For harpsichordist, organist and
teacher Gideon (Gidi) Meir, the piano, his first instrument, has been beckoning
him back over recent years, resulting in several recitals, in which the artist
offers interesting information and explanations on the works he performs. When
the coronavirus moved in to change our lives, Meir established a weekly on-line
workshop focusing mostly on slow movements from Mozart piano sonatas.
Under the auspices of the Piano Club (Moadon Hapsanter, a FB site administered
by Din Zohar) Meir has dedicated the workshops to the memory of his piano
teacher Malka Mevorach. The Tuesday “Coffee with Mozart” series, in live
streaming from Gidi Meir’s Tel Aviv home, has taken the form of master classes,
hosting other pianists or, alternatively, of Meir himself playing the selected
movement, discussing and analysing it. A natural teacher and gifted lecturer, he provides the
viewer with background information as to where Mozart was at the time he wrote
the work, the social- and musical climate of the town, with whom the composer
was in contact, his students there (mostly young aristocratic women) and to
whom the specific work was dedicated. Then comes a discussion of how the piece
might be understood and played, of how the text inspires the pianist to interpret it and make
it his own. I was instructed in the importance of the accurate reading of a
musical work, but Meir reminds us that these pieces also invite the pianist to
be spontaneous and creative when it comes to tempo, dynamics, even to the use
of the sustaining pedal and, no less importantly, to engage in the art of
informed ornamentation. The workshop began
with the study of slow movements – Meir believes that they are an essential key
to understanding the style and elements of Mozart’s piano sonatas; he then
progressed to addressing complete sonatas. Pieces discussed so far have been the Adagio from KV280, Andante amoroso from
KV281, Andante from KV283, Adagio from 332, Adagio from 457, Sonata 309
(complete) and Sonata 545 (complete).
It was in mid-August of 2020 that Meir
posted his playing of a molto adagio movement from a Mozart piano sonata on the
Piano Club Facebook page, with the aim of holding a live workshop on it with a
group of pianists. Din Zohar came up with a different idea - that the workshop should take
place on line. That was how the project began. Meir refers to it as a “work in
progress”, an experimental approach for him to “encourage players to
communicate through music and focus on the various aspects and problems of
performing Mozart piano sonatas.” He is convinced that the more background
knowledge we gather on a work - cultural associations, biographical facts and
an understanding of the piece's very musical elements - the more we feed into our
imagination to make the music speak. Indeed, to understand the textures of
Mozart’s piano music, Gidi Meir proposes examining the composer’s (non-piano) instrumentation
and settings and to then find associations of a piano movement with orchestral-
or chamber music - to think about whether a certain bass line might be played
by a bassoon or a ‘cello, whether the work suggests a singer with obligato
flute and whether it might have been played in a private salon or a larger concert hall.
He draws our attention to Mozart’s opera librettos, to how they flesh out the
characters in a multi-layered- and psychological manner. “In playing Mozart
piano works, we must look at all these layers”, he adds. Indeed, Meir is
shocked at how few pianists choose to play Mozart works, professional
performers included! As to ornamentation, he claims so many players simply
imitate that of an artist on their favourite recording, rather than experimenting
and making their own decisions.
After a brief hiatus, “Coffee with Mozart”
will be back on line at 18:00 on Tuesdays and not only for the discussion of Mozart
works. Meir will present Mozart’s C-minor Fantasia alongside C.P.E.Bach’s
C-major Fantasia, focusing on Carl Philipp’s ornamentation; Johann Sebastian’s most
audacious son’s extreme ideas are sure to widen the pianist’s musical
palette! Also on the agenda is music of
Couperin with its reference to protest (relevant to today) and the study of one
of Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words” as modelled on a presto movement from a
Mozart sonata. And why not discuss a Haydn piano sonata? I found myself playing
through the chosen movement in preparation for each session and revisiting it
afterwards. Indeed, Gidi Meir sums up his goal as being “happy if these workshops
encourage people to take time to return to the piano and engage in discussion
with themselves.”
Photo: Gideon Meir
Beautiful article!
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