Piano Soloist as Orchestra Conductor

We welcome an EMSO Insider guest author - East Metro Symphony Orchestra's music director Elizabeth Prielozny Barnes!

When Daniel Barenboim was newly-appointed music director to my “home town band,” the esteemed Chicago Symphony in 1991, he had the thankless task of replacing the revered maestro, Georg Solti.  

I could be pretty judgmental, and honestly wasn’t convinced that this young whippersnapper, more a pianist than a conductor (IMHO) was a good choice until the day I heard him perform a Mozart piano concerto with the CSO, conducting from the piano.  

Instead of standing before these august musicians and waving a stick at them to perform, he became one of the performers himself, seated at the piano bench – at the same level as the rest of the orchestra — literally encircled by his fellow musicians.  It was an extraordinary experience to hear a piano concerto transformed into an intimate piece of chamber music, and I hoped that one day I would also be able to experience this type of musical alchemy.

So when EMSO’s then-president Eric Levinson (EMSO Insider blogger) asked me to consider performing a piano concerto with our orchestra, I decided to bring back the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 433 that I had prepared as part of my master’s degree work many years ago, and I knew that this would be the way to do it.  

Frankly there are plenty of pianists in the twin cities with more finely-developed skills as a pianist than I do right now, so the reasons to step off of the podium and sit at the piano bench for this performance are less about showing off as a soloist, and more about offering some unique experiences for all of us in the EMSO.

First, I simply adore this concerto, and it is truly an honor to revisit it, perform it with an orchestra, and see if it will work for me to direct the orchestra from the keyboard, while simultaneously performing as a soloist.  Preparing for this performance has been a unique experience for me.  Pianists generally work in solitude: we practice alone, generally perform alone, and even when we perform as accompanists or chamber musicians we are generally decidedly in the background – alone in this way.  

I began practicing piano in preparation for this opportunity about a year ago, and until I tried playing through the entire concerto – alone – for my husband a few weeks ago, nobody had even witnessed my music making at the piano for many years.  Making it safely through the concerto for my husband in my piano room at home gave me the first bit of confidence that this whole crazy endeavor might actually be possible. (As I write this, EMSO is several weeks into its 7-week preparation period for this concert.)

I can now also safely report that the first time I sat at the piano to read through part of the concerto with the orchestra two weeks ago, we made it out alive, but I was also stunned at what a different experience it was to try to experience the task of playing this challenging music on the piano while simultaneously keeping track of — let alone “directing” — the orchestra.  It actually felt like I was trying to reach through this thick, foggy layer of orchestra sound just to reach the keys of the piano.  

The other thing I recognized that evening was in order to do this feat of daring-do, it was essential to be totally focused on each moment of time as it happens.  (At one point when something wasn’t right I found my brain automatically reaching back to remember and analyze what had happened, but in so doing I momentarily lost my place and the orchestra’s place, as the present moment kept chugging along — in this case at about q = 108.)

What all this description of my learning curve speaks to is my belief that my primary responsibility with EMSO is to show leadership to our musicians.  In this case I believe that taking on this different — and challenging — experience as a soloist with EMSO shows our members  (not unlike the all those who “emerge from a sea of musicians” for our Home Cookin’ concerts) the value of stepping into a new challenge, leaving one’s familiar, comfortable role for something that is frankly a bit scary. 

The final contribution I believe this experience can bring to our orchestra is that of playing a piece of orchestra music as if it is a piece of chamber music.  For the uninitiated, in chamber ensembles — generally 2-7 musicians — each musician is responsible not just for their own (solo) part, but for being fully invested and aware of what each of their fellow musicians is doing, in order to create a cohesive whole.  

When this works the result is simply sublime, a coexistence akin to the deepest personal relationships we can have in life, as each musician moves together to create an expression of music that encompasses them all.  In orchestras or other large ensembles there is still personal responsibility for one’s music and being aware of how it all fits together and moves together, but a degree of this responsibility is ceded to the conductor, who in the end has ultimate responsibility for the ensemble’s cohesion, direction, and product.  

So by stepping off of the podium and sitting down at the piano surrounded by my fellow musicians in the orchestra, I am ceding that ultimate responsibility of the conductor back to the members of the orchestra.  I will not be waving a baton at them to indicate what they are to do.  Rather the goal is for us to be watching, listening, breathing and producing the music together, as an ensemble.

I’ve become a big fan of YouTube as a tool to find all sorts of examples of musical performances of works that I am preparing.  In preparation for my Mozart piano concerto I found a YouTube video of Daniel Barenboim performing the same Mozart piano concerto we are currently preparing, seated at the piano, surrounded by members of the Berlin Philharmonic, in what looks like a ballroom in an old German mansion, much like Mozart might have performed this music.  (Interestingly these were recorded 2-3 years before Barenboim took his position with the Chicago Symphony, when I first heard him perform like this.)  It is sublime, just like chamber music.  

As a conductor who is trying to figure out for the first time how to direct the orchestra from the keyboard while performing a piano concerto, I’ve been fascinated to observe Barenboim’s choice of larger physical movements, smaller gestures and facial expressions that he uses with his orchestra.  It’s all fabulously communicative and superbly economical.  Here is a link to the YouTube video.  Since these recordings are commercially available on dvd here too is a link to the website of the company that produced them.

If things work the way I hope, the members of EMSO and I will share a unique and sublime experience of working together as a small ensemble of musicians when we perform this Mozart concerto.  Alas, you who sit separately from us, out in the audience will not be able to have exactly the same sublime musical experience that we will, but I hope that you will at least catch part of our special experience when we perform together as an orchestral chamber ensemble.

Elizabeth Prielozny Barnes

EMSO Music Director and Conductor

Concertos with Friends

Sunday, October 28, 2012

3:00 p.m.

East Ridge High School Loft Stage

4200 Pioneer Drive, Woodbury, MN

Tickets $10 Adults, $8 Students/Seniors

Groups of 10 or more receive $2 discount

Students with School District 833 ID free admission

Patch Event Link