# Lebrecht on Rosen



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

This article appears to have 'gone viral', though it's origin is provided:

Norman Lebrecht: A Fusion of Piano and Cerebellum 
http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/4883/full 
March 2013

Days after Charles Rosen's death in December, videos began to appear 
in which the master pianist was seen holding forth in accent-free 
French on the music of Pierre Boulez, in Italian on the problems of 
music criticism and in robust Upper West Side English on practically 
every topic known to man, at irrepressible length and with 
irrefutable authority. Charles was the epitome of the 
philosopher-pianist, a hybrid species that risks extinction with his 
passing and which deserves more concentrated attention than he 
himself accorded it, and in much shorter sentences. So there.

Charles was, first off, a pianist. Steeped in the grand tradition by 
the Liszt pupil Moriz Rosenthal, and drawn to the Russian fantasy by 
the playing of Josef Hofmann, he imposed an incontrovertible 
immediacy on whatever he played, be it Bach's Goldberg Variations or 
the constipated chordal sequences of middle-period Elliott Carter. 
His manner of playing made you believe that this piece could go no 
other way.

A friend who heard him play on ill-tuned Oxford college pianos 
observes that, of all modern pianists, only Sviatoslav Richter 
possessed that monumental rightness in performance--that sense of 
having received the truth from source and, simultaneously, asserting 
that it would never sound the same again, that its centre of gravity 
would shift as the earth turns. If you can afford the ICA Classics 
release of Richter's Festival Hall Beethoven recital of June 18, 1975 
you will hear exactly what is meant by this rightness. I would love 
to recommend a Rosen recital by way of further validation, but his 
label, in idiot hands, has let the entire oeuvre lapse out of print 
so you will have to make do with less edifying YouTube uploads.

Rosen, unlike Richter, was fond of making grand statements. Bach, he 
declared, was the only first-rate composer. Chopin wrote the best 
piano sonatas. Schoenberg was not an atonal theorist but a creator in 
whom "the emotion is so violent and so consistently tense that for a 
great many people he is a non-emotional composer". He issued these 
pronouncements with the intention to provoke an argument, and seldom 
failed. Like every hard-working intellectual, he could pick a fight 
in an empty room and regarded contrariness as being part of life's 
purpose.

We once quarrelled in a BBC studio about declining attendances at 
classical concerts. "On occasion," intoned Charles with lofty 
disdain, "I have played for as few as 15 people in a recital. Of 
course, 12 of them held Nobel prizes ..."

His intellectualism arose (as it does in most) from a fear of 
boredom--in particular, I suspect, from an awful anxiety that music 
itself would fail to satisfy his personal need for meaning. While 
rehearsing for his concert debut at 23 years old, he completed a PhD 
in French literature at Princeton, adding further credits in 
mathematics and philosophy. Making his first records, he dispensed 
with hack-written sleeve notes and composed his own. A publisher, 
impressed, commissioned The Classical Style, an award-laden book 
which not only defined lucid distinctions between Haydn, Mozart, 
Beethoven and the rest in truly original capsules but served for 40 
years as the final arbiter of style--the top item on every music 
student's booklist and a cop-out for academics who never needed to 
rethink classical form once Charles had nailed it.

He was, by this exalted measure, the ultimate fusion of keyboard and 
cerebellum, of profundity and playfulness, of performance and 
reflection--all of these, along with such other expert interests as 
French cuisine, 19th-century art history and the ribald tradition in 
English theatre.

Brilliant as violinists can be, charming as most cellists are, none 
can play the public intellectual as pianists do. From the high brows 
of Liszt and Busoni, to the iconoclasms of Scriabin and Wanda 
Landowska, from the religious devotions of Maria Yudina and Albert 
Schweitzer to the logical perversities of Artur Schnabel and Glenn 
Gould, pianists assert the right to think aloud, independently and 
outside the box.

String players have to fiddle too much with bits of hair and gut and 
rosin to find the leisure for intellectualism. They have to make 
their own notes, where pianists have everything laid out for them in 
black and white. Violinists turn to other musicians for mental 
stimulation. Yehudi Menuhin, a man of the greatest imaginable 
curiosity and most catholic interests, told me that he relied on his 
accompanist for enlightenment on lengthy prewar tours. If the pianist 
read thrillers, he got replaced. A pianist was meant to raise his 
partner's IQ.

Of Richter, it is related that he sat all night long beside the open 
coffin of Boris Pasternak, playing Scriabin from memory on an upright 
piano, in the peculiar and intimate knowledge that the late poet had 
been taught the piano as a boy by the great composer and that, in 
1930, Pasternak had eloped with the wife of Richter's teacher, 
Heinrich Neuhaus, who, ever after, obliged his Muscovite piano 
students to memorise his writings.

In such zig-zag connections (and in a sentence of Rosenian parody) we 
may glimpse the mission that a man or woman who sits upon a piano 
stool can fulfil in the embodiment and transmission of cultural 
values across genres and generations. The piano inhabits our living 
room, a reminder and reproach of creative limitations. The profession 
of philosopher is not incidental to playing the piano; it is 
inherent.

So who will bear that mission now that Charles Rosen is no more? Fear 
not, the vacuum will be filled. Daniel Barenboim, a pianist at heart, 
is an avid reader of arid tracts. Alfred Brendel writes and lectures 
on his view from the stool. Every French pianist is by national 
perception a philosopher manqué. Lang Lang has gone on an advanced 
reading course. None of these yet wears both hats, but I know one 
who does.

The Merseyside melismatist Stephen Hough is widely read to an 
indecent degree. A teenaged candidate for priesthood, he has 
published his own translation of the Book of Psalms for long-haul 
flights, recorded an album of his compositions and presented an 
exhibition of his paintings. He blogs intermittently on art, dance, 
hats, faith and gay experience. He speaks in whole paragraphs. He 
plays--we are near-neighbours--far into the night. I don't expect 
Stephen to write The Post-Modern Style. Not his style at all. But 
having him around the corner is a constant reminder that the piano is 
there for no better reason than to make us think.


----------



## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Thanks - a pleasure to read! In particular I found Rosen's assessment of Schoenberg spot on (the bizarre assertion regarding Chopin that preceeded it however...) I'll have to look into him more


----------



## Copperears (Nov 10, 2013)

I had the privilege of meeting Charles Rosen as a young child, he was a colleague of my father's. I might even have been able to study piano with him, but I thought, naively, I want a pianist, not a philosophy professor, as my teacher. (!)

One of many omg stupid choices I've made in my life.

Charles Rosen was the definition of urbane, and a delight to be near, even for little ignoramuses like myself.


----------



## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

*Wondering about this, though...*



Ukko said:


> He was, by this exalted measure, the ultimate fusion of keyboard and *cerebellum* [emphasis mine] Norman Lebrecht


I wonder if "cerebellum" is the noun he meant to use...

Here at my house, you know who has an amazingly impressive cerebellum? My cat.
If Norm has the remotest doubt as to the meaning of certain four-syllable words, 
he should look them up...:tiphat:


----------



## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I wonder if "cerebellum" is the noun he meant to use...
> 
> Here at my house, you know who has an amazingly impressive cerebellum? My cat.
> If Norm has the remotest doubt as to the meaning of certain four-syllable words,
> he should look them up...:tiphat:


I only skimmed through his article, but good point! I think he meant 'cerebrum' since the cerebellum is mostly for coordination, motor memory, and sense of time intervals.:lol: Also important for pianists, maybe that explains the mix-up?


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

trazom said:


> I only skimmed through his article, but good point! I think he meant 'cerebrum' since the cerebellum is mostly for coordination, motor memory, and sense of time intervals.:lol: Also important for pianists, maybe that explains the mix-up?


I wandered back to this thread because of a 'stray like', But bumping a Rosen thread can't hurt. The cerebrum probably fits better than the cerebellum. Rosen was a unique music explicator, but his piano skills were only excellent.


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

The Classical Style was one of the first books that I read about music. Rosen's recording of Beethoven Diabelli Variations is my favorite.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

One problem I have with Rosen as pianist is that he limited himself so much - just Carter and Boulez. No Stockhausen, no Finnissy, no Barraqué, no Cage, no Feldman . . . I wonder why. 

Is it true that the philosopher musician is approaching extinction? In recent music and in early music there are still quite a few scholar musicians. But for those who specialise in music after Bach and before the 20th century avant garde, the world seems to be dominated by hacks and entertainers. Maybe it was always like that.

Stephen Hough - is he an intersting musician?


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> One problem I have with Rosen as pianist is that he limited himself so much - just Carter and Boulez. No Stockhausen, no Finnissy, no Barraqué, no Cage, no Feldman . . . I wonder why.
> 
> Is it true that the philosopher musician is approaching extinction? In recent music and in early music there are still quite a few scholar musicians. But for those who specialise in music after Bach and before the 20th century avant garde, the world seems to be dominated by hacks and entertainers. Maybe it was always like that.
> 
> ...


----------

