This is an English translation of an article published in Nikkan San on Feb 6, 2020, as a part of my column, “The Way of the Pianist.
I bet at some point you secretly wondered why there were so many different pianists playing the same piece. If the piece is the same, aren’t the end results the same no matter who plays the piece…? Who can honestly tell the difference between different pianists, playing the same Beethoven Sonata? …So, do you think actors won’t make any difference to the role of, say, Hamlet?
But rather than drawing the analogy between acting and playing music, let’s think about cooking. Is chicken soup made by a Michelin Star chef the same as chicken soup made by a fifth grader? Even if they were to follow the same recipe (the equivalent of the score for a piece of music), the two would be different from the very beginning: the ability to choose the ingredients (which would be the equivalent of the hall, the acoustic, the instrument, the touch, tone color, etc). The ability to handle a knife is like one’s dexterity at the keyboard. If you cut the ingredients by pressure applied from a dull knife, you destroy the cells of veggies and meats. Trained chef with the best knives chosen appropriately for each ingredient, on the other hand, cut the ingredients rhythmically. Evenly cut ingredients cook through evenly, absorbing the heat, and the condiments equally. If the chef’s knives equate to pianists’ fingers, then heat equates to the choice of tempo. Chef can cook quickly with high heat that would be illegal on a household stove. It coats the ingredients with just the right amount of high quality oil, locking the essence of each ingredients inside. Then, he can simmer the soup for hours with patients hard to imagine by a fifth grader. All of these are techniques acquired by years of training and technical knowledge.
Soup made by a fifth grader can have enormous amount of passion and sentiment. His/her first-time experience of cooking can be a life-time memory for the entire family. Cooking, like playing the piano, can be great fun. They are both multi-sensory activities that everyone, from kids to seniors, should enjoy. However, we all recognize that eating a dish made by a highly trained chef is a valuable culinary experience. A performance by a highly trained musician is exactly the same thing.
So, what about listening to a recording by world famous players? That’s like eating a canned soup, however branded and expensive. The techniques and knowledge may have been applied to the soup, but the person cooking does not share your time and space. Enjoyment of cuisine is meant to connect people, and canned food cannot do that. It’s better to eat preserved food than to starve to death. In the same sense, maybe it’s better to listen to recorded music than to have no music at all in one’s life. However, real experience of music is a communal one, even if it was just between the player and one listener.