This article by Elaine Strauss was prepared for the July 14, 2004 issue of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
'Life-altering" is what pianist Edna Golandsky calls the approach to the piano that she advocates. Once understood, it can turn technical wimps into masters of the keyboard. Grounded in physiologically natural movements, the method prevents injury and leads to a powerful, stress-free technique with an exceptional richness of sound.
It is based on principles of piano playing developed by Dorothy Taubman during the 1940s when her husband was in the Army and she had plenty of time to think about how to succeed at the keyboard. Taubman, now in her late-80s, still teaches at her Brooklyn studio. Long associated with Taubman, Golandsky decided that it was time to move on, and formed the Golandsky Institute in 2003.
Meeting on the Princeton University campus, the Golandsky Institute offers its first summer symposium from Sunday, July 18, through Saturday, July 24. Dedicated to advancing Taubman's keyboard approach, the symposium includes a week's worth of intensive piano study for registered participants, and nightly concerts open to the public. Among the 110 registrants are pianists from Canada, Austria, Australia, Sweden, France, Germany, Singapore, Yugoslavia, and Cuba.
Most concerts take place at 8 p.m. in Taplin Auditorium with pre-concert talks scheduled for 7 p.m. Breaking the pattern, Wednesday evening's fare consists of a 7 p.m. concert and an 8:30 p.m. showing of the movie "Great Pianists on Film."
Pieces on the program during the week range from the birth of the piano in the 18th century to contemporary works. Artists include Ilya Itin, who explores musical mysticism and spirituality in music by Messsiaen and Mussorgsky (July 18); Misha Dacic who performs a program of music ranging from Scarlatti to Villa-Lobos to Liszt (July 19); Eric Ferrand-N'Kaoua, who plays music by J.S. Bach, Ravel, and Gershwin (July 20); and Nina Tichman, a winner of the Busoni and Mendelssohn piano competitions (July 22).
"I wanted to make sure music of the last 50 or 60 years was present," says Golandsky in a telephone interview from her New York City home. Thursday, July 22, is the only program lacking recent music; it consists of Father Sean Brett Duggan's performance of J. S. Bach's "The Art of the Fugue."
Of the eight pianists who perform, six studied with Taubman or Golandsky. One, jazz pianist Bill Charlap, who gives the final concert, studied with New York pianist Eleanor Hancock shortly after Golandsky started.
Taubman's approach is to the point both for injured pianists and those who are healthy. "Many pianists are injured," Golandsky says. "Those not injured are often limited. This method gives pianists the freedom to reach their full potential."
Golandsky believes that common sense principles for effective playing apply to all pianists. "Some say that there are as many methods as there are pianists. But that's not possible," says Golandsky. "It's the same instrument, and people use the same limbs and muscles for a particular purpose. They're subject to the physical rules of the universe and the mechanical behavior of the piano. What differs is what they do with it."
Golandsky played an essential role in the Taubman summer institutes that began in 1977 and took place successively in Rensselaerville, New York; Amherst, Massachusetts; and, finally, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. I first ran into her when I attended the Amherst sessions during the 1980s.
Her task at that time was to deliver the daily morning lectures that spelled out the ramifications of a tension-free approach to the piano. In the afternoons, Taubman took over to give master classes.
"At the very beginning, for one or two years, Dorothy did both the lectures and master classes," Golandsky says. "Then she asked me to do the lectures. It was on one month's notice, and I said, 'Absolutely not,' because I couldn't see taking on all this material. I would have to lecture for two weeks, an hour and a half each day."
Reluctant at first, Golandsky nevertheless took over the lectures and delivered them for more than 20 years. "I kept modifying and improving the lectures," she says, "clarifying the material and finding better ways to convey it." Her explanations were singularly lucid and meticulously organized.
In Princeton the basic lectures will be given by others, and Golandsky will devote herself to lecturing on the transition from good technique to telling performance, "on the how-to, on how a craft becomes an art, on the elements to add to technique to make it an expressive technique," as she puts it. "The connection between technique and musical expression will be the mainstay of my (Princeton) lectures," she says.
Golandsky lists some of the questions she has grappled with in recent years: Why is music so often boring or static? Why is rhythmic motion so often lacking? Why do feelings not come out in the music? How is it that the same pianist can sound boring one moment, and talented the next? Where's the swing that we hear in jazz? Why is it often missing in classical music players?
Israeli born, Golandsky earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at New York's Juilliard School. She began her studies with Dorothy Taubman while she was at Juilliard and continued to work with her afterwards. She has given master classes and lectures in the United States and abroad. Her trajectory has included the Eastman School of Music, Yale University, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Oberlin Conservatory. Her appearances overseas have included Korea, Israel, England, and Italy.
A co-founder of the Taubman Institute, Golandsky was one of a triumvirate that included master teacher Dorothy Taubman and Enid Stettner, an imaginative administrator. In a sense, the institutionalization of Taubman's teaching can be traced to a chance encounter in a New York City elevator between Stettner and an unidentified stranger. Stettner was looking for a piano teacher for her daughter when she spotted in the elevator of her apartment building a girl carrying piano books, whose appearance aroused her curiosity. The girl wore no makeup; she looked fresh and natural. Stettner inquired with whom she studied, and learned that it was Golandsky, a resident of the building.
Golandsky, who didn't teach beginners, found one of her students to teach Stettner's daughter. Stettner, who had not played piano much after age 18, began to study with Golandsky, and Golandsky introduced her to Taubman, who was studying with her at the time. Stettner says, "I knew there was something awesome and different about Dorothy Taubman's approach, and I wanted the world to know about it."
By 1977 Stettner had moved to Medusa, New York. "I took $5,000 my father had left me, created a brochure, found attorneys, and incorporated the (Taubman) Institute," she says. She arranged for Dorothy Taubman to lead a summer workshop at the Rensselaerville Institute, a conference center near Medusa. The following year the institute moved to Amherst College where it stayed until the mid 1990s.
Stettner worked to expand the concert performances beyond Taubman's students. "I thought the whole world should be tearing down the walls to come, but I saw over the years that the Taubman Institute was not growing the way I thought it should. I decided that building a phenomenal festival would put Taubman's work into the mainstream. People would associate the Taubman Institute with excellent performance. I thought that the way to build the Institute was to build the festival." The institute/festival took up residence at Williams College, where concerts could be held in an acoustically appealing auditorium that seats more than 1,000. It was gathering steam until it ceased functioning in 2002.
Stettner has pulled back from her involvement with Taubman's work. Her primary interest at present is her business,"Wildthymes," which manufactures high end chutneys, sauces, marinades, and vinaigrettes. "I neglected it while I was building the Taubman Institute," she says.
The original Taubman Institute continues to exist. In 2003 and 2004 it sponsored seminars in New York City that extended over long weekends. The seminars included lectures on pedagogy, piano recitals, and master classes taught by Dorothy Taubman herself.
The Taubman Institute website (www.taubman-institute.com) also continues to exist. Video tapes made in Amherst and CDs recorded at the Williamstown may be ordered through the site. The Amherst tapes include Golandsky's lectures. The Williamstown CDs include festival performances.
Those Williamstown festival performances attracted the attention of Richard Dyer, veteran critic for the "Boston Globe," who reviewed more than a dozen of them. As an interested outsider, Dyer could look over the proceedings with an analytical eye. A lapsed pianist, he was impressed with what he heard.
"Not much at Amherst was reaching the outside world," he says in a telephone conversation. "Williamstown brought a new visibility to the school and the work, a different level of visibility. It featured pianists about whom there was already a lot of buzz. Princeton may be a quantum leap beyond Williamstown."
Dyer puts into perspective both the Taubman approach to the piano, and the qualities of pianists trained by her scheme. "Dorothy Taubman codified or verbalized what the best pianists do unconsciously," he says. "Williamstown was a public manifestation of the (Taubman) School. About half the performers were trained in the Taubman technique either by Dorothy Taubman or Edna Golandsky. Taubman people are among the best young pianists in the world."
Dorothy Taubman invited Dyer to attend the 2004 Taubman Institute seminar in New York to hear a performance of Charles Ives' thorny "Concord Sonata" by Yale freshman Timothy Andres, a student of Taubman-trained Eleanor Hancock. Andres was the subject of a certain amount of buzz. Only weeks before he played at the seminar, he was singled out by Alex Ross of the New Yorker as a young American composer to watch.
Although music critic Dyer never published a review of Andres' playing, he was happy to comment about it on the telephone, and to let his remarks extend to the roles of nature and nurture in Andres' music-making. The "Concord Sonata" has been an intermittent presence in Dyer's life ever since he worked on it when he was 19.
Dyer's telephone review confirms Golandsky's assessment of the worth of Dorothy Taubman's insights, when transmitted by a knowledgeable person. "Timothy Andres' playing of (the sonata) was mature, accurate, and imaginative," Dyer says. "It seized you immediately, and didn't let go until it was over. He's an extraordinary musical talent. It was the best performance of the 'Concord' I ever heard.
Timothy did some things that can't be taught. He was totally able to realize his musical vision in keyboard terms. You can hear people with gifts when there is something in their way. That (Andres' playing) was correct technically was the least of it. Eleanor Hancock can't be credited for his genes or his supportive parents. But he couldn't do what he did with natural talent alone. It's the result of long hard work. He's been very well taught."