Temianka’s Performance Lectures
By the mid-1950s, onstage lectures had become a staple of Temianka's performance style. Concert programs from as early as 1951 note "comments from the stage by Mr. Temianka," and his long-running concert series, aptly titled "Let's Talk Music," prominently featured lectures and discussions on topics like music history, music appreciation and performance techniques.
[Short clip from Haydn lecture]
Temianka often stressed that it was just as important to learn about the composer behind a performance as it was to learn about their music. Many of Temianka's commentaries made sure to include "behind the scenes" anecdotes about composers and their experiences in everyday life, as everyday people.
In one lecture, he details how Antonio Vivaldi, a famous Baroque composer from Italy, taught at the Conservatory of the Pietà in Venice, but also takes the time to explain the conservatory's history as an orphanage and community shelter. The original purpose of the Pietà, Temianka claims, ensured that Vivaldi had plenty of pupils.
[Pietà segment from JH-1]
With this approach, Temianka worked to broaden the way his audiences understood composers and their creations. Instead of portraying performances only as artistic or technical achievements, these stories demonstrated that musical compositions were the products of people with distinct personalities and experiences that influenced their work.
Explaining this concept, Temianka wrote of his commentaries in a 1986 concert program:
"The verbal introductions to the performance have often served to remind us … of the background and events against which many of these masterpieces were conceived, composed, and performed." — Henri Temianka
Similarly, the virtuoso occasionally used his own personal anecdotes as a way to communicate musical ideas or facts in a way that could be more personable than simply stating them outright.Taken from Temianka's "Sunday Evening Concert" radio show, the clip below describes a discussion the virtuoso had with Russian violinists Igor and David Oistrakh before their performance, about whether their large audience would be able to hear a harpsichord — which usually cannot change the volume at which it a key played.
Temianka recalls David arguing that the harpsichord would be a nice visual addition to the performance, possibly hinting at the historical prestige behind the instrument, which predates the piano. Regardless of an observer's familiarity with music history though, the anecdote lends insight to the logistics of stage performances and the special considerations conductors have to make when coordinating a show.
[Oistrakh from JH-1]
When explaining the first movement of a piece by Haydn at a performance in Royce Hall, Temianka told his audience that the movement is comprised of two contrasting themes. "One is … the male actor, and the other is the feminine lead," Temianka said, noting that the two themes replicate the dramatic performances of an opera.
To demonstrate, he raised his violin and played a short but sharp series of notes, quickly rising and falling in tone. "This, of course, is the angry male," Temianka said, as the concert hall erupted in laughter.
[Haydn angry male joke]
As Temianka once argued in his 1973 book, "Facing the Music," these live demonstrations of movements and playing styles had the potential to make commentaries more engaging for audiences and succinctly communicate complex performance techniques.
In one passage, Temianka recalls a particular musical performance in which two sets of violins played the same melody just one beat after the other. "This is like two actors reciting Hamlet’s soliloquy at the same time, but one syllable apart," he notes. "When I let the first and second violins take turns playing the theme, the audience was able to understand what went on."
A sense of humor was another powerful tool Temianka often used to make his lectures approachable for the general public, with names like "Vivaldi" and "Carnegie Hall" being included in quips that often doubled as insights into Temianka's life as a virtuoso. In doing so, he distanced his educational commentaries from the idea that studying music is exclusively for "stuffed shirts," the serious elites and academics of the music world.
One reviewer said of Temianka's intersection of humor and commentary: "I did not know it was possible to learn so much while laughing." Jokes and comedic anecdotes populated Temianka's commentaries, but also his publications — it was an entire method of communicating important concepts.
Also quite the historian, Temianka was a founding member of the Paganini Quartet, which ran from 1945-1966 and used original 17th and 18th century instruments that were once owned by Niccolò Paganini, an Italian virtuoso who is often considered to be one of the greatest violinists of all time. It may be no surprise, then, that Temianka regularly infused his lectures with ruminations on the history of a particular music genre or the evolution of an instrument into its modern day form.
Sometimes, large portions of the audience would stay back after a performance to ask questions and hear more of Temianka's remarks. But audiences weren't the only ones enamored with such commentaries. One program from a 1963 performance mentions the acclaim surrounding Temianka's approach to program notes:
"When someone like Temianka comes along to annotate verbally with human interest, accuracy and excellence, program notes give music a lift." — Herbert Donaldson
Despite the praise from audiences and critics alike, there were still voices among Temianka's contemporaries who did not accept his style of commentary. Anecdotes in Temianka's style were sometimes viewed as little more than irrelevant tangents or tall tales, and debates rang out — both privately and in the media — about what topics are permissible in a performance lecture. Some even asked if these commentaries were necessary in the first place.As the debate continued, Temianka and his onstage commentaries became inseparable, and his lectures quickly became a powerful tool for the artist to articulate his philosophy on music education.