The Two-Voiced Performer in Betsy Jolas's Piano Piece Mon ami

Heidi Korhonen-Björkman, Sibelius Academy

[Introduction of the presentation: the presenter's performance of Mon ami, Version 5]

1. The special character of Mon ami

For years, I have been interested in Betsy Jolas's music. In 2003, I practiced and performed Signets. Hommage à Ravel (1987). I had found the score by accident, in a booklet of the repertoire of a piano competition dedicated to contemporary music only. The subtitle of the piece (Hommage à Ravel) fascinated me, as well as the texture, which appeared pianistically appealing. I recognized the beginning of Signets as a musical intertext to Ravel's Ondine (from the suite Gaspard de la nuit, 1908). During the same period I worked on seminar papers at the department of musicology at the University of Helsinki. My Master's Thesis (Korhonen 2006) focused on the piece Signets. My approach on Signets was foremost analytical, but from a performer's perspective – I focused on those observations the physical playing experience can reveal.  

Presently, working on my doctoral dissertation at the Research Programme at the Sibelius Academy, I continue my research on Jolas's music, taking seven pieces into account. I have practised myself some works, while I approach other works by making interviewing other musicians. Of all pieces, I have so far dedicated most time and effort to Mon ami, trying to approach by both playing it myself and interviewing another pianist and listening to her performances. [1] I have had the opportunity to listen to different sorts of performances: playing-throughs at the interview sessions, a live performance recording of the interviewee (MK 2005) and a concert performance at my own lecture-recital in 2009. A fourth kind of performance is the recordings for the sake of practice I made for myself, in order to prepare my presentation today.

Betsy Jolas's (1926–) Mon ami. Ariette variée à chanter-jouer pour pianiste femme ou un enfant (1974) is a piece, where the pianist is supposed to sing and play simultaneously. [2] The use of the instrumentalist's voice is not an unususal technique in contemporary music, but it appears in Mon ami in a unique way. In Mon ami, the vocal part consists of a tonal song melody, which, in the beginning of the piece with an accompaniment of a few tones, is sung through completely. Little by little, the song melody, is fragmented, and the piece is transformed to a piece for piano solo.

An important characteristic of Mon ami is the five possible versions of different length and difficulty. Altogether, the score consists of four pages of written music. Version 5, the longest one, with a duration of approximately 4', consists of almost all notes of the score, with the exemption of couple of ending bars for other versions. Version 1 covers the first page, and lasts approximately 1'30''. It is also the part where the song text is sung completely through, and where the piano part consist of only a few tones. The duration of version 2 is 1'30'' as well. A section of version 1 on the first page is omitted, and replaced by another section, which covers the second page in the score. Version 3 (approximate duration 2'15'') covers the two first pages completely. Version 4 (duration 3'30'') is almost identical with Version 5, with the exeption of the same  section of two staff systems on page one, which is omitted in Version 2. [3]

Recently, the interest for performance and the performer has increased within different areas of music research. My scholarly interest is focused mainly in the field of performance and analysis. The relationship between performance and analysis is often understood as a relationship of mutual impact or a way of presenting different perspectives to a musical work (Schmalfeldt 1985; Clarke & al. 2005). However, rather than performance as analysis (cf. Barolsky 2007), I understand performance as an analytical tool (Leong & Korevaar 2005; Marin 2010), which makes it possible to treat playing-based observations as equally important analytical parameters as the observations that are the result of the traditional approaches of listening and reading the score. Consequently, my interest is not primarily in the performer's physical and mental achievements, whether or not she succeeds in realizing the score, but rather in her playing-based resources of knowledge.  

My study of Mon ami has been a lengthy process, consisting of two main parts: on the one hand, an interview study, and, on the other hand, my own playing. Today, I will consider the similarities of and differences between these two approaches, and I ask myself, whether the change of the perspective from a listener's and an interviewer's position to a performer's position has any consequences for the image of the piece.

2. The interviews of Maria Kallionpää

My study of Mon ami started by interviewing the pianist and composer Maria Kallionpää about her playing experience of the piece. At the first interview (MK 2006) Maria played through the piece twice and then we discussed it. Most of the discussion focused on Maria's experience of practising Mon ami supervised by the composer. [4] One important discussion topic was the difficulties of integrating playing and singing. Another important topic was the phenomenon echo, occurring on many levels in the piece, starting from the song text and the reverberation, ending at associations to the Greek myth of the nymph Echo (cf. Cavarero 2005). The first interview was succeeded by an article (Korhonen-Björkman 2008), where the aspects of echo are discussed in detail.

The second interview (MK 2008) was realized considerably later than the first one. I had planned to realize the interview by a brief recurrence of Mon ami, and then continue by discussing other pieces of Betsy Jolas. [5] In the end, however, almost all of the time was dedicated to Mon ami. At the interview, I also had the possibility to hear one more live performance, which led the discussion to the technical challenges of the piece. Maria had not practiced the piece particularly for this interview, and she was not satisfied with her performance. She complained about having vocal problems, a result from a lenghty flu. The performance did not follow the instructions of the score as well as her previous performances. On the other hand, this did not matter; I was surprised to hear how a free interpretation of the performance instructions of the score nevertheless produced a well-functioning whole. 

Maria also performed Mon ami at my lecture recital in November 2009, at the Sibelius Academy. The lecture recital also inluded the cellist Juho Laitinen's performance of the cello piece Épisode cinquième (1985), and my own performance of a few other pieces by Jolas: Signets. Hommage à Ravel, Pièce pour (1997), and Calling E.C. (1982). 

After the interviews and hearing several performances played by the same pianist, my picture of Mon ami was strongly linked to the identity of the performer. My own playing experience of Mon ami was limited: I had investigated briefly how the simultaneous playing and singing feels in the beginning of the piece, and I had tried out a few measures from other parts. 

3. My own practice and performance

After having been a listener and a discussion partner I was about to try out the musician's perspective in practice. The practice took place mainly during the last summer (2010) in a period of six weeks, and the average rehearsal hours were four hours a week. A more intensive practice took place during this week, and I also took a piano lesson. I did not find it necessary to record my practice sessions systematically, since my aim was not to study the rehearsal period as a learning process. In addition, recording might be problematic sometimes, since it makes the practising circumstances different, and I did not wish to change my ordinary working habits too much. I recorded only a few playing throughs, which functioned as a help for my preparation for the performance today. However, I needed to compromise concerning some working habits, for the sake of the research. I had not planned to keep a rehearsal diary, since I usually do not. I found out quite soon, that some notes from the practising sessions were necessary to make. The playing gave ideas to my thoughts and my writing. 

4. Some comments on my playing-based observations

4.1 The challenge of combining singing and playing

Maria Kallionpää, who had practiced Mon ami for the first time at Betsy Jolas's master class, told me that the composer had advised her to avoid a classical singing technique, to use a straight, pure, natural, non-vibrating voice. For the listener, the piece might be associated to the genre of Lied – if the listener only listens to the performance, and does not see the performer, and does not know the subtitle of the piece. The Lied context is strengthened by the fact that the song part includes text, and the melody is tonal (in F major). However, the weakness of the voice might be confusing to the listener: it is not like a soloist's voice. Also the disappearance of the vocal part in the middle of the piece may cause confusion.

The performer of Mon ami should have a specific combination of properties. First, she should be female (or a child), in order to have a light soprano voice, suitable for the vocal part. The light soprano voice should nevertheless be able to sing out the lowest pitches. The composer is herself a multi-instrumentalist and an experienced singer, and Mon ami is one of the first piano compositions. The background of the piece is personal: it was a children's song Jolas wrote for her daughter. [6]

Next, a couple of examples.

Musical example: [7] Korhonen-Björkman sings and plays the second row on page one with the text: ”Du Nord au Midi, toujours il me suit, jamais ne s'en fuit”. [8]

Here the difficulty consists of the increasing tempo, low pitches to sing, uncomfortable intervals in the melody, little support from the piano, the incompatibility of the stresses in the textual phrase and the musical beat, and the complicated pronounciation. The performer might feel that the piano part does not always support the vocal part. Often the piano and the voice produce dissonant tunes together – making vibrato. The vibrato can be understood as a kind of reverberation. Here the A in the voice and the Ab in the piano make this effect: 

Musical example, page 1, row 3 [9]

4.2 The role of the different versions of Mon ami

Mon ami can be performed in five different versions, as the guideline in the score says: ”choice of five possible versions according to the grade of difficulty”. The versions reflect the performer's power:  the performer determines the piece to a considerable extent, since she chooses the version which is to be performed. Before I started to practice Mon ami myself, I did not pay attention to the fact that the impression of the piece is different if you perform different versions. For me, Mon ami was identical with Version 5, since I had heard Maria perform only that one. When I practised myself, I tried out also the versions 1 and 3. Version 1 appeared as a satisfying whole: it remains a song with a piano accompaniment. Version 3, however, ends with an abrupt cadenza that simply does not sound good. The versions 2 and 4, on the other hand, lack a part of the song text. For me personally, the middle versions (2, 3 and 4) appear artificial. An interesting possibility, however, could be to perform several versions at the same concert.

Since all the versions are visible in the score, most professional pianists propably feel that they should perform every note that is written down in the score. At least, playing the shorter versions should not indicate that they are not capable of playing all the notes. Version 5 consists of almost all notes, with the exepction of a couple of ending bars for other versions. The part of the piano solo belongs to the versions 4 and 5. Further, the piano solo makes the general impression of Mon ami totally different, since it makes an impressive climax. The differences in the difficulty of the versions has puzzled me a lot – is the first version really the easiest? After all, the virtuosity of the impressive climax helps the performance, it is not as sensitive as the beginning. The first version is easy to play technically, but not musically. The realization of the reverberation requires a lot of practice. In all, the difficulty of the song part has its own problems, mainly because of the large gap between a pianist's skills as a singer and as a instrumental musician. I also have been wondering about the subtitle of Mon ami: ariette variée à chanter-jouer pour pianiste femme ou enfant – how would a young child approach the piece and its difficulties? 

4.3 A third voice: the reverberation

The reverberation is the glue that connects the gestures and the fragments together and thus contributes to the musical continuity. The reverberation becomes almost like a third voice speaking with the two-voiced pianist, it is the product of the sound of the piano and the voice. The realization of reverberation is something that the performer of Mon ami has to practice actively. The realization of the reverberation depends a lot on the actual instrument, as well as on the performance hall. The tuning of the piano impacts the effect of the reverberation to a considerable extent. For instance, my view of the piece changed when I practiced in this particular hall a week ago. [10]

4.4 The challenge of controlling time, dynamics and articulation

The rhythm of Mon ami is organized in two ways. There are sections and even single measures of free time, indicated with duration time only. They are intertwined with sections of metric pulse, indicated with time signatures. The metric parts do not longer exist in the piano solo section, after the disappearance of the song.  

For me, the first impression was that the ”metric” parts were more difficult to realize than the ”free” parts, mostly since I felt that the song part and the piano part should ideally form equal partners making the rhythmic figures. On the other hand, the free time reverberation measures [11] are not simple at all: you may forget to practice them, and to listen to them carefully.  

In the beginning, I tried to sing as loud as possible, especially in the lower registers. Making fast crescendo or diminuendo singing, or singing staccato, was even more challenging. For the singing, there seemed to be two contradictory requirements: on the one hand, a beautiful, natural song, well in tune; on the other hand, an expectation of clear articulation, dynamics, and a well articulated text. 

Later I realized that more important than a high sound level was the articulation of the text. I gave up my efforts of being a solo singer, and concentrated on mixing the sounds of the piano and my voice. The following example show how the metric measures and free, reverberation measures are intertwined.

Musical example: second page

5. Conclusions

5.1 The playing-based form

The musician's understanding of the form or the shape of a piece is likely to differ from the listener's experience. Version 5 is divided into three main units: The first unit is the one where the song is dominating, the second unit is the part where song and and the piano are equals, and finally, the third unit consists of the part of the piano solo. For the performer, a crucial turning point is the moment where the playing takes over and the singing vanishes. In addition, the playing technique divides the piano solo part into smaller sections. For instance, here I feel a new start:

Musical example: page 3, the second measure of the second row

Next, I will show you the ”final cadenza” and the ”cooling coda”.  

Musical examples: 

The ”final cadenza”, page 4, rows 2, 3 and 4.

The ”coda” is located on page 4, last row.

5.2 The Two-Voiced Pianist

The well-known and broadly used concept "the performer's voice" may refer to the performer's thoughts expressed verbally outside the performance: opinions about music, analytical insights, personal experiences of playing music in general. Sometimes, "voice" indicates a concrete phenomenon, as in music, where "voice" refers also to the real, physical and audible musical sound, which has its origin in the performer's body and its movements.  

Mon ami is characterized by a two-voiced pianist, using her pianist's playing voice, and her human voice. She has to combine two separate expressive voices, of which one is familiar and secure, and the other is – depending on the pianist's background – weaker, more personal, and more vulnerable. The instrumental musician's singing is of course not an uncommon technique in contemporary music, such as in George Crumb's music. However the whole starting point is different in Jolas's and Crumb's music. [12] Crumb's music is characterized by vocal sound effects, roaring, whispering and screaming, while the song part of Mon ami is supposed to be "ordinary" singing, a "complete" entity, with a "complete" text. On the other hand, the vocal part is not ordinary at all. There are many requirements, normally associated with instrumental music, such as rapid dynamic changes, and sharp articulation. The vocal part is not a typical solo part, since it is undergoing an annihilation: little by little, it is fragmented and the piano part takes over totally. The character of the vocal part is placed somewhere between an ”ordinary” song and an instrumental part.

The unique kind of combination vocal – instrumental is characteristic for Mon ami. Mon ami is concretely connected to the latter interpretation of the concept "the performer's voice": the physical voice of the performer. The singing is likely to have consequences on the pianist's identity: the practice of piano playing is strongly rooted in the pianist's body, mixing it with singing is most likely a disturbing activity. The pianist's task is to try to integrate the unfamiliar identity as a singer into the familiar, strong, identity of a pianist. 

5.3 Were there differences between my interview-study and my own playing study?

The personal properties and personalities of my interviewee, as well as myself, impacted the course and the results of the interview study. Maria's composership impacted undoubtedly her approach, as well as her collaboration with the composer. Our common interaction played a role: By the time of the first interview (MK 2006) Maria did not know that I am a professional pianist, too. Right after the second interview (MK 2008), during an informal discussion, she seemed surprised about my background, which includes much more teaching and piano playing than music research. Maybe that explained why Maria tended to read the score for me at the interview as a composer, which meant that she had the tendency to focus on structural issues, rather than speaking as a pianist to another pianist. On the other hand, when Maria told about the experience of learning Mon ami under the supervision of the composer, the pianistic dimensions were present in Maria's speech.

In general, my own practicing resulted in highlighting the same themes as the interview study. However, the relationship of details on the grass root level and superior shapes changed when I moved from a listener's position to a performer's position. For instance, parts that are difficult to perform were greater and took more psychological time in my mind as a performer, while the same places just swept away for me as a listener. The weight of the difficult parts and the importance of different details however changed under the course of the practice: for instance, I practised to singing the correct rhythms a lot for a while, since I experienced them as crucial for the musical shaping. Later the importance of sound quality and the realization of the reverberation on different instruments, and in different performance halls, took over. 

5.4 The Relationship Between Performance (Practice) and Analysis

In a musical performance a huge amount of impressions and experiences always occur simultaneously: from the musician's perspective, it might be strange to try to isolate analytical parameters from each other and to examine them separately. [13] From the musician's perspective, the performer's relationship with the musical instrument is a crucial characterizer of the piece which is played (cf. Mali 2004; Riikonen 2005). Mon ami is an excellent example of the meaning of this relationship, since the relation between the pianist and the piano is challenged by the human voice. For a pianist, the particular instrument available for the performance may be a sensitive matter. The time devoted for practicing makes possible the observations on countless levels and on countless details. The playing-based observations are likely to be dynamic and changeable rather than static. The reverberation, which I, in the interview part of my study of Mon ami, recognized as one of the appearances the theme "echo" (Korhonen-Björkman 2008), was finally a result of multiple ways of making the reverberation.

Performance as an analytical tool sheds light on the dimension of making music. I also wish to emphasize the word practice, which refers to the musician's work. Practicing a piece on a musical instrument is an activity that demands an enormous amount of time an effort. This work is often undermined as a source of knowledge. Questions and observations arousing during the practicing process, as well as changes in the realization of the piece, can be interpreted not only as descriptions of the performer's development, but also as descriptions of the character of the music (Riikonen 2005, 71). [14] Consequently, a musical work has a physical, corporeal dimension (see also Le Guin 2006). In some cases, the individual performer is unseparable from the character a musical work.

Contrary to studies treating analysis as the approach dedicated to a theorist, and performance as the approach dedicated to the musician, I recognize the existense of certain analytical insights, which only playing can make possible. However, ”playing a musical instrument” and ”the musician's analysis” are not synonymous terms. I do not understand performance and analysis neither as similar, comparable, nor optional activities. 

Playing Mon ami affected my analysis, the analysis affected my playing. For instance, I noticed a slight change in my practicing routines because of the need to produce a verbal presentation. Further, the research project made me read the score without playing, which I normally seldom do. However, the score reading was made with the playing in mind, usually to the extent that I seldom was able to read only, without playing a single tone. To put it simple: the score reading just drove me to go to the piano and I just needed to play. The task of both analyzing and playing made me pay attention to the different versions of the piece, which I likely had not done if my aim had been a performance only. 

As a conclusion, I will play version 1 of Mon ami. 

Musical example: Version 1

[Discussion. The questions were answered both verbally and by playing musical examples. After the questions of the audience, Korhonen-Björkman was asked to play version 1 once more.]

Notes

1. Here I mean research time (analyzing and writing) and practice time together.
2. My friend. Ariette to sing and play for a female pianist or a child.
3. In practice, the durations vary to a considerable extent. The duration of my own recorded performances of Version 5 varied between 3'50'' and 4'30''.
4. The Master Class ”Académie Villecroche” in France, 2005.
5. Pièce pour Saint Germain (1981) and Calling E.C. (1982).
6. This information derives from the first interview with Maria Kallionpää (MK 2006). I have no exact information of the source of the song text.
7. All the musical examples in the presentation were live performances.
8. From the North to the South, he always follows me, he never disappears.
9. The page numbers which I refer to here do not correspond to the Editor's (Heugel & Cie) page numbers in the score.
10. The Aino Ackté hall at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki.
11. ”Measure” refers also to units with duration time indications.
12. Tuomas Mali's study (2004) investigates the writer's playing experience of Crumb's piano music. The relationship between the musician and the musical instrument is a crucial issue of Mali's study.
13. One of the most traditional approaches of performance studies is to investigate the performance itself, to measure specific musical parameters, compare different performances to each other etc.(e.g. Gabrielsson 2003; Clarke & al. 2005). It is also important to notice two mainstreams within the field of Performance and Analysis: a) the analysis of the performance itself and b) the kind of analysis which the performer can benefit from (Rink 2002; Leong & Korevaar 2005).
14. Here, I do not comment further the complicated philsophical question of the musical work (Goehr 1992). From the musician perspective, it is however a practical starting point to assume that musicians work on pieces of music or musical works.

Sources

a) Score

Jolas, Betsy (1974). Mon ami. Ariette à chanter-jouer pour pianiste femme ou un enfant. © Heugel et Cie. H. 32492. (Represented by Éditions Alphonse Leduc & Cie.)

b) Recording

MK (2005). Maria Kallionpää's personal recording of a live performance of Mon ami. Betsy Jolas's Master Class. France. Not published.

c) Interviews

MK (2006). Maria Kallionpää, interviewed by Heidi Korhonen-Björkman. Helsinki, Sibelius Academy, November 2006.

MK (2008). Maria Kallionpää, interviewed by Heidi Korhonen-Björkman. Helsinki, Sibelius Academy, May 2008.

d) Literature

Barolsky, Daniel (2007). ”The Performer as Analyst.” Music Theory Online 13/1. http://www.societymusictheory.org.

Cavarero, Adriana (2005). For More than One Voice. Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression. Transl. by Paul A. Kottman. Stanford: Stanford University Press, California.

Clarke, Eric; Cook, Nicholas; Harrison, Bryn; Thomas, Philip (2005). ”Interpretation and performance in Bryn Harrison's être-temps.” Musicae Scientiae 19/1, 31–74.

Gabrielsson, Alf (2003). ”Music Performance research at the millennium.” Psychology of Music 31/3, 221–272.

Goehr, Lydia (1992). The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: an Essay in the Philosophy of Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Korhonen, Heidi (2006). Betsy Jolas ja piano. Kolme soittimellisuusanalyyttista aspektia teokseen Signets. Hommage à Ravel. Master's Thesis. University of Helsinki, The Department of Art's Research, Musicology. The Library of the Faculty of Arts, Vironkatu 1, Helsinki.

Korhonen-Björkman, Heidi (2008). ”Eko som tema. Musiker- och lyssnarpositioner i Mon ami av Betsy Jolas.” Musiikki 3–4, 147–170.

Le Guin, Elisabeth (2006). Boccherini’s Body. An Essay in Carnal Musicology. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Leong, Daphne & Korevaar, David (2005). ”The Performer's Voice: Performance and Analysis in Ravel's Concerto pour la main gauche.” Music Theory Online 11/3. http://www.societymusictheory.org. 

Mali, Tuomas (2004). Pianon sisältä: kokemuksia George Crumbin pianomusiikin soittamisesta. Helsinki: Sibelius Academy.

Riikonen, Taina (2005). Jälkiä itsessä. Narratiivisia huilisti-identiteettejä Kaija Saariahon säveltämässä musiikissa. Turku: University of Turku.

Rink, John (2002). ”Analysis and (or?) performance.” Musical performance. A Guide to Understanding. John Rink ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 35–58.

Schmalfeldt, Janet (1985). ”On the Relation of Analysis to Performance: Beethoven's ”Bagatelles” Op. 126, Nos 2 and 5.” Journal of Music Theory 29/1, 1–31.