Notes from the Pianist's Bench [Paperback]

Boris Berman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2002

Internationally known as a concert pianist and highly respected as a piano teacher, Boris Berman here offers a fascinating exploration of both piano technique and music interpretation. Berman combines explanations and practical advice with anecdotes about students, colleagues, and former teachers, along the way providing many insights into the psychological aspects of performing and teaching music.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The shelf of helpful and practical books on piano study is not a full one; perhaps only the books by Josef Lhevinne and by Artur Schnabel's student Konrad Wolff belong there. But Boris Berman has now added to it. Berman has taken on the difficult aspects of playing the instrument and has succeeded in several areas. Setting up opposing ideas--sostenuto versus leggiero playing, fidelity to the score versus personal interpretation--he sends pianists to the instrument with a heightened awareness of what the body wants to show us. Berman is big on images (useful ones, by and large). He talks about the importance of breath (far too rare in piano lessons) and is good on the relation of finger stroke to dynamic level. He offers one fine exercise for voicing of chords and another--a long scale in diminuendo--for finger control. A chapter on time falters a bit on tempo--lots of examples but few concepts--but covers the idea of inner pulse and subdivision of the measure in an exemplary way. Readers will want more help on fingering, but that is probably impossible in book format. There is a good deal of common sense on phrasing and repeated insistence on informed rather than mechanical practicing.

For a pianist with a performing career in Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev, Berman has a surprising amount of respect for the printed scores, and his background in early music comes through several times. At the end, he continues into performance (lots of ideas from the acting teacher Stanislavsky here) and includes a welcome chapter on teaching. This is, in fact, a book to use with your own teacher--ideas about "out" stroke, sustained relaxation ("both impossible and unnecessary"), and wrist height could be dangerous if misunderstood--but it will be provocative. Many musical examples, admirably proofread and helpfully cross-referenced, are included. --William R. Braun --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"The book is neither too elementary nor too advanced for any pianist, piano teacher or piano lover. It is informative, inspiring, and entertaining." Claude Frank "What makes Mr. Berman's book so persuasive and enlightening is his understanding that there is no one 'method' of teaching music - each relationship with a student is a process of discovery for teacher and student both." Emanuel Ax "A very instructive, imaginative, and stimulating book." Radu Lupu "Readers who want to become better pianists will welcome Berman's master class. Highly recommended." Library Journal "Pianists will value Berman's stimulating and personal thoughts and will appreciate the opportunity to learn from this contemporary artist." Choice

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300093985
• ISBN-13: 978-0300093988
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #528,565 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent and Lucid, July 29, 2002

By 

Rolf-Peter Wille (Taipei Taiwan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Notes from the Pianist's Bench (Paperback)

Imagine you are a piano student playing a Haydn sonata for your professor. In the slow movement your teacher conjures up a Classical opera aria as an illustrative example, complete with specific characters, and even ventures to invent an imaginary reconstruction of the opening: "Dio, che guar - da [rest] tut - ti gli~a - man - ti [rest] ..." Chances are that you are among the lucky chosen ones in the class of famous Russian-American pianist Boris Berman.
Your level of playing (and your budget) do not allow you to study with a professor of international stature at Yale University? There is no need for despair. Professor Berman has crystallized his most nourishing ideas in an astonishingly eloquent and lucid manner. "Notes from the Pianist's Bench" is his highly informative, rational book of advice geared to the undergraduate and graduate piano student. Unlike those dry and overblown piano methods of early German theorists (Deppe, Breithaupt, Tetzel, Martienssen) Berman's prose is striking a perfect balance between the philosophical and the practical, between the erudite and the anecdotal, the comprehensive and the concise, imagination and realism, elementary and advanced; and it can definitely be comprehended by the educated layman, last not least thanks to the many highly appropriate musical examples.
Unlike Heinrich Neuhaus, the legendary Russian teacher of Richter and Gilels, who opens his "The Art of Piano Playing" with a deliberation on the artistic image (idea, vision), Berman's musical notes do not drop too far off the pianistic bench in the first part of this book. In fact he starts there where most diligent students hopefully find themselves presently: in the pratice room. But what a practice room this is! While yours (and mine) consists of four naked white walls with a big black piano in it, Professor Berman's practice room is a laboratory of experimentation and consideration. His enormous experience in performance practice, spanning all styles from harpsichord to Cage, allows him to approach a topic from several angles at the same time. Berman is especially afraid of exaggeration and dogmatic advice and believes our faults to be the extension of our virtues: "My biggest hesitation about writing this book has been a fear that my advice will be misinterpreted or carried ad absurdum. Guided by the teacher, a young musician must learn to use common sense, both in making interpretive decisions and in deciding on appropriate physical actions to realize them."
Naturally this approach should be recommended to the modern passive student craving for simplistic recipes and instant solutions. Berman: "Being a good student is not as simple a task as one might think. The objective of one's studies should be to become an artist, not to perpetuate one's status as a student. With some students I have the feeling that they fall in my lap as a piece of clay: `Here I am, mold me.' In some cases such an attitude is a reflection of the individual's general passivity, and in others it comes from being accustomed to spoon-feeding by their previous teacher."
It is quite obvious that Berman himself is familiar with the specific cultural background of ethnically diverse students. Consider his lesson to a student from Beijing who lacked an understanding of polyphonic texture: "[...] I made the analogy with perspective in painting, but this concept was completely unfamiliar to her, probably because she did not have much experience with Western-style painting. To make my point, I showed her two pictures of birds, one a Chinese drawing and the other a Western landscape. I asked if she could tell me which birds in the first picture were closest to the viewer. That she was unable to do so was not surprising, because perspective was not a component of the artistic system of the picture. The student had no problem in answering the same question in relation to the second picture. Then I tried to explain how the Western artist created the impression of certain objects being farther away than others by making them smaller in size and-very important-more blurred than those in the foreground. In music, I said, we also present the background smaller (that is, softer) and more blurred (that is, less articulated)."
To the advanced reader the unusual degree of common sense in Berman's carefully calibrated advice may sometimes appear "over-informative." Too much neutrality can obscure a powerful vision. There are moments, I feel, where too much common sense can be an obstacle to the creative initiative of a sensitive student. Neuhaus observed that young pianists of genius go through phases of exaggeration because they have to experience the range and the limitations of their power. But these shortcomings are more than made up for by the second part of the book ("Shaping up a Performance"). Some of the real gems of the book are hidden in these chapters, especially Berman's adaptation of Stanislavsky's psycho-technique and "unbroken line" to musical performance.
I strongly recommend this book to the amateur. If you are a professional it is a must read.
In case you haven't read them, I'd like to draw your attention to two other books in this field: Russell Sherman's "Piano Pieces" (aphoristic reflections `laden with culture and atmosphere') and Seymour Bernstein's more methodical "With Your Own Two Hands" (emphasis on practicing and discipline).

Rolf-Peter Wille

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a real gift, July 12, 2001

By 

wyy "wy y" (NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Notes from the Pianist's Bench (Hardcover)

During the years that I had been very fortunate to be able to study with Mr. Berman, I found the countless lessons and the experiences of hearing his concerts to be constant sources of ideas and inspiration. Personally, "Notes from the Pianist's Bench" not only crystallized and revived a lot of the ideas for me, but it also offered me much needed inspiration since I began working independently. The chapters included in the part titled "In the Practice room" ought to be very helpful for any practicing pianists; Mr. Berman's insight into the piano technique, whether it concerns sound and touch, or articulation and phrasing, is always incisive and realistic. I personally find the advice offered in the second part of the book titled : "Shaping Up a Performance" to be particularly indispensable. Chapters such as "Technique of the Soul" and "The Art of Teaching and the Art of Learning" are genuine, thoughtful gifts from an artist. Mr. Berman has shared with us in his book a refreshing and intriguing landscape of music-making via piano playing. "Notes from the Pianist's Bench" is warmly recommended without any reservation.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very helpful book, November 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Notes from the Pianist's Bench (Hardcover)

This book is extremely helpful for advanced piano students looking for some concrete advice on how to make the difficult transition from student to musician. The extent to which Mr. Berman has considered every aspect of playing the piano and being a musician is a great inspiration. I imagine that even someone who might disagree with any of his statements about physical technique or performance issues will gain a lot from reading this book, because it touches all these areas very intelligently and makes the reader really think about his or her own feelings on the subject. In short, READ THIS BOOK if you are at all curious about the tremendous scope of things a pianist must face in order to become a true artist.