April, 2023

April: Balancing discipline and freedom

John Ireland’s “April” captivated me. Composed in 1925, it is unapologetically and exquisitely beautiful. As an extra gift, we can hear the composer performing the work thanks to a 78-rpm record and a YouTube user. In addition, the score is available on IMSLP, and new interpretations have appeared.

Compare Ireland’s own performance with those of more recent performers. To my ears, the differences are temporal flexibility of expression, linear phrase vs. note-to-note articulation, and a free range of dynamics on the instrument. (Note too that Ireland tends to hover on the second note of triplets, creating a rhythm that is almost eighth – dotted eighth – sixteenth.)

Approaching the right hand’s flourishes

Pianists need a sensibility about how to play the instrument for various works of music. We’d like a listener to be lulled by a Berceuse, rather than hearing NOTE note note, note note note. It’s the difference between the physical sense of a swaying two or a vertical six. (For that matter, when a Barcarolle evokes a storm at sea… well, you get the idea.)

Other pieces call for playing the piano like the percussion instrument that it is. The vertical action of hammers and dampers, fingers and wrists, allows each sound to be individually voiced, distinctly articulated, and rhythmically precise. On the other hand, its resonant strings can blend sounds horizontally, through dynamic and harmonic effects, melodies carried across keys with sustained tone, and skillful use of the pedals.

A first glance at the “April” score might tempt a ‘rhythmician’ to deconstruct the passages of 16^th notes as polyrhythms, if only for the fun of it. But as Ireland plays it, these aren’t really polyrhythms at all. They need far more freedom to summon the sense of spring birdsongs and wafting breezes his playing evokes. Ireland’s approach avoids note-to-note verticality, nor does he seem intent on a dramatic display of sweaty virtuosity.

Freedom and discipline

Martha Graham said, “Your training only gives you freedom.”1 That is, artistry is the point of technical skill, rather than skill being an end in itself; conversely however, technical ability is important for freedom of expression.

The symbiotic balance between discipline and freedom could be considered a principle for many things in life. In this case, it’s a matter of the pianist creating disciplined practice that will allow the freedom this piece demands. In this case, practice must take care that the discipline doesn’t overwhelm and work against musicianship.

“This is not theory class,” my grad-school piano professor, Phiroze Mehta, often reminded me when I played too precisely to the page, especially in Romantic literature. Once I sang a piece’s melody and moved its phrasing, I understood how to play it on an instinctive level. The biggest hurdle was gaining the confidence to trust my instincts.

What did the composer mean for the audience to hear?

When I first encountered Chopin’s tiny wisps of notes, fluttering in random arcs above the left hand, I was perplexed.2 The resident concert pianists explained that they should be approached as “flourishes” – musical moments of expression, flights of fancy, the occasional fluttering outburst – rather than a recitation of separate tones.

It’s easy enough to find ways to split things into neat segments where nothing gets more complicated than 2 against 3, or 3 against 4. That keeps things accurate as well, if not completely free.

However, by the time you juxtapose 6 and 7, you’re dividing beats into units of 42. Merging 6 and 5 is slightly less arduous, creating only 30 divisions per beat. If you choose to go down that road, you’ll be better off to focus only on the odd-numbered segments – you’ll then have composite rhythms of compound divisions, but you’re sure to find yourself playing note-to-note, and you’re likely to end up with a colossal headache.

Approaching “April” as phrases

Another approach is to practice hands separately, being sure each makes musical sense on its own. Use a metronome to mark broad units of time. This inculcates a physical sense of sweep for each grouping. As they become familiar through practice, each phrase may take on its own shape in motion and contour.

The right hand’s free flight needs coordination with grounding below – however free that ground might be – to establish polarity and send it soaring. Using a broader sense of meter and phrase provides essential gravity without strict rhythmic analysis. From there, you might aim for a point or two of intersection along the way as ‘training wheels.’

The training wheels should disappear on their own, leaving you free to breathe the music anew each time you play it. As the two hands’ figurations rise and fall, they may seem like circles, but asymmetrical ones. That is, one might be an oval that peaks more gradually and then has a shorter fall at the end; at the same time, the other hand might take more ritardando at the end of the phrase than the other voice.

The disciplines of accuracy and trust

Playing works like “April” requires trust in a physical movement of time and space at the keys, in my experience. The broader sweeps of time matter more than the infinitesimal particles that fluctuate on one current of waves.

One of the parental pianists overheard me playing Chopin’s Nouvelle Etude No. 1, which is 4 against 3 throughout. He related an incredibly coincidental tale of learning it himself, and his own teacher telling him that it wasn’t enough to play it perfectly – it had to begin with secure accuracy, but then grow free enough to breathe musically. (He sometimes taught me in parables, I think.)

This is the point where we let go of constant vigilance over our correctness. It can be a difficult conundrum to “take control of letting go,” or to “monitor your tendency to monitor.”

An episode on NPR’s This American Life told the story of a baseball pitcher at the top of his career – one no-hitter after another – until a day came when suddenly, it was gone. He started throwing wild pitches, far off the plate. The more he focused on the fine details of his form and technique, the worse his performance became. There is a point where our training has sunk in – and digging into it with screwdrivers does nothing constructive. I digress.

Opinions

In my review, the closest performance to Ireland’s is from John Lenehan, recorded on Naxos. While it’s relatively easy to indulge in swooning with dramatic nuance or taking pains to exhibit virtuosic technique, Lenehan keeps the focus on the music, not on the pianist. Avoiding slow sentimentality and abject showmanship, attending instead to subtle nuances of tempo, articulation, and dynamics, he allows Ireland’s own, understated musical voice to come through.

“April” reflects so much about the order and disorder of Nature. What amazing intricacy, complexity, precision, and balance there are in the shivering petals of a wild pansy, the stretching fingers of a baby, the bird songs of April. What a difference too between the genuine yet simple, and the spectacular yet artificial. Perhaps we ourselves need to grow before we can discern that difference, the way we know childhood in old age, after so many April days.