Micek Music

A commentary on the common practice of performing music from memory, written by teacher Yiyi Ku: The issue of memory playing has haunted musicians for centuries. For some, it comes naturally; for others, it is an eternal struggle. Is it necessary to play from memory in order to give a professional, musical and convincing performance? Absolutely not. In fact, it was not the norm to perform from memory in Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven's times. It was Franz Liszt, the 19th century composer and virtuoso pianist, who was the first performer to present an entire recital by memory. (In recent years other musicians have been credited with that title, too, but Liszt was the most influential.) Yes let's all blame him! I has become standard practice for pianists and vocalists to perform from memory in solo recitals, although the British pianist Dame Myra Hess almost always performed from score, and all musicians have suffered from memory slips of varying degrees in their lifetime. It is eve...

Another article by Susan Tomes, a follow-up to her previous piece "All in the mind" . Published in The Guardian, 4/24/07: "I don't think we should confuse good musicianship with the ability to memorise. Yes, there are some musicians who memorise easily and who relish the experience of performing without the score, free as a bird. To hear someone playing by heart with supreme confidence is a thrilling experience. But there are also plenty of intelligent, sensitive people whose musical gifts are actually inhibited by the strain of being made to play without the music." Read the rest of this article here .

By concert pianist Susan Tomes, published in The Guardian, 4/20/07: "I recently went to a party where our host regaled us with a compilation of concert recordings in which famous pianists had suffered from horrible memory lapses. Everyone fell about with laughter at the sound of celebrities going hideously off the rails, but, as a pianist, I found it an uncomfortable experience. The struggles of Curzon, Richter and Rubinstein with memorisation had become a spectator sport. Playing from memory in public is a fairly recent fashion. Before the late 19th century, playing without the score was often considered a sign of casualness, even of arrogance. The custom of playing from memory developed along with the growth of a body of classics that everyone agreed were worth preserving exactly as their composers had intended. Teachers encouraged students to memorise them. Many young players memorise easily, but it gets harder as time goes on. As the pianist Charles Rosen put it: 'With adv...