Clifford Curzon: Donald Brook’s Pen-Portrait from ‘Masters of the Keyboard' Part 2

For a year or so, Clifford Curzon returned to the Royal Academy of Music as a professor, but he found that it was almost impossible to fulfil his engagements as a concert pianist and to teach at the same time, and therefore felt obliged to relinquish his appointment. Only very occasionally does he give a private lesson now, yet he is interested in teaching, for he realizes the very important part the teacher plays in our cultural life. A fundamental mistake that many pianists and teachers make, in Curzon’s opinion, is that they become so interested in technique (in its widest sense) that they develop a standardized technique of their own and then proceed to impose it upon everything they play. Every individual type of music demands a different technique: one might almost say that every single phrase has to be considered apart from its neighbour.

To the student pianist, Curzon says, “Work hard at the classics while you’re young, but see that you are not satisfied with a ‘dull’ performance of such works. This applies particularly to the Beethoven sonatas.”

The method Curzon recommends for learning a piece is on much the same lines as Sir Adrian Boult’s system for the preparation of orchestral works. This can be summarized thus:  play the piece through several times regardless of mistakes to gain a thorough general impression of the work: you must be conscious of the work as a whole, its outline, emotion and so forth, before you attend to details. The music should then be taken to pieces, as it were, and every integral part studied and mastered separately. Finally, the piece should be re-constructed and polished as a whole. At the final performance you must still be “in love” with the music: signs of tiredness or staleness can be quickly discerned by the more discriminating listener.

Difficulties of fingering are often under-rated. When he is preparing a work, Clifford Curzon experiments over and over again to find the ideal fingering: the simplest and easiest to play is not always the best arrangement, nor is it always the most effective. His own music bears an enormous number of markings patiently pencilled-in during practice; he never trusts such matters to his memory. In the preparation of concertos, he frequently plays with his radio-gramophone, but thinks that this method can sometimes be overdone, and in any case should never be attempted without the most careful study of the full score.

Contrary to popular supposition, the piano virtuoso of to-day leads a very hard life if he is a conscientious musician. Curzon practises every day, for he finds that as little as three days’ holiday is enough to tell unfavourably upon his work. The skill of the concert pianist is like highly polished metal: a day or two without attention and it begins to get slightly dull; almost imperceptibly, perhaps, but lacking the brilliant freshness of its former state. Virtuosity, Curzon insists, is not as empty as some people imagine: we are afraid of the virtuoso in this country because of our national distaste of “showing off.”

He believes that the music of Chopin is apt to be over-played these days, and in any case, it is too often badly played. Schubert on the other hand is becoming neglected, and so is Liszt, whose music is pathetically misunderstood by millions of musicians to-day. We should always bear in mind the vast numbers of people who have never heard much of the work of these composers.

For the benefit of those who imagine that professional pianists bask in the “lime-light” and enjoy the stare of thousands of eyes, I might add that Clifford Curzon feels no pleasure when he is actually playing: he identifies himself so completely with the composer he is interpreting that the only sense of which he is conscious is one of profound responsibility for the control of a work of art. The pleasure and satisfaction come afterwards, when one is conscious of a job well done; conversely, a performance marred by a blemish of some sort, however tiny, can result in a sleepless night! Accidents do happen sometimes: when he was making his debut in New York, [1] for instance, his glasses fell off just as he reached the climax of the Liszt Funerailles! Curzon is very short-sighted, and he had to complete the work playing upon what seemed to be almost a phantom piano. Fortunately, all went well, but this was a very unpleasant experience on an occasion of such vital importance to a young artist. Commenting on this recital the critic of the New York Times [2] wrote: “Curzon, English pianist, at once established himself as an artist of prime importance. A supreme colourist, with an impeccable virtuoso technique, Mr. Curzon possessed that irresistible combination of power and tenderness, of vitality and subtle delicacy, that belongs only to the exceptionally gifted performer. . . Few pianists of the day have the perfect control of nuance in prismatic softer tints, the invariably singing tone, the velvety fortissimo with strength behind it that gave the delivery of these familiar pieces unusual appeal, aside from the wealth of poetry and imagination that informed the sensitive readings accorded them.”

Clifford Curzon was married in 1931 to Lucille Wallace [3], the American harpsichordist, whom he had met in Schnabel’s class. Their extensive work on the continent made it necessary for them to have a house abroad as well as in London, and they acquired an excellent property in beautiful surroundings near Salzburg. Although Curzon was in England when the Second World War broke out, most of his possessions, including the bulk of his music and the best of his pianos, were in Austria. Eventually a friend succeeded in posting his music to England in 2-lb. packages!

It would be impossible to relate all Curzon’s experiences in wartime, but it is perhaps worth mentioning that he was once asked to play in a certain provincial town hall in England where the local authorities had concealed the name of the German piano in the interests of public morale! He refused to play until the cloth covering the name was removed.

Curzon believes that all the arts are related, and that the musician should be able to appreciate other forms of art if he is to bring his own to perfection. He is keenly interested in painting, and among his proudest possessions are works of some of the greatest modern artists. Poetry also makes a strong appeal to him, and he reads extensively, Henry James and George Eliot for preference. Swimming and driving are his favourite recreations, and he is interested in Yoga.

Notes:

[1] Clifford Curzon made his debut at the Town Hall on 123 West 43rd Street, between Broadway and Sixth Avenue near Times Square, on 26 February 1939.

[2] The American critic Olin Downes writing in the New York Times, 27 February 1939.

[3] Lucille Wallace (1898–1977) was a pioneering American concert harpsichordist who helped revive early classical music in the 20th century. After graduating from Vassar, she studied in Europe under legends like Wanda Landowska. She enjoyed a successful performing career in Britain.

[4] The much repeated, (but not confirmed) anecdote perfectly captures both the fierce patriotism of wartime Britain and Sir Clifford Curzon’s legendary, unyielding perfectionism regarding his instruments.  During the Blitz, the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) sent artists like Curzon, Myra Hess, and Benno Moiseiwitsch to industrial provincial towns to boost factory worker morale. The "German piano" in question was almost certainly a Blüthner or a Bechstein, which were standard high-end fixtures in British civic halls before the war. Local council authorities - terrified that a roaring crowd of patriotic citizens would object to a piece of "enemy machinery" taking centre stage - frequently tried to drape the logos in felt or tape over them. Curzon, who lived and studied in Berlin in the late 1920s under Artur Schnabel, had zero tolerance for politics interfering with acoustic art. He knew that regardless of the geopolitical conflict, those German instruments were unmatched masterpieces of craftsmanship. To him, hiding the manufacturer's name was not patriotism; it was a tacky insult to music itself.

Concluded