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MONSTER CONCERT
By Marc Geelhoed
There's something imposing yet also slightly humorous in the sight of eight pianos on a single stage. Eight people assembled to play eight pianos makes 16 hands, 80 fingers, with a total of 704 (88 × 8) keys at their collective disposal. Eight violins or even eight double basses do not seem so incongruous, but with that many pianists behind that many pianos, you know there will be a lot of noise, and a lot of notes. The idea of bringing together many pianos and pianists dates back several centuries, but reached its apex in the 19th century with over-the-top Gottschalk arrangements like those featured in the ALL-STAR PIANO EXTRAVAGANZA: THE VERBIER FESTIVAL & ACADEMY CONCERT.
The notion of bringing together multiple keyboard instruments wasn't as out of place in the Baroque era as it is today. J. S. Bach would join up with some friends in the 1730s for the midweek concerts of the connoisseur-oriented Collegium Musicum at Zimmermann's coffeehouse in Leipzig. These were low-key affairs, and the participants and audience could relax while playing and hearing the latest music. It is impossible to know for certain if the four-piano concerto (Bach and friends would have used harpsichords) that Martha Argerich, Evgeny Kissin, Mikhail Pletnev, and James Levine perform in the program was written specifically for the coffeehouse, but it was played there. Watching the musicians playing it at Verbier, it is not difficult to believe that the concerto was graciously received.
The focus at the coffeehouse concerts would not have necessarily been on the performers' virtuosity, though we know Bach and other Germans valued that, but more on the pleasing interaction between soloists and the ensemble. It would take another 100 years to clear out the string players and fill the stage with pianos. And when that happened, the audience did not fit inside a coffeehouse.
Everything got bigger in the 19th century, including cities, concert halls, and, naturally, the groups that played in these venues. The first known "monster concert," as they came to be called, took place in 1830 as a benefit for victims of a recent flooding of the Danube. The virtuoso and pedagogue Carl Czerny contributed an arrangement of the overture to Rossini's "Semiramide" for eight pianos, and a total of 16 pianists, for the event.
Concerts like this one were popular because the piano held a central place in domestic life. Jane Austen's readers are familiar with the scene in EMMA where the characters retire to the drawing room to hear the young ladies play. Piano playing was a demonstration of a young lady's good breeding, and thought to be a healthy way to catch a husband. A similar situation prevailed in America, where piano playing was a way to show off an Old World aristocratic air.
Top banner photos: Pianists Emanuel Ax and Leif Ove Andsnes, Verbier Birthday Festival Orchestra, and the hands of pianist Mikhail Pletnev.
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Among the pianists performing the opening number, "Flight of the Bumble Bee," are Mikhail Pletnev and Staffan Scheja. |
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Cellists of the Birthday Festival Orchestra, Mischa Maisky and Boris Pergamenschikow. |
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This program is available on DVD. |
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