Suite Spot

Peter Burwasser on Classical

When Arturo Toscanini learned that another conductor was performing Beethoven in a certain unorthodox way -- unorthodox because this rival had learned the music from an older conductor who supposedly knew the composer himself -- the great man famously responded, "Bah! I got it straight from Beethoven himself, from the score!" Tradition, in the view of the maestro, was the last bad performance.

Toscanini inspired a generation of musicians with his purist attitude, including most of the major figures of today, and yet classical music geeks never tire of connecting lineages, often in the very manner that Toscanini ridiculed. Tradition can actually have a very valuable place in the music world, especially in teacher-student or mentor relationships. The musicians of Philomel, for example, can trace the way they play baroque music on period instruments to the pioneering Dutch school, since their first supporters included such early music luminaries as violinist Jaap Schroeder and cellist Anner Bylsma. They have achieved a more cosmopolitan sound by now, but the relaxed, conversational style that is their hallmark is directly related to the sound of their older heroes.

An inspirational teacher should leave impressions that transcend the written note. This was the case with the pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski, who taught at Curtis for a half-century. One of his first students was Seymour Lipkin, and it was wonderful to hear the mark of the master as Lipkin played an all-Schubert program early last month at Field Hall. Like his teacher, Lipkin plays with a concern for tonality and harmonic relationships that go right to the heart of the music. He plays close to the keys, coaxing the sound out rather than demanding it with brute force. In other words, his playing is never flashy, but supremely musical, almost modestly so. And that was always the wonder of Horszowski's playing. Lipkin, a busy teacher, passes these qualities along to his students. This is tradition in the best sense.

The lineage part comes in when you skip back to another level. Horszowski's teacher was Leschetizky, perhaps the most important piano pedagogue in history. His students dominated the concert world in the first half of the 20th century. Leschetizky was a student of Czerny, who also taught Liszt, and who was himself a student of Beethoven. You can keep going. Present-day students of Lipkin could honestly trace their lineage directly back to Beethoven.

Toscanini would not have approved, but he wasn't much fun.