Pianist’s Practice Problem In Vienna

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31139, 16 August 1966, Page 8

Pianist’s Practice Problem In Vienna

Vienna is one of the world’s great musical cities, but in his five years there Christopher Gray, of Christchurch, found it a problem to find a place where he could make music and not upset the neighbours. “I must have spent half my time there’ looking for flats,” he joked in an interview. “J was always moving.” Studying for an accompanist’s diploma at the Vienna State Academy of Music, he had to put in hours of practice at the piano each day at home.

Although he would explain that he was a pianist when he took a new flat, there was the risk that after he had settled someone would complain to the landlady about the noise. Sometimes he would be asked to find another place, and sometimes he would be given certain times at which he was allowed to play—“but that was never satisfactory; it would put me off, knowing that someone next door was trying to study” —and after a while he would move again. He said that he encountered the problem again when he spent several months in London, and he hoped that it would not arise after he moved into a new flat in Christchurch. TWO INTERESTS

Although he studied music in Vienna, Mr Gray has been teaching mathematics at Hagley High School since his return to Christchurch, and is prepared to be patient about a musical career in New Zealand.

“All my life I’ve had to choose between music and academic subjects,” he explained. For his B.A. degree at the University of Canterbury he majored in both music and mathematics.

“When I graduated I was prepared to take up teaching. but then 1 got an Arts Advisory Council bursary and decided to go to Vienna. It was an opportunity too good to miss, and I certainly wouldn’t have made it under my own steam. “Now that I’m back I don’t mind teaching. I would like to do some recital work, but I know that there’s not a lot of work for accompanists and am prepared to wait. “Besides, I need some time to work up some more things to do.” Mr Gray has played for Christchurch audiences twice since his return; he took part in a university lunch-time recital in which “The Press” music critic praised him for his “secure, confident and well-drilled playing,” and he accompanied Miss Joy Bendall in another concert. Mr Gray recalled the musical life of Vienna. “The city is still haunted by the ghost of Joh&n Strauss. His is the

popular music, and you can hear his waltzes in the streets and in the restaurants,” he said. He was not an opera-goer, but he regularly attended orchestral concerts and recitals. He noticed that Vienna did not attract as many “big name” solo artists as London, “but its orchestras are among the best in the world.” At the Vienna State Academy there were students from all parts of the world. THREE TEACHERS Mr Gray studied with three teachers. The methods of the first, Seidlhofer, one of the judges in the Moscow international piano competition, were very similar to those of his Christchurch teacher, Ernest Empson, to whom, he said, he owed a lot. The second teacher, Weber, had different methods, and for a while he found it unsettling to change after nearly 20 years—Mr Gray started learning at the age of six—but he acknowledged that the feat was a useful exercise. After two years of “plain piano” Mr Gray studied piano accompaniment under Holetschek, who often gave concerts and made recordings with the ’cellist Pierre Fournier. The course included accompanying both instrumentalists and vocalists.

But Mr Gray’s first months in Vienna were trying. He arrived in winter and his baggage, with his music and warm clothing, was lost. “I couldn’t do much more than put extra coal on the fire,” he said. “It turned up after a few months, just as the insurance company was going to meet my claim.”