Inaugural Music

I am amazed by the number of newspaper articles that have appeared in the last twenty-four hours revealing that the quartet at Tuesday's inauguration was playing along with a recording that it had made days earlier.  Some of the articles explain very fairly how the elements made that decision necessary, and make a real effort to show that such a choice hardly makes the McGill-Ma-Perlman-Montero ensemble the latest incarnation of Milli Vanilli.  That said, there is a hint of scandal in all of the articles that I've read, and, in general, the readers' commentary is nothing short of a condemnation.  The eagerness on the part of the public to label the performance as a fabrication or deception is deeply disheartening.

When I watched the inaugural performance, I wondered what instruments they were playing and questioned how on earth they could be playing so well despite the cold.  I didn't draw the conclusion that they were performing to a recording, but I was hardly surprised when I learned that they were.  There is nothing scandalous about that decision.  Had those four musicians performed with strings breaking and the piano losing pitch, would that have been better?  I have trouble keeping my piano in tune in a dry, temperate, climate.  Neither of the string players could possibly have used their own instruments--or really, any instrument of value--for the performance, as cellos and violins are not designed to be exposed to sub-zero temperatures.

Moreover, what no article seems to mention is that the quartet was still up there, in the moment, making music together and responding emotionally as they did.  There were unusual musical concerns on their minds as they strived to match the precise duration of each note in the recording with which they were playing, and those concerns must have disturbed their sense of in-the-moment music making to some degree.  But, as I watch their performance now, with the knowledge that the sound I'm hearing is pre-recorded, I am no less moved than I was as I witnessed it the first time.

If I were to get testy about the inaugural quartet, it wouldn't be about the performance at all, but instead, about Williams's composition.  And particularly--surprise, surprise--about his writing for the piano.  Except for one moment in which the keyboard played the melody to "Simple Gifts" and a few places where it doubled the other instruments as they delivered the melody, it was relegated to the role of elaborate accompaniment.  Williams relied almost exclusively on the lyrical capabilities of the three other instruments and ignored those of the keyboard.  For the piano: lots of notes, little glory.  It's certainly not a situation unfamiliar to pianists, but it would be nice to see Williams break with that tradition.  Pianos--and pianists--especially those as accomplished as Gabriela Montero, are capable of much more than an astounding ability to play lots of notes without drawing attention to themselves.