Being a pianist vs. playing the piano

I am and always have been a pianist. It's where I started. When I took up the organ, I became a pianist who also played the organ. Only after the requisite formal training did I become an organist AND a pianist. Although I spend far more time on organ benches now, the two instruments are of equal interest to me, and I enjoy roughly equal ability at both. Many organists do, and people are usually pleasantly surprised when they discover that. "Oh, you play the piano too!" "Oh, you play the piano so well, so sensitively. You don't sound like an organist playing the piano." (True story.)

Don't forget that many of the great composer-pianists were also organists, and vice-versa: Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Bach, Franck, Widor, Saint-Saëns, Mozart. The list goes on. More recent "crossover" artists include Wilhelm Kempf, Jean Guillou, and Justin Bischof. I would love to cross over, if I had the time, but there is so much organ music I want to learn!

My piano music is still housed in the same filing cabinets as my organ music. And when my organ music threatens to outgrow its allotted space, the piano music stays right where it is, and the overflow organ music has to find another place. I want to keep the piano music just within reach of the piano in my office. Several times each week, I will take a break from the computer, close the door, reach into my piano music, and pull something out to read. (Incidentally, sightreading is the best way to learn how to sightread. Just do it.) Since I no longer perform on the piano except for accompanying, I tend to restrict my piano reading to the standards I no longer get to study with a teacher: Beethoven Sonatas, Brahms solo and chamber music, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Schubert. (My leaning is obviously toward Romantic.)

The piano also figures heavily into choir rehearsals for most organists. And I have made a bit of a side career out of teaching and guest lecturing on choral accompanying at the piano. I have enjoyed making the piano sound like an organ or an orchestra when accompanying.

As for technique, the common notion is that piano playing informs organ playing. This is common most likely because piano lessons usually precede organ lessons. The piano did help me get ahead on understanding scales and tonal harmony structure, and I was way ahead of the game on sightreading. But in grad school, I discovered that my organ training actually re-informed my piano playing much more than the piano did the organ. Today, I use some organ technique at the piano, but I use no piano technique at the organ. Go figure.

One of these days, I would like to play a piano recital again. I have even chosen the repertoire. It would be fun to make a temporary jump from playing the piano in my office to being a pianist once again.

Well, these have been the ramblings of an organist who loves the organ and who is currently making an organ recording, even as this post is being uploaded. And yet the piano is on his mind this week. Go figure.