# Helene Grimaud's Credo



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The CD *Credo,* put together by Helene Grimaud, juxtaposes some very interesting pieces of music, and provokes some interesting philosophical speculation.

*Beethoven's* _Chorale Fantasy _is the centerpiece. Its credo, "I believe in Jesus Christ/Ye have heard that it hath been said/an eye for an eye/and a tooth for a tooth/ but I say unto you/that ye resist not evil" brings up the notions of "turning the other cheek" and "love thine enemy." Kuffner's words are set earlier, about the struggle of Man and the transformation of the spirit: "What were harsh and hostile pressures are transmuted to elation." From the darkness comes light, from the struggle comes peace.

*Arvo Part's* _Credo_ is a counterbalance; here we have Part's expected vocal work, and based on the C major Prelude by Bach; it has unexpected moments of aleatoric and serial chaos. A struggle is depicted, without doubt.

*Beethoven's* _Sonata No. 17, "The Tempest"_ is also included. The connection with Shakespeare's play of the same name was pointed out by Beethoven himself. The tempest is the weather of passion.

*Corigliano's* _Fantasia on an Ostinato_ quotes the _Allegretto_ movement of *Beethoven's Seventh.*

In this way, Grimaud has set up a cross-referencing of music which deals with the struggle of the human spirit. According to Grimaud, the work's overall message is, quote, "...Blind obedience to any ideology, nation, or religion is evil and ultimately destructive."

Tie this all in with the German Romantic era idea of oneness, the connectedness of things through their sacredness, and Grimaud goes on to say "...Negative instincts transcended by acceptance, by reconciliation." Grimaud goes on to discuss her fascination and love of wolves. "Wolves epitomize the challenges of our relationship to nature..." I'm not sure if she is referring here to nature as a conservationist, or to our own "nature" as humans; perhaps both.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

She is one gorgeous human being.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I've always been taught if you dislike a lady's piano playing, compliment her on her looks and I concur, she is one of the most ravishing looking instrumentalists. Actually her playing is fine!!


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I have this one on my itunes download wishlist!


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Anything that makes for a little debate or stirs the pot is always good for publicity and helps you sell your goods in the marketplace
We do not live in easy times for the classical music recording industry.
Just another take on the issue that's all


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

I do enjoy this _Credo_ quite a bit - not so much because of the admittedly curious choice of repertoire, but for Hélène's strong-as-steel playing. I really love her art; it's often cold as ice, and for some reason I find myself terribly attracted to it.

This was the CD that introduced me to Beethoven's Chorale Fantasy btw. - a work that I heard live a while back and truly love!

Also worth listening are her CD's _Reflections_ and _Resonances_. I really hope that she records the pieces of her current _Water_ recital tour - it includes the Brahms' second piano sonata + a lot of smaller pieces by composers such as Berio, Takemitsu, Ravel, Liszt and others.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

This is one fine CD - interesting program, beautifully played. Grimaud is just about the classiest young (is she still young? I lose track) female musician in the field. She has a natural beauty - inner and outer - that refuses and rebukes the "enhancement" of pop-style marketing.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> This is one fine CD - interesting program, beautifully played. Grimaud is just about the classiest young (is she still young? I lose track) female musician in the field. She has a natural beauty - inner and outer - that refuses and rebukes the "enhancement" of pop-style marketing.


Grimaud is still in her mid 40's so she is still young to me.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> The CD *Credo,* put together by Helene Grimaud, juxtaposes some very interesting pieces of music, and provokes some interesting philosophical speculation.
> 
> *Beethoven's* _Chorale Fantasy _is the centerpiece. Its credo, "I believe in Jesus Christ/Ye have heard that it hath been said/an eye for an eye/and a tooth for a tooth/ but I say unto you/that ye resist not evil" brings up the notions of "turning the other cheek" and "love thine enemy." Kuffner's words are set earlier, about the struggle of Man and the transformation of the spirit: "What were harsh and hostile pressures are transmuted to elation." From the darkness comes light, from the struggle comes peace.
> 
> ...


Does she spell out why she included the Corigliano? I know it quotes Beethoven an the end, but so what?

THE piece which really does seem to explore "challenges of our relationship to nature" is Finnissy's Third String Quartet. Except for the "sacredness" bit, maybe.


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2014)

Well, I find her philosophizing distracting and impertinent.

Her playing is irreproachable. She is a really splendid person. And she's quite easily one of the most beautiful women ever.

I find her playing quite warm, too. And strong as steel.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

some guy said:


> Well, I find her philosophizing distracting and impertinent.
> 
> Her playing is irreproachable. She is a really splendid person. And she's quite easily one of the most beautiful women ever.
> 
> I find her playing quite warm, too. And strong as steel.


Well, I think it's good she's philosophising.

I think that the best music is a vehicle for expressing ideas about ethics and metaphysics. When I started to get to know professional performers, singers and pianists mainly, I remember feeling really let down by how oblivious or uninterested they were in the ideas behind the music they were playing - they were proccupied by technique, entertaining the crowd and the glamour of the travel, hotels, TV, working with big names etc. So I like it when a pianist starts to think more seriously about he music she plays.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I dunno...maybe the reason someguy is negative about the philosophy part of this is because the implications of this might be disturbing to some. I thought that someone would have specifically gone in to more detail by now. I'm just putting it out there. Maybe I'm reading her correctly, maybe not. Anybody care to expound?


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I dunno...maybe the reason someguy is negative about the philosophy part of this is because the implications of this might be disturbing to some.


Definitely not that.

And definitely not to philosophizing being serious thinking about music.

What she's putting out there are all extra-musical ideas, ideas about things that have nothing to do with music, per se. Music being pressed, as it so often is, into the service of non-musical things.

I don't find that to be serious. I find that to be frivolous. Or at least, how I put it before, impertinent. What's pertinent are the musical values, the things that musicians have to think about in order to perform well. Not "what does this music mean beyond the notes" but "what do the notes mean--as notes?"

Just another one of those things that I find to be blindingly obvious but which turn out to be hard sells.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> Definitely not that.
> 
> And definitely not to philosophizing being serious thinking about music.
> 
> ...


God, you're so rational and literal. Whatever happened to poetry and art? This is the Romantic era we are dealing with, after all, and anything that takes music further from the being mere Christian propaganda towards a more all-inclusive view of Man is hunky-dory with me. You mean we can consider Bach completely separate from the fact that it was done in a church context? Ok, whatever.


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## Kibbles Croquettes (Dec 2, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> God, you're so rational and literal. Whatever happened to poetry and art? This is the Romantic era we are dealing with, after all, and anything that takes music further from the being mere Christian propaganda towards a more all-inclusive view of Man is hunky-dory with me. You mean we can consider Bach completely separate from the fact that it was done in a church context? Ok, whatever.


What I think the point is, is that say we have a melody consisting of the notes F - G - A - G - A - B - C, it is more important for the performer to "get" the musical point: the IV - V - I progression that is going "towards" the implied major tonic, C, in the end, and not that I wanted to express the beautifulness of Pearson's chi squared test with the melody.

Obviously this is very simplified example, just to give an simplified and abstract idea how I see this. Like a laboratory experiment which is very far from everyday life and thus isn't ecologically very valid.

In practice things are obviously far more complicated - and I certainly do think that contextual and philosophical aspects are an important part of listening to nad enjoying classical music, at least to me-, and there, I think, might be a sort of a two-way connection between the "musical" and "philosophical/contextual" aspects. For example, we might accept things that are against our musical intuition if we get the contextual point behind them: "Oh, _that's_ why he ended the song on the fifth scale degree!". Maybe it could even go so far that that would then become our new musical intuition! I don't know! Maybe that is something what happens when children are encultured into a musical culture?

Hmm, there was a thread about this subject matter, contextualism vs. formalism or something like that. Maybe it should be rescurrected. But I pretty much said everything I probably have to say now so I guess it wouldn't be anymore worth the trouble.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

some guy said:


> Definitely not that.
> 
> And definitely not to philosophizing being serious thinking about music.
> 
> ...


This is just a restatement of the old "music means - or expresses - nothing" doctrine.

If notes "mean" anything, they mean something which is beyond themselves. That's what "meaning" _is._ If there is no external referent, speaking of anything "meaning" anything is meaningless. "What do the notes mean [merely] as notes" strips the concept of "meaning" of meaning.

Perhaps what you really mean is "What do the notes themselves imply about how they should be executed by a performer?" That question makes sense. But it begs the further question "Do the notes themselves tell us everything we need to know in order to execute them?" If we answer "yes," then questions of "interpretation" are pointless. If we answer "no," the question arises "On what basis do we decide how to execute the notes? To what do we refer in making interpretive choices?" Clearly, not to the notes themselves, but to something outside the notes - to tradition, perhaps, or to common practice... But is that all musicians mean by "interpretation"? Obviously not.

The obvious fact is that we interpret music according to what it _means__ to us_ - according to meanings which are _not_ found "in the notes," meanings which might be called "extra-musical." These meanings need not be expressible in words, though they sometimes might be. There are reasons why meaning may or may not be capable of verbalization, one of which is simply that the language expressing states of mind and emotion is far too crudely approximate to do justice to the range and subtlety of feeling that music can evoke for us. Whether and how we choose to talk about these feelings - to "philosophize" - is wholly optional, a matter of how we as individuals want and need to process in our own beings what music means to us. But it is not a "frivolous" or "impertinent" matter. It is a matter right at the heart of making music.

Music is an art. Art is about life. To say that music and art "mean themselves" is to say nothing. To try to say what they do mean is, however futile the effort, an essentially human act.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Yadda, Yadda, Yadda! I listened to the Arvo Part work. Meh! Sounds half baked, mellow dramatic. He's not for me. I don't need anymore Beethoven. As for Grimaud? She sounded good. But I never liked skinny chicks.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> God, you're so rational and literal. Whatever happened to poetry and art?


Music is music, poetry is something else. I love music but don't care for poetry.

For me, the Grimaud disc consists of four separate and different works. Of course, listeners are free to make any non-musical connections they like; regardless, each piece of music needs to stand on its own as a separate work.

I don't want to give the impression that I never make non-musical connections, but they come from within myself; they don't come from Grimaud, the millionrainbows man or anyone else. AND, I don't fool myself into thinking that there's any reason on the planet for others to make the connections that I make.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I am going to buy this disc relatively soon and judge her comments for myself. Grimaud in my past experience is very intelligent with her works and connections. Less eccentric than that of Gould.


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## Argopo (Dec 26, 2014)

starthrower said:


> Yadda, Yadda, Yadda! I listened to the Arvo Part work. Meh! Sounds half baked, mellow dramatic. He's not for me. I don't need anymore Beethoven. As for Grimaud? She sounded good. But I never liked skinny chicks.


Have owned this disc since its release. What I remember is Grimaud's wonderful playing. Decided to listen to it this weekend using my nice headphone setup. Had forgotten about the Arvo Pärt piece. Nearly blew out my eardrums listening to that first section.

Was reminded why I don't own anything by Pärt.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Kibbles Croquettes said:


> What I think the point is, is that say we have a melody consisting of the notes F - G - A - G - A - B - C, it is more important for the performer to "get" the musical point: the IV - V - I progression that is going "towards" the implied major tonic, C, in the end, and not that I wanted to express the beautifulness of Pearson's chi squared test with the melody.
> 
> Obviously this is very simplified example, just to give an simplified and abstract idea how I see this. Like a laboratory experiment which is very far from everyday life and thus isn't ecologically very valid.
> 
> ...


Yes...but 'poetry' and aesthetics are generalities which apply to the 'art' of music, not the nuts and bolts of scales and musical devices. Sooner or later you have to deal with music on an aesthetic level. That's what Grimauid is doing with the Credo CD...and this CD does a similar thing. I like this sort of programming in classical; I'd like to see more. After all, the concert program is a long tradition...


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