This evening I attended a wonderful event at Boston’s Symphony Hall, a joint lecture/performance demonstration by pianists Bruce Brubaker and Ran Blake that used Beethoven’s improvised piano concerts as a departure point to examine the line between improvisation and formal composition.
One thing we learned was that while improvisation during live performance was the norm in Europe during the early 19th century, the practice died away soon thereafter. Now, as you probably know, improvisation is really no longer part of the “classic music” culture.
So what changed? During the question period my friend Xiao, who attended with me, proposed a theory. Perhaps, she posited, the explosive growth of the middle class through the 19th century created a shift in culture. At the beginning of the century, the relatively small number of extant pianos were predominantly played by experts. And for experts, improvisation is part of what they do.
But the rapid rise in the middle class brought with it a corresponding growth in the number of pianos manufactured and sold. And that created a new and very large market for music to be played in drawing rooms by non-experts. Amateurs who could play piano only by following the sheet music became the new norm.
Brubaker and Blake wholeheartedly agreed with Xiao’s theory, which seemed to be new to them. I was quite pleased that my friend had presented such a brilliant insight.
My own insights for the evening were decidedly less impressive. Maybe the most profound thought I had was the following:
Q: “Why do most people not know who Beethoven’s teacher was?”
A: “Because he was always Haydn.”
Feel free to groan. 🙂