Death of a noted improviser, 84
RIPThe death has been announced in Warsaw of Szábolcs Esztényi, a Hungarian-born pianist and composer who influenced generations of students as piano improvisation teacher at the Fryderyk Chopin Secondary School of Music in Warsaw and the Academies of Music in Warsaw and Łódź.
Which western concervatoire has a dedicated professor of improvisation?
May he rest in peace.
I would posit that “teaching improvisation” is a contradiction. That’s why so very few classical pianists can truly improvise coherent, melodically complex, harmonically rich, multi-voiced, structured works, and nobody can truly “teach” it. You can teach theory, and composition, and counterpoint, and all the rest. And you can encourage musicians to try to find flow state – a good Merlot helps – but there is no pedagogy that can teach creation from nothing, presuming that is the definition of improvisation, notwithstanding the accumulated knowledge of music itself up until that moment. Spontaneous composition of the highest order is, alas, the unique preserve of the genius, neurologically equipped unlike the rest of us schmucks. Hence why I stuck my missus in a FMRI machine at Johns Hopkins for two hours. I simply had to figure out the empirical correlation between unfettered musical freedom and lousy cooking (recently very much improved!)! Turns out, the improvisation part is driven by a neurological engine all of its own. Who would have guessed?
Study peer reviewed and published here, for any music-and-the-brain nerds out there…
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811919310870
It’s possible that Mr. Esztenyi’s pedagogy consisted in “teach[ing] theory, and composition, and counterpoint, and all the rest. And […] encourag[ing] musicians to try to find [a] flow state” that enables rapid, real-time recall and use of those musical tools. If he caught students early enough, perhaps his pedagogy could help hone that improvisational neurological engine you write of. I look forward to reading your linked study!
I see your point, absolutely. There’s definitely utility in trying to awaken the creative brain, thereby renewing the multi-dimensional approach to music enjoyed by the great pianist-composer-improvisers of old, before specialization took ahold. For sure. And exploring the neurological substrates of creativity adds a layer of understanding to the whole process. Let’s encourage creativity and scientific exploration, in parallel, and apply those values of curiosity to fields outside of music, too. Enjoy the study! Dr. Limb is a pioneer in the field.
Guildhall School of Music & Drama have a specialist centre, led by Prof David Dolan:
https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/study-with-guildhall/music/performance-and-collaboration/centre-for-creative-performance-classical