# Playing Chamber without the Score? Brahms Piano Trio No. 1 [VIDEO]



## MasterRaro (11 mo ago)

Hello everyone,

So... I used to perform all chamber music without the score on the music stand. This performance of the Brahms first piano trio marks the occasion that all stopped. The truth is, I still memorize all the chamber music I play, along with all of the parts of the rest of the ensemble.

A Mannes professor came up to me after this performance and lectured me about how arrogant and wrong it is to not have the score up there along with the rest of the ensemble. Funny enough, I remember an Oberlin professor (and Cleveland orchestra member) coming up to me after playing the Mendelssohn 2nd piano trio and praising me for not using music. I guess people are divided on this topic.

Bernstein, Karajan, and others famously conducted without the score. I just fail to see how this is all that different from performing a concerto without the score up there with you. Clearly it offended this particular piano professor, after all, I was doing something unorthodox - But I certainly do not consider this practice as egotistical. For me, it's about respecting this great music in exactly the same way one does their own solo music. Of COURSE I should know every line in the music, not just the piano part - that's my stance. I can't imagine it any other way.

Since this day, I bring the score up on stage with me and pretend to look at it while performing chamber. If anything, all the pretend page turning and looking I do causes far more distraction and problems in and of itself.

I welcome the discussion on this topic! On the music and the performance too, of course


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## golfer72 (Jan 27, 2018)

MasterRaro said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> So... I used to perform all chamber music without the score on the music stand. This performance of the Brahms first piano trio marks the occasion that all stopped. The truth is, I still memorize all the chamber music I play, along with all of the parts of the rest of the ensemble.
> 
> ...


Hey good for you! If you dont need it why have it ? One of my favorite Trios !


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

No harm in bringing a music stand onto the stage, then just positioning it so it's discreetly low (like the cellist's) and ignoring it. Visual consistency.

I was watching a performance last week on YT of the Norwegian CO playing the Shostakovich Chamber Symphony - and every single player has the thing memorised. Check it out - it's quite something.

- Sorry, I just realised you're the pianist in the video. Less of an issue whether there's music on the stand or not, then.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

In just about every performance of a string quartet that I've seen, the musicians are reading from a music stand. PS: after some memory lapses (understandable given his vast repertoire) Sviatoslav Richter started playing from the printed page. However I don't see anything wrong or arrogant in playing from memory. Professors browbeat about things like that sometimes. I say perform in the way that you prefer so as to give the best performance.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

dissident said:


> In just about every performance of a string quartet that I've seen, the musicians are reading from a music stand.


There have been a few string quartets who performed from memory. The Smetana quartet did it for many years but they later abolished the practice, partly because it kept their repertoire rather small.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Perhaps your professor may have objected more to how an audience might perceive this. The optics of one musician playing from memory and the others not in a small ensemble could be misinterpreted to read as one player is better, or more prepared than the others. Presentation and image is important and perhaps out of respect or as a courtesy for fellow players, having the music on the stand would be a good thing to avoid any unwarranted assumptions or draw any attention away from the collective aspect.

Did your fellow performers comment at all on this, or did you ask if they minded that you play from memory?
I've never seen a small ensemble play where some players have music and others do not. Nice playing btw....


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## MasterRaro (11 mo ago)

Some fair points here, but I think the general argument against doing this isn't very good. If there is a disaster with one of the other players, for example, how does me having the score up there truly help? What am I going to do, blurt out a measure number after a disaster that results in awkward silence? At a certain level, this just isn't the kind of disaster that is a real possibility. If one player has a fumble, the other players are almost certainly better off continuing and allowing the offender to join back in on the downbeat of the next measure etc. 

Here's a funny story: Many years ago, I played the Brahms E minor cello sonata with a rather poor cellist. Despite her having the music up on stage with her, she decided to teleport from the exposition all the way to the recap somewhere in the transition section between the two themes. She apparently was relying on her (poor) memory, even with the score being up there. I didn't have the music on stage with me, but I treat chamber music like solo music - I knew her part as well as I knew mine. So, I caught her in the recap pretty much without missing a measure, and I'm sure most of the audience had no clue. How exactly would the score have helped me in this case? A reliance on the score would have been even more problematic. I would have started frantically flipping through pages one after the other, desperately trying to figure out where she is. Or maybe I should have stopped her and asked, on stage in front of an audience, "what measure number!?"

Another funny story: The only time I've had a true "where the f am I?" fumble on stage playing chamber was while pretending to turn pages for myself during a very hard piece, the Corigliano violin sonata. I had been pretending to flip every so often, and I became so distracted by thinking about this act from a 3rd person perspective that I freaked myself out right before one of the most complex sections. I realized I had flipped to a totally random page right before this section was approaching, and I started thinking about the music I was looking at instead of what I was currently playing. So I dropped out for about half measure or something, then joined back in (the violinist kept playing of course) - again, I absolutely doubt anyone noticed. But it felt like a disaster to me, and it was CAUSED by the score being up there.

I've always had my score out during every rehearsal, and yes, the pianist plays a special role being the only one with the entire score in front of them. But once the performance happens, having a solid memory of every note of the music is better than relying on good sight reading, which SO many pianist do for a lot of their chamber playing. 

Maybe I should simply do what I've now tried out a few times: Bring the score up, open it up to the first page, and then never touch it again. Or, just have a page turner up there doing an awesome pretend job


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