I digress. Back to the concept of leaving music alone. Simone Barere (the other great student of Felix Blumenfeld besides Vladimir Horowitz) was a master at this. His recitals always bore the emblem of freshness…

By leaving music alone, we classical pianists mean more than just not over-practicing or merely leaving everything to chance. We mean an entire lifestyle and philosophy dedicated to the practicing of nil. When one goes about one’s day in the spirit of nonchalance, yet still takes loving care of all the details that obscure one’s path, the pianist can acquire the most permanent state of awe-inspiring awareness. It is a moral and ethical duty to perform music in such a state of curiosity and repose.

Let’s take the case of Simone Barere. Mr. Barere rarely practiced the piano except before recitals in Carnegie Hall in which, on the contrary he would practice like a madman. During his recitals, he could easily fall into a trance and magnetize his audiences, displaying an array of musical colors and timbres, like a scientist designing new color dyes for the latest clothing fashions.

If you can always manage to practice in such a state of integrity and unconditional passion, then hoorah, you are a pianist with a special gift to nurture; an introverted type, who takes 70% of his inspiration from within. Other pianists are more extroverted, taking 70% of their muse from the outside world, continuously requiring an audience and other such hooplah in their presence to perform at their peak.

Both types of pianists can still benefit from the above-mentioned ideology no matter whether they like to practice alone or not. How else, can they wait just that extra microsecond longer on stage before a critical note to enter the metaphysical realm?

Poland is a country that has had its fair share of warfare. With a rich country (Germany) on the left and a huge country (Russia) on the right, it’s placement has caused a lot of suffering for the people especially in the last 100 years with the advent of WWI and II.
Poland has very delicious home-made food. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. God bless all those wives who cook using Polish tradition. Every Christmas Eve, simply walking into a Polish home can make anyone’s mouth water with the smell of delicious borscht (red beet soup), pierogies, and a poppy seed and raisin roll for dessert. Mmm!

I don’t know if you can remember that last day of school right before the summer holidays, when you came home and could breathe a hugh sigh of relief and then you started to make plans for the summer. You would call your friends, and tell them about your plans for vacations – maybe you would do something extra wild this summer like going skiing in the Alps, or visit and exotic island like Fiji and go snorkeling in the Pacific Ocean viewing the brilliant flourescent colours of the fish.

Many years ago, I promised myself that after I finish college I would re-live that moment for the rest of my life and promised myself I would do whatever it takes to live a fun-filled adventurous life without the monotonous grind. According to NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), if you find successful people and model what they do, their success would brush off on you, and you would be successful too!

Using the internet, I have been fortunate to find some incredible quality people, including colleagues and other musicians which will probably last a lifetime. Every weekend, I take some time off of my busy schedule, and spend some time alone usually by taking a scenic drive somewhere far away from home.

I am often asked to repeat his name…
Cziffra – Gyorgy Cziffra.

(OK, so it’s not as easy to remember as Bond – James Bond.)

But I am very pleased to see the revival of Cziffra amongst today’s listening audience. Gyorgy Cziffra was a Hungarian composer/pianist who lived at the heart of the 20th century’s greatest virtuosi. Although he was born in 1921 to a poor family of gypsy musicians, it wasn’t until 1947 that he was able to grow his career due to military services and even being a POW. In spite of wide acclaim, he (like Horowitz at one point) abandoned his career until the early 1990s when he gave a concert in Paris.

The Cziffra foundation in Paris which provides rare information on this unique composer seems to be doing well, selling manuscripts to an international market.

Cziffra’s own recordings have the unique ability of stimulating tremendous excitement onto the listener. He was a master of adding fire and passion to any piece he touched, and had an unrivaled facility which allowed him to execute extremely difficult passages. Who else but Cziffra could take an already difficult theme such as Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Flight of the Bumblebee and turn it into alternating octaves between the hands AND play it in a flowing manner- without making it sound like chopping liver?
I think he is not performed often enough today because of the improvisatory nature of his music. We live in such a digital age where each day, beautiful music is being turned into a monotonous ring tone for the latest cell phone. Today’s ‘artists’ are, in fact, the sound engineers more than the performers themselves, as they continuously produce music that sounds cleaner and more digital.

I, myself, was fiercely criticized after a performance I did in Warsaw, Poland back in 1997. I composed a piece during my first month in Warsaw called “City Traffic” which reflected the culture shock I experienced upon moving into the big European metropolis. Although I had written every note down, and even used the classic sonata-allegro form, I was criticized for writing “out-dated music which sounded too improvisatory”. In other words, anything that even sounds improvisatory is now considered old-fashioned. It took me months to recover and it took me years until I could write another note of music again.

I believe that our new generation of musicians will begin to realize the benefits of supporting improvisation more and more strongly. After all, all of the greatest pianists of the last century were essentially improvising on stage.

Recently I purchased a new concert grand piano. I was extremely picky about finding an instrument that would match all my needs. I am one of those notorious customers that will spend hours trying a product only to say “I’ll think about it” at the end.
One of my chief requirements was for the piano to play as if the makers had put their heart into it. This is difficult to explain. Basically, many new pianos – even brand names – are mass-produced which means cheaper parts, cheaper labour and higher marketing costs. What I look for is the rare hand-crafted instruments made of only the highest-quality material which took long hard hours to create. Often, one has to go back pianos made in the ’20s to find such a delicious treat.

I was fortunate to find such an instrument in Orange County which was being sold through another wonderful concert pianist – Bob Estrin. The moment I tried it, I was astonished by its even, responsive touch, and its warm, rich powerful tone. It was a Mason and Hamlin – relatively unknown in the music world but considered by many to be even better than Steinway.

Mason and Hamlins produced some truly wonderful instruments. When this ‘little’ 1100+ pound toy had arrived into my living room, I couldn’t keep my hands off it for weeks!

I’ll start with an old Jewish joke:
A man was walking in the mountains just enjoying the scenery when he stepped too close to the edge of the mountain and started to fall. In desperation he reached out and grabbed a limb of a gnarly old tree hanging onto the side of the cliff. Full of fear he assessed his situation.

He was about 100 feet down a shear cliff and about 900 feet from the floor of the canyon below. If he should slip again he’d plummet to his death. Full of fear, he cries out, “Is there anyone up there who can help me?” But there was no answer. Again and again he cried out but to no avail. Then suddenly a deep voice replied, “Yes, I can help you.”
“Who is it?”
“This is the Lord.”
“Can you help me?”
“Yes I can help you.”
“Help me!”
“Just let go and trust.”
Looking around the man became full of panic. “What?!?!”
“Let go. I will catch you.”
“Uh…Is there anyone else up there that can help me?”

Let me give you an example of something I discovered many years ago regarding the power of letting go and taking risks. Normally, I would always practice a piece of music with a certain conception of how it should sound, and then I would run it through a thousand times until it felt solid and ready to perform on stage. Then of course, there was always the ‘stereotypical warm-up’ which had to precede each session of ‘so-called music-making’. Well, I can’t say the system is terribly flawed; It will definitely work but the results have always turned out to be mediocre, nothing like the level of the great pianists of our time.

Now instead of this procedure, I decided to take on an entirely different approach. I decided to not practice at all for six months before a concert tour I was scheduled to have. Previously, if I ever took a break and returned to the piano I would jump into hysteria, and panache over how unprepared I am. Very soon the mind would erupt into an avalanche of negative thoughts which lead to extreme tension, fatigue and even injury. Instead, I decided to relax and embrace this unpreparedness of my piano technique. I got myself to enjoy just how distorted each piece sounded from its very first notes, compared to how it sounded before my huge break.

After a couple of hours of doing this I noticed that the notes began to fall into their proper place. It almost felt like magic. According to Leon Fleisher, one of the great pianists of our time, each beat in a piece of music has a ‘sweet-spot’, which makes the rhythm feel natural to the listener. A metronome cannot provide this ideal pulse, it must come from within ourselves. It was truly a magnificent experience to create such beautiful music and to realize that everything was in fact a distortion!

I must make an important point here. During those six months of not practicing I was not lying at the beach all day long – although I’m not completely ruling out this possibility for a future experiment – instead I was reading many great works of literature and philosophy, and listening to many older recordings of great pianists.

To sum up this six month experience, I would say that I was intensively augmenting my ‘curiosity’ by continuously asking myself why some performances become great while others do not reach our soul. I was not looking for answers, and obliterated any expectations that I would find them. Still today, I really don’t want any answers – only more risks!

The day I decided to drive down the Del Dios hiway was the day I truly understood the meaning of paradise. There was something so unique about the high rolling hills, and the small town of Del Dios (literally “From God” in Spanish) nestled between mountains and a gorgeous lake.

Each time I steal a glance at the panoramic view of the lake, I feel a progressive calm somewhere in my body. This may sound like the words out of a hypnosis session, but quite frankly when nature presents itself so ravishingly, I believe the mind begins to automatically enter an altered state of consciousness.
To me, Lake Hodges is like an endless vacation into the deeper corners of the mind. The endless variety of blooming flowers, the soft and gentle breezes, and the winding roads with tree branches hovering over them somewhat resemble the introduction to a fairy tale. When I decide to learn new repertoire, I like to feel somewhat ‘lost’ – with no knowledge of north and south, away from streets filled with loud commotion and busy people – unless, of course, I’m learning a rather modern work like the Copland sonata. Then I have to take a trip up to Los Angeles, in order to enter a more urban atmosphere. Lake Hodges inspires me to feel ‘lost’. This coupled with the fact that I’ve been blessed with wonderful neighbors makes it a truly rewarding experience.

Lake Hodges has become the quintessential paradise I have been searching for years now. It has a little bit of all the good I’ve experienced – a little bit of Canada, a little bit of California, a little bit of Southern Poland, and a lot of clean air!.

One of the most common questions a pianist can ever be asked is: “How much do you practice?”
Years ago, I decided to permanently remove the word ‘practice’ from my vocabulary. Somehow that word has always conjured up images of an oxygen-deprived cubicle consisting of a student repeating passages over and over again until they resound in complete hysteria.

I’ll never forget a life-changing lesson I once experienced with one of my past piano professors. I remember I was asked to bring in the 2nd movement of Mozart’s sonata KV332. Normally I always tried my best to be the perfect student – you know, the well-dressed, always smiling, always prepared, a neatly organized lad who made sure that each piece was perfectly prepared before each lesson. But this time, I decided to not practice at all before the lesson. I decided to do this roughly one week before the upcoming lesson. In other words, there was to be no warm-up, no thinking about the piece, no listening to recordings, and certainly no piano in my site. Instead of my usual preparation routine, I decided to trust everything my teacher had taught me up to that point, and apply it “on the spot” during that lesson.
Naturally, the moment before starting the piece was frightening. I was terrified of performing and ready to tell the world how ‘unprepared’ I was today. But instead I decided to trust everything I had learned up to that point in piano technique, in what being a musician means to me, in what I believe Mozart tried to express when he wrote the sonatas, in what I’m trying to express as a human being sitting in front of a verisimilitude of wooden hammers. This was to become the most beautiful Mozart I had ever performed in my life. From the very first note, I had entered a seemingly hypnotic state which rapidly transcended from mortification to exaltation. My teacher had nothing to say.
Every since that memorable lesson I decided to replace the word ‘practice’ with ‘discovery’. Each time I perform in public I discover something new in each piece which I often decide to embrace for future performances. A discovery can happen at anytime. For example when I drive into the desert, I might suddenly become engaged in a piece I have not thought about in months, and discover a brand new tempo which immediately makes the piece sound better and intensifies my connection with it.
The question is can a pianist really rely on faith and chance encounters when he is engaged in hundreds of concerts including the one next week where thousands will come to hear him? In my attempt to answer this I am led to restate what I believe to be the greatest injury to any musician, particularly young musicians. And that is to not have the opportunity to truly enjoy the process of discovery and become thoroughly engaged in its slow-blooming glory.

In essence, the word ‘discovery’ is almost synonymous to ‘UNpracticing’ or ‘UNlearning’. When I experienced my breakthrough lesson I had to put aside my ego and past beliefs about how to play piano – even if that meant admitting that I was completely wrong about many things – things I had believed to be correct for many years! I found that this turned out to be much more difficult than mindlessly practicing in a locked practice room for 72 hours straight.

Perhaps there should be an anonymous 12-step plan program for other ‘pianoholics’ who are addicted to their instrument! “My name is Daniel, I’ve been powerless over the piano for over 20 years now, this is my first meeting…”

If someone had told me at an early age what the music business entails, I would have moved to Tibet and become a monk. But it’s too late now!

Today, many extremely talented pianists are rejected at the doors of agents and artistic directors. Those that don’t become their own managers, at least in the beginning of their careers are completely left out in the cold.

This raises a complex psychological question in the minds of many pianists today. “Am I really playing that badly – I mean after all I was yelled at for so many years by my piano professor?” Or the other question – “is that pianist on stage really that good – I mean he’s marketed like crazy?”

Unfortunately, because of this many young pianists are under extreme pressure which results in a lost childhood, bitterness, and many lost friendships.

I went through this painful phase many years ago. In fact, when I entered the Int’l Chopin Competition in Warsaw, I became extremely sick just days before the first stage. I was coughing out blood, was placed on powerful antibiotics and looked like a ghost on stage. I was placed at the end of the first half to allow at least one more day to heal. It was an awful experience.

Today’s problem is quite obvious – simply take a recording of an extraordinary pianist of the early 20th century like Dinu Lipatti or William Kappell and hear how purely the music seems to flow out of their fingers. And then listen to 99 percent of the laureates of any piano competition in the world today. You will immediately hear how stiff and manufactured their sound quality is.

Many young pianists today are terrified of losing and obsessed about pleasing a jury. To sum up, today’s young pianist thought processes:

“Forget about listening to one’s sound, forget about relaxation, forget about remaining faithful to the composer’s text – I want to chop away that Sonata with super-precision, a refined technique, and by God I swear that it’ll be 200 percent ready for that competition.”

I have witnessed some pianists enter a competition knowing that they will win. They are absolutely sure that they are the best of the bunch. Sometimes these self-proclaimed gurus even win. But they’re fame is quickly superseded by the next ‘king’, who can play their octaves a little cleaner, a little faster, and is a little younger.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If we stop and take a moment to enjoy a truly spectacular view of a mountain top, there is in essence a higher power above us which enables us to put our ego aside and surrender to the moment. Our knees start to get weak, our arms start to get heavy, and we experience an eternal peace within us. What a greater reward awaits the pianist who can capture this state and recreate it on the concert platform!

This was to be my dream trip for the summer and it ended up being the dream trip of my life. In 5 days, we saw more California than most people see in 10 years! It was to be a trip in superlatives; from the lowest point in North America – 282 feet below see level – to breathtaking glimpses of tall, ice-capped mountains in the distance, we felt like Indiana Jones embarking upon adventure after adventure while cruising fearlessly with our little 4WD jeep.

I went with my good friend Dave who happened to know most of the areas very well and is also a very experienced geologist. It was a unique trip in that there was really no plan. When we traced our route on a map, we did 1800 miles of road travel resembling the shape of a peculiar spiral hovering around all of southern California. We went from the hot desert which often blew wind as hot as a burning furnace in our faces to 10,000 feet altitude in Yosemite National park where snow had settled in every direction.
I can’t even pick out an area that I liked the most because the entire trip was like living in a fairytale. We started our trip in Joshua Tree National park which upon closer examination revealed a fascinating variety of plants like natural gardens of creosote bush, ocotillo, and cholla cactus. We also stumbled upon a fascinating fan palm oasis where we decided to camp. The next day we made our way to Death Valley, commonly known as one of the hottest and driest places on earth.

Upon entering the park we came across the Armagosa Opera house, where a dancer from New York turned an abandoned building into a opera house after getting stranded in the area with a flat tire. Quite an inspiring story! Come to think of it, I would love to build an amphitheatre for piano recitals in one of the old volcanic craters!

There is something so intriguing about the stillness of the desert. I am instantly relieved of tension and can effortlessly quiet my mind. For instance, While standing at the rim of the Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley (which used to be an active volcano and currently descends 500 feet into the earth) where I can’t hear a single thing – not one car, bird, leaf and not even a trace of wind – my mind becomes completely clear. If I visualize playing one key of the piano during this time, that note resembles something more pure and beautiful than anything I’ve ever heard before.

In keeping with our theme of superlatives, we were quite lucky that they had just opened up the Tioga Pass Road which enabled us to visit the famous Yosemite National park which offered an impressive assortment of waterfalls, meadows, and forests that include groves of giant sequoias, the world’s largest living things. The waterfalls were extraordinary at this time of year because of the huge amount of rainfall that California received this winter. In fact, one of the reasons that Tioga road was closed was due to repairs that had to be made due to rock slides and avalanches!

In order to preserve this feeling of ecstasy we decided to repeat the entire cycle…
From quiet valley to raging waters and back to the still desert…

Our trip continued…

After camping in a beautiful campground in Millerton Lake near Fresno, we continued driving down Central Valley, the heart of California’s agricultural district. Here the land was entirely flat yet glistening with picturesque golden meadows which in a way resembled the ‘good ole’ California’ of the Gold Rush days.
Next we decided to hit the southern part of the Sierra Nevada mountains (Yosemite being the northern part) where saw gorgeous forests of Joshua trees upon reaching higher elevations until we reached the small yet rapidly growing secluded community of Isabella Lake. The longer I peered at the water, the more I could not resist the urge to get splashed. So we decided to go white water rafting along class III rapids of the Kern River. This was too much fun! I could go on and on forever about everything we experienced on this trip when in reality it was merely a giant overview – there is still so much to see and do inside and between each and everyone one of these places. Yet, when someone asks me about this trip – I am speechless because I just don’t know where to begin!