Piano placement for concerto

[JStan40@aol.com]

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In a message dated 03/31/2003 7:51:43 PM Central Standard Time, Phil Ford 
writes:

> Over the weekend I went to a concert by the San Francisco Symphony.  
> Jean-Philippe Collard was the piano soloist in the Poulenc concerto.  The 
> piano placement was a first for me.  The piano had been placed in the 
> center of the orchestra with the tail up against the conductor's podium and 
> the keyboard away from the audience so that when the pianist was seated he 
> was facing the conductor and the audience.  The top of the piano had been 
> removed.
> In terms of coordination between pianist and conductor this arrangement 
> seems to make a lot more sense than the conventional arrangement.
> In this hall, from my usual seat in the first balcony, the piano sound was 
> dramatically different than it is with the usual placement of piano center 
> left at front of stage, pianist in profile, and lid up.  The piano sounded 
> much more part of the ensemble rather than like a separate voice detached 
> from the orchestra.  Also, the balance of the piano sound was altered.  The 
> midrange and treble were more pronounced with the bass being less dominant. 
>  To my ears concert pianos often have an overdominant bass end.  That was 
> not the case in this concert.  The pianist could still get a powerful bass 
> sound when he wanted, and he occasionally did, but for 'normal' playing the 
> piano sound had a better balance for my taste.  Also, for better or worse, 
> you could not see the pianists hands, so your attention was not diverted by 
> watching him play, and you could concentrate on listening to him play.
> I also thought it was refreshing to see both conductor and pianist using a 
> score (and turning their own pages) rather than working from memory.
> 
> Phil F
> 
Phil,

I'm probably jumping in too soon here, without going to all of the reference 
books.........but that never stopped me before!  Poulenc very likely 
specified the stage arrangement in the musical score....a technique taken up 
frequently in the second half or so of the 20th century and continuing with 
some composers in the 21st.  In this way the effects that you mention can be 
more or less consistently delivered from performance to performance, though 
the hall itself has perhaps a greater bearing on the results than with the 
standard piano placement.  One of the primary reasons for doing this was to 
make the "solo" instrument more a member of the overall ensemble, which 
allows for both soloistic AND ensemble-related playing from the soloist--that 
is more difficult to do with the ordinary placement.

Wish I could have heard that performance!

Stan Ryberg
Barrington IL
Associate Member
mailto:jstan40@aol.com

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