinating for me as an amateur nowhere near at this level.
in comparing her teaching method with that of the great masters, one thing is crystal clear. her house is FUCKING nice. did you see that pool? holy shit.
some tips are really nice and make you think more about what you are playing. Plp should never take the harsh comments personally. The best teachers are really tough...
Love this masterclass and teaching style as i would love any other idiossincratic master pianist lesson to have a peak into their process. Students here are already technically almost perfect. That is not what you want from a masterclass from a particular performer in any field. What you want on a Maria Joao Pires masterclass is Maria Joao Pires process of thinking and performing. Is it new agy? Does it shock you? Great! It means it's adding something you do not understand or possess, a different perspective most comentators here clearly lack (otherwise we would all be top world performers ahaha). If someone is all feel but lacks technical and intelectual structure then they would benefit from another type of teaching from another kind of teacher. The best teachers are those that shock you and confront you with your shortcomings. Obviously the right feel and interpretation in performance are much harder to get right and teach than mere technical proficiency.
she has these ideals that I feel from her teaching no-one will reach, and this style of mimicking the student and invading their space at the same time as pressing them to express themselves I don't think will work for many people. The genius teachers make their students feel empowered.
Music like art in general is emotion, not mechanics ... Maria João Pires is trying to educate him to feel and play the notes in a way they make emotional sense. Anyone with some music and piano skills can play Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin ... but not everyone can convey in the audience the feeling behind the structure of notes. Also most people commenting here seems to be to sensitive to Pires comments. Jesus it seems most people are too uptight and can't deal with direct criticism. Nowadays people are so sensitive and need to be political correct all the time. Pff grow a pair people.
I'm not sure. I think you have to hear more of her to know what kind of teacher she is. I would like to have been there. I find her to be a very humble musician.
Maria João Pires is a wonderful pianist. I had the pleasure of seeing her in a recording studio. I am not sure about her teaching here though. A little too 'New Age' for my taste. I am a fan of "nuts and bolds" teaching with tangible information. I am a professional pianist (jazz, not classic) and I need to bring down the inner workings of any piece to something I can reproduce and which sounds good. IMHO they are overthinking the whole interpretation anyway.
Yes, the students are overthinking. Not Pires. The students should arrive at the Class with "the nuts and bolts" already learned. I'm tired of defending her...hopefully you will read all the Comments here even though it will take some time.
Hahaha. I'm American and I completely agree with what you said. Many musicians in the United States focus so hard on what will please the audience that they mask their own feelings in the music.
As he was playing I asked him what do you feel ? Looks like one of the biggest difference with prodigy and the rest of us is their ability to understand the meaning of music. If you don't at best you have a "appreciation" of what's it's about, or you just press white/black keys like a mindless robot.
By never "make" rubato, she means never force it. She's trying to help him feel the music deeper than what his mind is telling him to do. Rather than insert rubato where it sounds appropriate, she's trying to help the pianist let the rubato happens where it's felt.
"Also not good" in response to 5 1/16s legato and 7 staccato after Bas's fiorst try with 12 1/16s staccato. She is quite correct: Beethoven writes no staccato 1/16th in the 1st variation. He only says "leggieremente" = lightly, and gives his fingering for the repeated notes. The final soft notes of the theme are also not written staccato; students really must use urtexts!
I like this lady. My teacher also said staccato and would not let me go if there is not good staccato. (Var 1) :-( I don't think she is trying to change the version but helping the student to find himself too within the music.
Excellent comment on your part!! I have been a professional musician for 55 years. ALL masters of their instruments say this repeatedly to their students and you can hear it in their playing. Heifetz, Horowitz, the Lhevines, Yo Yo Ma, Piatagorsky, Rubinstein, and the unnamed by me or lesser knowns!!
Todos estes senhores que estão aqui a fazer comentérios completamente sem nexo, sem qualquer fundamento, por favor, tenham vergonha na cara! Tal como diz a grande MJP, "temos de acreditar que os milagres acontecem" e que a "música é o sinal de que os milagres acontecem"... ao ouvir a grande MJP a tocar, a simplesmente tocar no piano acredito que os milagres acontecem e a MJP é um sinal de que os milagres acontecem na música. obrigado pela inspiração, até no olhar e no sorriso.
Was she the same Maria? I thought I saw in her concerts a nice, humble and loving artist in performance. This is yet another proof that being good at something doesn’t mean being good on teaching that something!
if she taught in portuguese, her examples would be conveying an accurate image of her ideals. It seems a bit difficult for her to express what she is feeling in her teaching. she is still a good teacher
As a piano player, I deeply admire Ms. Pires. There is only one shortcoming about this whole thing: the intelectualization of emotions. Also, it seems that there is only one way of interpreting those sounds; the way she wants it to be played. Not that the students have their own unique and solid interpretations already. To experience real freedom, listen to Keith Jarrett or Herbie Hancock. These guys obliterate the boudaries between styles and judgments.
"...not that students have their own unique and solid interpretations already." As the infamous "Dr. Phil" says about a different situation..."How's that working for you?!"
@@messrtwinky agree! That’s very important to that student. A pianist cannot only let the brain overrule and determine how the music goes. We should understand the music and express what the score says but how the brain ‘thinks’. Music is a language, we tells and explains a convincing story.
Things like fermata and rubato don´t have a mathematical way to explain, it is impossible. Americans believe that is possible, but to do a correct fermat or rubato, the musician must feel deep inside him the perfect moment. And it is very difficult to explain. Some students understand exactly these concepts, they feel it, but others, like this Guy, do not.
When music can´t stand for itself anymore - when you have to find your interpretation through an unreal mist of feelings and esoteric pictures ......... I would have left the room immediately.
I totally get what you're saying, but she asked that question, because she couldn't answer it herself :) I believe she wanted to know, what the boy thought it meant, not what she thought it meant. But I agree ; she's brilliant!
Her argument is her music... Music is an autonomous language (don't need and is impossible to replace it by other languages). So, at this level of pianism the things to "correct" are very few and have to be with the energy and the environment, in the all piece and in its details, that is transmitted to people who listen to it. This is not a kind of masterclass where the teacher corrects wrong notes, or wrong attacks or wrong interpretations. Here the level is much higher: they are pianists.
@MadMath44 Well, you see, what happens is that Maria's approach to interpretation is 'sensitive', while baremboim is rather 'analitycal'. if you are a thinker rather than a feeler then you must find baremboim's classes more of your taste. but i think we should learn both sides of the coin (or all sides, as the case might be)
as a teacher I dont like her, she is imagining the way to play here and that, and interrupting the pianist every time, puting more words from her fantasy world, never be free with a teacher like that, anton rubinstein never played the piano for a student because the student will imitate always what the pianist does at the keyboard, every one has to find out the how to play it but always feeling the sounds no imagining words, waste of time.
Maria João Pires é ADORAVEL como PESSOA. Porque é uma pessoa que AINDA TENTA "explicar", usando a língua idiotica dos positivistas que requerem explicações verbais (be it in whatever language), i.e.., ainda tenta uma tradução de algo do universo do multiconhecimento para um/num universiculo reduzido, como se os humanos fossem handicapés. Ou seja, ela é uma pessoa possuidora de GRAÇA. Quando eu quizer pedir um perdão ao deus dos músicos, peço-lho a ela.
Don't forget that perform music exquisitely differs quite a lot from producing a screw. It's impossible to do it with instructions, because it´s a search that is always alive and that include things anyone cannot explain by words of logical analysis.
The message they are trying to convey to the student I find it to be fruitful, albeit they have an inefficient way of expressing it. Perhaps it may be due to language barriers.
Well, though I absolutely adore Pires' playing, ALL masterclasses have this incredibly high level of subjectivity, the question 'what does it mean' conveys nothing, Masterclasses more often than not tend to end up being an opportunity for masters to torture students trying to force them their way of playing (which would be a bad thing IMO) I prefer masterclasses in which they focus on teaching everyone not just the one with the instrument and bring something tangible and useful to the table
I think that young man has great intuitions, mrs pires is just ruining your confidence in yourself, your staccato was great, dont forget her ideas are only her ideas and not the truth!
A lot of these last details in musical interpretation can be broken down into concrete parameters as opposed to wild gestures and dramatic phrasing which look like they are straight out of a New Age motivation class.
Surely her manners aren't strictly "normal", but that should be no problem at all. Her approach isn't the most patient or delicate and her teachings are quite abstract, but they seem useful to me. Of course she can only express her views on the music, but I think she was trying to show the guy how to make the notes and phrases gain meaning and shape, without paying too much attention at each note. She didn't mock him, but criticized what he was doing. In a "normal" world that is nothing absurd.
One goes to masterclasses, I believe, because one wants to be acquainted with different styles, methods and insights in playing. Pires is doing what she needs to - teaching her craft, which happens to constitute most spontaneous, poetic and refined sense of feeling. Apparently this separates her's from the student's playing - which is technically fine but indeed, lacking emotional depth and finesse in comparison. What's to lose for the student if he learns this way of seeing and feeling too?
She had some points but some just got under my skin. "All of the versions" of staccato at 0:12 are bad "because they don't represent even 1% of the music, nothing"??? That's her opinion, Rachmaninov, Horowitz, Radu Lupu, Glenn Gould, Emil Gilels...... disagreed. So theirs are all bad? This is not her interpretation, it's the student's, she should have helped making his interpretation better, not changing it to her version.
Anh Dao It was not about the stacato, she meant all written music, she was saying that written music doesn't even convey 1% of what music really is about, in that way all versions of sheet music are "bad". She wants her student to feel the music because clearly he was only playing stacato because it was written down, not because of any musical idea or feeling.
yeah, he definitely was playing that staccato because he (or someone else) chose it, not because he felt it with all his heart. It wasn't genuine. She is right, believe it. Too much time making music and teaching true music
Duh, if you only had Rach's sheet music, no one would have a clue how to play the music as Rach intended. I firmly believe one has no choice but to play the music according to the way it makes one feel. For me it is always always visual - a story, a setting, or of course some love. To not play according to one's emotional connection is, well, a complete waste of everyone's time. And if you end up playing Rach like Debussy, I say fantastic - that is something I want to hear.
@@drssdinblck Pires is caught in a contradiction. The score is "not even 1%" of the music (ridiculous), you must play what you feel--but it turns out that what the pupil feels is not correct because it is not what Pires feels! But on what is her feeling based? Her interpretation of the score. Her class is nonsense on stilts.
@@JohnSmith-oe5kx I cannot see into Pires' head, but I would translate her criticism more into something like this: It's not about the pupil not feeling the right thing, it is to make him more aware. She wants him to become aware of why he plays certain parts like he plays them. If he in the end comes up with his own genuine and self aware interpretation, different from hers, I think she would be very happy. As I am also actively playing the piano, I know it's very easy to get caught up in repeating the same 'wrong' thing again and again, without being aware of the overall musical picture. In that sense, it is very helpful to have a teacher that tells you you cannot go on and play it like this. Immediately you become aware of how you play and are open to change your interpretation to something more meaningful.
Yeah, man. We should just enjoy this class. Very nice, by the way. I'm just too tired of people bragging about everything. It's never good enough, because it's not made by them. So childish.
The musician is not a machine, which plays the time exactly as in the score. Maria João try to explain to the pupil the how to wait the correct tempo to play another frase.
Art of Performance is as challenging as Acting. What she is delivering, is very crucial: nothing discovers more, than from the questions "what" and "why", as we recall the "why" from ALL fields of subjects and their legendary figures such as Einstein. Her pushy behavior, is not "Forcing", but rather encouraging to young growing musicians like these students here. Otherwise, we would have to exclude "imagination" out of the picture. My mother used to say, "In order to understand someone, first eat a large bag of salt, then you'll understand". My point is, we will never be able to FULLY understand the inner world of anyone, especially Beethoven and Mozart and Chopin etc....therefore, our job, as Artists, more specifically musicians, is to keep imagining via source of given information about those composers and their compositions and put ourselves in their shoes as much as possible, which causes, let me say this, INSANITY which is worth it at the end, because that is when the understanding music via imagination becomes a success.
Yes! You said it wonderfully! I do not understand the many critical remarks in this thread! Have they ever attended anyone's Master Class. The "Master" is there to teach and reach the STUDENT. Not "support " them as one person commented. One's regular teacher and family "support" one, not a performing artist (Master). "New agy?" What in the name of God does that mean? Every "Master" I have watched sways and moves and sings nonsense syllables, all in the hopes of reaching through a student's armor and...indeed, shaking them up to let it into their playing! The head knowledge (analysis of piece, etc, ) is taken for granted...let's make music!! Thank you again for your insightful comment.
First, there were no americans in that master class. The student with the blond hair is from Netherlands, I can tell you by his dutch accent. Secondly, I disagree with you - America brought to the world people like Billie Holliday, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Chet Baker - all most sincere, emotionally moving, spiritual and induvidual musicians whose art expresses feelings that came out of distress. Money wasn't the issue...
There is a thing such as verbally over teaching. She is doing this. Music need to have emotion (interpretation), yes, but there also needs to be taught the way to accomplish this technically. Instead of SO much getting the student to feel this or that, what about demonstrating on the piano exactly what she is wanting him to do. This manner of teaching is what J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, and Franz Liszt did.
Yeah, this was a short snapshot, but I did keep wanting her to step in a demonstrate some of the emotional transformation she was asking him to perform. Any student eventually gets flustered if you tell them to try thinking about music they've ingrained one way in a bunch of new ways without giving them a chance to breathe and absorb.
She and her colleague are correct about phrasing being at the essence of music, but you can't teach it. That's why so many singers with great voices butcher a song, while someone like Billie Holiday, a very meager voice, kicks everybody's ass at finding the phrase.
Yes, it can be demonstrated and taught. In fact, the Masters of instruments assume or teach their students to sing, on or offkey, the music. I don't know about your remark about bad singers. Good singing teachers teach it to their best pupils. If you have basic talent or musical innate potential, it can be taught. Yes, Billie Holliday did it "naturally" but, beginning as a little, poor and wretched kid, she listened to recordings and performances of "them that's got it." In other words, she heard it before she sang it. Gee, I guess I disagree with you. :)
Very nice seeing my dad pop up on my recommended page (he has grown a lot since then, if you want to check him out: his name is Bas Verheijden on youtube:))
Well I was trying to be polite. What I meant by "New Age" and "overthinking" is basically what you are saying: non-tangible information and over-dramatizing in the wrong places.
She is unconvincing as a 'teacher'. She is simply not persuasive in her argument that it must only fit in a certain way. She fails to convey 'why' she is right, and instead her insecurities come out in a show for those around. It is obvious to me she is trying to convince herself that she is a teacher worthy of teaching. More of a parody than a class. Funny.
I'll be very honest, she is a great pianist, but if I were that student I would be thinking "why am I wasting my time here"? Not all great pianists are great teachers.
There you're wrong, she's not COMPLETELY disregarding the score. She takes the score seriously. Music for her is 99% about chords, melodylines, phrases, rhythm, tempo, etc. The other 1 % (playing it stacatto, legato, etc) is to be choosen by the pianist. Take Erik Satie for example, he wrote things like 'open your mind', or 'with great kindness' above his scores. His goal was to guide the pianist, give some ideas, not to force a pianist into taking a road that he didn't want to take..
My good... she's a great pianist, but how horrible masterclass. Nothing compared to Barenboims classes. She just doesnt explain anything really. To much "feeling" but not everybody is a musical genius as she is.
I think this is quite different from your story... This is a Masterclass, they are supposed to already know how to play the piece, she is just giving her opionion on their interpretation.
She keeps telling the student that she doesn't get any "feeling". Where have I heard that...? Everywhere, all the time. One single common place (the most common of all) constitutes her master class. But not a word (one single word) about music.
I think she should let the students make their own music not to force her view upon them. everyone feels music different and that's the beauty of it...
First of all the student plays well! It's for this reason that she tries to say something and the result is so..silly!! I am sorry to write this,I like Maria Pires as performer!
Of course, she acts like quite a weirdo, but what she has a point... often we overlook the fact that the only true music comes from a deeper aspect of the soul. There is no way, of course, to SAY this in words, which is why she sounds so crazy-- you can only UNDERSTAND it. WOW THIS IS ACTAULLY COMPLICATED STUFF
As a fan, I find her teaching very interesting and inspiring. But I have to admit that also has great difficulties understanding her idea in this vars. Especially in the var1:stacco, legato, leggiermente...what she wants? Maybe score versions really make troubles in interpretation:in my version d'Albert: var18 should be played with no semtimentality...but she said: Mechanical MJP has excellent imaginations, which is an advantage.but she's not as strict as Gilels, Schnabel in reading scores.
she is a great artist. HOWEVER, she sucks at teaching. You need to conceptualize things, use images, anything, but you can't say just feel, you need to influence it.
Mmm, when did playing the composition like beethoven wrote it become the goal of playing the piano? Some people are more open-minded than others. Don't judge people on there opinion, and please don't say she is nothing, that is a very cruel thing to say. Ciao
Wow, what a long reply. First of all, I am Italian and my mother tongue is not English. I just think it nice, in respect to other people who read, to try and write with a good spelling (I made one mistake too, but not twenty in each message like you). Secondly, the fact that we are basically anonimous on you tube does not mean politeness is not valid. As I said already in some other video: you seem used to employ insults as a basic way to lead your argument. Readers will make their judgements >>
