Richard Grayson – “On the Art of Classical Improvisation” - Musicians’ Round Table

Richard Grayson, (1941-2016), world-renowned composer, classical improviser, author and teacher, discusses and demonstrates the art of improvisation in classical styles with Musicians’ Round Table producer and host Jeffrey Goodman. Using the iconic theme for Star Wars, he improvises in a wide gamut of styles, including Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and 20th Century. Composers such as Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, Bartok and Schoenberg are explored. Of special interest to classical guitarists, he explores the original Mozart theme used by Fernando Sor in his Opus 9, Variations on a theme from the Magic Flute. He plays the Mozart Theme in Classical, Romantic and 20th Century styles, in both the major and minor modes. Regarding his improvisations, Mr. Grayson states, “My goal is to make music out of each of these improvisations, and not make it just a demonstration. If it’s a demonstration, it has not achieved what I would hope to achieve. And that is that there’s a certain amount of surprise that by the change of context, that what is expected to be one thing becomes transformed into something else.” Additional Resources: Richard Grayson’s You Tube Channel:    / @improvelectronic   Richard Grayson’s Website, which contains a link to a PDF of his book “Improvising at the Keyboard, is: https://sites.oxy.edu/rgrayson/ INDEX OF INTERVIEW TOPICS: (Click on the time value of the topics below to go directly to that part of the interview.) Early explorations of improvising (0:53) Art of improvisation in classical and baroque (2:38) How Richard approaches teaching improvisation (4:30) Star Wars Theme, with improvisations in renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic and 20th century styles (12:47) Renaissance: (15:20) Baroque: (17:05) Classical: (18:57) Beethoven’s style, in the minor key (19:30) Chopin’s Style: (20:47) Brahms: (22:18) Debussy: (23:34) Stravinsky and then Bartok: (25:10) Schoenberg: (28:04) Mozart’s Theme from the Magic Flute (basis of Sor’s Variations Opus 9 (29:35) Mozart’s Theme: “Das Klinget So Herrlich” (30:41) In Mozart’s piano style: (33:00) Romantic style: (33:50) In the minor mode: (35:08) Brahms: (36:00) Prokofiev (38:15)