If, like me, you have no special aptitude as a musician, or a painter, or an actor, you can go through much of your life not realizing that you still make an indispensable contribution to art any time you listen to a concert; look at a painting; watch a play, movie, or opera; or read a novel. For without an audience, there is no art. We all know that actors and musicians rehearse out of our view and hearing, that painters make sketches we’ll never see, and that writers discard reams of imperfect drafts to keep us from reading their work before it is ready. From that alone we should realize that the artist rehearses, or sketches, or drafts, with us — the audience — in mind. Only when the artist feels the work is ready for exposure to the world — to all of us — will the broad public ever see or hear the work.
The need to reach viewers, hearers, or readers disciplines the artist, but the audience’s role runs deeper. The best, the most durable art is an ongoing conversation between artist and audience. At its pinnacle, art responds to us as strongly as we respond to art.
Consider, if you will, Chopin’s Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53, his “Heroic Polonaise.” The piece is a highlight and favorite of mid-nineteenth century European romanticism. The usual story is that Chopin shied away from nicknames for his compositions, but that George Sand, his longtime lover and companion, wrote him in a letter that the piece should be an heroic symbol of a revolutionary spirit. Built around a traditional Polish dance form, the Polonaise, it’s not hard to interpret it as a statement of Polish patriotism.
Artur (or Arthur) Rubinstein (1887-1982) was born into a Jewish family in Lodz, now in Poland, and naturalized as a US citizen in 1946. He made some contributions to Hollywood films, but is still best known as a great interpreter of Chopin. In 1964 he gave two performance of Chopin’s Heroic Polonaise, preserved on YouTube. The contrast demonstrates the importance of the audience to art.
The first is a canned television recital in 1964, sponsored by British Petroleum, which Rubinstein recorded for broadcast in Australia. [Please note that while the video is nearly half an hour long, the Chopin Polonaise is the first piece, around 7 minutes]
I like this performance. It is a virtuoso’s rendering of great music. The performance is clean, flawless — and make no mistake, the Heroic Polonaise is a difficult piece — and well-calculated to bring fine art into the homes of Australians, who might then think a little better of BP because they would sponsor such a program. Outstanding pianist brings the accomplishment of a great composer to appreciative audience, satisfying sponsor. Mission accomplished.
Music is a three-way conversation, involving composer, musician, and audience. With that in mind, let’s look at another performance — same piece, same pianist (same composer too, of course), but a much different audience. This is from Rubinstein’s all-Chopin recital at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, also in 1964. The stakes here could not have been higher. He played, we may assume, before the Soviet elite. But remember, Rubinstein’s birthplace now groaned under a heavy Soviet yoke, his heritage was Jewish, and he was an American living in California. The Cold War raged.
The same pianist, playing the same composition on an instrument built by the same New York family business — yet it doesn’t sound like the same piece. The heroic statement in the Moscow performance is stronger and more strident. The most aggressive part seems more urgent, and the patriotic longing in the quieter interlude more poignant. It’s as though this Polish emigré to the United States felt this recital was his one chance to convey to a Soviet audience the spirit of one of their subject peoples. A keener ear may hear that in his Moscow performance Rubinstein made technical mistakes all over the place, but I don’t care. I will always prefer this interpretation.
I used to make this argument using a video of Vladimir Horowitz playing the same piece before a genteel audience at the White House. Horowitz, of course, is another virtuoso, and it’s impossible to fault the performance. But he was delivering culture to an audience that liked feeling that it appreciated culture. If his goal was to satisfy that feeling, he achieved it. But if you ever doubt that an audience that needs to receive a message can stimulate a truly great performance, come back to Rubinstein in Moscow.