One day in 2005 or 2006, a small package landed on my desk from one, Byron Janis. I knew the name and the profession but little more. Inside was a letter in which he introduced himself and expressed interest in contributing to the Wall Street Journal’s arts pages. By way of further introduction, he had included a DVD of his performance of works by Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff. At home that night I popped it into the player and sat back. Less than five minutes later I’d shut it off. I’d never seen hands move that fast. The sight was so mesmerizing I couldn’t concentrate on the music. Ever since I have limited myself to his CDs and downloads.
I was immediately intrigued by Byron’s offer. Critics discuss art from the outside, as it were, from the perspective of the informed consumer. But the artist does so from the inside, as one immersed in the creative process. As such, they can enlarge our understanding of their subject in a uniquely personal way. And, in the 10 pieces he wrote for us between 2006 and 2016, Byron did just that. It’s a body of work that ranks with Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s “Notes of a Pianist.”
Byron’s topics ranged widely. But the common thread was a performer’s-eye view of the world of classical music. He opened our eyes—and ears—to aspects of that world most of us know little about or simply take for granted. So vivid are his descriptions and insights that he makes us feel we are seated on the piano stool next to him. A few examples:
On his preferred instrument: “No relationship could be more important to a concert pianist than the one with his piano. . . Indeed, pianos are not unlike people. Each one has a different temperament. . . As a result, no single piano can do complete justice to the music of every composer. All we can do is find the one that is mostly right for the music we’re playing.”
On sound: “Acoustics are rarely discussed from the concert pianists’ point of view, yet arguably it affects us the most. An audience member unhappy with the sound in their part of the auditorium can change seats, but we cannot. Therefore the position of the piano on stage is of utmost importance -- moving it only a foot in either direction can make an enormous differencein the sound and therefore in the performance.”
On performance: “An oft-heard adage has it that the greatest artists are always faithful to and play only what is written in the score. . . . . [But the] score is really a blueprint for our creative talents and, consequently, our interpretive options abound.”
On technique: “Chopin’s hand was small but extremely flexible, otherwise he could not have played this etude. Could his sleeping with wine corks between his fingers have helped his stretch? It could have, judging from my own finger-stretching devices (though not with wine corks!).”
Byron was just as insightful about his fellow musicians. He placed Rachmaninoff “at the top of the so-called triple-crown artists,” writing of his four piano concertos that their “similarity of architecture, soaring, Slavic-tinged passion and sensuality, and exciting rhythmic passages are the common thread that weaves the four into one grand tableau.” His was not an unalloyed admiration, however: “Alas, the Fourth Concerto, completed in 1926, is not of the caliber of the other three. Rachmaninoff seems to have been writing from his head, not his heart.”
Of course, Chopin was Byron’s greatest musical love, and so, not surprisingly, he is the focus of some of his finest writing. One passage in particular stands out:
“He blended classical restraint with romantic feeling, detesting any exaggeration that would turn sentiment into sentimentality. To recognize that is to play Chopin’s music the way he wanted it played -- the way he himself played it. Yet there’s more to it than that. To play his music as he felt it (as we learn from his writings) is to free it of all earthly bonds. As artists, that is our greatest challenge.”
And here it must be said that it is a challenge that Byron met--and surpassed. For listening to his Chopin recordings, one searches in vain for the right verb to describe what he is doing. “Playing” seems hopelessly inadequate. For in a Byron performance, technique falls away. He transcends the purely mechanical act of fingers pressing on keys to make hammers strike strings. Artist and instrument disappear, leaving only music in its purest, most disembodied and profoundly moving form.
No overview of Byron’s contributions to the Journal would be complete without highlighting his account of a moment in the cultural history of Cold War politics. Byron never made himself the subject of his pieces, only inserting himself in the service of making a larger point. And so, as part of an essay on the healing power of music he recounted his experience on a visit to Moscow in 1960 inaugurating the first formal cultural exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union:
“As I walked onto the stage for my opening recital in Moscow, there was no applause, only hostile shouts of “U-2, U-2, U-2” and “Kleeburn, Kleeburn, Kleeburn” from the audience. It didn’t take long to know what that meant. The Soviets had just shot down our U-2 spy plane, and anti-American propaganda was rampant. “Kleeburn” referred to Van Cliburn, who two years before had won the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow. . . . Somehow I steeled myself while waiting for the shouts to subside. Then I began playing. . . . By the intermission, I sensed that I was having a great success. When the recital was over, I was overwhelmed by the deafening applause. People were crowding to the edge of the stage and many were weeping. To see how music changed the atmosphere from hostility to tears showed me how music’s magnetism can quickly affect the human psyche.”
I’m very glad that these pieces will now become more widely available. They deserve to be read and reread.
— Eric Gibson, Arts in Review editor, the Wall Street Journal.