The New Republic

"It sounded like..." - that is, simple variations. No big revolution, therefore. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven - they all used to improvise. But I think the title overrates a single event into a great revolution. Things are much more simple : to suppose we shall enter a new age where all musicians will systematically improvise, is to suppose they all are geniuses, all capable of engendering striking novelty on the spot - a thing that anybody can easily doubt. It takes a Mozart to be like this. We cannon bring democracy down here, and suppose that if we are all politically equal, we are all, already, small-Wagners and small-Mahlers, waiting for a stage to generate spontaneous brilliant music. It may well be that Ms. Gabriela Montero is smth. of the sort, which I doubt, however.

- Vlad M.

August 13, 2009 at 8:20am

Where on earth do you get the assertion that "Improvisation has historically been considered heresy by the classical music establishment."?! (And in the video piece, you use the world "blasphemy!") Improvisation has a long history and proud place amongst the master composers of the Western Classical tradition (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt...). The unaccompanied "cadenza" of a concerto is often used as an opportunity for improvisation away from a basic notated idea. Theorists like Adorno devoted significant time and attention to understanding improvisation's role within classical archetypes. Perhaps modern audiences for classical music don't understand or appreciate improvisation, but that only reveals them as ignorant of the history of the music. I personally have had the great pleasure of seeing the former prodigy Manfred Clynes improvise in the style of Scriabin in a private performance. Can you provide any single reference beyond Montero's and Huegner's assertion that a few (narrow-minded) teachers didn't like it to justify your point that improvisation is broadly considered heretical and blasphemous?

- Eric

August 13, 2009 at 10:00am

Great article, and unfortunately I can't get your video o open on my computer! Nonetheless, the whole idea of improvisation is a valuable springboard for discussion. The time is nigh for classical music to enrich itself by 'borrowing back' from jazz the whole language of spontaneous music-making! Jamie / Royal Conservatory, Flute Faculty / Toronto www.urbanfluteproject.com

- urbanflute

August 13, 2009 at 1:11pm

"audience members rose up in their seats, yelling, clapping, and singing" Please, why do you have to give us this kitsch? As for improvisation, haven't you ever heard of, you know, jazz? Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Joe Lovano?

- Alan Vanneman

August 13, 2009 at 2:40pm

Again, hardly new or revolutionary. The Baroque era was full of improvisation, the likes of Mozart and Haydn and their contemporaries improvised regularly, and even nineteenth-century artists such as Mendelssohn, Liszt, Thalberg, etc. improvised as part of their performances. Any hard-wired bias against improvisation is all of 125-150 years old, tops. I appreciate the effort to do something about classical music, TNR, but do better.

- cspencef

August 13, 2009 at 3:11pm

Other commenters have already spoken to the fact that improvisation does exist in classical music; I'd also like to defend its scarcity. The great innovation of the classical era was compositional mastery. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and the other greats structured musical ideas with careful, sophisticated attention to elements of micro- and macro-level form. The great masterworks they created are less susceptible to improvisation because each note plays an important role in the whole piece, the way each rivet in the Eiffel tower is carefully and deliberately fixed in place. The classical tradition does have something to learn from contemporary music, but I would argue that the great innovation will be a new way to incorporate advances in instrumentation and sound engineering. In the past 70 years, contemporary music has defined a range of new sounds- but modern musicians have largely failed to arrange them with as much genius and subtlety as the classical composers did.

- Duncan Basson

August 18, 2009 at 5:29pm