[Dixielandjazz] IMPROVISATION

[Steve Barbone]

CAVEAT Not strictly OKOM, but similar content: Improvisation was once an
integral part of classical music. Now it is almost a lost art. Below is the
story of a classical pianist who improvises with the best of them.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


One Pianist Is Improvising the Revival of a Lost Art

NY TIMES - By VIVIEN SCHWEITZER - September 25, 2006

³Give me a tune,² said the Venezuelan-American pianist Gabriela Montero,
glass of wine in hand as she perched on her piano stool and beamed at the
enthusiastic audience at Joe¹s Pub on Thursday.

>From the many shouted suggestions, she chose ³I Will Survive,² picking out
the first bars of Gloria Gaynor¹s disco hit and feminist anthem on the
piano. Then she took it for a fantastic ride, threading the melody through
an improvisation that dazzlingly (if improbably) morphed from Baroque
counterpoint through jazzy syncopation to Mozartean Classicism.

This extraordinary ability as an improviser, rare in the classical world, is
fast becoming a trademark of Ms. Montero, who first came to wide attention
here in March, when she played Rachmaninoff¹s Rhapsody on a Theme of
Paganini with Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic.

Improvisation used to be an integral part of performing. Mozart, Beethoven
and Liszt were all virtuoso improvisers whose concerts often included ad-lib
fantasies and spontaneous variations on themes called out by adoring
audiences. 

But in the 20th century, apart from the chance music of composers like John
Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gyorgy Ligeti and Pierre Boulez, which includes
improvisatory elements, it was largely a lost, or at least ignored art in
classical music, practiced by organists but few others. There have been
notable exceptions, like the pianist and scholar Robert Levin, who champions
stylistically faithful improvisation in cadenzas.

There is certainly nothing stylistically faithful about Ms Montero¹s new EMI
Classics recording, ³Bach and Beyond,² in which her improvisations on
popular works of Bach, like the gentle ³Jesu, Joy of Man¹s Desiring² and the
fiery Presto from the ³Italian Concerto² meander from Chopinesque to Latin.
Skeptics may wonder whether the improvisations are entirely spontaneous, as
stated in the notes. It is impossible to know, but given Ms. Montero¹s
unflinching ability to improvise brilliantly in public on a gamut of
unlikely tunes, there is no reason to suspect otherwise.

Ms. Montero is by no means the first to use the music of Bach (himself a
master improviser) as inspiration for improvisation. The jazz pianists Keith
Jarrett and Jacques Loussier began doing so decades ago. Another jazz
pianist, Uri Caine, has written wildly diverse variations on Bach¹s
³Goldberg² Variations, ranging from mambo to klezmer and drum-and-bass.
Beethoven and Chopin have also provided fodder for jazz improvisations.

But Ms. Montero, 36 and now living in Brooklyn, comes from a strictly
classical background and makes her living as a classical pianist. She has
not studied jazz or composition, nor has she played with jazz musicians. She
says that improvisation is a natural gift that took root in early childhood,
a claim borne out by her utter ease and confidence at the keyboard.

But her remarkable gift, which has been encouraged by Martha Argerich,
wasn¹t always popular with her teachers. ³For many years I kept this aspect
of my playing secret, ³ Ms. Montero has written, ³then Martha Argerich
overheard me improvising one day and was ecstatic.²

While improvisation is integral to jazz and to classical music in countries
like India and Iran, where performers are taught the art, much of Western
classical education stipulates that practicing should consist largely of
repeating phrases endlessly, until dreaded wrong notes are vanquished.
Students are groomed to conform and compete, not to do something as
inherently risky as improvising in public.

The passion, poetic musicality and sense of structure Ms. Montero brings to
classical works translate to her classy improvisations. And no matter how
complex the variations, the original melody always emerges triumphantly from
a musical tapestry that might weave blues, jazz, tango and Debussy into a
multihued framework.

Ms. Montero says she can improvise on anything, although at a session this
year at Sony studios in Manhattan, she admitted to being momentarily stumped
by a request to improvise on an atonal work. But she wasn¹t remotely stumped
by a request for an atonal spin on Bach. Anton Webern, who preserved Baroque
style in his modernist orchestration of the Ricercata from Bach¹s ³Musical
Offering,² would surely have been impressed by her spiky modernist flights
of fancy on the Aria from the ³Goldberg² Variations.

During that session Ms. Montero also offered a clever improvisation on
Tchaikovsky¹s Piano Concerto No. 1, weaving its famous opening theme over a
sultry syncopated bass line that echoed the habanera from Bizet¹s ³Carmen.²

Ms. Montero began her show at Joe¹s Pub, where patrons dine and drink during
gigs, in a more traditional way, with unembellished classical pieces. But in
keeping with the spirit of the evening, as she played Chopin¹s dreamy D flat
Nocturne, she was spontaneously accompanied by a rumble from the nearby
subway and by the gentle clinking of wine glasses and silverware.