Music is the language without words, and with it, we tell stories of many meanings.
That’s why a crucial aspect of filmmaking is scoring, using the music to help tell the story. But many filmmakers realized that the perfect score for their projects was already written, in the piano works of Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and others.
That’s exactly the theme of pianist Alina Kiryayeva’s upcoming show for the Lompoc Concert Association on Feb. 4. The Ukraine-born New Yorker is on tour around the country with a headful of iconic classical piano pieces.
“My program is based on classical pieces that were featured in movies or cartoons. They’re classical piano pieces, not just the movie music,” Kiryayeva said. “Like Tom and Jerry. Remember the rhapsody played by Tom on the piano, in that crazy cartoon? Well I’m doing that.”
Movies like Terminator and shows like Tom and Jerry have more in common than you think. The characters have conflicts, ongoing revenge plots, and moments of great drama.
Some of the piano’s most famous composers also conveyed these struggles in their music, with nothing more than notes on the page.
“They lend themselves to the movies because they are dramatic at times, and self-explanatory, in a way,” she said. “For example, if you take ‘Moonlight Sonata,’ it’s pretty self-explanatory. For us, it speaks to our emotions. All of this music is very emotional and dramatic.”
Those composers also weren’t afraid to take the listener on a journey, sometimes a long one, with many twists and turns.
And Kiryayeva revels in the depth of these works, delivering the andante with vigor and the largo with a heavy heart but light fingers. Delivering the work of composers like Beethoven and Chopin calls for serious emotional skill, as well as technical proficiency.
“If you think about the popular music, it’s kind of one-dimensional most of the time,” she said. “I’m not talking about, you know, Freddy Mercury, whom I love dearly. I’m talking about the pop singers of today. You have one emotion for about 3 1/2 minutes, and that’s it.”
Kiryayeva is a passionate performer. She also spends a good deal of the concert talking, she said, explaining what each piece means to her.
A classical music concert can easily bog listeners down with long, complicated pieces, she said, and sharing why they’re special to her as an artist helps keep the show connected.
“I’m trying to make it understandable, what I do, so people can actually connect with the music and have fun with me,” she said. “It’s not just me pushing these big pieces at them.”
Sharing her passion for the music is something Kiryayeva always does at her shows, whether communicating with words or notes.
She’s also always telling her own story, and through the tales spun hundreds of years ago by the great narrative geniuses of the pianoforte.
“They are stories that you can totally relate to, so when I play the pieces they can have more meaning to you,” she said. “I’m not trying to promote the performance of classical music, I’m trying to show it’s relevant, it’s fun, it’s worth listening to, and it’s part of us, part of the household, and not just in some obscure university.”
Interim Managing Editor Joe Payne needs more Beethoven, Chopin, and Debussy under his fingers and in his ears. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 26 – Feb 2, 2017.
