Pianoroll

Last year, the great musician and violinist, Joel Lester, conducted a workshop in Jerusalem about Bach’s music for violin solo and asked us to play the Preludio of Partita No. 3 in E major with Schumann’s piano accompaniment. In the video linked below, Daniel Askarov played the violin and I played the piano accompaniment, with Joel Lester turning the pages. (Joel Lester turning pages for me reminds me of a funny story about Enescu and Schnabel, which I will tell you at the end of this blog.)

As I played Schumann’s piano part I was wondering why on earth would Schumann add a piano accompaniment to Bach’s perfect music for violin solo. Joel Lester said that in Schumann’s days these things would not be played without an accompaniment.
This year, when I started playing the violin part of the Partita, I finally understood the meaning of Schumann’s piano accompaniment. It is amazing how identical it is to the phrasing of the Bach Partita. Schumann studied Bach extensively and his accompaniment can be used as an exercise in counterpoint and in phrasing. Schumann might have thought that Bach needed more counterpoint and polyphony in his violin Partitas, so he added his piano accompaniment which makes it sound more harmonically and polyphonically present.
And here is the story about Enescu and Schnabel. It involves the Romanian violinist Sandu Albu, a friend of Enescu’s. It took place in the late 1920s in New York when Sandu Albu was touring in New York and his accompanist turned sick. As luck would have it, he ran into Enescu in the street and asked him if he would accompany him that evening on the piano, and Enescu said, no problem, he could do it. Later that day, Enescu ran into Schnabel, who asked if Enescu wanted to go to the movies with him. Enescu said he had a concert, but if Schnabel would turn pages for him, they could go out afterwards. Schanbel said no problem, he’d turn pages for Enescu. Next day, in the New York Times review, they wrote the following about the concert: “The music was very good, but there was a slight problem with the casting: Enescu should have been on the violin, Schnabel on the piano, and Sandu Albu should have been turning pages.”