Expression and Movement in Piano Performance — The Body Should Not Narrate the Music

For a long time, I have held personal views about the playing and stage presentation of well-known Chinese pianists such as Lang Lang, Li Yundi and Yuja Wang that do not always match popular opinion. I do not deny their technical abilities or professional achievements, but I have often found certain aspects of their stage presentation difficult to understand. Some of Lang Lang’s exaggerated expressions and movements draw my attention away from the music and towards the performer. Some of Yuja Wang’s more visually driven stage choices strike me as distinctly vulgar and can provoke a strong sense of aversion.

Is this response merely a matter of personal taste, or does it point to a more basic relationship between music and performance? I do not think the question can be settled simply by asking whether a movement looks attractive or an expression appears natural. We first need to consider the direction of cause and effect between music, the body and stage performance.

Music directly affects a person’s psychological and physical state. When a performer becomes absorbed in the music, emotion, breathing, muscular tension, balance and facial expression may all change. These changes cannot be hidden completely. Closing the eyes during a particular phrase, opening them again when it passes, or moving slightly with the breath and the shape of a phrase may simply be traces of what the music is doing to the body.

The direction of cause and effect matters. Ideally, the music changes the performer’s mental and physical state, and expression and movement follow naturally. The alternative is to design the gestures first and use them to supplement the music’s emotional impact. The two may look similar on stage, but they are not the same thing.

I sometimes compare this relationship to steaming buns. The steam and heat need to be retained inside the pot. If too much steam escapes, the heat is no longer being used where it is needed. Some expression and movement in performance is like a small amount of escaping steam. It happens naturally and cannot be eliminated altogether. But when these outward signs are continually enlarged, the attention of both performer and audience can move away from the sound and towards the body, weakening the music itself.

Not every movement is wasted steam. Movements of the wrists, arms, shoulders and body weight may contribute directly to touch, dynamics and phrasing. They belong to the physical mechanism of playing. The movements worth questioning are those that no longer serve the sound and instead begin to tell the audience how deeply involved the performer is. If removing a movement noticeably changes the sound, it is probably necessary to the playing. If the sound remains much the same and only the visual effect is reduced, the movement is closer to theatrical display.

We normally say that we listen to a concert but watch a ballet. This everyday distinction points to the main channel through which each art form communicates. A concert can of course be watched, and a ballet can be heard, but music is conveyed primarily through sound, while dance works primarily through the body and through vision. A pianist’s body is first of all the body that produces and controls the sound. It should not become the main object of the audience’s attention.

Bodily performance can certainly be an art in its own right. The question is what place it should occupy in a piano performance. If someone talks continuously beside us during a film, the commentary may be skilful, but it can still be unnecessary when the film already conveys its own story and emotion. Exaggerated gestures at the piano can have the same effect. What the sound has already expressed does not need to be explained again by the body. A fine comedian does not need to laugh first to tell us that a joke is funny. Nor does a pianist need to signal with the face that one passage is sad and another exciting.

Expression and movement can also become conditioned through long practice. Closing the eyes, frowning or leaning forward may begin as a genuine response to a particular phrase. After the same work has been practised and performed many times, however, a stable connection can form between that point in the music and a particular gesture. The movement may originate in the music but gradually become fixed.

Professional pianists work within systems of touring, media exposure and commercial promotion, and they often perform the same repertoire repeatedly. It is unrealistic to expect someone to feel the same intensity every time a familiar passage returns. Repetition naturally produces habituation. This does not mean that a pianist must experience an intense personal emotion at every performance in order to express the music. Mature performance includes an understanding and command of the work’s emotional structure without requiring the performer to relive the same private feeling each time.

Once commercial packaging enters the picture, this change is no longer merely a matter of personal habit. Commercial systems inevitably face a choice about how to reach the widest possible audience. Listeners familiar with piano performance may pay closer attention to touch, tone, voicing, rhythm and musical structure, and may not need exaggerated gestures to guide their understanding. Yet they do not necessarily provide the main source of a performer’s commercial value. For a wider audience, subtle differences in sound can be difficult to judge, while facial expressions, bodily movement, clothing and stage image are immediately visible and travel easily through photographs, video and social media.

To lower the threshold for engagement, commercial packaging naturally favours visual signs that are easy to recognise and may begin to cater to what an audience already expects. A raised head, closed eyes or a dramatically moving body can communicate absorption, pain, passion or ecstasy even to someone unfamiliar with the work. Such signs do not necessarily add anything to the musical content, but they can give more people an immediate sense that they understand the performance. Maximising audience reach is not the same as maximising musical expression. At times, it means translating music into visual signs that are easier to consume.

In this environment, a natural response can easily be reinforced by the stage. Audience reactions, video circulation and the cultivation of a public image can turn certain gestures into a pianist’s recognisable signature. What began as an accidental and genuine response may eventually become a fixed part of the performance. It need not be a deliberate deception, but it has shifted from a bodily response caused by the music to a visual sign intended to demonstrate emotional involvement. At that point, expression and movement have become commercialised, symbolic and instrumental.

Piano playing does not require complete physical stillness, and not every visible movement should be dismissed as unnecessary. A more reasonable principle is that expression already achieved through sound does not need to be repeated by the face. If a movement can be reduced without affecting the sound, there is no reason to enlarge it. The body may participate in the music and be changed by it, but it should not become a commentator speaking continuously beside the music.