50 ❧ chapter two
Of course, there were long struggles for achieving a mastery of the neces-
sary techniques. Even more important was that part of a performer’s devel-
opment can only be furthered through performance and, most particularly,
performance in public. A beginner often has the notion that he can practice
to such an extent that perfection is inevitable, and that like a kind of musical
clock, he needs only to be set going in order to produce an impeccable pub-
lic performance. He is humiliated by the slightest defect in his armor or in
his mechanism. Such performers win competition after competition, but often
their capacities never develop beyond those of phenomenal marionettes or
trained circus animals. There are, however, people who regard a performance
as a kind of sporting event and who are more interested in the glossiness of the
package than in the artistry of its contents.
I was long obsessed with an ideal of perfectionism that was as limited as it
was sterile. After performances which fell short of this ideal, and most of them
did, I was devastated. One of the wisest things that Roger Sessions ever said to
me on hearing my self-reproaches in 1933 was that the best a performer can
hope to achieve is to raise the average level of his performance to such a point
that the discrepancy is reduced between his best and his worst, and if that is
achieved, even his worst performances are likely at least to be respectable. It
is all too easy to judge oneself only by the pinnacles of one’s achievements
[rather] than in more generous and less vainglorious fashion by the average
middle level. When one has played a great deal, one learns to average out per-
formances with a certain give and take, and not to dwell on isolated successes
and failures. No more than it is tolerable to remain at the bottom of a slump is
it possible to remain perched once and for all on the highest pinnacle.
While still relatively inexperienced, I had already faced these questions in
an agonized journal entry of December 4, 1936:
Here I come home from a bad performance of a magnifi cent program.
Feeling well disposed beforehand, conscious of a large and sympathetic audi-
ence, I refl ected on the advantages of a good morale and the training of hav-
ing played nearly the same program twice previously in the week, and told
myself, ‘You have nothing to worry about. This will be a good concert.’ And
yet why did I feel dull and let down before the audience? Why such weakness
and unsteadiness of rhythm, wholly fortuitous wrong notes and minor slips
of memory. Although the major ones, as in the Scarlatti, may be accounted
for by insuffi cient preparation, why should I play better some of the preludes
and fugues on which I took a chance than pieces which had been well prac-
ticed and frequently played? Even if I tell myself that I could play certain
pieces better with further acquaintance and study, or if I try to account in any
way for my performance, I know that the capricious hand of fate will quickly
point to the opposite set of reasons. Even the desire for criticism disappears.
I know what was wrong, why ask others? And what good does the knowledge,
KKirkpatrick.indd 50irkpatrick.indd 50 2/8/2017 9:56:55 AM 2 / 8 / 2017 9 : 56 : 55 AM
rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
#1