The Pianist Who Is in Control
10.10.2022 klo 19 Camerata
The Pianist Who Is in Control
Helga Karen’s second concert for Doctor of Music degree
Morton Feldman (1926–1987), Two Intermissions I (1950)
Pierre Boulez (1926–2016), Douze Notations (1945)
- 3. Assez lent
- 9. Lointain – Calme
- 12. Lent – Puissant et âpre
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007), Klavierstück VII (1954)
P. Boulez
- 5. Doux et improvise
- 4. Rythmique
- 6. Rapide
- 7. Hiératique
K. Stockhausen
- Klavierstück VIII (1954)
P. Boulez
- 8. Modéré jusqu’à très vif
- 10. Mécanique et trés sec
- 1. Fantasque – Modéré
M. Feldman
- Two Intermissions II
P. Boulez
- 11. Scintillant
- 2. Trés vif
—
K. Stockhausen
- LUZIFERs TRAUM or Klavierstück XIII (1981)
Helga Karen, piano
From the pianist to the contemporary musician – The development of the pianist’s role through classics of contemporary music
The series of my five doctorate concerts aims to explore the multitude of the pianist’s roles, tasks and states of mind when playing post-tonal and contemporary music. I am exploring the roles and their effects on piano playing as well as the development of the understanding of pianism and the piano as an instrument through the classics of contemporary music. I compare and contrast the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007), Pierre Boulez (1925–2016) and Morton Feldman (1925–1987) – the likely and unlikely pairs of the pioneers of whole styles and movements of post-tonal music. Karlheinz Stockhausen is the main character of my storytelling, and the role of his music in the metamorphosis of the piano playing and the pianism is the one that I am particularly looking into in my research. My artistic research project is a piece of autoethnographic research in which I – my playing, my practice and my experience – am the research object. The definitions that I tend to lean into, when defining autoethnography are the ones that state that it is a research method that uses the personal experience to describe and enhance the general understanding of the research problem and to critique the cultural beliefs and practices. Whilst valuing the legacy of the composers and their thoughts, philosophies, tendencies and demands in their music, I seek to present the person behind the piano – a person without whom the music cannot exist in time and space, and without whom the piece would lack the third dimension.
The first doctorate concert, “The Pianist Who Does It All”, was an overview of the research project and the starting point for the concert series. I presented the multitude of roles in Karlheinz Stockhausen’s piano music – the pianist as a controlling mathematician, an actor, a listener and even a human error. In the second concert, “The Pianist Who Is in Control”, I want to zoom into one specific role – the controller. What is control? Who is controlling whom and how is it expressed? Can control and freedom co-exist?
If my first doctorate concert was a starting point for the concert series, my second doctorate concert for me is the reflection of diving into autoethnographic research and the actual researcher’s state of mind in general. It is rather telling that when I was creating my concert series and giving the names to the concerts, the term ”control” to me back then meant the total obedience to the notated score and the literal control over the rhythms, notes, pulses and pauses. It was all about the execution, until I started to explore my playing from my personal point of view. In the past year, I learned to listen to myself, value my own opinion, value my experience and see the importance of the pianist – even when the score has a complex, overwhelming notation that does not leave much room for expression. I saw value in my artistic self even when the control of the music seemed completely in the composers’ hands. This led me to see the concept of being in control from a deeper, more interesting perspective. I dared to ask the question “what if I take control?” and see control not only as a literal role of the pianist within the musical score but as a process of gaining power and the confidence to reinvent and to dare.
In this concert, I hope to embody the various understandings of the concept of control and to present the different ways one can apply control in different circumstances and when it is acceptable and even encouraged to let go and go with the flow of sound. In this program, I will present opposites – miniatures and a half-hour piece, listening to silence and not letting the ear rest, moments packed with musical information and moments of musical awaiting and preparation, and moments of total calmness and absolute madness. My control over the pieces will be highlighted in the reprogramming, decision making and obedient score execution paired with entering the headspace of uncontrollable emotional freedom.
Miniature – a nutshell of a story
…Webern reduced the themes and motives to entities of only two sounds…single ascending or descending intervals really were meant to replace the entire theme of classical music. – K. Stockhausen (In conversation with Jonathan Cott, 1971)
So I began to write these [short pieces], knowing that I couldn’t master long works… – P. Boulez (Interview with Tamara Stefanovich and Tobias Bleek, 2012)
The big climax was the first note of the piece. – M. Feldman (Interview with Charles Sheere, 1967)
To express everything one needs to know in a short format is a special skill. Stockhausen, Boulez and Feldman saw it the same way and admired particularly Anton Webern for his ability to tell a musical story within a few notated lines. For me, the ideal musical miniatures are lieds – the emotions worth of a whole opera locked within a page of music. Inspired by the song cycles that singers are able to perform, I wanted to create a song cycle of my own by using short pieces from Boulez, Stockhausen and Feldman. I am taking Pierre Boulez’s Douze Notations for piano, separating them and inserting Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke and Morton Feldman’s Two Intermissions in between. From the outside, it might seem to be a small gesture of playing the pieces in the wrong order; however, to me, the obedient servant of the precisely notated serialist score and a pianist who used to happily live in the composer’s shadow, this is a way to reimagine my own self within the post-tonal composer’s legacies and traditions. Stockhausen, Boulez and Feldman are the foundation of the classical contemporary music, whose importance has been emphasized throughout the years and who saw themselves as leading figures in the history of music. Mixing and matching their music is a good opportunity to step away from the composer-genius idea and additionally to show the richness of their music not only as stand-alone pieces but as part of the bigger development of contemporary music in general. This way, I also want to show what these pieces mean to me and not necessarily what they meant to the composer.
Pierre Boulez Douze Notations – to break free
The Douze Notations (12 pieces, each based on 12 tones and each 12 bars long) represent Boulez’s attempt at Webernesque miniaturism after he started studying Webern’s music with Leibowitz in 1944. A year later, the Douze Notations were born, and with them emerged the unique writing language of Boulez – due to the way Boulez, an excellent pianist himself, writes for piano and notates for piano, the visual portrait of his pieces is unmistakable from anyone else’s. The precise rhythms and serialist attitude towards timbre, note lengths and dynamics mix in with the complete understanding of the piano as an instrument. With the sharp sounds within soft lines and the constant movement of music even during the breaks, Douze Notations are extremely expressive, precisely notated pieces that are full of contrasts – both literal and metaphorical. The range of emotions of the pieces goes from still and meditative to a total explosion. The composer’s control over the execution and over the pianist, can be seen in the precise notation, typical of the time of trying out serialist compositional technique and rebelling against the traditional canons of harmonic composition. At first sight, the notation took hold of my mind – I landed into the world of precision, demands and high standards of execution and obedience. I was teaching myself to hear the pitches, not harmonies. I wouldn’t allow myself to stop counting and beating the pulse in my mind. The score took control over me, which in the beginning felt good and secure. I thought that there are no mistakes to be made, if I just follow the score. However, when learning one of the fast notations, I had to play it slower, and instead of the notated marcatissimo, I practiced everything non legato and, in my thoughts, accidently put the pedal down… Six notes created a harmony that was so touching and so poetic. Against my all methods and beliefs, just for fun and practice, I played all of the Notations slowly with the pedal down. The world of harmonies was empowering. I couldn’t help but forget about the serialist tendencies, compositional techniques and even precision – the musician in me had to play the way I hear, not the way I see. The liberation from the composer’s control, at least during my practice sessions, gave me back my power as the performer to visualize and to feel – something I haven’t experienced in a while practicing the classics of post-tonal music.
Karlheinz Stockhausen Klavierstücke VII, VIII – to control from within
Not exactly miniatures, but still rather short pieces, these Klavierstücke embody Stockhausen’s tendencies to exploit the pianist as a transmitter between his thoughts and the audience. The switch turns on, and the pianist counts in tempo 53.5 (or 101 or 60.5) and goes on to deliver the music as close to the notated score as possible. After experimenting with electronic music in the early 1950s, Stockhausen saw the value of the human behind the piano – the electronics don’t make mistakes, but humans do. By pushing the human to their limits and by composing close to impossible techniques, jumps and usage of the piano as a resonating box, Stockhausen forces the pianist to aim for perfection and allows for the human error factor to appear in the music. However, by being aware of the human error and welcoming it in these pieces (only in a few truly impossible places, though), Stockhausen gains total control over the pianist.
Like Stockholm syndrome, with years of obedience to the score and years of aiming for perfection, I enjoy aiming for the best execution and for the most precise playing I can possibly achieve. I take pride in being able to execute the impossible, even when it does not even sound. The Klavierstück VII is full of play on resonance – some of which works incredibly well and brings a total satisfaction to the ear (a chord, rhythmically dissolving into space one note at a time – is there anything more magical than that?), and some of which don’t work at all due to the instrument’s limitations and the pianist’s humanity. However, even in the places that I know won’t work, I still try, so desperately, lifting my fingers exactly on time, forcing the piano to sound, even when it won’t, forcing my mind to stretch and imagine the sound that is not there.
Klavierstück VIII is an explosion of close to impossible execution of great amounts of chords and motives within short time limits. It is like a broken glass of a piece – a big crystal vase smashing against a stone floor with shards flying everywhere. The pianist picks up the shards and glues them back together as closely to the original shape of the vase as possible. In the score, it looks elegant and clear. On the piano, it is a human error at its best.
Morton Feldman Two Intermissions – to sink into nothingness
Compared to Stockhausen and Boulez, Feldman comes from a very different circle of composers. A friend and follower of John Cage and the experimental New York School, the calculations and the proportions and mathematical relations between pitches were not the priority in Feldman’s compositions. His attitude to music was more poetic and more artistic, with inspiration not only taken from other composers but from painters and artists. He experimented with music having pieces with both traditional and untraditional spatial notations. Feldman was interested in note durations, their reaction within the space and the air between the pitches. The philosophy of “Everything is music” by John Cage can distinctly be felt in Feldman’s music. Two Intermissions are minimalistic miniatures filled with air and light. Even though Feldman didn’t give up the rhythmical notation quite as dramatically as his other peers, the Intermissions have no feeling of time. They are collection of notes swimming in a vacuum, stopping any tendencies to move forward and to anticipate. Everything stands still. Yet, when collecting all the pitches in the miniatures in one big chord, it is a chord full of depth and warmth.
On one hand, Feldman’s poetic miniatures are the complete opposite to Boulez’s and Stockhausen’s pieces – after all, constant seeking for new compositional techniques and understandings of music are very present in both Klavierstücke and Notations. However, what unites all three composers is their need to stop and to listen to the emptiness, to the vibrations of space itself. This is not surprising, as both European and American composers at the time exchanged their notes and ideas in letters throughout their careers. Even with polarly different styles and philosophies, they all understood the power of silence and the intersection of space and time, where any sound will dissolve into emptiness. The sense of control is present in all three composers’ music as well. While Boulez and Stockhausen control the musician with unbearably overwhelming notation, assigning each note a mathematically exact meaning, Feldman’s control is much more subtle, yet as powerful. For instance, he writes dynamic assignments such as “very soft” or precisely written rhythms, yet eventually leaving the score rather empty. In an interview with Peter Gena in 1982, Feldman admits that “I was interested in freeing the sound and not the performer”.
Despite the composers’ control issues, I decided to find something human in their music. Something human for me to hang onto, to see music beyond the score and to step away from the obedience and the shadow of the pieces. In my mind, all three composers, beyond the score, are longing for silence, for hidden, very content passion, and in the end longing for beauty, even if distorted and a bit broken. The hidden poetry is the way I take control over the music – I saw this music that way once, and I cannot unsee it and thus I shall bring it to the audience from that point of view.
LUZIFERs TRAUM or Klavierstück XIII – to act your heart out
Perhaps the wildest piece of its time, and one of the wildest piano pieces of all time, the piano solo piece dedicated to the composer’s daughter Majella Stockhausen for her 20th birthday later became the first act of Stockhausen’s opera Samstag aus Licht. Here, the main protagonist of the opera – Lucifer, performed by a bass singer – is having a dream, accompanied by a piano. In the solo version of the piece, the pianist is embodying both the bad and the good –Lucifer, who has a mission to destroy, and an accompanist, who starts off as an impartial neutral pianist, but ends up putting Lucifer into a trance at the end of the act. What starts as a calm sleep ends up in a chaotic nightmare, both figuratively and, for the pianist, also quite literally. The signature number of Lucifer is 13, which is counted to in German throughout the piece and shows the devil himself, whilst the piano part is the hypnotizing magic of music, stirring the devil more and more into the nightmare. The form of control in this piece is not control, but possession – possession by artistry, theatre, a tilt to the wild side and a completely shame-free attitude to piano playing.
The challenge for the pianist here is not only to be able to act out a complex piano piece with such elements as playing inside the piano, singing, whistling and playing objects, but also to keep cool head whilst going absolutely mad. My form of control in the Klavierstück XIII, against my all beliefs and methods, against everything I stand for in interpreting Stockhausen music, is both having inner control and to lose control musically, to allow myself to go a bit insane. The pianist in me aims to hypnotize Lucifer, to enable him to destroy. This message is far more important than counting rests and aiming for perfection. Still respecting the music, the composer, the style and the score, I will allow the music to take control over me just this once. After all, I have to battle Lucifer today.
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell – Oscar Wilde
Helga Karen
Helga Karen (1991) is a Finnish pianist specialized in performance of classical contemporary music. She has performed as a soloist and chamber music musician in various contemporary music festivals such as Lucerne Festival, SoundScape, Musica Nova, Stockhausen Courses and Concerts and International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt. Helga has given world premiere performances of works for piano solo and chamber music, as well as played as a member of such orchestras and ensembles as Ensemble Lemniscate, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Basel Sinfonietta and Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra. She has worked together with many composers, including Helmut Lachenmann, Rebecca Saunders, Jörg Widmann, Vinko Globokar and Jannik Giger.
Helga has won several prizes at various competitions, as a soloist and with chamber music groups, including 1st prizes in Giovani Musicisti music competition, Stockhausen Concert and Courses, Karlsruhe Contemporary Music Competition and Orpheus Chamber Music Competition. In 2020 Helga received a Fritz Gerber Award supporting young musicians in the field of classical contemporary music.
Helga has received her Diploma in piano pedagogy from Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, completed her pedagogical studies in Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien and received her Master in Specialized Performance in Contemporary Music Degree from Basel Music Academy in 2016. Currently Helga is working on her doctoral research project on Stockhausen’s piano pieces at Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
Series of doctorate concerts:
- The pianist who does it all
- The pianist who is in control
- The pianist who listens
- The pianist who creates
- The pianist who did it all