A sound balance

Producing a nuanced, well-balanced and blended combination of piano and strings can be a difficult performance feat to achieve. Pauline Harding talks to chamber musicians, soloists and teachers to discover some of their secrets

Violinist Itamar Zorman and pianist Assaff Weisman on stage with other members of the Israeli Chamber Project

YOAV ETIEL

When violinist Mirijam Contzen returned to play the second half of a piano trio concert some years ago, she was surprised to see the cellist grab something from his stand and throw it, upset, to the ground. Only once they took their final bow did she discover what had happened. ‘You wouldn’t believe it!’ she says ‘Somebody had put a note on his stand in the interval saying, “You cannot be heard. You should tell the pianist that he is too loud.” It was terrible!’ And yet this particular missive, however out of place it may have been, touched on a significant point. In collaborations between pianists and strings, the stage really can become a battleground of sound. A dominant pianist might even reduce a string player’s efforts to a mime of impassioned expressions and flailing arms. Producing a nuanced and well-balanced performance is truly an art.

So, what makes the difference between a performance that is great and one that is not? For violinist Itamar Zorman – who has won several prizes with the Lysander Piano Trio and a top violin prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition (2011), and collaborates frequently within the Israeli Chamber Project (ICP) – the solution is simple. ‘You have to have a good pianist,’ he laughs. ‘No, really! In the end, we are at the mercy of the piano.’ Of course, in reality, the issue is far more complex. To begin with, a violin or viola will sound infinitely louder to the person playing it than it does to anybody else, confusing the players’ perceptions. What is more, the ways in which people listen, and the places that they listen from, introduce personal subjectivities that make a ‘perfect’ balance difficult to achieve. When Contzen and her colleagues asked for others’ opinions after that same trio concert, they found that other audience members had had no problem at all hearing the cellist. ‘In the end, I think it is important to stick to what you really believe, and what you have worked on together,’ says Contzen. ‘You will always hear different opinions, but it is very dangerous to adjust to that while you are performing.’

WORKING ON BALANCE

 The place to address serious balance issues is, of course, in the practice room, where diplomacy is key – particularly when it comes to telling collaborators that they are playing too loudly. To avoid causing resentment, Contzen advises her students at the Berlin University of the Arts to focus on something positive. Rather than telling pianists to be quiet in the second movement of the Franck Violin Sonata, for example, she asks them to play the accompanying notes without the melody, so that both players can listen to what the other is doing. ‘You can say, “Can you please take that voice into a different timbre so that it’s heard by the violin?” It’s asking for more, but on a different level. That will open up the pianist’s hearing, which will change the balance.’ A sensitive pianist can then adjust using pedal and touch.

In the opening of Schumann’s A minor Violin Sonata, the piano texture is so dense that pianist Assaff Weisman – who currently performs with Zorman on their digital concert platform Up Close (bit.ly/3oPs74s) and has been collaborating with him since they and colleagues founded the ICP in 2008 – uses a finger legato rather than the pedal, just so that the violin D string can be heard more clearly. ‘It also depends on whether you’re playing with a violin or with a cello,’ he says. ‘They are hugely different prospects. Leon Fleisher told me once that when playing with a cello you just have to look like you’re playing forte but you actually play piano, and that’s really true. With a violin, you have a lot more leeway.’

Even the most sensitive pianist will, of course, encounter challenges. The Tchaikovsky Piano Trio ‘is a monster, whichever way you look at it’, says violinist Vadim Gluzman, having recently recorded and toured the work with cellist Johannes Moser and pianist Yevgeny Sudbin. ‘The piano part is absolute murder, so there comes the question of how to balance everything without overwhelming the musical structure. Finding a balance without compromising the emotional power of the music is incredibly difficult.’ It is not a good idea to mute the piano simply by shutting the lid either, says Contzen. ‘That’s like turning down the volume on a hi-fi! Please leave it open, because you will hear the pianist’s articulation and sound so much better.’ Instead, it’s more effective to work on any issues as an ensemble from a very early stage in the learning process, to shape your interpretation and find solutions together. Inspired by childhood lessons with Tibor Varga, Contzen also recommends switching roles, to experience the music from different standpoints. Zorman finds score study useful here, ‘for seeing even obvious things, like when you’re playing with which end of the piano. It’s good to have some idea before a first rehearsal.’ Weisman, meanwhile, sings the string part while practising the piano, ‘to get to know and try to anticipate the timing, the colours, and everything that’s going to happen’.

‘PLEASE LEAVE THE PIANO LID OPEN, BECAUSE YOU WILL HEAR THE PIANIST’S ARTICULATION AND SOUND SO MUCH BETTER’ 

Contzen in performance with pianist Herbert Schuch

GÜNTHER GOLDSTEIN

Gluzman with two of his favourite pianist collaborators: his wife, Angela Yoffe (above) and his closest friend, Evgeny Sinaiski (right)

YOFFE PHOTO LEONARD BELSKY

BLEND AND CONTRAST 

Exploring collaborators’ roles in this way helps everyone involved to blend and balance a work’s various textures more effectively. In this context, Zorman recommends experimenting with fingerings and bowings, and practising how to create variety close to the bridge. ‘Especially in Brahms, let’s say the Third Violin Sonata, try to think creatively,’ he says. ‘Pretend that you are playing a bassoon line, and then the line of a clarinet. That might help you, just in an imaginative way, to find the right sound to cut through.’

In addition, by thinking about the hammer action of the piano keys and the limited sound possibilities that this presents, string players – whose instruments are more versatile – can blend and contrast more effectively. You could use an articulated start to a bow to create a gentle ‘pop’ that allows it to be heard alongside the ‘hammered’ piano line, for example. Or, to achieve a better blend, you could avoid playing in seamless legato: for Romantic works, Gluzman prefers instead to subdivide the bow in a very subtle portato, to create a cleaner effect. ‘String players are often afraid to produce the drier articulation that is more natural for the piano,’ he says, ‘but it really is our job to adapt.’ He gives the example of the scherzo from Beethoven’s Violin Sonata no.7, where violinists often play a resonant martelé at the tip. ‘That, for me, never truly works in unity with the piano. Instead, I find that a middle-to-the-frog, brave, short, off-string stroke is the one to go with.’

‘STRING PLAYERS ARE OFTEN AFRAID TO PRODUCE THE DRIER ARTICULATION THAT IS NATURAL FOR THE PIANO, BUT IT REALLY IS OUR JOB TO ADAPT’ 

Vibrato gives string players yet more opportunities to pull away from the piano sound, or to blend when necessary. To work on this idea, Contzen likes to begin by building up colours using only the bow, before adding enough vibrato to complement what her bow and the pianist are doing. The contrast between vibrato and non-vibrato can be used to bring out particular aspects of the music, too. Zorman describes the opening of the second movement of Bartók’s First Violin Sonata: ‘It starts with a big, expressive violin solo, with a lot of vibrato, but then on my high F sharp, the piano enters with an F major triad. The F sharp is much clearer without vibrato, so that you really feel the relationship between the instruments, to help the harmony come across.’

Gluzman performing Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet with pianist Alessio Bax, violist Tabea Zimmermann, bassist Niek de Groot and cellist Johannes Moser

ADAPTING TO THE HALL

 It can be tempting to think that when you’re happy with what you have achieved in the practice room, all will be well on stage. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. ‘Usually we rehearse in a studio or in someone’s home, where the piano is not nearly as big or as loud as it is in a hall,’ says Zorman. ‘In recitals we often have a nine-foot Steinway, so it’s quite—’, Weisman interjects, ‘a shock!’ ‘Even when you rehearse with a big piano, it’s often in a smaller space, where you wouldn’t even have the lid up, and so the conditions are completely different.’

Given that it isn’t always possible to get to know the concert hall or its piano in advance, Zorman and Weisman try to think about which areas of their pieces might become problematic before they get there. In particular, Zorman warns string players to play up in the middle registers, and not to drop too much at the ends of phrases: ‘Make sure you really speak, because those are the moments where string sound tends to disappear in the wash of what’s going on in the piano.’ He also asks colleagues to listen and comment from the auditorium, or records rehearsals on his phone. ‘Ask someone that you trust, and if you’re a string player, I would always err on the side of “play more”,’ he says. ‘It’s more likely that you’re going to be too soft than too loud. The piano just has more reserves.’

Deciding where to be on the stage is also important. In her role as a double bass professor at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, and as artistic director of the International J.M. Sperger Competition for Double Bass in Germany, Christine Hoock can often spot less experienced performers because they don’t know where to stand. ‘If they don’t go to the front of the stage, because they want to hide near the piano, their sound is immediately less focused,’ she says. Zorman advises positioning the f-holes to face the audience, as well as exploring the stage before a concert if possible. ‘Some spots just sound better, and often they’re not where it sounds best to you on stage,’ he says. In their piano trio set-up, Gluzman, Moser and Sudbin decided during their tour that they could achieve the best balance if Gluzman stood further to the left (when looking at the stage), and Moser sat on an angled platform just in front of the piano leg closest to the pianist, before the curve of the piano begins. ‘It puts the cello obviously higher, away from the sound waves of the piano, which helps projection,’ says Gluzman. ‘This gives a lot of advantage in terms of acoustical balance.’ Of course, for a cellist travelling without his own platform, this does create other problems. Concert halls have presented Moser with all manner of boxes to sit on, from the tiny to the enormous. In addition, none has been fixed to the floor – an alarming prospect in Bilbao, where they played at the Philharmonic Society hall with its stage angled down towards the audience.

‘IT’S MORE LIKELY THAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE TOO SOFT THAN TOO LOUD. THE PIANO JUST HAS MORE RESERVES’ 

Bassist Christine Hoock (left) and pianist Mari Kato (right) switch roles for fun

CLOSE PARTNERSHIPS

 Overall, though, perhaps there is just one true key to creating a really good, well-balanced and blended result. That is to collaborate with musicians that you like and trust. Zorman and Weisman have worked together for so long that they feel they can anticipate each other’s every move, helping them to reach new musical depths. That is also why, at the Sperger competition, Hoock encourages bassists to compete alongside their own, long-standing duo partners. ‘It makes a real difference,’ she says. ‘Creating the wide range of dynamics in soloistic playing is difficult, so to feel at home, it’s good to play with a pianist who knows and reacts to you. If you play with a regular duo, you can grow and discover the music together, to build something really interesting.’

Zorman (left) and Weisman (right) have been performing together since 2008

ZORMAN AND WEISMAN PHOTO CLAUDIO PAPAPIETRO

STRINGS AND PIANO ‘IF THE COLLABORATION DOESN’T WORK, SAY “THANK YOU” AND GO AND PLAY BY YOURSELF’ 

Without these positive relationships, there is no point in talking about blending or balancing our sound at all, says Gluzman. ‘That doesn’t mean that I don’t have disagreements with my chamber partners,’ he adds. ‘We simply speak and we experiment. My partners happen to be either my wife, Angela Yoffe, or Evgeny Sinaiski, who is my oldest friend, so heated voices are sometimes used – maybe more than necessary! But at the end of the day, I’m still married, and Evgeny is still my closest friend.’ Gluzman feels so strongly about this that if his students at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore can’t find a suitable pianist to play with them in an exam or masterclass, he would rather see them perform concertos or showpieces with no pianist at all. ‘My suggestion is that if you feel that the collaboration doesn’t work in the most elegant and nicest way, say “Thank you” and go and play by yourself,’ he says. ‘I imagine that many of my colleagues would agree.’

At the end of the day, the musicians who are least likely to produce successful balances and blends are those who have an individualistic approach, who work only on their own parts, by themselves, in their practice rooms. ‘For people who usually play alone, it’s very difficult to open the mind to create one sound when you have different instruments,’ says Hoock. The most successful collaborators are those who realise that musical partnerships are all about give and take, not only technical prowess and monopolising the spotlight. ‘It should be the opposite of the desire to shine,’ says Gluzman. ‘It’s the desire to have a collective voice. The desire to unveil and bring out a composer’s message, but to do it together.’ As Weisman puts it, ‘The formula is not: “OK, I’ll stay out of your way, you stay out of my way.” It’s about approaching every piece together as something new, and just trying to find its language and make it come alive.’