Amsterdam, 19 June 2022

Willem Boone (WB): I am thrilled to speak to you, I hope you will take it as a compliment and not as the words of a stupid groupie, but you are a musician I have admired a lot for a very long time. I heard you for the first time in 1989 with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in Rachmaninov’s 3rd concerto and it was sensational. I was seated in one of the first rows in Vredenburg, I heard you quite a few times after that in recitals. I admire your beautiful tone and your technique, as well as your depth of expression. I don’t know many pianists who are so searching, it’s quite rare nowadays!

WB: You said about an earlier CD: “It’s like the ultimate concert; there is always an idea behind it”
NG: You mean a recording?

WB: Yes, I haven’t heard your latest CD with Franck and Scriabin, but what is the idea behind it? The combination is quite interesting in my opinion.
NG: For a long time I wanted to record Prélude, Choral et Fugue, but I couldn’t decide what would be a good coupling for the CD. There were a few options, but somehow I thought Scriabin’s preludes opus 16 would make a good transition to a set of early Scriabin pieces. The artistic universes of these two composers are entirely different of course: Prélude, Choral et Fugue is definitely a religious work, while Scriabin’s early music was not driven by any metaphysical ideas yet; it is sheer poetry. Their music could happily coexist on the same album.  

WB: You also recorded a very beautiful Chopin-CD. In a review in ‘De Groene Amsterdammer”I read: ‘It is as if the notes of Chopin became your notes’. What do you make of this assessment?
NG: Of course, I’m very happy to hear that because it says what I feel. These are not my notes obviously, but if I want to record something, I need to have the feeling that the music is deeply engrained within myself and only then it will work. So yes, it is a compliment.

WB: I read an interview with you by Marcel Baudet from 2004, in which you made a lot of interesting comments. It’s from almost 20 years ago, but a lot of it is still pretty valid. You said: “If I generalise, I notice that French pianists play Chopin in a rather dry, sterile way.’I was wondering whether you could say that Russian pianists play Chopin differently than Polish pianists?
NG: Did I really say that? In this case it sounds like a rather unfair generalisation. Nevertheless, there is a grain of truth in it, but any recording by Cortot just screams the opposite.  You see, the globalization process affects music as well. The national schools have more or less disappeared; there were definitely German, French and Russian schools in the past, but if we try to describe them, we actually describe something very average. In that sense, my remark was not incorrect, but if you take the greatest achievements, it’s totally wrong. Cortot was absolutely one of the greatest names in the interpretation of Chopin. Not only Chopin of course, he played French music magnificently and he was one of the greatest interpreters of Schumann’s music (He was very much brought up in the German tradition).  When you talk about greatness, it transcends all limits of national schools, but there are tendencies, such as the one you referred to in your question. In the Russian tradition, Chopin always held a special place and a great number of fabulous Chopin- interpretations came from representatives of the Russian school. 

WB: Was there ever a Russian school?
NG: Of course, there was never a strict division between the schools, but we can definitely speak of tendencies. If you are specifically interested in this, we probably have to start in the second half of the 19th century.  While there were already musical institutions in Europe, by that time, Russia was lagged behind, as in most aspects of social life. The brothers Rubinstein played a crucial role in establishing musical institutions in Russia. They were both great pianists, yet very different artists and personalities.  Besides their great artistic qualities they possessed incredible energy and organisational skills. Anton, the older brother, who was also a prolific composer and conductor, opened the Russian musical society and the first Russian conservatory in Sint Petersburg, Nikolay was the founder of the conservatory in Moscow. The brothers used all the accumulated western experience and implemented it at a very high level right from the start. The structured musical education for the different age groups was especially important and, as far as I know, new.  
If we talk about the artistic side of this enormous enterprise, specifically the titanic figure of Anton played a crucial role in forming Russian pianism. In the mid 19th century, he was probably the greatest performer, next to Franz Liszt. He played a big role in shaping the music a bit like a sculptor. Paradoxically, he never taught at the conservatory he founded. His only private pupil was another prodigious pianist: Josef Hoffman. Rubinstein’s enormous influence on generations of Russian pianists came primarily from his concerts. All Russian musicians were in awe. Both Rachmaninov and Hoffman, who listened to the series of ‘Historic concerts’ played by Anton Rubinstein, maintained that it had been the strongest musical experience they ever witnessed until the end of their lives. The concerts were a formative experience for generations of Russian musicians. Rachmaninov, who never studied with Rubinstein, admitted that Rubinstein directly influenced his approach, specifically in his unforgettable interpretation of Chopin’s B flat minor sonata. 
Russia was a huge multinational empire, and the newly established conservatories attracted very talented students, not only from Russia, but many came from its colonies: Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Armenia, and so forth. Among the professors of the two leading Russian conservatories were some of the most famous European musicians, for instance Ferrucio Busoni in Moscow and Theodor Leschetizky in Saint Petersburg. The latter was one of the greatest piano teachers of all times (He was a student from Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny). Just to give you an idea: his students included Paderewski, Friedman, Schnabel and Anna Esipova (an internationally famous pianist: his assistant, later his wife and Prokofiev’s teacher). Admittedly, most of his renowned students studied with him in Vienna.  
After the catastrophic revolution, musical education in Russia maintained its extremely high level, in spite of the fact that so many great Russian musicians emigrated. Since music is the least ideological of all art forms, the Bolsheviks were interested in keeping the musical institutions intact in order to prove the superiority of the soviet system, a similar situation was true for the ballet. If we compare this situation to other walks of life, musicians were among the least prosecuted. In the years following the revolution, up to the 60s I would say, the concentration of great pianists in Russia was unusually high. After those years the system started to deteriorate.

WB: Would you say the overall level was higher there than in the Netherlands for example?
NG: At the time of Soviet Russia? Yes, I am sure!

WB: Is it the same now?
NG: The system of musical education was better than anywhere else. 
WB: I am trying to understand because life may have been miserable, but it didn’t stop them from educating students fantastically…
NG: It was supported by the state, the education itself was superb. Professional training started at a very early age, preparing students for the conservatory. It was a very logical, professional and academic educational system. In Europe, the circumstances were totally different, which makes it difficult to compare..

WB: Which ones for instance?
NG: Okay, I’ll try to explain. There were huge differences in the circumstances: professional, spiritual, practical, etc. But first of all, I must stress that when I talk about the superior level, I refer exclusively to the educational system and the average level of trained professional pianists and violinists. Of course, there were great talents, both amongst teachers and students. There was an incredible concentration of talents in just two cities: Moscow and Saint Petersburg which was unparalleled anywhere else in the world. What made the situation in communist Russia unique is that, besides poverty, the country was lacking all kinds of freedom, including the freedom of movement, so the career of musicians, ballet dancers, circus artists, etc were among the few that offered possibilities to at least break out of a miserable existence. This was a very strong incentive, apart from the dedication to music of course, which made young people work very hard! When I started to teach in the Dutch conservatories and worked with Western students, I was often surprised by their relaxed attitude towards practising. I am generalising a little bit, of course. Another potentially more significant reason behind the less successful musical educational system in western countries was much weaker support and encouragement from parents. This was for obvious reasons of course: the career of a musician in the West was (unless it was extremely successful) much less lucrative and prestigious. And, until rather recently the almost total absence of well-functioning professional music schools for children in the West led to a situation where it was difficult to get a good systematic training for a talented child from a very young age. 
Coming back to the Soviet school I would like to mention one phenomenon which is not often mentioned. Next to the very obvious, undeniable achievements of the Soviet pianistic school especially from post war times, more precisely from the 60’s, some negative tendencies started to become more noticeable. As in any system at any times, after reaching a peak and thriving for decades, this particular system gradually started to show signs of decay. The greatest professors slowly disappeared, while the professional education increasingly served the sole purpose of winning more and more competitions. Artistically, it meant that among young successful Soviet musicians there were more increasing numbers of very technically polished pianists who played in a very uniform way and very much lacked the spirit of music and an individual approach. 

WB: You said there were/are no schools for gifted children in Europe, is that what you need to become someone of the level of say Ashkenazy?
NG: I would not necessarily mention Ashkenazy, why did you specifically bring up him?
WB: He is also a Russian pianist who had a very high level, I was just thinking we probably never had a pianist of the same level in the Netherlands!
NG: Maybe, I don’t know. Soviet Russia was home     not only to pianistic giants like Giles and Richter, who everybody knows, but also artists like Sofronitsky and Yudina who are much less well-known but artists of comparative standard. They were artists of incredible inspiration and originality. They were absolutely incredible.

WB: Bashkirov, Lazar Berman…
NG: Yes, of course. Berman travelled around the world, so did Ashkenazy. Yudina was allowed to give some concerts in the DDR and played only once in Poland while, Sofronitsky went to Paris in his youth and stayed there for a short while. He returned and was never allowed to go abroad again, except one occasion when Stalin took him to a summit of leaders of the allied countries in Potsdam immediately after the war. Sofronitsky played next to Gilels and some other Soviet musicians.  

WB: I definitely know the name of Yudina!
NG: She was a phenomenal artist and  then there was Maria Grinberg.
WB: Davidovich…
NG: Yes, of course.

WB: You have been teaching in the Netherlands for a long time now. I just wonder how come we don’t have as much talent as in Russia? Not pianists of this evel I would say.
NG: You can’t compare the size of the two countries! 
WB: That’s true, but I can only mention a few Dutch pianists that were quite famous, like Cor de Groot, Daniel Wayenberg and Theo Bruins. However, I couldn’t tell you ten Dutch pianists who have global careers. Is it a matter of technique or …?
NG: No, I don’t think so. (thinks) Let’s put it this way: I am thinking of a country with a comparable size. Do you know many Czechoslovakian, Portuguese or Scandinavian pianists?
WB: No, you’re right. 

NG: It is a coincidence that Glenn Gould was Canadian…
WB: I see what you mean, but let me rephrase my question: take a pianist like Daniil Trifonov who is a fantastic talent, I can’t think of a Dutch pianist who has the same level or potential; is that because Dutch people are not ambitious enough or don’t they work hard enough? How come we don’t have talents of that level or do you see people who have the same potential?
NG: There are actually currently a few very talented young Dutch pianists. Some of them are studying in my class: Aidan Mikdad and Florian Verweij.

WB:  I asked Jan Wijn the same question when I interviewed him a few years ago, is it true that piano technique is still improving? You mentioned Richter and Gilels who were fantastic pianists, then in the second half of the last century, there was a whole generation of people like Ashkenazy, Argerich and Pollini who could play anything. I have the impression that the piano technique is at an even higher level, is that your opinion too?
NG: Absolutely not. The average level is much higher, I see it in conservatories, but when it comes to artistic level, you can’t say that. You mentioned Ashekanzy, Argerich and Pollini and they were not of the same artistic level as the great artists before them, absolutely not. And actually I am sure they are totally aware of this themselves. 

WB: They were of a lower level?
NG: Yes, I think so. The peak of artistic achievements in the art of pianism had already passed by that time.  

WB: And then you speak purely of technical achievements? Or could you say it’s now at an even higher technical level than during the last half of the 20th century?
NG: Look, what you mean by ‘technical level’? For me, it’s not so easy to separate this notion from artistry, especially if we are talking about great artists. If you only consider the digital aspect, i.e. the speed with which you can play a number of notes per second, then the level is more or less the same I would think.  But in any case, one can safely say that the technical achievements of Rachmaninov and Horowitz have never been surpassed. If you refer to a broader context with the phrase ‘technical level’, which includes a command of sound, rhythm, phrasing, etc, the level went down dramatically with possibly a single exception of Arcadi Volodos. Just compare the top pianists of the 20th century with current pianists! The truth is that the great artists are always also the greatest technicians. It would be a bit naïve to think that pianists play even better nowadays! Take the incredible virtuosity of the recordings of Rachmaninov , Michelangeli, Gould. Technically, they were amazing. You see, historical development in any art form is never linear: it goes in waves, there are peaks and moments where things tend to go down. Take the Renaissance in Italy or the 17th century painters in Holland or Spain. It as local at that time, and now it’s global.

WB: And do you think there will be a peak again?
NG: I don’t see it happening in the near future; because the situation is somewhat odd now. There is modern music, it does exist but do you see any pianist of any significance who plays it? Not a single one! That is a very interesting phenomenon; music doesn’t start with the performing artist, but with the art of composing. The core of the repertoire played nowadays  consists mainly of music from the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century, with a few names from the 18th century and one or two composers of the second half of the 20th century. And now, we are moving further away from it and what I see is that in the next generations of pianists the inner connection with the music will be lacking. The growing dominance of the virtual reality in our life does not help either. I think our time is very good for computer programming but much less profitable for art. I don’t see any single sign that it is going to change any time soon. 

WB: You mentioned a few pianists already, Sofronitsky and Rachmaninov, you called them in an earlier interview your ‘pianistic Olympus”. You also mentioned Glenn Gould, I was wondering what do you admire so much in his playing? I guess he was a very intelligent man, but sometimes I feel he was also a bit provocative. I’m not sure whether he was entirely serious in his approach!
NG: I am very happy you mentioned these names, because they are very dear to me. About Glenn Gould: actually, he was profoundly sincere and serious whenever he was playing. However, he could be paradoxical in what he said about music, that is for sure.

WB: With Mozart!
NG: Okay, that’s a good point. Maybe his Mozart was somewhat experimental.
WB: He said he only liked the early Mozart sonatas and yet he recorded all of them. Why would you record music you don’t really like?
NG: I don’t know. You take the most controversial interpretations he recorded. I find some of those sonatas unbelievably beautiful, such as the first movement of the A-major sonata, where his approach is so unique and convincing. I agree that probably he recorded some of the sonatas just because he wanted to complete the whole cycle. However, we should always judge an artist by his highest achievements. If we are talking about his Mozart recordings, then there is the amazing C-minor concerto. To me it’s divine and so moving. I never love Mozart’s music more than when listening to this recording.

WB: Did you hear his Chopin B-minor sonata?
NG: Yes, of course!
WB: What do you think of it?
NG:  Again, it’s controversial, I agree, but I find it fascinating. He makes me listen from the first note to the last. He didn’t intend it to be published; it didn’t appear on CBS during his lifetime. I am happy to listen to it, actually more so than to many iconic recordings.

WB: What do you like most about it?
NG: It’s terribly compelling, like everything he did. There is enormous intensity in his playing, it’s profoundly logical, but not in a purely rational sense. It is imbued with the deepest emotional intensity. It is so intense and so strong, it’s wonderful! And the incredibly build up in the finale.
WB: I remember what struck me was this beautiful cantilena in the first movement, this Bellini-like melody where he puts all the emphasis on the left hand. The melody is played with  the right hand and you hear a totally different piece!
NG: He always wanted to hear the full score. Yes, you’re right, what he did in that passage was so expressive. 

WB: Would you say he was paradoxical when he said that Schumann, Chopin and Liszt didn’t write one proper right note for piano whereas he recorded tonnes of  Bach, who never composed one note for piano?
NG: Well, as far as I remember, he called them ‘right hand composers’, juxtaposing them  with the more polyphonically and orchestrally inclined composers. Gould’s preference clearly went to the latter, like the baroque composers, Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss, Scriabin, Prokofiev, etc. Bachs music so transcends the instrument, to me it sounds best on piano.  I can’t stand the sound of a harpsichords for more than 20 minutes. Listening to Gould’s Bach on piano is one of my favorite things in art and life in general. Actually the only harpsichord recording I love is Gould’s recording of Händel’s suites on harpsichord. 

WB: I have a few questions about performing. Claudio Arrau said he was in ecstasy when he was playing. What about you: is it the same or are you conscious of what you are doing?
NG: It’s interesting that Arrau said that! I thought he was very much involved in all kinds of Zen-practices?
WB: I guess he was, but I read this in an interview with Arrau. What about you?
NG: I wouldn’t describe it as ecstasy, but it is a state of mind, of course. A situation where you have to concentrate so much, everything is so focused and intense. “Ecstasy’ is perhaps a strange connotation in this context, but it is not a normal state of being, of course. It’s kind of a transcendental state, that’s true. 

WB: Is that always the case or only when you are really inspired?
NG: To find the balance in this state when you can keep the intensity and yet remain cool, I can’t say I achieve I t every time. It varies a lot. You live in three dimensions: the future, the present and the past. If you manage that…
WB: What do you mean that you live in the past, the present and the future? While performing you mean?
NG: Of course, you have to listen to what you are doing and you need to look forward.

WB: That’s beautiful. And can interpretation liberate anything subconscious?
NG: I am sure that even a big part of our daily life is on a subconscious level and the process of performance can definitely reveal certain levels of it if you are lucky 

WB: There was this pianist that I really liked, Shura Cherkassky, whose playing sometimes seemed like improvisation, whereas he was a very hard worker. I had the feeling that he could really surprise himself when performing. People said when he played a concerto three times in a row that it was a very different performance three times.
NG: Seriously?
WB: That’s what I heard, but I never heard him three times in a row!
NG: I heard him in Moscow and later in Amsterdam too, his playing could be very beautiful, especially in delicate miniatures where you could hear his incredibly beautiful pianism, a bit of Josef Hoffman’s style , a sense of sound that was especially wonderful in pianissimo. I can’t imagine he was very different during every performance; since his way of playing was not  actually that spontaneous.
WB: But does it happen that you surprise yourself in a performance and you do things you never did before? 
NG: Not to the extent that the whole interpretation becomes a very different one, but to some extent, indeed, yes.

WB: I don’t know whether you listen to your own performances, but are there moments when you hear something that doesn’t sound ‘like you’?
NG: I can’t say but I almost never listen to my own recordings. If I did, I’m sure if I would  probably like something one day and hate it the next. 

WB: I have a few questions about what we say in Dutch ‘Leren is proberen’(learning is trying), is that the same for you?
NG: I don’t quite understand actually..
WB: I guess if you study you do not always know where you’re going, you don’t always know what the result will be when you start. You sometimes have to try out things that probably a were not good in retrospect or that can maybe lead to other things.
NG: O yes, of course, for sure! 

WB: When you practice, do you always learn? I am not sure whether it was Lipatti or Rachmaninov who said : “When you study, there is also a mechanical part and that only later everything comes together.” Can you separate the mechanic and the artistic part? 
NG: It’s fair to say that you separate them to some extent. If you encounter difficulties in certain passages, you start solving them and then you separate them. In this case, you can’t say you are involved in a very artistic process. 

WB: I don’t know exactly how to say this, if you are a great pianist, you have your technique, of course. You have your own sound that is always there, but what I admire so much about you is the incredible depth in your playing. I hear someone who is really searching, is that something that right too or is it something that takes a long time before you can really express yourself in a piece? I hope you understand the question..
NG:   Yes, I do. It’s a very complex process that is not easy to analyse. Usually, when you study a piece, you know it and you have your ideas about interpretation. When you start to prepare the piece for performance, you discover that your knowledge about it is extremely, I don’t want to say superficial, but unfocussed. Once you start to study, your focus will become much sharper and that can be a long process. Sometimes your ideas can be quite different in the end, sometimes your first ideas about a piece can coincide with the way you want to perform it. There are no rules.

WB: So if you take a Beethoven sonata you never studied and that you want to learn, you don’t know what you want to do with it right away?
NG: Usually I think that I know, you have a certain picture, but if you see all those possibilities, all those endless choices. This process can lead to an interpretation that differs from the initial idea you had in mind. And your perception of a certain work may change over the course of your life.

WB: I have a few questions about sound. This is what you said in the interview from 20 years ago with Marcel Baudet, you spoke about the secret of Horowitz’s and Rachmaninov’s sound was not how they touched the keyboard, but the fact that they were able to imagine a certain sound,  and  you can only start your search for it if you have that. “ How old were you when you learned about your own sound? 
NG: This is an immense issue, since music is an art of sound (and of rhythm of course, but it also materialises in the sound). In even the smallest musical composition, there are countless sounds of different colours, shades, their relationships, expressions, etc. Every great artist sees the world and the composition differently and that’s why they approache it so differently. And then there is the question of controlling the sound in order to materialise your perception in a physical sound. One can say that the control of sound, next to rhythm, phrasing and the sense of structure are the pillars upon which the art of interpretation is based. All these components are highly individual. One can only speak of the ‘sound of Rachmaninov’ or the ‘sound of Gould’in this context. It is inseparable from the musical personality and all the great artists had their own unique sound world. I doubt whether any artist would speak about themselves on this matter.

WB: Do you know exactly how you want to sound? Do you have an idea in year head?
NG: Yes, absolutely, that’s what I was referring to! It’s something that you can’t actually teach, because the idea of sound is in your imagination and your brain. It’s very difficult to describe it in words All you can teach someone to some extent is how they should control the sound.  
WB: Is it something you can reproduce or is it also partly subconscious? For instance, the first chords of the Fourth Beethoven Concerto show whether you can play cantabile, can you reproduce that any point in time?
NG: In principle absolutely, unless the instrument is really very bad. The better the instrument, the more successful it will sound, but you will recognise a real master pianist on any instrument. 

WB: Does the idea of sound become more concrete when you grow older?
NG: I would say yes, not only when it comes to the sound. With any true artist, it should be a lifelong process.

WB: You said something in the same interview that I never quite understood, since I am not a music student. Maybe it’s a silly question, maybe you can explain me what it means: “When I play for a student, I try to explain that horizontal structures are polyphonic as possible and the other way around, verticality doesn’t exist without horizontality. This is important and it reflects in the sound.” You said it’s a very physical sensation, if the harmony changes, the colors, you feel it in your bones. Can you explain what the notion of horizontality in comparison to verticality?
NG: I am not sure whether I expressed it that way or maybe it wasn’t rightly quoted, or perhaps it’s the translation? In any case, I am not sure I entirely understand the question.
WB: It was in Dutch and I translated the passage in English.
NG: I understand the topic. Do you understand the horizontal principle?
WB: I’m not sure!
NG: Music is a unique form of art that evolves in time. It’s not like a picture where you can absorb the whole idea in a split second. Thus any single sequence of notes evolving in time is  a horizontal line. The harmony is the vertical part, the combination of notes we hear simultaneously at any given moment of time. 

WB: You stated how important that is, that it reflected in the sound and that it is a physical sensation.
NG: Not only physical, it’s mainly mental. One of the main tasks of a performer is to make the structure, the form and the harmony as clear as possible for the listener. It’s the same as the idea of sound we discussed earlier, you have to have how the music is able to connect all the structures with the underlying emotional development in your mind. That’s the unique capacity of music and why it is possible that we experience music not only rationally and sensually, but also emotionally. You need to know how it is organised and you need to have the control to show all these complexities. 

WB: Did I understand correctly that harmonic changes in music are so powerful that you feel  them in your bones?
NG: We don’t feel them physically, but I would say sensually. 
WB: Do you have the stress them in the music?
NG: Of course. The harmonies are extremely important in music and the emotional perception of music depends on harmonic changes to a large extent. They are responsible for the sense of tension and relaxation, which is as important in the life of music as breathing is to us. 
WB: The harmonic changes in Chopin often give me goose bumps!
NG: That’s the answer!

WB: I heard the Third Beethoven Concerto this week, and I am always surprised about the change from minor to major at the end. It’s also amazing.
NG: Yes, sure, and Schubert used this principle so poignantly too. 
WB: You said that the Russian style of singing was an inspiration for the Russian school, it was almost a way of speaking, reciting. Is it your inspiration too your own playing too?
NG: I  once read an interesting book containing memories of Chopin’s students. Many of them mentioned how often he referred to singing in his lessons, especially when phrasing was concerned. It was also characteristic of Anton Rubinstein who was so influential in Russia. Even though all great Russian pianists are entirely different, the inclination towards singing and reciting is something they all have in common. 

WB: You said about sound if you work with a student: “If I succeed, his or her sound doesn’t resemble mine.” I want to help them reveal their own potential talent.” But is it bad when a student sounds like you?
NG: I don’t think it’s bad if he sounds like me but I would hate to clone students. Leschetitzky said to Schnabel: “Every pianist of significance around 15 or 16 years develops his own techniques. “ It’s a very fine observation, because different individuals stimulate different technique. Ideally, it should also lead to a different idea of sound and all the other aspects of interpretation that should be different from anyone elses. 

WB: That’s what I liked about one of your students Florian Verwey: I recognised part of your phrasing and I didn’t feel he was cloning you at all, I just thought to what extent you are a good teacher that you can teach them to find their own interpretations.
NG: It’s inevitable that you influence your students to some extent and when they go their own way, I think it’s fantastic! 
WB: If I listen to students of Jan Wijn, I can’t say that they have anything in common, except that they play in a healthy way without a lot of excess in their phrasing, although I can’t discover that they have anything in common, Whereas I have heard a few students of yours and there was something very special in the phrasing. I had the same impression with students of Dmitri Bashkirov who had a lot of students who are very good pianists! Or with Menahem Pressler, where you recognize the master!
NG:  We all take things from our teachers, also in composition or painting. When students of Rembrandt came to his ‘workshop’ or when Leonardo da Vinci came to the workshop of his great teacher Veroccio, they would start by copying the master’s paintings and they tried to do what the great master was doing. It didn’t prevent them from becoming great painters themselves later. And it doesn’t contradict what I said before.

WB: You said: ‘In our teaching we lost the soul of music. Everybody does everything correctly, but the essence is missing.’ You said that in 2004…
NG: I don’t recognise myself in these words, I couldn’t have worded it that way, but it is a fact that the soul of music is often lost, not only because of the teaching. But as we discussed before, the soul of music is very much missing in concert halls, that’s true. 

WB: I just want to believe that there are other geniuses and that it is not completely gone!
NG: Well, it’s not completely gone, absolutely not. There are very talented people around, but somehow our times are not very fertile.
WB: Would you say that people deliver standardised products nowadays?
NG: No, that is a little bit of the past, let’s say in the 80s and 90s, there was huge standardisation in music making. There tendency now is different. Musicians often artificially try to do something new. There is nothing wrong with that, especially if you are young, but the point is that you can only be original if you are, you can’t be original on purpose. Gould was one of the most individual artists, he had a vision and that’s why he had an individual approach to music, not the other way around. 

WB: There is another passage from the same interview I translated and I am not sure whether I understood it correctly: you spoke about a paradox: “You can only get to the core of a composition by a huge degree of individuality.” 
NG: That’s true! 

WB: And you said: “Why would people get closer to the core of the essence of music through a subjective interpretation?” That’s what you ask yourself. There are some pianists that you could call ‘neutral pianists’, I remember this is often said about Pollini who has an objective way of playing, whereas you could call pianists like Horowitz or Cherkassky much more individualists. Is it wrong to have an objective way of playing?
NG: What is ‘objective’? ‘Neutral’, yes, there is no ‘objective’, Richter used to say about himself that he only played what the composer wrote in the score. Of course, that is total nonsense, but he definitely believed this. Like any great artist, he saw the score and nothing that he was doing was arbitrary. Every note he played, every rubato, every sforzando was screamingly Richter’s. And of course, he often deviated from the composer’s intentions when he felt he had to. Why do people sometimes describe his art as ‘objective’? What made him say that about himself? Art often behaves like a reaction to certain tendencies. Richter and his great contemporaries Gilels and Michelangeli belonged to a generation that came after Horowitz. Cortot, Schnabel and Gieseking were great pianists who belonged to a great, basically romantic tradition for which much greater freedom, especially in rhythm and phrasing was very characteristic. Naturally, the following generations reacted to this. Next to Cortot, Richter almost seemed academic. It doesn’t mean that Richter’s style was better than Cortot’s. It’s all about discipline. Any great artist himself and the ‘Zeitgeist’ impose a certain frame of discipline and great artists create within the discipline. However, within this discipline, a creative artist can do so much! In most romantic music, say Scriabin’s, there is an incredibly strict form, in which the artist operates. Freedom can only be experienced within certain limits, otherwise there is chaos. That’s what I admire about Gould: he had incredible discipline and an almost superhuman sense of form. Yet he was the most individualistic player. You asked about pianists sounding the same: that’s the result of our post-modern approach. Everybody creates out of themselves, but that’s impossible in art. Everything seems to be allowed, there is no discipline or structure. Without the latter, art simply does not exist. And the ‘everything is allowed approach’ ultimately leads to the situation when individuality vanishes.

WB: It’s Horowitz who said: “Basically all music is romantic, people’s feelings don’t change, only the way they express them”. What do you think of this assessment?
NG: It’s essentially true, there is continuity and consistency in the history of art. The unparalleled tragic events of the 20th century broke the evolution. They affected both art and the physical life enormously. I have the feeling we are still struggling with the consequences and trying to find a new spiritual line. However, I would rather avoid the word ‘romantic’ since it is a weak term in this context.