SFist Interviews Pianist Adam Tendler

SFist: You are one of the very few people who can play John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes from memory. Will you play 4'33" as an encore, and are you able to play it without the score as well?

Adam: 4'33" as an encore is a lot to ask of an audience who has just sat through 70 minutes of prepared piano music. But funnily enough, people have often mistakenly thought that I've opened my program with 4'33". Since I do play Sonatas and Interludes from memory, it's very important for me to prepare mentally at the keyboard for the performance, to make sure I'm really ready, because it is indeed an incredibly taxing piece to perform, emotionally. So when I sit to play, I force myself, nerves and all, to scan through the entire piece in my mind, sort of on fast forward, until I've made it through the whole thing. It's nerve wracking, and takes discipline, but it's also means sitting in silence for what seems like a couple of minutes, so it's easy for some to think I'm opening with 4'33". I wouldn't feel comfortable doing 4'33" from memory though. If I recall, the original score requires the piano lid to be opened and closed at certain points, and I don't know where they are.

SF: Cage defined himself as "I am going toward violence rather than tenderness, hell rather than heaven, ugly rather than beautiful, impure rather than pure- because by doing these things they become transformed, and we become transformed." Do you see these aspects of violence, hell, ugliness, impurity and also transformation in Sonatas & Interludes?

Adam: Well, that's an incredible quote. I can probably do it very little justice, because there's so much there. But, in terms of Sonatas and Interludes, I can quickly tell you that around the time of its composition, Cage was closely studying the literature of Indian philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy, who detailed in his writing the concept of rasa, which basically divides the human experience into eight permanent states; the heroic, erotic, wondrous, mirthful, sorrowful, fearful, angry, and odious, with all eight sharing a common tendency toward tranquility. Cage said relatively little about the Sonatas and Interludes after their premiere, but he did reveal that this philosophy is represented in the piece. He never said which movement was which, of course, but he doesn't need to. Anyone can hear the violence and beauty and mystery and ecstasy that rises throughout the piece, and almost anyone I've ever asked has been able to tell when we've reached the unity of the piece's final moments. It's an incredible experience. Imagine the perfect yoga class where you don't have to do anything. The piece shifts you on its own. All you have to do is give in and listen.

SF: We found this in this bio: "Tendler continues to perform, compose, and teach in New York City, and is currently in the final stages of editing Dissonant States, a memoir detailing his search for national, artistic, and sexual identity within the context of his landmark America 88x50 tour." Playing American music in all fifty states, we see the national and artistic part of it. Does the sexual identity part have to do with performing in fifty states as well?

Adam: When I did America 88x50, not only was I taking off on the highway with virtually no plan, gigs, or money, to discover my country and confront myself as an artist, but it was also an attempt escape from the responsibility of accepting my sexual identity, because I was suffocating in the closet. The book documents a kind of wrestling match between escaping myself and accepting myself, and for almost five years now, I've poured over it, trying to accomplish the perfect balance of taking readers on the journey itself with all its adventures, while exploring America's troubled artistic landscape, the place of independent artists in its social tapestry, and the personal transformation, or at least transition, that took place for me between state one and state fifty. It's a walk through the fire, really, and even while its draft has already been submitted, I continue to trim and add and tailor it every day. I still have pages of notes that need to be addressed and assimilated into the manuscript. But I guess, to answer your question, I see America 88x50 as the perfectly American tour, with the music I performed being the perfect American music, and the story of it being essentially American in character, too. It's flawed, it's young, it's vulgar, it's unprepared, it's idealistic, it's repressed, it's bombastic, it's hypocritical, it's difficult. And above all, like America, it's a miracle, because somehow, the whole thing actually worked, and the book somehow works. How more American can you get than that?

SF: During the 88x50 tour, you performed in concert halls, libraries, galleries, schools, coffee shops and July 1st: MISSOURI, Kansas City, Smith and Burstert Oriental Rugs. Don't the carpets dampen the acoustics?

Adam: Speaking of miracles, that concert...I had driven into Kansas City with no recital planned whatsoever, but had heard about this rug store with a Steinway grand sitting in the window. I went there in the morning of what happened to be that July's "First Friday" art walk, and by that evening was playing my concert for a packed room full of people. Perfect acoustics. Every concert hall should hang Oriental rugs from the ceiling. The people tapping on the window was more distracting, but I thrive on distraction.

SF: Cage gives instructions (that you found incomplete in another interview) to prepare the piano. Is anyone worried that you'll ruin their 9 foot Steinway? Do you ever say: oops, I've banged a hole in your $200k piano, but a little duct tape and it will be like new?

Adam: I'm trying to think of what I said in the other interview. Cage is extremely meticulous as to where he wants the materials placed, and about the names of these materials, but as for the materials themselves, he leaves it up to the pianist's discretion. For instance, in the Table of Preparations, we have "bolt," "large bolt," "medium bolt," "small bolt," "furniture bolt," and "long bolt," with no explanation whatsoever as to what the difference is between these bolts. I've gone to several hardware stores, and every time am given something different for these materials. So there is an inevitable element of choice and chance here. As for me damaging a piano: never, never, never. The preparation process only looks and sounds intrusive and abusive, but its completely harmless. It's liberating. I think the piano loves it. It actually doesn't even knock the piano out of tune, which is barely what one could claim for, say, a recital of Scriabin sonatas.

SF: Since some randomness is built into the piece (say in how you prepare the piano), would anyone notice if you strayed from the score? Would that go against the composer's intent?

Adam: I think one always has to stray from the score a little, because every piano is different. There might be a bar over the strings blocking this note, or another string might be too short, and so on. Or, aesthetically, the sound of a certain key, once prepared, just might not be "right," so I might move the material a few millimeters until I get the perfect resonance. At any rate, this is a piece about sound and mood. Cage was dealing with sound, and sounds that he actually wanted and desired, which makes it completely different from the chance pieces of later, where whatever happened as a result of a chance operation was the inevitable, fixed result (for that piece or performance, until next time). Cage himself even had to get used to the Sonatas and Interludes sounding different on different pianos, because he did in fact want these notes on the page to express certain moods and characters that he developed in his own laboratory of a music studio. Again, this is completely different from his compositional identity of even just a couple years later, which had expressly nothing to do with depicting this or that mood or emotion. But this piece is, dare I say, intentionally beautiful, even when it's ugly, and there's a sophistication to each and every soundscape that Cage devises. All the notes add up to a whole. There's a difference between a drumbeat and a clumsy thunk, or between a gong sound and a messy clanging, so it's my responsibility as the performer to make sure each note achieves that integrity. The piano then becomes an orchestra with me acting as more of a conductor than anything else. And hopefully Cage smiles on.

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