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Pag* 10 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE February 17, 1978
t
Gigi
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THE ATLANTA FLAMES
vs.
THE NEW YORK ISLANDERSj
Wednesday, February 22
8:05 p.m.
THE ATLANTA FLAMES
vs.
THE DETROIT RED WINGS
Saturday, February 25
8:05 p.m.
1
IS
Becoming a concert pianist
is a study in self-discipline
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by Carolyn Gold
What’s the life of a concert
pianist like? Not just the few
exciting hours on stage What is
everyday like?
My questions were directed at a
23-year-old dressed in the uniform
of his generation: blue jeans and
plaid shirt. Only a week before this
same young man, Greg Schatten,
had presented a solo concert at
Emory University that received
critical acclaim as a display of
"maturity and polish.”
Listening to his performance,
one could not help but reflect on
the demanding hours, days, and
years of practice required for every
minute before an audience.
However, the work-a-day world of
the professional musician is hard
to picture in a society accustomed
to 9 to 5 office hours and five-day
business weeks. So we talked of
typical days, concert days,
experiences thus far, and future
goals.
Greg doesn’t write down a daily
schedule for himself but
nonetheless his routine is a study in
self-discipline. He spends from five
to eight hours at the piano every
day.
"What the average person
doesn’t realize," Greg says,"is that
a professional pianist spends 90
percent of his time alone, though
he may play for thousands of
people at one concert.”
Greg’s average practice day is
divided something like this: two
hours on exercises and technique
or in playing etudes; then three
hours on perfecting concert pieces.
Whatever he feels needs work —
certain passages or whole
movements—is what he concen
trates on. Then for two or three
hours more in the evening he may
sight-read or play whatever his
mood dictates.
Greg says he likes to take breaks,
so after several hours of practice he
may run out to do his grocery
shopping. Or he stops to exercise.
After long hours at the piano he
does “jumping jacks” and swims
often. After all, he says matter-of-
factly, there are 24 hours in a day.
If you practice eight hours and
sleep eight hours, then you have
eight hour* for doing laundry,
cooking and everything else.
Atlanta is home, but Greg has an
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apartment and his own piano in
New York where he lives and
works most of the year. “I’m a
night person. It’s calm at night and
1 like to practice into the late hours
when I’m home. The neighbors
make it difficult in New York.”
Greg Schatten
However, the city does afford him
wonderful opportunities: concerts
of special performers he wants to
hear; films; opera; and visits to the
museums. All these he feels are
experiences which enrich his
general artistic development.
Greg Schatten says he’s
“basically shy” and that accounts
for the necessity to prod him to
discuss the big events of his
budding career: the concerts. In
the year and a half since his
graduation from Juilliard he has
been featured artist with half a
dozen symphony orchestras and
has given several solo concerts.
Performance days mean a
different routine entirely. On the
day of a concert Greg says he likes
to have a few hours in the concert
hall to warm his fingers and then a
few hours to rest, preferably to
sleep. Pianists need a great deal of
energy for a concert, he explains.
If he is playing at a college, he
may have to give a class during the
day. Or if he is performing with an
orchestra, he has to fit in with its
scheduled rehearsal-time which
involves perhaps 80 members.
When asked if he feels tense
waiting to perform, Greg loses all
hesitation in answering, “The idea
is to be excited by the music—not
to think about myself but to throw
myself into the music.”
The hardest part of performing,
he maintains, is to be in the right
mood. That means being able to
concentrate 100 percent. “Since we
don’t carry our own instruments,
there may be distractions such as
the piano or the hall. The ultimate
is to sit down and concentrate 100
percent on the music.” Greg adds
that every piano is different, as is
each orchestra, hall, and audience.
When did he make the big
decision to pursue a musical
career? Greg laughs, “1 just fell into
it.” But on reflection he says, “I
guess the decision to go to Juilliard
rather than to a regular college was
my Turning point,' to use a popular
expression.”
He talked of his concert pieces
and how the Beethoven and the
Gershwin were the cumulative
result of playing previous works by
the same composers, a maturation
process. Currently, Greg says he’s
•working a lot on Chopin, one of his
favorite composers.
Each composer needs a certain
sound, according to Greg. With
most composers each movement
evokes a certain mood and each
movement, as in the Ravel, may be
different. Chopin, however, must
“flow from the first note of the first
movement to the last note of the
last movement.”
Greg Schatten’s aspirations
become evident as he warms to
these descriptions of his art. The
young Atlantan, whose career the
Jewish community follows with
particular interest, says simply,
“The main thing for me now is to
get more experience on stage. My
ambition is to be a great musician.
My goal is to improve every day.”
Why is abortion a
no-no in Judaism?
V-.'.U.UAW.-.-.'
by Rabbi Samuel J. Fox
Question: What is the basis
upon which traditional Judaism
prohibits abortion?
A number of authoritative
rabbinic sources have traced this
prohibition to statements in the
Bible. The Talmud quotes one
source dating back from the
earliest centuries in the Common
Era (Rabbi Ishmael) as having
derived the prohibition against
abortion from the Biblical
command in the Book of Genesis
(9:6) where one of the seven laws
given to the generation after the
deluge stated: “Whoso sheds the
blood of a person within a person
shall his blood be shed.” “Who is a
person within a person?" the
Talmud asks. “This is the tetus
within the body of the mother”
(Sanhedrin 57b).
A rabbi of a much later period in
history derived«4his prohibition
from a verse in Leviticus 24:21
where the Bible states that “He that
kills a person shall be put to
death.” This was seen as including
one who kills a fetus (Rabbi Meir
Simcha of Dvinsk). While the
abortionist would not be executed
by the hands of the court, his crime
is serious enough to he dealt with
by the heavenly court which would
eventually punish him.
Rabbi Yair (in his book,
Chavath Yair, 31) claims that
destroying a fetus comes within the
context of the verse in the Bible
which states the terrible condition
of “slaying the children under the
clefts of the rocks" (Isaiah 57:5).
This same author offers an
additional verse from the Bible to
strengthen this prohibition which
states that the Almighty “did not
create the world to be a waste.. . He
formed it to be inhabited” (Isaiah
45:18).
Abortion would, then, be
putting the world to waste. Rabbi
Joseph Trani (Teshubot Maharit)
advances the theory that abortion
constitutes the act of inflicting an
excessive wound on a person
which is uncalled for. Such a
prohibition is derived from the
Biblical limit on flogging a
criminal in excess of what he
deserved (Deuteronomy 25:3).
SSWAW.V.W.V.V.V
