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A Brief History Of Accompanying

By Richard Masters

n a wintry morning in February 1860, New


Yorkers perusing the Times came across a
small item announcing forthcoming
Amusements.1 Among the advertised events
were performances of The Barber of Seville
(featuring singing sensation Adelina Patti2) and
Laura Keenes Theater Company, which planned
on presenting in consequence of...unabated public
desire the Scottish drama Jeanie Deans: or the
Heart of the Mid-Lothian.3 The second-to-last
entertainment on the list offered a Grand
Concert given by Mrs. Jason H. Barclay; this concert was to feature a solo pianist, a virtuoso cornet
player, a tenor, a baritone, and last, Mr. H.C.
Timm, Accompanist. This was the first-ever
appearance of the word accompanist in the
United States paper of record, a word that would
be alternately reviled and
Richard Masters
adored for the next 150
is a pianist, opera
years. Although attempts
coach, teacher
have been made to alter or
and writer on
dislodge it (collaborator,
staff at the Butler
collaborative pianist), the
Opera Center,
moniker has stuck, though
University of
the role of accompanist has
Texas, Austin.
fluctuated over time. Once
He currently is working on a biogthe awkward, sickly sibling
raphy of the pianist and Debussy
of the glamorous concert
specialist George Copeland.
pianist, the accompanist
has come into his own; in
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the past 100 years, accompanying has received


increased critical acknowledgement, achieved
respectability as a legitimate musical profession and
has been firmly established in academia with the
creation of hundreds of accompanying programs
throughout the United States. Famous solo pianists
vie to present lieder evenings and chamber musicales, and thousands of talented youngsters aspire
to a life of musical collaboration. The scales have
tipped for the time being in favor of accompanying
as an art form, but this current state of accomplishment was reached via an arduous process.
Accompanying was not a new development in
1860. The art form existed for several centuries in
the hands of talented keyboardists who busily realized figured bass accompaniments for instrumentalists and singers. During the baroque era, the art
of accompanying occupied a unique position of
privilege; no keyboardist could hope to compete
for any sort of position without possessing a high
level of accompanying ability. Some commentators
have gone so far as to describe the harpsichord as
an instrument used primarily for accompanying,
having displaced the lute roughly at the same time
the modern violin family overtook the viol consort.4 The importance of accompanying in this era
can be seen in the production of hundreds of
accompanying treatises written throughout the
baroque period.5 These treatises detail numerous
methods for inventive realizations and appropriate
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support for partners; many gems still applicable to


the modern accompanist can be taken from these
ancient instructionals. The violinist Francesco
Geminianis treatise of 1755 warns of accompanists
who dont pay close attention to their partners. If
an accompanyer thinks of nothing else but satisfying his own Whim and Caprice, he may
perhaps be said to play well, but will certainly be said to accompany ill.6
Geminianis favorite accompanist was a
German emigr living in England, a keyboardist so trusted that Geminiani invited
him to accompany a performance before
King George I. The accompanist? One
Georg Friedrich Hndel.7 Even aristocratic
amateurs appreciated a good accompanist;
C.P.E. Bach was prized for his inventive
accompaniments to the flute stylings of his
boss, Frederick the Great.8
The story of figured basss gradual disappearance could fill an article of its own, as could a
description of the appearance of new notational
methods for songs and sonatas, but suffice to say,
by Mozarts prime in the 1790s, methods of notation had reached a stage of development that would
hold until the 20th century. Songs were now written on three staves: two for the keyboardist and one
for the singer, freeing the keyboardist from the
monotony of constant doubling.9 Sonatas and other
instrumental works featured an independent keyboard part fully realized for the keyboardist.
Continuing in the tradition of great composerkeyboardists like Bach and Hndel, Mozart and
Beethoven often accompanied their own works,
pieces written with significant keyboard parts suited
to the composers strengths as performers. In fact,
many sonatas of this period were written for solo
keyboard, with obbligato violin or cello parts added
later by the composer himself or others.10 Mozart
came from a musical family that understood the
importance of skilled accompanying; his fathers
treatise on violin playing offers many valuable
instructions to would-be accompanists, including
advice on pacing when dealing with rhythmically
challenged soloists.11 Mozart himself was often
engaged as a free-lance accompanist in Vienna, performing at soires as soloist and collaborator to the
point that he told a friend I have so much to do
that often I do not know whether I am on my head
or my heels.12 Perhaps for temperamental reasons,
Beethoven seems not to have been as regular a colAMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER

H.C. Timm

laborator as Mozart, though his performing career


included some important accompanying appearances. One of the most important concerts of his
youth was as accompanist to the cellist Jean-Louis
Duport in a command performance of the two
Sonatas Op. 5 before the Prussian King Friedrich
Wilhelm II.13 In 1803, Beethoven played the premiere of his own Kreutzer Sonata Op. 47, a piece
he went so far as to mark Sonata for piano and
violin obbligato, the title emphasizing the primacy
of the keyboard part while admitting the essential
nature of the violin contribution.14 In the works of
most classical composers, the accompanying keyboard was not merely a harmonic prop for the star
soloist. The period of the meek accompanist was
yet to come.
The accompanist we think of today was born
with the rise of the public recital and the appearance of the virtuoso. Part of our understanding of
the accompanists role comes from the evolving
concert scene of the 1800s, which only reached the
solo recital as we know it by the end of that century. For many audience-goers of the early 19th
century, a concert meant a motley assortment of
music presented over the course of a long evening,
featuring a wide variety of instrumentalists, singers
and others. This potpourri recital grew out of a
long tradition of benefit concerts in which a
musician would present himself and favored col17

Presiding At The Pianoforte

leagues in a concert designed to display his prominence in musical society, helping him to find
wealthy students.15 When high-powered virtuosi
like Paganini and Liszt began to tread the boards,
their presentations needed no accompanist at the
keyboard (Paganini and his instrumentalist/singer
brethren played with orchestra, while Liszt played
by himself ), but their supporting artists at times
required musical assistance. For example, a breathless handbill announcing an 1840 Liszt recital in
Stamford (Southern Lincolnshire, U.K.) informed
the public that Liszt would share the stage with
Mr. Mori, Mr. Richardson (a celebrated flautist),
Mademoiselle De Varnay (Prima Donna of La
Scala), Miss Louisa Bassano and Mr. J. Parry. On
the handbill, the name of the accompanist appears
in tiny type, with that most elegant of Victorian
phrases informing the public that one Mr. Lavenu
will preside at the pianoforte.16 The accompanist,
as experienced by the audience at this time, was
thus a third-tier figure; the crowds attended to see
the virtuoso, and while waiting for his contributions, they settled for the lesser lights, who were in
turn discreetly supported by the accompanist.
For most concert artists, the accompanists job
was to churn out the accompaniment for any given
short piece with which he could be trusted. This
was partly a function of the musical taste of the
time, which did not embrace the more profound
side of the musical spectrum. Given the nature of
the works commonly presented to the public, its
no wonder that the accompanists stature suffered.
An 1872 concert given by Adelina Patti and the
tenor Mario (a single-named singing sensation
much like our Madonna or Prince) with supporting artists Teresa Carreo and Emil Sauret featured a variety of arias and parlor ballads (Eckerts
Laughing Song, excerpts from Les Huguenots &
Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Raggio damor, and so on),
transcriptions for violin including a medley of
tunes from Rossinis Otello) and piano solos.
According to the review, nearly every work was
encored, so the program must have been of horrific
length.17 The accompanist was a Signor Marzo,
whose only mention in the Times review was a
phrase still beloved of unimaginative critics:
Signor Marzo was the accompanist. The modern
reader will notice the heavy number of orchestral
reductions, both in transcriptions and arias; for the
majority of the 19th century, the idea of a sonata
or lieder evening was foreign to even the most serious-minded concertgoer. Important instrumental
works like the Kreutzer Sonata were trotted out
by violinists only to prove their well-roundedness,
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and these serious pieces were often performed


with well-known solo pianists rather than a regular
accompanist.18
When the violinist Henri Marteau appeared in
New York with the famous Vladimir DePachmann,
they performed a Mozart Sonata together, followed
by some solo Chopin and Schumann offered by
the pianist. When it was his turn to offer solo
works, Marteau called his accompanist Isidore
Luckstone to the stage for pieces by Wieniawski
and Sjgren. Once the short works had been dispensed with, the miserable Luckstone was banished
to allow DePachmann to interpret the Kreutzer
with Marteau.19 This sort of pianist shell trick was
common in the 1800sand even well into the
1900s. In the early part of his career, Mischa
Elman would perform sonatas with his sister Liza
Elman, and his accompanist would appear for the
short pieces20 On the one hand, its understandable
that two great artists would appear in recital
together (for financial as well as musical reasons),
but was it inconceivable that DePachmann might
lower himself to peform the accompaniments to
those violin pieces?
Lets be honest: To the 19th century public,
accompanying was a squalid activity, the province
of musical hacks. Due to the high level of interest
in music and an abundance of enthusiastic amateurs, accompanists abounded, but true devotes of
the art were lacking. A columnist for Dwights
Music Journal quotes a well-known singer as saying
that in the entire city of New York there were less
than a dozen capable practitioners of the accompanying art.21 One Oscar Comettant bemoans the
lack of decent accompanists in Paris: Piano
accompanyist! Everybody fancies he is one, for the
mildest amateur accompanies in a pinch. [...] Paris
does not contain more than seven or eight real
accompanyists out of the twenty thousand pianists
who adorn that harmonious capitol and exist on
the profits derived from semi-quavers.22 To give
some idea of the position occupied by accompanists in the musical firmament, one needs only to
look to the piano class of New York pedagogue
Robert Goldbeck, who separated his students into
three groups, allegedly in the style of the Paris
Conservatoire. At the top were the true virtuosi
who were invited to play Chopin and Liszt at the
final class recital; next were the mediocre pianists
who might become serviceable teachers and
soloists; finally there were the worst of the lot,
ham-fisted dilettantes, who were allowed to perform with singers at the annual recital.23 A critic
reviewing a 1900 vocal recital remarked that a
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Presiding At The Pianoforte

composer accompanying his own songs had created


musicianly things all through, but beyond the
technical reach of most accompanists. There is no
sense in writing such complicated passage work,
chromatics, passages which in less expert hands
might have overwhelmed the singer.24 This critic
wrote with an attitude no doubt cultivated by his
presence at numerous musical Waterloos suffered
at the hands of a bungling accompanist. The spectacle of an incompetent accompanist ruining a
musicale is not difficult to find in the surviving
annals of music criticism; a New York Times critic
commenting on a mixed vocal program in 1874
declared with some relish that two of the singers
were afforded every provocation to slay their
accompanist on the spot.25 The serious side effect
of this accompanist as clown narrative was the
reluctance of many skilled pianists to work in the
accompanying field. If to be an accompanist was to
be a third-rate pianist, who could blame them?
One Adolf Glose placed a classified ad in the
Musical Courier of 1888; it read ADOLF GLOSE,
Pianist, Accompanist and Teacher. Accompanying
in Private.26
By the early 20th century, the situation had not
greatly improved. Although there were many excellent accompanists before the public (Coenraad V.
Bos, Andr Benoist, Marcel van Gool, Josef
Bonime and so on), the reputation of the accompanist was still that of a distant supporter whose
goal was total abnegation. The Everywomans
Encyclopaedia of 1912 cited accompanying as an
acceptable accomplishment (any small talent
designed to attract suitors) for women, saying:
The accompaniment of a song or instrumental number is, after all, a secondary
thing; but it needs perfection in its execution
or it becomes unbearable. The perfect
accompanist...is an artist who gains little
credit from any save those who know. For
her art lies in the utter subjection of herself
to her principal. A good accompanist is soon
discovered, especially if she has that wonderful feeling of sympathy and self-obliteration...27
Even a professional like Coenraad V. Bos was
subject to scurrilous comments from his collaborators: after a successful recital, Bos was told by the
singer You must have played well tonight, for I
did not notice you.28 The pianist Brooks Smith
remembered with a shudder, In the old days,
some of the biggest names treated their accompanists like servants. The accompanist used to be
considered someone who picked up the bags rather
AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER

than as a fellow artist.29 Suffering from critical


neglect and chronic disrespect, how did the accompanist go from musical baggage handler to equal
partner? Part of the shift in attitudes may have
been related to repertoire; no longer was a program
comprised solely of encore bonbons acceptable, but
a healthy balance of serious and light programming
was demanded. Alongside Balfes Come into the
Garden, Maud appeared Schubert and Brahms
lieder; next to Wieniawski were placed the names
Bach and Beethoven. An accompanist now had
respectable repertoire to sink his teeth into, displaying his musical and technical abilities to a public not accustomed to the assertive accompanist.
One of the first accompanists to reap the benefits
of this balanced programming was to become the
patron saint of accompanying, a witty and urbane
Englishman, Gerald Moore.
It is fitting that so many accompanists look up to
Moore; he was greatly respected by critics and the
public, but more importantly, by the artists with
whom he worked. Moores list of collaborators is a
veritable whos who of the musical world from 1920
to 1970: Elena Gerhardt, John McCormack,
Victoria de los Angeles, Janet Baker, Jacqueline du
Pr, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elizabeth
Schwarzkopf and hundreds of others. Moore details
his meteoric career in a delightful autobiography
Am I Too Loud?, recounting his numerous adventures with a wonderfully dry sense of humor.
Beginning his career as a freelancer in 1920s Great
Britain, Moore was encouraged to become an
accompanist by the conductor and composer
Landon Ronald, himself an accompanist of note.
The secret to Moores success was perhaps his recognition that accompanying is not easy.30
Throughout his life, Moore bestowed upon the simplest Schubert song the same concentration he gave
to the most complex of sonatas; matters of tone, balance, phrasing and textual understanding were of
paramount importance to him, and it showed. His
accompanying was sensitive, and conveyed an irrepressible love for music, for the collaborator, for performing. Fischer-Dieskau said of Moore that there
is no more of that pale shadow at the keyboard, he
is always an equal with his partner. It is quite apparent how new and unique the type of accompanist is
which he represents.31 Moores work on behalf of
accompanying was not limited to performance; for
years he proselytized for the art, giving a lecture
titled The Unashamed Accompanist, a performance that was recorded and is currently available on
CD.32 Audiences around the globe heard Moore
describe all of the work that goes into a successful
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Presiding At The Pianoforte

collaboration, with detailed discussions of balance,


transposition, translation, texture and many other
facets of the accompanists art. The curtain was
drawn back for the first time, and laymen became
aware of the musicians laboring at the keyboard
behind the star of the show.
Moores role as ambassador of accompanying no
doubt helped to raise the profile of accompanists
with audiences and musicians, but respectability
was ultimately conferred beginning with the creation of an accompanying program at the
University of Southern California in 1947.
Gwendolyn Koldofsky, a diminutive Canadian
pianist who had studied in London with Tobias
Matthay, was attending a cocktail party at USC
when the Dean of the Music School tapped her on
the shoulder and asked if she would be interested
in creating an accompanying program.33 An accompanist who worked with Lotte Lehmann, Herta
Glaz and others, Koldofsky was shocked. No collaborative piano program existed in the United
States in 1947; Koldofsky was forging a path into
the world of academia, a path that would later be
followed by other schools including Juilliard,

Gwendolyn Koldofsky
20

University of Michigan, University of Illinois, the


Eastman School and hundreds of others. The USC
program first conferred a bachelors in accompanying and later added graduate degrees including a
doctorate in 1972.34 During her decades-long
tenure at USC, Koldofsky and her later colleague
Brooks Smith turned out numerous collaborative
pianists who would later become teachers themselves, including Timothy Bach, Jean Barr, John
Greer, Martin Katz and others. As performers, her
students carried forth the banner of good accompanying, demolishing the stereotype of the bumbling amateur; as teachers, they have demanded the
same level of excellence that Koldofsky herself
demanded. Accompanists who participated in the
building of collaborative programs across the U.S.
include Barr, Katz, Anne Epperson, Margo Garrett,
Sam Sanders and numerous others, all of whom
helped to raise the bar for accompanists nationwide.
The effect of introducing accompanying into
academia was seismic. Rather than falling into
accompanying by accident, a pianist could now
choose accompanying as a career path, studying all
the associated arts that good accompanying entails:
diction/languages, coaching, a special class for
sonata study, a class for songs and so on. The possibility of a degree gave accompanying the
respectability of specialization it had previously
lacked. Even more importantly, degree programs
were able to create more and better-trained accompanists for a burgeoning American musical landscape desperate for fresh talent. A class of pianists
who had the time, energy and commitment to
delve into accompanying as an art form were able
to raise the overall level of performance throughout
the United States, proving that accompanying
could be the province of skilled musicians who
truly wanted to work as collaborative artists.
As the recital evolves, so will accompanying.
There will be ups and downs in the years to come.
Many critics still maintain a stony silence when
regarding the work of accompanists; audience
members still approach gifted pianists after a song
or sonata recital and ask When are you going to
become a soloist? Many piano teachers still frown
upon the idea of their star pupils becoming accompanists, and the pay situation in many cities still is
abysmal. Progress has been made, however.
Accompanists names always appear on programs,
from Carnegie Hall to the local high school choir
concert. Equal billing is given to accompanists on
most CD jackets, and no longer is the recording
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Presiding At The Pianoforte

balance skewed toward the soloist on song or


sonatas discs. Students at conservatories are encouraged to respect their accompanists and work together in song and sonata literature courses, a healthy
coexistence that promotes successful collaborative
partnerships. Online resources dedicated to the
accompanist abound, and there are more and more
opportunities at all levels for pianists who wish to
devote their life to musical collaboration. The retiring, potted-plant accompanist is a creature of the
past; where we will go from here, nobody knows.
g
Notes
1. Anonymous, Amusements, New York Times,
February 18, 1860.
2. In the Act II lesson scene, Miss Patti planned
to interpret Eckerts popular Echo Song, the
Adelina Waltz, and that great Rossinian aria,
Comin Thro the Rye.
3. This was the Laura Keene whose comedic performance in Our American Cousin at Fords Theater
occupied Abraham Lincolns final moments.
4. Arthur Loesser, Men, Women and Pianos: a
social history (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1954), 309.
5. George J. Buelow, Thorough-Bass
Accompaniment According to Johann David
Heinichen.
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1966), 1718.
6. Arnold Dolmetsch, The Interpretation of the
Music of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries revealed
by contemporary evidence (Seattle, WA: University
of Washington Press), 354356.
7. Ibid, 356.
8. Albert Schweitzer, Johann Sebastian Bach, Vol.
I, trans. Ernest Newman (Mineola, NY: Dover
Publications, 1966), 147.
9. The English songs of Haydn were among the
first to feature three-stave song notation.
10. William S. Newman. The Sonata in the
Classical Era (Durham, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1963), 98111.
11. Hermann Abert, W.A. Mozart, trans. Stewart
Spencer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2007), 16.
12. Maynard Solomon, Mozart: a life (New York:
Harper Collins, 1995), 309.
13. Maynard Solomon, Beethoven (New York:
Schirmer Books, 1998), 79.
14. John Matthews, The Violin Music of
Beethoven (New York: C. Scribners, 1902), 38.
AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER

15. William Weber. Recital. In Grove Music


Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/23
018 (accessed March 22, 2010).
16. http://www.cph.rcm.ac.uk/Programmes1/
Pages/BtoR9.htm
17. Anonymous, Patti-Mario Concerts, New
York Times, October 9, 1872, p. 4.
18. A fashionable Parisian violinist, one
Monsieur Artt, insisted on playing the Kreutzer
with Sir Charles Hall, who reported that the elegant violinist was entirely out of his element in
such music.
Charles Hall, Life and Letters of Sir Charles
Hall (London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1896), 56-7.
19. Anonymous, DePachmannMarteau
Recitals, Musical Courier 40:14 (April 4, 1900),
23.
20. Anonymous, Elman in Recital The New
York Times, Dec. 11, 1922.
21. Trovatore, Musical Correspondence,
Dwights Journal of Music 14:18 (January 29,
1859): 347.
22. Oscar Comettant, The Piano
Accompanyist Dwights Journal of Music 22:13
(December 27, 1862): 310.
23. Trovatore, 347.
24. Anonymous, Clara M. Dorris Recital
Musical Courier 40:17 (April 25, 1900): 27.
25. Anonymous, Mr. Mills Concert New York
Times, November 24, 1874.
26. Professional Cards, Musical Courier 17:1
(July 4, 1888): 25.
27. Anonymous, Womans Workhow to
become an accompanist Everywomans
Encyclopaedia, London: 19101912. http://chestofbooks.com/food/householf.Woman-Encyclopaedia4/Woman-s-Work-How-To-Become-An-Accompan
ist.html. Accessed 4/1/10.
28. Gerald Moore, Collected Memoirs
(Middlesex, UK: Penguin Books, 1986), 38.
29. Steve Frazier, Some Piano Players Play
Second Fiddle and are Used to It, The Wall Street
Journal. July 20, 1982.
30. Moore, 140.
31. Ibid, 140.
32. Gerald Moore, The Unashamed Accompanist,
Testament CD.
33. Jean Barr, Interview with the author, March
30, 2010.
34. Jean Barr, interview with the author, March
30, 2010.
AMT
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