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Utrecht, 16 October 2017
Interviewing Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska, a major interpret of Liszt and member of the jury during the 2017 Liszt Competition in Utrecht, was also an excellent oppotunity to remember her legendary mentor Arthur Rubinstein. A fascinating interview that took place in the lobby of the hotel Karel V in Utrecht..
Janina Fialkowska (JF): I have been on quite a few jury’s but this is one of the most pleasant and harmonious ones! There are seven of us, which is a nice number. I know most of the others and we get along well, even if we disagree. Everybody admires everybody, which is unusual. There are no tensions and that’s heavenly, because we have enough stress dealing with decisions!
JF: You are prepared, but sometimes you get tired of certain pieces of Liszt ( very few), I got “sick” of La Contrabandista.. There are only a few composers that I could listen to all the time: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, but other than that, no!
JF: There are different levels, but on a very basic level I am looking for a clean performance in good style. Beyond that, I am looking for colour, imagination and beautiful sound. I haven’t heard any banging during this festival, it’s extraordinary! The pre-screening must have been wonderful. The real thing is someone who makes my heart stop.. It happens sometimes when you are exhausted and right from the first note, you feel awake and light!
JF: It happened once in this competition, one candidate was really strong and made my heart jump. It’s great when you feel that someone is going to be successful! During competitions, you often hear nothing that is going to change the world or make it a better place. By the way, in general those who played the other programme (the one that didn’t include the B-minor sonata, WB) fared better!
JF: It’s smart to avoid the sonata, because it’s a monster work! It’s a dangerous piece: you should learn it at an early age, because it can develop. It’s hard to be objective, but hopefully we are grown up enough to have a lot of tolerance. I understand these kids as I have been through competitions myself. It’s only when I feel that they don’t give everything, that I am not interested. You really should be exhausted after you have played the sonata!
JF: It’s the same as in Brussels and Warsaw: no discussion officially . Also here there are no points but it’s a simple voting system with either a yes or a no.
JF: Everybody’s music is acquired taste, I remember that my father didn’t like Mozart! Liszt has been little known for a long time and his music, often only a handful of works, was often badly played. That’s different now because of competitions and thanks to people great Liszt pianists like Leslie Howard, Gyorgy Cziffra, Barenboim, Argerich , and even myself. I was considered a specialist until I injured my arm. After my recovery I had no problems with Mozart, Chopin and Beethoven, but I thought Liszt was over, since I can’t play pieces like the concertos, the sonata, the Dante sonata and the Mefisto Waltz any more. I was very unhappy about it until I realized that Liszt wrote thousands of pieces that I could still play so I recorded another cd with some of this music. It’s impossible that people say they don’t like Liszt, because he is so multi-faceted: there is the religious, the cruel (Well no, never cruel, demonic), the happy Liszt.. He had an attractive personality and as a colleague he was great. I didn’t get bored for a second during this competition, except for La Contrabandista. The latter was a dedication to George Sand, whom Liszt didn’t particularly like.
JF: The Valse-impromptu, some of the etudes, some of the transcriptions are hilarious. He has a sense of humour, for instance the Bagatelle sans tonalité.
JF: I know people who don’t like Chopin! Liszt needs more people who play his music and he needs more variety: not always the same works, some of the lesser known music such as the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is fabulous. Chopin is the composer I feel closest to, Liszt liked Chopin and they both understood the modern keyboard so well, their music is exquisitely written. Liszt took much longer to find the perfect way of writing for the piano, but he lived much longer. The first version of his études was impossible, but he made them playable. The late pieces sound incredibly hard, but they fall beautifully under the hands, that’s what these boys Chopin and Liszt had in common! I adore Schumann, but he is always a bit awkward to play, Brahms is definitely difficult to play, Ravel also had a great understanding of the piano.
JF: Not early, not until I was 19 years old. I studied in the school of Cortot, who did play Liszt, but his pupils were snobby about his music. I played a few of his études d’exécution transcendante, then I discovered the sonata and that’s how it started. In 1986, the year of the celebration of Liszt, I toured with the 12 études d’exécution transcendante and the Variations on Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Sagen. I might have been the only woman by then to play such a programme. That’s how I got known. Later, I was asked to do his Third Piano Concerto, an unfinished short piece that I performed a lot.
JF: No, that’s another concerto, this one is shorter. It was written at the same time as the other two concertos, that were revised by Liszt, but not this one. In 1989, a young doctoral student found it either in Budapest or in Weimar, I am not sure. I premiered it in Chigaco and recorded it. It is extremely difficult and lasts only twelve minutes, it can’t be played by itself. It has a lovely melody in the middle.
JF: No, there are other Hungarians who did it, Jeno Jando as well. It’s not a terrific piece, it’s more a curiosity. It’s so hard that you think: “What’s the point?” I did it for three years and then people didn’t ask for it any more.
JF: The many facets of his music, he composed more than anyone. There is such variety of styles, as well as the development of his personality. He was a lady killer and he was religious, he was a fascinating character who wrote fascinating music. The theme of Faust is recurrent in his music, like Florestand and Eusebius for Schumann.
JF: Maybe unexpectedly, I love Rubinstein. He didn’t do a great deal of Liszt, but he understood his style, for instance in the 12th Hungarian Rhapsody, but then again, he played anything like no one else, with nobility. One of the best Liszt recitals I heard, maybe 30 or 40 years ago, was by Barenboim, when he still practised! I admire my friend Leslie Howard and go to any of his cd’s when I want to know how a certain work should be played. Apart from that, I blank, which pianists would you mention?
JF: Arrau, he was definitely up there! I heard him in the 70’s at Lincoln Center and it was absolutely the greatest sonata I have ever heard! And I am crazy about Cziffra, he was so captivating in his madness: he had an understanding that was fabulous.
JF: Yes, I know that recording. I was not too fond of Lazar Berman, but when he showed up in New York to play all of the 12 études d’exécution transcendante, it made a huge impression, it was a blast! And I heard Martha Argerich play the sonata live!
JF: It was do die for, it just poured out with such instinct! She also played the Fantasiestücke by Schumann. Her Bach is sensational too. The live Liszt sonata must have been in 1971 or 1972, she came every year to New York. I went with Jeffrey Swann, Emanuel Ax and Garrick Ohlsson. Martha is so natural and every note is alive!
JF: NO, not in the slightest. I know my place and she is somewhere else...way above me.
JF: He is fine and yes, he should have had a better career. You mentioned Eugen Indjic earlier, he should play more in the US, he is American!
JF: Yes, absolutely. You should at least listen to a cd with the highlights. People take incredible slow tempi, whereas in the opera it goes faster!
JF: No, you have to know the opera, you have to be a complete artist. People like Horowitz knew a Beethoven quartet, all the great pianists had a certain culture. I was once in New York with Rubinstein and Emil Gilels and his wife were invited for lunch. Rubinstein had stopped playing and he loved listening to chamber music. He asked Gilels whether he knew the Dissonant Quartet by Mozart, Gilels didn’t know it, so he put on the record and Gilels’s face lit up, there were tears on his face. He was in his 60’s, but he didn’t know the music.
JF: Among his works for piano, yes. There are certain pieces I have a passion for, like the 2nd Ballade. It breaks my heart that I can’t play it any more…
JF: Yes, it’s a piece where you need maturity and overview of the piece to know where it’s going. It can be a big bore, you can certainly kill it!
JF: The entire middle section and the ending are extraordinary. The long ending is perfect, you can’t go too slowly, you have to keep it fluent. Yes, these scales are magic.
JF: Yes, it can seem hollow at the top if you don’t keep the pedal!
JF: Yes, Leslie told me about it, I haven’t heard it. Saint Seans and Liszt together, that must have been curious.. All those transcriptions that Liszt wrote: Rossini, Chopin, Berlioz, he covered such a stretch of people. And Salieri taught Liszt harmony for Christ’s sake! Liszt said he didn’t teach him about musicality, but he learnt a great deal from Salieri.
JF: Unbelievable, he was so very generous, he helped me launch my career and got my career going!
JF: That’s nice! Yes, I do. Unabashedly, not because I want to sound arrogant, but when I play Mozart or Chopin, I am not afraid. I may be wrong, but I feel comfortable, whereas with others, I am searching, particularly with Beethoven. I never play a programme without Chopin, I relax with his music
JF: It’s Chopin’s Liszt sonata!
JF: No, it’s not difficult, the only difficulty is not to panic and keep my tempo down. Every note is part of a melody, it’s very vocal. If you slow down the coda of the 4rth Ballade, it’s a beautiful melody. Sing it in your head and play melodically as you would sing it, but the tempo is a bit faster. You wouldn’t believe it, but that’s where my French training helps, I did a lot of solfège. I just imagine Christa Ludwig or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sing it.
JF: No, Chopin has very subtle inflexions you can figure out by singing, other composers are not as vocal.
JF: That’s it! I just played it in Portugal and they started applauding, I couldn’t believe it! I don’t pedal them, I put my head down and hope they don’t clap.
JF: I never read comments on YouTube, I am bad with computers, my husband is much better. The comment is nice! Any of these old boys were so extraordinary, you hear a recording and say: “That’s Gilels or that’s Argerich!”
JF: He was a mentor, he would dispute he was my teacher, but still.. I played the Barcarolle for him and he played it for me, that’s a pretty good lesson! At the end of his life, he was blind, but he still demonstrated things at the piano. I was like a granddaughter to him and stayed with him. He was entertaining, well read, funny, generous and I was nervous and shy. Half of me adored being with him and the other half didn’t. Because I was afraid I could not live up to his expectations..
JF: During the first Rubinstein Competition. I had no expectations whatsoever and didn’t make it to the finals. One person in the jury gave me a zero and Rubinstein said he would leave as the chairman if I dodn’t make the finals. He sought me out and wanted to know more about me. I told him I was about to start law school.
JF: I had no career and had to make a living! I was 22 and didn’t want to teach kids.. I was accepted in a very prestigious law school in Canada. Rubinstein went on a farewell tour and asked that I played the next year in all the cities (44 in total), that traced my career.
JF: He was a funny man and had this complex about his technique, it’s ridiculous! He had a most natural technique, he couldn’t see the point of working so hard when it all came so naturally. He never practised more than 20 minutes, he also wanted to have fun, he read a lot for instance.
JF: Yes, it’s true. He was not a good practiser. I once came to his hotel in New York when he was practising Chopin Second Concerto that he knew very well of course. He made a mistake, then redid it, made the same mistake, redid it again, made the mistake for the third time and went on without stopping. That evening during the concert it went well!
JF: It’s a myth that he heard Horowitz and had this complex, o please…He probably worked for two hours and thought it was a lot. His son Johnny also said he never practised! I have the most fun when I practise, I have problems on stage, because I am not a stage animal, but he loved performing. I heard him a lot, around 15 or 20 times. He was my idol, it was he I loved the most. Otherwise I admire Horowitz a lot too, as well as Michelangeli, Serkin, Richter, Pollini, Argerich, Lupu, Zimerman…
JF: There was a dark side, but he had a happy philosophy. I have one particular memory though, he didn’t get along with his wife and had marital problems. Once I came back to his apartment in Paris and the house was dark. He was sitting in a room with all the lights off, I didn’t believe it, but he, the happiest man, had been crying. I was shy and tried to cheer him up. He said: “You are sweet, but I enjoy being miserable!” . At the end of his life he went blind, almost overnight, but he took it so wonderfully. I never saw him depressed, except for that day. He was a lucky man, he didn’t worry, even blind he wanted to go to movies and sit on the first row..
JF: Indeed, he was 96 when he died, and he was really well until 92, he had no old men’s brain. There was this healthiness and sanity to his playing, you don’t know how much I miss him…. And there was such honesty, no “me, me, me”, first there was the music. He was revelling in beautiful music. I have never been to concerts where people left more happy, not frantic. It was wonderful, I didn’t feel that with anyone else. He had the most beautiful sound, it filled your heart. I really miss that guy… And he had charisma, there was an aura, light around him, something supernatural. His recordings are nothing compared to his live concerts. The live recording from Moscow comes closest, he did practise a lot for that concert, since Richter and Gilels were in the audience, he had to..
JF: (touches wood): I thought it might take away some of my nerves.. People say you take things less for granted after such an experience, but I still get nervous and I never took things for granted. I hope to not get sick again. I get tired much quicker and as the French say, “Il faut ménager ses forces”, but other than that, things are going fine.
JF: I got a flower garden, because vegetables need daily attention. I got 500 bulbs waiting for me.. It’s a beautiful garden, my husband got really frantic about it.
JF: No, I meant I wouldn’t add new repertoire and I am reducing now. However, my European manager asked me whether I wanted to play the Panufnik Concerto next March and I had to say to myself: “You can do it!”
JF: I haven’t said yes yet..
JF: He is part of the generation of Lutoslawski and Penderecki. I met him. I premiered his concerto in the USA.
JF: It’s a crossing between Bartok and Penderecki.
JF: Not only concertos, there are also pieces like the Totentanz and the Chopin Fantasy on Polish airs.
JF: both Brahms concertos, Rachmaninov 2nd and 3rd and a lot of French repertoire. When you are young, you can do it, you are fearless. You don’t really know it’s not possible, you just do it..
JF: Yes, it’s great, you know what else is great? The Paderevski concerto.
JF: It’s a complete contradiction! Take a pianist like Zimerman: you just think he composes when he is on stage, he knows every note exactly.
JF: Anything by Mozart or by Schubert is heaven. In the music of Schubert there is something very powerful, the simple beauty of it all..
JF: Only once, Liszt First Piano Concerto in Amsterdam with Kondrashin conducting and Rubinstein in the audience. I remember they also played Sheherazade, Rubinstein came round and said: “I took a nap during Sheherazade.” I also remember Kondrashin was very nervous, later on I heard he defected the next day..
Amsterdam, 16 November 2019
The interview with Spanish pianist Javier Perianes took place in the restaurant of the Movenpick Hotel in Amsterdam, we were the only ones and there was some loud music on the radio. I was really glad when he asked the waitress after a few minutes whether she could turn down the volume of the music…
Javier Perianes (JP): No, I think with my record company Harmonia Mundi we are looking for a balance between the Spanish repertoire and repertoire that is part of the life of a pianist, e.g. Debussy, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Beethoven. My last cd d edicated to Ravel will be released in two or three weeks. It includes Le Tombeau de Couperin both in the orchestral and original version and the Piano Concerto in G major. In the past I recorded de Falla, Turina, Granados, Blasco de Nebra, Mompou, so quite a lot of Spanish music and I am planning more of it for the near future. I am not afraid of being pigeonholed as a Spanish pianist “only playing Spanish music”, if I record or play it in concert, I do so because I think it needs to be played as international repertoire. At the moment, I am doing a beautiful project of Spanish and Latin music with viola player Tabea Zimerman. A lot of projects are planned ahead, but Spanish music will always be at the center of my attention, along with international repertoire.
JP: Probably there was one, but at this moment not so much. We live in a world with many influences, a lot of information is only one mouse click away and you have everything you want. In the past, we had our glorious representative Alicia de Larrocha and she will remain the greatest ever.
(To one of the servants in the restaurant: Sorry, I have a question for you, could you put the music a bit softer?)
Alicia was for me the perfect example of how to combine the classical repertoire, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin with Spanish music, she was the last descendant of a big school, she was a pupil of Marshall, who studied with Granados, so there you could find a direct line and a proper school. After Larrocha, I find it really difficult to define a Spanish piano school. I heard a great conductor once say: “Spain is a country of individualities, not a country of collectives.” I don’t know whether I agree, since our orchestras sound much better than before, but when you think of Spain, you think of Larrocha, Casals, Narciso Yepes, when thinking of the Netherlands, there is Haitink and a lot of great instrumentalists like Brautigam and Janssen and especially the Concertgebouw Orchestra! Of course, there are many other great Spanish pianists, e.g. Orozco, who is sadly neglected by today’s generations, since they don’t know exactly who he was. There is a beautiful recording of the Rachmaninov concertos with Edo de Waart .
JP: Yes, she taught mostly Spanish music at the Academia Marshall, but mainly at the end of her career, because before her she had such a busy schedule that she was constantly on tour.
JP: Of course! It’s good you ask me this question, I listened to a lot of her recordings lately and she is a pianist and a human being who fascinates me. I had the chance to know her and work with her, it was a privilege, a gift that she wanted to listen to me. It was very special. She was one of the artists for whom the cd played an important role in their careers and lives, there were no recordings of Albeniz, Granados, de Falla, Mompou, Montsalvatge until she recorded them, or at least there were no performances on the same level of perfection. RCA and Decca made sure they were distributed in the whole world. One year ago, there was a beautiful documentary on television and a lot of pianists were speaking about her, Martha Argerich, Maria Joao Pires, Daniel Barenboim.. I remember what Argerich or Pires said about her: “She had everything we always wanted: rhythm, beautiful colours.. Among colleagues, she was not the Spanish pianist playing Spanish music, she was a lot more. Andre Previn said in the same documentary that he was looking in his schedule for the dates he was working with Larrocha, because he knew that those weeks were going to be exceptional! There are impressive recordings of Brahms 2 with Eugen Jochum, Rachmaninoff 3 with Previn, Khatchaturian with Frücbeck de Burgos, both Ravel concertos.
JP: Yes, probably. I honestly think that’s a mistake, because I am convinced that you can approach that music without being Spanish! People are confused by the necessity of being from the same country as the composer, you don’t have to be German either to play Beethoven, nobody has ever thought about that. Spanish music is inspired by Spanish folklore, but Schubert, Beethoven and Mozart were inspired by folklore too. It’s mostly music coming from the people.
JP: I am not entitled to say I play certain music better than other pianists, because I am Spanish.
JP: I know, but the influence of Schumann on Granados is huge!
JP: No, it’s not that bad at all! In the Goyescas there are some traces of Spanish music, but he was basically a romantic, a post-romantic in his case, so if you are going to play the Goyescas, do you have to be Spanish?
JP: I heard Beatrice Rana the other day, she played one of the books of Iberia without any problem, the Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter plays de Falla, even Angela Hewitt plays de Falla, Benjamin Grosvenor plays a lot of Granados and Albeniz. During his last tour in South America, Kissin played Albeniz, Daniel Barenboim recorded a couple of books from Iberia, you can go on. Aldo Ciccolini was very famous for his interpretations of Spanish music, Martha Argerich played de Falla’s Nights.. Some of them have a different perspective, but are they less good? No way!
JP: Iberia is quite difficult and challenging, but in the end, it works, it’s clear what Albeniz wanted to achieve. With the Goyescas, it’s different: it’s also very challenging, de Falla wrote a very difficult piece, the Fantasia Baetica.
JP: Probably, or you think you can add something, it’s the preconception a lot of people have. Imagine that you have a score you want to study without any recording: you open the score, you look at the rhythm indications on the first page, what are your references? Music itself! If you wish to play Iberia, the worst way to approach the score is listening to one of Alicia’s recordings, approach the score as you would do with a contemporary piece the first time in your life! If you are Spanish, do the same. Having said this, the recordings by Larrocha and Orozco are spectacular of course!
JP: I understand what you mean, but in the case of Iberia, it’s much better than you think, the “system” in all the pieces is quite similar. The central part is slower, the “copla” as we call it in Spain and the first and last half is usually faster, with some exceptions, like Evocation, it’s like a Debussy-prelude written in Spain.
JP: Of course, because it’s very short, but the other ones are not that difficult to remember. I can tell you that a Schumann piano sonata, Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto or even the 4th Beethoven concerto are difficult too, there are a lot of notes to remember too!
JP: O no, take for instance El Albacin: the first section is the zapateado (sings), the middle section is the copla, curiously Albeniz wrote: “Keep the same tempo”, people use to play slower, I don’t know why. You should maintain the same tempo throughout the whole piece. Of course you have to be flexible, the tempo is not like a metronome, I am completely against that, but the base has to be more or less the same. Or with “Corpus Christi ..” , you have more or less the same structure which is, even with all the episodic writing, easy to understand. There are definitely a lot of notes to remember, but in a Chopin sonata, there are a lot of notes as well. It’s about perspective. If you start to play Brahms second concerto, it’s very difficult and you think: ”This concerto lasts about for 50 minutes, it’s like the duration of the whole Goyescas. “
JP: You mention one of my idols! His Iberia or his de Falla are very different from de Larrocha’s, I wish I could play like him, his interpretations are full of character and there is a feeling of improvisation, with Sanchez, you feel he is reading the music for the first time. It sounds fresh, inspirational, anew. He was one of the greatest Spanish pianists ever and all the famous colleagues like Alicia and Orozco respected him. He took the decision that he didn’t want to have an active concert career..
JP: No, he was a good friend of Daniel Barenboim. A lot of Sanchez’ recordings were no longer available at some time, but Barenboim was indirectly responsible that the recording of Iberia was not forgotten. He visited Spain and said: “Why are you asking me about Iberia whereas you have here, together with Alicia, one of the best pianists I ever heard in my life”. I have a recording of Sanchez in Beethoven 4th concerto and Beethovens Bagatelles, It’s amazing and spectacular.
JP: No, the quality is not good. Iberia was recorded in only a few days, but te spirit is amazing. It’s not comparable to Alicia’s recordings with all the amazing engineers from Decca.
JP: O my god, you are right, that sounds alarming indeed! Maybe she was happier with other companies, since she made more than one recording of Iberia. But returning to Sanchez, he was one of the most talented pianists I ever listened to in my life.
JP: No.. yes, I did, it was some kind of informal concert. It was part of a competition and several contestants played, he played for only five or ten minutes, but it was magical. The sound!
JP: I don’t remember, I was only 14 years old at the time, I was shocked to see him, since he was not in a very good physical shape, but the sound that he created was magical. It’s curious you mention Esteban Sanchez! Even young Spanish pianists have no idea, when you mentioned Sanchez or Orozco!
JP: Absolutely!
JP: It’s true!
JP It was not published, only as part of some Spanish collection. It’s strange, the Spanish national radio started a series about great national pianists, which was very good of course. There was Alicia, Orozco, Iturbi, Achucarro, and there was a recording of Beethoven 4 with Sanchez, I believe with an Italian conductor. There is another live recording from the Danish radio of Rachmaninov 2, but then unfortunately he stopped playing and wanted to live in a little village in Baragoz. He was dedicated to his pupils, playing concerts here and there, but nothing serious..
JP: No, indeed, he was killed in an accident.
JP: Absolutely, every single day. If someone asks me: “What is your goal? What are you really enjoying?”, I say: “Today’s concert!” Of course, we should enjoy what we will do in the future, yesterday, I got good news, well, it isn’t really good news when you have to replace someone who cannot play. I heard Nelson Freire is recovering from surgery, and I was asked to stand in for him in a concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Beethoven Emperor Concerto. I played there three years ago with Charles Dutoit, so yesterday, I was happy on the one hand, but on the other hand I thought of poor Nelson.. I admire him so much, he is a giant, we know each other very well. I was together with him in the last ICMA, when he got a lifetime achievement award, we spoke a lot about pianists and piano. So if you ask me whether I am excited to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, I answer: “No, I think of the Granados and Brahms Piano Quintets of tonight”, and yes, I performed them two days ago, but these pieces are endless. You always discover new details, along with the string players. You have to be focused on what you are doing at that moment.
JP: I don’t know! I don’t like to think about myself too much. The good thing about yourself and finding your own voice and sound is that you don’t have rivals. You know what I mean? There is no one like you! I asked one of the greatest pianists ever about this and he said:”That’s wonderful, because nobody can be like you!” You have to find your own voice and the only way you can do that is by searching. Probably I am one of the pianists who enjoys most what he is doing.
JP: I have a very good friend, a conductor with whom I recorded, Joseph Pons, and he said something I love: “If you believe the good reviews, you have to believe the bad ones too. “ Sometimes you get a review and you think: “That’s true, because I was absolutely fantastic”, you have the obligation to believe a bad review too. So it’s like I told you at the beginning of the interview, perspective is something very important. When someone writes something in a constructive way, you can agree or disagree. I have to confess too that I don’t read a lot of reviews, only when someone gives them to me. I don’t have the time, if I spend an hour reading them, I can’t practise! The main goal of what I do is: “Enjoy what I do and make other people happy!”As long as I can make at least one person in the audience happy, my mission is accomplished.
JP: Yes, there is! In Spain, there is a place, called Union Musical, I think you can find the score there. You can ask Sophie of my management to remind me to find scores of Blasco de Nebra. I can take pictures of both editions I have and send them to you and I will let you know where you can find editions.
JP: It shouldn’t be that difficult, or I could let you know where to find the scores.
JP: It’s special, but the second movements are challenging, they are Scarlatti-like..
JP: It’s perfect, because the second movements are like Scarlatti, the first movements are like Soler and the third movements could be Carl Philip Emanuel Bach..
JP: No, he was an organ player in the cathedral of Sevilla. Apparently, he composed much more than the music that was published, a lot of it disappeared. We don’t know what happened with a lot of his scores. You can’t imagine, I got the scores of his sonatas from Denmark!
JP: Yes, he was from Aragon and he moved to Sevilla, where he stayed for a long time.
JP: Probably he heard of Soler, I don’t remember exactly when these composers lived. I am planning to do another cd of Blasco de Nebra.
JP: No, it was for the fortepiano, that’s what you can read in the original score, but I am not sure what he meant.
JP: Yes, although I am not sure that he had the same fortepiano in mind as the instrument you and I am thinking of!
JP: For the second movements probably, for the first movements, no way!
JP: It’s very special music indeed, I like it very much too.
JP: Yes, that’s true and it’s very experimental. It appeared that musicologists in Spain noticed that the score was printed with a lot of mistakes. When the quartet and myself recorded this piece for Harmonia Mundi, we did a good job finding possible mistakes in the score and correcting them. I have an old edition in which I made all the changes and I am not sure whether there exists any “good” edition of it in Spain. It’s a very short piece, it lasts only 15 minutes. People love it, because it’s very fresh and inspired, but it’s not easy!
JP: It’s quite obvious, if you have a G-major chord and you write an F in the base in a perfect cadenza, you think: “This is the editor!” They haven’t changed it. There are even mistakes in de Falla’s music. He was very peculiar, I read some of the letters he wrote to his editor: “Don’t change that note! I want it there for a reason. “ And even with that, the editor in London was making the piece a bit sweeter and less bitter, like de Falla wanted it. So this happens all the time, but in the case of Granados, I think we are talking more about a sloppy editor.
JP: The Valsos Poeticos, the Goyescas..
JP: No, apart from the Goyescas, you know, it’’s also an opera, not a lot of orchestral pieces. You may know, he died quite young, I am sure he was to write a lot of other pieces.
JP: Could be, but curiously, it could also be the other way round! Why not? We have to remember that de Falla and Debussy were very close friends, de Falla respecte Debussy very much. The reason that he composed “La porta del Vino” was that he received a post card from Granada, sent by de Falla! Debussy was never in Spain
JP: Not in Granada, not in the South! And that only time is difficult to prove. Ravel went to Spain a lot.
JP: Absolutely! It sounds more Spanish than a lot of Spanish music does!
JP: That brings us back to the beginning of this interview: do you need to be Spanish to represent anything Spanish? Debussy was even more serious: he got inspiration from Spanish rhythms, but he never went there. That proves that Spanish music can be absolutely international, Debussy proved it, and Ravel too with the Rhapsodie Espagnole! On the other hand, in a lot of pieces by de Falla, you can smell the French colour all the time, e.g. in the Nights in the gardens of Spain. De Falla met a lot of French composers, like Dukas, Ravel and Debussy. He was involved in the cultural life of Paris at the beginning of the 20th century.
JP: I think so, it’s part of the orchestral colours. It’s obvious that de Falla didn’t want to write a proper piano concerto. You don’t need to be “mad” about that, you have to accept that the piece is beautiful the way it is and the piano is part of the orchestra. I would say it’s a beautiful landscape that starts with the sunset and it finishes with the sunrise in the morning. So it’s a night in Granada or in Andalusia, but you don’t need to be there to feel that! It’s a magical piece, but if you go to a concert hall, expecting to hear a proper piano concerto, don’t listen to this piece!
JP: You know, I just recorded the sonata and I played the repeat of course, I remember during that recital, I also included some Nocturnes and with the repeat of the first movement of the sonata, the concert would have been a bit too long. I remember I did play the repeat in other recitals during the same tour. It’s not something I do deliberately. It’s the same discussion about the last Schubert sonata, people ask me: “Do you play the repeats?” and I answer: “Yes, I do.” “Do you always play it?” No, it depends on the concert.
JP: Yes, I do.
JP: Yes, that makes sense, because it’s a very short piece.
JP: Yes, absolutely.
JP He was very explicit!
JP: Yes, of course! I played with the Tokyo Quartet, I played at the London Proms with the Calidor Quartet from the United States, also with the Brentano Quartet, but I have less and less time, I am more inclined to play with the same partners, e.g. Tabea Zimermann, the viola player, we recorded a beautiful cd for Harmonia Mundi. We are playing in the United States and in Paris. Of course, I am open to work with other musicians, I just made a recording with the cellist Jean Guihen Queyras of the Debussy sonata. I am completely open to new collaborations, but I have very limited time with recordings, orchestral rehearsals, recitals, you can’t do everything. Seasons are planned two or three years ahead, so for this project with the Quiroga Quartet, we have one week, and for my recital tour with Tabea Zimermann in the USA two or three weeks and another week for the recording.
JP: You are not going to believe it, Spanish and Latin-American repertoire!
JP: The seven Spanish songs by de Falla, arranged by Zanetti. We will also play the Grand Tango by Piazzolla, the Tango by Albeniz, the Cantilena from the Bachianas Brasileiras by Villa-Lobos, Montsalvatge, Granados. Of course, we are talking about arrangements, also of beautiful songs by Casals. It will be out in March 2020.
JP: I think the promotor wanted us to do this. With a Spanish pianist and a Spanish quartet, they sometimes ask to play Turina or Granados. It would have made more sense to play the quintet of Turina, one of his first pieces, in which he tried to imitate Franck. It would have fitted nicely with the Brahms. On the other hand, the link between Granados and Schumann – in spite of what the Dutch pianist you mentioned before said- is closer than you think, so it makes sense in a way to put Granados together with Brahms, since Schumann was close to Brahms. We are all trying to find an explanation for a programme for which there isn’t really one: Ginastera – the first piece the quartet will play – is not Spanish, but Latin American, very powerful, than Spanish repertoire and then general repertoire.
JP: My god, it’s full of meat, it’s like a big entrecote! It’s a beautiful piece.
JP: It’s what I feel when going to concerts as a member of the audience and if I have the chance I keep trying to go to concerts as a member of the audience, of course, if someone is giving you something special, you want to continue going to concerts, because it changes your life in more than one way. We are complaining all the time that classical music is dying and that there are no audiences any more, but if you go to the Concertgebouw for a concert, they are often sold out..
JP: It’s a different perspective, you have different needs in your life, a lot of things are changing, you can find a lot of information right away. Do we still have time to sit down, close our eyes and listen to music? I am a very positive man, I think there is still hope, I am convinced that people still want to have that spiritual concert experience..
JP: .. i-Tunes or Spotify, music is wonderful, I listen to it on my I-phone, but of course when you are there, and you feel the vibration coming from the performers, that’s a different experience!
JP: O yes, I often think: “Now, I am here and nobody can phone me. Thank you for this!”
JP: Sadly, I don’t have much time, but when I have the opportunity, I go. I usually arrive one day before my concert and then I check what’s going on.
JP: Me too! Some conductors ask me: “Why are you staying? You could stay in your dressing room!”, but I don’t have a lot of opportunities to go to concerts. I was in Cincinnati some time ago and they played Dvorak 9 in the second half. I know, it’s a very famous piece, I can download any version of it, but live is a different experience. I went both times to listen, it was a nice way to see whether they played very differently the second evening, it was very touching.
JP: That’s not completely true, some time ago, I had some relationships with Yamaha, but I played a lot on Steinway, Fazioli pianos and with good technicians, you can have a wonderful instrument, so I don’t have any favourites. What I want to have is a well prepared instrument. Maintenance is very important, you need a good technician to prepare the instrument and give the performer what he needs.
JP: You know, I will be back in Amsterdam in October I think to play de Falla’s Noces, so you can hear it live!
JP: O, my god.. He plays a lot of Spanish repertoire, Navarra, pieces from Iberia, Granados, I heard a cd of his and he played Navarra, it was full of rhythm, colour..
JP: Absolutely!
JP: I hope so. I sent a message to Bosco, his friend and I wrote: “Tell maestro to recover soon, because we need him! “ We will always need him, for me he is an example with his honesty. Musicians deliver feelings, emotions and make our life easier and better!
JP: He can still practise, he can play with the other hand, it’s not that bad. He has been playing his entire life, so he would probably need two or three weeks to get back in shape. He has that amazing technique, it’s completely effortless .
Amsterdam, 27 September 2010
Jonathan Biss (JB): Very tired, both emotionally and physically it was a huge programme (an all Beethoven programme with the sonatas op 10/1, 109, the Bagatelles opus 126 and the Appassionata, WB), that takes out everything of you . The Concertgebouw is an incredible place to play at, something one can only look forward to, so I feel satisfied and spent.
JB: I try not to! The beauty of a concert exists only in the moment; when it’s finished, it’s finished.. You allow things to happen, but of course there are always things that you are less happy with.
JB: It happens that you think about things that have happened in a concert and that could be adjusted. However, I think that the work of trying to improve is meant for the practice room!
JB: It is my favourite hall. I played here many times and every time I find it miraculous that a large hall can give you a feeling of intimacy. It happened a few times that I sat in the audience and felt that the pianist was sitting next to me. Both the acoustics and the intimacy of this hall are great.
JB: 2000 seats for a recital is big! Beethoven would have never imagined something like this..
JB: They are cultured and they know what they are listening to.
JB: That’s something I cannot put in words. They are very open, there is no sense they are not willing to listen to other ideas. You feel the music is in their blood stream.
JB: That’s a good question! My older brother played the piano therefore I wanted to play the piano as well. I am happy my parents were string players, it made things easier. There was a healthy separation; my parents were not my teachers and that created an independance.
JB: Absolutely. I am lucky, as they let me develop my own career. However, they have been incredibly supportive since they know what the life of an artist is like. They are a great resource.
JB: It’s very difficult, the piano often feels like a machine. It is maybe the least natural instrument. Dynamically speaking nothing can equal it, but you sacrifice a lot in the directness of the music making. However, all pianists try to create a singing sound on a piano, whereas it is maybe not its tendency. Singing is the essence of music. When I am wrestling with a passage, I sing it away from the instrument, after that I can go back and work on the piano.
JB: That is the reason I cannot stay away from it! His music is so human, you hear the struggle, the idealism and the beauty. It is beyond imagination, you never come to a point where you know him.
JB: It’s different. I don’t think he was interested in imagination. His music deals with the way he sees it, whereas Beethoven sees the world as he wishes it to be. With Beethoven, there is a great deal of idealism and utopia. If you take opus 109, you can speak of a pure, advanced vision. I hope there is nothing negative about saying his music is unfathomable.
JB: The language evolved so much, if you look at the recital I played last night, from opus 10/1 to the Bagatelles of opus 126! You almost wouldn’t recognize Beethoven as the same composer, but the concerns are the same in both works. In the slow movement of the Sonata opus 10/1, he was already questioning the universe.
JB: There is indeed an unbelievable variety of tools. It really is a miracle.
JB: It happens to me as well. Beethoven and Mozart are opposites, usually I feel closer to one than to the other. It depends on the one I play. Schubert and Schumann can make me feel the same way, but Beethoven is the biggest in sheer terms of personality.
JB: He has less of a fixed style, he was involved in so much all of the time. Beethoven was less interested in style than Chopin. However, Beethoven’s music has a searching quality and a forcefullness that are unique in their own rights.
JB: My aim is searching for what is beyond what I can do. He is doing the same. I cannot understand him even when I am a mortal. His belief in the power of music was unshakable.
JB: Absolutely! He went so far in terms of language; it’s still something to reckon with and so unrelated to anything else because of the questions he asked in his music.
JB: About humanity, life and death, human feelings. Yes, music like his will always be contemporary.
JB: The chaos was of his own making! I wouldn’t use the word “chaos”, but he certainly created a universe. Beethoven wasn’t interested in creating anything neat, yet his music was very complete and fullfilled. Probably I am saying the same thing as Barenboim in other words now...
JB: O, yes! His opus 109 is so human, even if the ideas are sometimes lofty.
JB: That’s true! Beethoven is not above the earthiness of everything. If you take the Archduke Trio, it has one of the most philosophical slow movements, it really transports. The last movement almost makes fun of you for believing it..
JB: I was very touched by what he said and he was right about this. In the end the variations have a past and in the beginning they only have a future. He really clarified something for me.
JB: One day I will, definitely. I played 17 sofar and by the time I play 24 of them, I will plan to play all of them.
JB: That’s for next year for when I have planned a 4-month sabbatical leave.
JB: It’s supposed to be daunty, but it doesn’t scare me. I relish that sort of challenges.
JB (His look when I mention the name Schumann is quite telling!): The end of Dichterliebe is unbelievable, it’s the ultimate expression of loneliness. Or the Davidsbüundlertänze when the theme of the Ländler comes back. It’s the thought of someone who feels completely alone. I could give many other examples. Schumann didn’t write for the audience, he wants only one person to be changed by his music, probably his wife Clara. The intimacy of his music is even more important than with Schubert. With Schumann, you have the feeling you are listening in on a private conversation.
JB: He was a meeting point between the universal and the personal. You feel you know him, but never in a navel gazing way. Maybe he expressed his feelings more intensely than others.His voice is unique and powerful.
JB: His music isn’t popular in the same way as that of other great composers. People are generally uneasy about romantic feelings. It is difficult to immerse in his world, as he goes so far. To go with him means the risk of losing control. There is a danger to feel so deeply! Schumann suffers a lot from comparisons, nobody looks to Schumann on his own merits. It’s a big shame, since his music has such vivid imagination.
JB: It depends on the numbers.. The idea that a few thousand people love something passionately is enough for me. I notice that people are truly moved when I play his music and that happens a lot. I refuse to measure things.
JB: Yes, again Schumann was not interested in order, just like Beethoven. He didn’t feel order, but he was most interested in life, in things that are contradictory or difficult to fathom. There is a basic difference between his music and Mendelssohn’s, another great composer who did express order in his compositions. He was someone who valued symmetry.
JB: You can’t separate them, one makes the other possible. Eusebius is necessary because of Florestan. Florestan can also break your heart and Eusebius can also be powerful!
JB: Yes, it is. Music expresses feelings that are not equal to words. When you play music, you feel connected to something larger, be it God or the “Beyond”.
JB: No, it’s not arrogant. All of us want to converse with something bigger,music creates that kind of awareness. It helps me to ask the questions.
JB: The big ones: what are we here for? How do we relate to one another?
JB: It’s very difficult to answer. I started to take back the Fantasy, so it would be the Fantasy if you ask me now. But I love everything by Schumann, even the late works, e.g the Gesänge der Frühe or the Violin Concerto.
JB: I grew up with Cortot, whom I still value a lot. He would definitely be my first choice. I also like the poetry of Murray Perahia in his early CBS recordings.
JB: Schubert and Schumann are the only composers I feel I understand through their music.
JB: The answer is so corny that I almost don’t want to say it.. I wouldn’t ask him a question, but I just want to say him that everything will be ok.. I find it unbearable to feel how much he suffered...
JB: I do and I love him! I worship his music, especially the late pieces like the Barcarolle and the Polonaise-Fantaisie. Maybe I haven’t played his music in Amsterdam...
JB: He was one of the first composers I loved. His music is so well written for the instrument, it is a physical pleasure to play. He allows you to use the body in a natural way and never works against you. And he offers an incredible combination of purity of line and depth.
JB: I used to play quite a bit of it... As to Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto, I didn’t feel there was enough to practise it, although I like to listen to it. I like what Schnabel said: “I play music that is greater than any performance of it ever could be”. With a piece like Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto, I have the feeling that there is more.
JB: With Beethoven, I feel there is always another level or layer to penetrate, Rachmaninov doesn’t ask the same questions, but what the latter achieved was very honest and pure.
JB: You need your claws and guts for Beethoven and Brahms aswell, but I feel that you are at the service of something. Maybe I am embarrassed to show only my claws..
JB: Great! Some artists are either eloquent musicians or eloquent speakers, he was both. He didn’t play much in the lessons, but I certainly got another level of understanding. He is the greatest musical person I have encountered.
JB: He has tremendous integrity and never faked a feeling. He taught me to never take the easy road and not shy away from difficulties. His sound is extraordinary; it is shining, pure, penetrating, I still have it in my ears. I admire the intuition with which he can shape a line or place a note. He has one of the most amazing musical intuitions, there is something deep inside him he knows.
JB: Yes, he transmitted the importance of listening to your own intuition, it’s very primal.
JB: It was a very happy experience, there was a lot of mutual sympathy.
JB: It’s difficult to explain, I think she is living a very fulfilling life, but I agree with you that she is an artist and that she has something to say. There are not that many musicians who are so open. We want to protect ourselves on the one hand and allow ourselves to be open on the other hand, she does that.
JB: It is a bit of an adjustment, I felt for a long time that there was nothing about me that was worth knowing about and at my core I still feel that. I am still careful, but people have curiosity. It’s my life, but I don’t think it harms me when people know about me that I love tennis and icecream. It doesn’t make it difficult to come to my concerts.. I try not to be fanatic about protecting myself!
Amsterdam, 5 November 2016
Joseph Moog (JM): This goes more for certain composers, e.g. Haydn, Mozart and Scarlatti. They knew how to play their music with very few indications. Some music is overloaded with indications, including Mahler’s own. With such music, it is difficult to make it all happen and to grab the intentions of a composer.
JM: You’ll never be able to put everything there. Most importantly, you should try to express an emotional context.
JM: There is a lot you can’t learn, e.g. to project your sound or the ability to be spontaneous. You have to live in the moment. A lot of instinctive things are happening on stage.
JM: It was a co-production, I offered a more conservative programme, but Marco Riaskoff (the promotor who organizes the Meesterpianisten-series at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, WB) preferred this programme and it worked quite well. It was an exceptional situation, because these were merely works you normally don’t hear. It is great that they wanted me to play it!
JM: No, it is especially difficult in Germany! There are some festivals with an audience that appreciates unknown repertoire, like the one in Husum you mentioned or the Klavierfestival Ruhr, but in cities like Berlin, Hamburg or München it would be difficult, since the audiences are conservative. It would even be hard to play the Tschaikofsky Sonata there. They miss some interesting repertoire.. Amsterdam was a special opportunity, especially for my debut.
JM: It is a rare piece, I had seen it before, I had read about it. I recently played the Choral Fantasy and saw parallels in the opening of both works. There are quick changes that are very close to Beethoven’s improvisation skills if we may believe what Czerny said about it. It’s a very noble opening of a recital, but also a confusing one because of the unexpected wandering through several keys. It is a nice piece to open a recital with, just like Haydn’s Fantasy.
JM: That’s a good association, it is indeed a very orchestral sounding sonata. The beginning consists of unusual motives you wouldn’t write for piano, but more for string players. It is difficult to make it work, since there are a lot of repetitions, just like Schumann. He went through a crisis in his personal life (it was mainly due to his unfortunate love to his former student) and didn’t write anything for a year. This was his comeback piece. The first movement is long and bombastic, that’s why I chose to play the Beethoven Fantasy before.
JM: That’s an interesting question, Beethoven starts in G minor and ends in B major, in between it’s not logical, there are no significant keys at all…
JM: It’s legitimate. It helps to interpret this sonata when you think like a conductor. On the other hand, it’s also tricky when you are actively playing! You have to be emotionally involved too.
JM: Its writing is unconventional: some of the intervals included 5ths and 6ths,which is usually the way you write for a violin. But overall it’s not one of the most difficult pieces.
JM: I take Hexaméron seriously, it is not a fun piece as far as I am concerned. There is no such thing as virtuosity for me. That word is often used in the sense of “superficial”. Virtuosity demands a lot of techniques, not only pyrotechnics. Schubert or Chopin can be virtuosic too, they manage to do different things at the same time, also in terms of pedalling and left hand writing. As I said, Hexaméron is not a fun piece, on the contrary, it’s very demonic. There is a lot of rivalry hidden in it, since it was written by six different composers. It’s even furious and only the Chopin nocturne is an oasis.
Godovsky is more of a fun piece, the way he wrote it is very decadent. He was on the brink of the end of an era. There is a lot of sarcasm, you can somewhat feel that the war is knocking on the door. (It was written in 1910). It’s more than fireworks: the harmonic ideas are incredible and Godovsky turned them into something noble.
JM: That was an experiment, for some of the etudes he wrote four versions and changed them into new characters.
JM: He admired them and didn’t mean to replace the originals! He didn’t try to surpass them, maybe he had a war worm and this was his way to deal with it. He was an autodidact and you should consider these transcriptions as collages, probably like those of Andy Warhol. They are called “studies” or “experiments” and there is no intention to surpassing the originals behind it. That’s what I find wonderful about music: there is always a secret left, pieces don’t belong to performers, you rent them!
JM: Yes, I do. It was a rich era and we have forgotten about many great composers and performers. We look at Schoenberg and Berg who moved further, Medtner and Rachmaninov were geniuses as well. Reger was on the limit of tonality, but it doesn’t mean that his music was less than the atonal pieces by Schoenberg. One of my favourites is Scriabin, his works move me the most. They are like a drug! It’s a pity he died so early. The development in hardly 30 or 40 years was amazing. I tried to demonstrate that on my CD “Divergences” with works of Jongen, Reger and Scriabine, they were all born in 1872/73, but they couldn’t be further apart. I also like modern repertoire like Messiaen or Xenakis.
JM: I did some research, I love the Moszkofski concerto and wanted to offer my own version. They knew each other and both worked with Edition Peters. Grieg wrote a letter to Peters that he had heard so much about Moszkofski and that he was worried to meet him. Moszkofski was the Wieniavsky of the piano. He wrote big pieces like symphonies and a violin concerto. He worked hard on the big forms, whereas he is only known for short pieces like Etincelles.
JM: Yes, he was. He had an unusual way of playing, very elegant, like a mix of Chopin and Mendelssohn. He was Polish, like Scharwenka, his student, who wanted to be considered as a German.
JM: I don’t know, probably some piano rolls? I only know from quotes, you can see in the way he writes that he was not a “chord composer” but more a melodic writer.
JM: Yes, but maybe not with the same genius!
JM: Yes, that’s true, opus 3 was recently discovered. For me, there is no question as far as quality is concerned, I wouldn’t want to play opus 3.
JM: Good point, I never played it live but everybody was positively surprised when they heard it. I am negotiating to play it in Warsaw. It was great to record it: the work is very strong and the orchestra was enthusiastic about this project. I wouldn’t have missed it. My motive was pure enthusiasm, not to make money. I am lucky with partners at Onyx who trust me. By the way, it’s one of the few concertos to include a harp in the 2nd and 3rd movements. When we recorded it, there was no harp on the list, since the orchestral administration only checked the instruments that were needed for the 1st movement..
JM: It’s a different story: Rubinstein’s 4th concerto as well as those of Rachmaninov and Tschaikofsky used to be played all the time. After the Second World War, the Rubinstein disappeared from the repertoire. The 4rth concerto was written in the same key as Rach 3rd and Rachmaninov actually played the Rubinstein. The latter is a lot more classical, whereas Rachmaninov’s concerto is rich in its writing with a lot of ornaments and cadenzas. I know that Rubinstein is not considered to be a great composer. This concerto is the best of the five he wrote, it lasts for 30 minutes, which is not too long. His problem – contrary to composers like Mozart and Chopin – is that he went on for too long. He would have been more successful had he had more sense for form and proportion. When you write music, it takes a lot of time. It’s difficult to maintain a feeling of proportion.
JM: He was a fascinating personality, typical of his time: he was a composer, a conductor and a great teacher. He wrote four marvellous piano concertos of great proportions as well as solo repertoire. His brother Philip was better known for chamber music. I fell in love with his (Xaver’s, WB) Second sonata, that was written in 1871, like Tschaikofsky’s. It includes the lyrical parts that we are missing in the Tschaikofsky sonata.
JM: It seemed a crazy idea that wasn’t so crazy after all. I was amazed by the amount of Bach transcriptions that you can find and thought: “What about Scarlatti? Why isn’t there a cd of transcriptions of his sonatas?” They are like jewels, miracles. I started my research on his music. There had been no significant interest for his music for over 200 years and then there were musicians like Landowska and Horowitz who played his sonatas. It was a difficult research, since I couldn’t find much, I had to go back to Tausig. He only changed a few chords and called his arrangements “adaptations for the modern concert use. Friedman made two marvellous arrangements, they are free and full of humour. Then there is the Gieseking Chaconne, an 8 minute piece. He occasionally composed and someone gave me a copy of the handwritten manuscript. It is an unusual mix of Reger, Debussy and Scarlatti. It’s the centrepiece of the CD.
JM: That’s true, but they are more an edition and I don’t find them really interesting.
JM: I mostly play the originals, but sometimes I play the arrangements as an encore, people sometimes don’t notice the difference!
JM: I meant the complete set, including the First Sonata!
JM: There have always been traditions and references, but we have to go on and they do not belong to anyone! I felt the urge, I had to do it.. I played them all in concert and spent almost ten years on them. I normally don’t listen to recordings and take the score as a reference.
JM: Yes, I agree, he said: “Four of the most beautiful children he put together.”
JM: The Third is the most melodic of his three sonatas. The Second is terrifying and uncomfortable to listen to. Its 1st movement is a hunt, the scherzo is scary, the Marche Funêbre is torturing and the last movement is madness, desperation, not a satisfying sonata for a listener. It’s getting worse and worse..
JM: There is nothing to be understood, it’s like a wind, madness. There is not much in the score: sotto voce, only one crescendo, one diminuendo and one forte at the end. It’s not like an etude, it’s not like fog either. It’s an impressionistic conception, an atmosphere, a colour… We are so used to the short forms with Chopin, he is nice to consume, but he was also brilliant for the big forms. The sonatas are the essence of his music, they are rough experiences, both the First and the Second sonatas are stormy pieces.
JM: No, I didn’t know, but I think it’s simply wrong. Maybe Pollini used an old edition? I used the Paderewski edition.
JM: It is a funny piece, it sounds more like Beethoven and Weber than like Chopin. It has no popular melodies, still it is fascinating for a 17-year old composer. The third movement has a few moments that announce the late Chopin, it has a bizarre rhythm with five beats in every bar. It confuses you when you listen to it.
JM: There is the same danger for all of us: it is very hard to find the right balance. It often happens that you rush too much, therefore you have to be very strict in order to bring out the beauty of it. We go through all the emotions and you have to think about being the conductor, which is exhausting at times. It’s like taming tigers!
JM: It’s a long story! It’s one of the first piano concertos I got to know, when I was on holiday in Bretagne. I was six years old at the time and my sister was four years old. I played a little bit. My mother brought a few famous records, Ravel’s G-major concerto by Martha Argerich, Tschaikofsky’s 1st Piano Concerto and Liszt’s Années de Pélérinage by Lazar Berman. We listened to it, I played “piano” on the table and my sister “played” the flute. The Ravel was our favourite, it’s a captivating and witty piece, yet very classical in a way. Two years later, I got the Durand score. Last night was my first public performance of it!
JM: It was not bad for a first time! You need a good orchestra and a great conductor. Antony Hermus (the conductor, WB) was simply brilliant. I played the Gerschwin Concerto and I can see how Gerschwin influenced Ravel in his concerto. However, Ravel created his own harmonic system.
JM: The outer movements make it so short. The development section is “missing”, it feels like playing a Mozart concerto, although it’s a different style. Ravel is very baroque in the instruments he uses and the main theme is sort of Bach like.
JM: That’s the salt and the soup! Messiaen was a genius and at the same time a very strict person. He could be stubborn, inventive and also tough. The Ravel G-major concerto is a stand alone piece, maybe the most brilliant French concerto. Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody is a comparable piece. By the way, I agree with you that it could have been longer..
JM: I do or maybe I did. Cziffra was among the “younger” ones I listened to. He was misunderstood, a very noble person who had a tragic life. He had a demonic talent and an inner fire. He was not a showman, but people accused him of being cold..
JM: They are so loved, but only few get them right. I also love the golden tone of Friedman, his sense of freedom within certain frames..
JM: They didn’t have any urtext, now it’s all about urtext.. We can have doubts now about the way Cortot or Horowitz played Mozart, but it was a different time. They had a certain wildness, they wanted to show what they were capable of. There were no opportunities to do retakes. Their way of playing has been lost a bit nowadays, it’s not good! We don’t sing as much, maybe we think too much now!
JM: Godovsky as a pianist was a story in itself. He was an autodidact, which was specific of his approach of music. He was nervous and unable to play in public, therefore he only played in salons. He had a fragile way of playing the piano and a light touch. Arrau was very different: he had a sonorous baritone-like way of playing so I can imagine that he didn’t like Godovsky. I have sympathy for Arrau as a person, he was more of an operatic performer. Bruno Leonardo Gelber has a similar concept of piano playing.
JM: He was a brilliant PR-man and a talented musician, but he was a “Salonlöwe” as they call it in German (salon lion). He was very aware of how to present himself.
JM: Yes, I don’t believe what he did, it was kind of calculated, not genuine sentiment.
JM: So many people! Simon Barere for example, he was maybe not so tasteful, but incredible, he changed my life. Gelber, especially in Brahms, Rubinstein who was unforgettable in Chopin, I love Weissenberg, who was also talented as a composer. He had very special moments, sometimes brutal when he could go wild, but at the same time he was skilful and well trained. He composed a sonata “en état de jazz”and more, even under false names, such as Sigi Weisenberg (with one s) or mr Nobody. Maybe today he would have dared much more. There was something very modern in his playing that reminds me of the Strawinsky/Dali era.
Cyprien Katsaris is another pianist I admire, he is a bit like I imagine Mozart would have been like . He is small, full of skill, a certain irony, a demonic ability, it’s a bit lost nowadays.. If you hear his Bach transcriptions, you think the devil is in the room! He is also a very tasteful Mozart player, one of the last of a lost generation. There is something brilliant in his sound, like with Heifetz or Kagan. I used to love Volodos but I haven’t heard him for a while. He plays the same programme for two years, I wish he’d be more adventurous. I liked his Mompou disc though.
JM: It’s very simple, they have to die and become legends There are two fenomena: fist, there are more pianists than ever, there is an inflation, second, the pianos have changed. They are more balanced than before, they are not as individual any more. You need to have a great technician to work on it. I have a favourite technician in Germany, I work with him to support my personal sound. In the end it’s my job to create “the voice”.
People are hesitant, since everything is being observed today. You can find a lot on YouTube. This can block creativity, the pianists of the past lived in a different time, there was no globalization.
JM: Thank you, it’s a funny story. I admire the jazz pianist Art Tatum and listened to a lot of his recordings. I loved his version of Cherokee. I couldn’t let go and was fascinated by it. I decided to improvise and wrote a cycle of etudes. Art Tatum was almost blind and I thought I needed a limitation too, that’s why I wrote number four for the left hand! It was very inspiring and very easy to write. It was creative processing to get rid of this idea that was haunting me, it was like a meditation, maybe the way Godovsky processed Chopin.. My managers wanted it to be on YouTube.
JM: Thank you, that’s nice to hear. It’s difficult to play pieces for one hand and for two hands in one concert. It’s an interesting feeling for the brain: it’s weird but possible!
Rotterdam, 3 December 2010
Kristian Bezuidenhout is one of the most brillant artists on the fortepiano nowadays, he made himself a name with his refreshing interpretations of well known masterworks. However, an interview with this artist is as refreshing and inspiring. He showed the same passion and commitment..
Kristian Bezuidenhout (KB): I play all three instruments, although I don’t play the harpsichord and the Steinway much nowadays, 90 % of the time I am asked to play the fortepiano. I do only one or two concerts per year on the Steinway, I try to be careful about it. I have a modern piano at home, it is the first instrument I started on. It reminds me of various aspects of the fortepiano.
KB: It is very informative, especially in terms of colour and quality of sound. It is not easy to play beautifully on a five octave fortepiano. Playing on a Steinway gives you wonderful tools to strive to make a truly lovely sound on the fortepiano. Furthermore, a Steinway is more colourful than a fortepiano and its pedals have a dramatic effect on the sound. It’s very grounding.
KB: You are right, it was frustrating that we used that instrument (a Lagrassa) in that particular hall. I played Mozart concertos in the same venue on three previous occasions and each time I was told that the balance was not good. It was tricky to play the Triple Concerto in this venue. We made a small tour with the orchestra and in the other four halls, there were no problems with the balance. It is thorny issue, but I take your point. Anyway, it was a great experience to work with such great soloists.
KB: No, when I saw the film on internet, it came across really well. And it was the first time in many years that Frans Brüggen conducted the Triple Concerto.
KB: It is indeed! It is challenging, especially since everyone thinks it is easy...
It is sometimes unpianistic and it is tricky to find the right balance between the two other soloists and the orchestra.
KB: It is true what Ronald says. You feel liberated on a fortepiano and you can play with extremes in a less inhibited way! Mozart’s concertos in D and C-minor can sound grose and overdone on a Steinway, almost like Rachmaninov Concertos. On a period instrument, you can play forte and it doesn’t sound overdone, the instrument doesn’t swallow you up like a Steinway. Having said this, I had to get used to fortepianos in the beginning, because the keyboard was so tiny..
KB: Yes, that’s correct, but I would never do the D-minor concerto on a modern instrument, as I couldn’t express its tempestuousness. For the late concertos, it is different; it was wonderful to play with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. We took the lid off and the balance wasn’t an issue any more. The orchestra sounded flexible and transparent. The balance problems simply went away. Eventhough the concerto sounded gorgeous on a Steinway, I still feel that Mozart’s incredibly suave writing for winds and keyboards comes across better on the more human and idiosyncratic instruments of Mozart’s time.
KB: It is more overly solistic, whereas in the E flat major you are more submerged by the orchestra. It struck me how well it worked on modern instruments...
KB: Probably the concert in Wiesbaden was. Maybe there is also a video of the Luzern performance.
KB: Yes, I do listen to my own live recordings, but not always right after the concert...
KB: Yes, that’s correct, there will be nine volumes with mixed programmes: sonatas, variations and miscellaneous pieces. I am leaving out a few things though, some transcriptions, otherwise there would have been more than 10 volumes.
KB: Yes, his operas and Piano Concertos rank at the top, but still his keyboard writing for solo piano is among the best of his time. Especially the Variations are examples of virtuosic and sophisticated keyboard writing. One could say about the sonatas that they are “just” tuneful and melodically genious, but it is hard to find better keyboard writing in the 18th century. They are more intimiate than the Concertos, where Mozart is sometimes almost operatic and pulls out all the stops. He is at his most brillant in the Concertos, they are his number one calling card. You are right, people are quick to dismiss his piano sonatas.
KB: It would be a tie between the C-minor Fantasy K 475 and the C-minor Sonata K 457. Or the A-minor Rondo K 511, where he ignores the natural tendancy of the Rondo. It is one of the only times he writes for solo piano in A-minor.
KB: Right, that is another piece that was years ahead of its time!
KB: That is such a good question! Unlike Beethoven, Mozart played until the very end of his life. He was a virtuoso from the first until the last moment. Beethoven stopped playing in public after 1809 and his style changed a lot as of that moment. However, it is impossible to predict how Mozart’s style would have evolved if he hadn’t played until the end of his life. The differences would probably have been more radical. As to the C-minor Fantasy, I see it as an hommage to Carl Philip Emanuel Bach, where Mozart created a new world. He didn’t want to shock the world, whereas Beethoven deliberately created scandal and lost touch with reality. Mozart was driven by what people wanted, I see a deep pragmatism in everything he did or wrote.
KB: There are hardly any indications, but there is Mozart’s obsession with articulation. He is very specific about articulation, e.g two note slurs. There is this myth to look at the Urtext and play his music in a simple and refined way. It is considered as cheap and cheesy to play him in a dramatic way. I strive for a more personal and human approach to this repertoire.
KB: I remember one of my teachers, Malcolm Bilson, spoke about operatic terminology in Mozart’s music. He sometimes introduces a new key unexpectedly, almost without warning, there are places where you can stretch and give it an “aha quality”. There is the music, the framework, and there are magical moments of departure. Sometimes it is funny when people tell me about things I have done, when you come to think of it, you indeed “did” certain things...
KB: You want to play notated music liked it sounds made up as in the C-minor Fantasy.
KB: Less and less. Mozart has an unmistakably sophisticated ornamental style, you wouldn’t confuse him with Beethoven. The ornaments should reflect the stylistic ornementation of the composer. And in this respect, I cannot think of someone who better understands the true characteristics of Mozart’s style than Robert Levin. I don’t do as much on the spur of the moment as I would have done some time ago. I want to make sure that people could think of me as a gifted contemporary of Mozart...
KB: I think his ornaments tend by large to a melodic style, 95 % I would say. There is a strong rythmic element in his ornementation and there is rich harmonic underpinning. He adds dissonants where he can, but it makes sense from a melodic standpoint.
KB: Transcend is not an exageration at all, I totally agree with you, something gets unlocked in these compositions. They are cataclismic. As with Schubert, dramatic shifts between major and minor happen a lot.
KB: From a pianistic standpoint: yes. Although his Concertos are unbelievably brillant, the Variations are just as brillant in technical display. There are technical aspects, e.g entire variations in broken octaves that are unusual in the Concertos or Sonatas. They give the most vivid glimpse in Mozart’s outrageous gifts as a keyboard player.
KB: I did, I listened to some great pianists on CD, it often feels as if they hold back. You almost hear the brainwork before they play the first note. You can’t play it with the abandon of a fortepiano on the Steinway. On a fortepiano you can play that same chord so loudly! In conservatoires you are told that the culture of Steinway playing is about beauty of tone, evenness, delicacy and nothing too extreme. They way the Steinway reaches to extreme emotions is that it sometimes goes over the top. It made us nervous to play Mozart in a dramatic way. On the other hand, I can’t think of many performances of his symphonies that were life changing.
KB: Yes, it is and there is another one: that his working process was always easy. He was an unbelievably crafted composer.
KB: I heard Leif Ove Andsnes play and conduct a few concertos and it was wonderful. One of them was the D-minor Concerto, it had energy, it was dramatic and not weird or over the top. I also remember Piotr Anderzevski who played Mozart really well. Other than that, I don’t listen much to piano recordings.
KB: Right, someone gave it to me, it’s very interesting!
KB: That’s a very good question, it’s more than anything a technical issue. It would be great to play the Chopin Concertos on gut strings and with a 19th Century Pleyel, but I am not yet ready for it. I didn’t do a lot of romantic music, but mainly Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. I didn’t learn the Brahms Concertos, it was way beyond my grasp, it would take me a few years if I want to do them now. I would love to play Brahms at some point. It would be great to do Ravel, Debussy or Poulenc on a lovely Erard, but I like to take one step at a time!
KB: Yes, it was such a good idea to record and perform Dichterliebe! I play on an Erard from 1837, it is a beautiful instrument from the collection of Edwin Beunk. We’ll use the same one tonight. It sounds so great on record; it has a rich and velvety sound. And Dichterliebe is one of the most amazing cycles Schumann has written...
KB: Sometime they did, but Mark and I were put together by the violonist Daniel Hope. I approached the violonist Petra Mullejans and we recorded Mozart sonatas. Another great collaborator is the superb soprano Carolyn Sampson.
KB: She is wonderful, both as a musician and as a person, very easy to work with.
KB: She was very quick to change, she just jumped in the deep end and took it all on board. The way she changed her style is very impressive. It suits her well!
KB: Yes, there are, although they have not been 100% confirmed yet. I will probably record a disc with early Beethoven sonatas and pieces, but another thing I’d really like to do is the Concertos. I think they need to be done in a new way: led by the orchestra. It would be so different from what you normally hear: a big symphony orchestra with a big soloist. There was a proposal to record them with the Freiburger Barock Orchestra and I’d be delighted!
KB: Although I have had wonderful experiences doing the Beethoven concertos with conductor, I think it's vital that there be a recording of these pieces that recreates the danger and volatility of Beethoven's own performances of this repertoire. Namely, that the soloist is joined by a team of first-class instrumentalists who are led by a strong Konzertmeister. This balance of power - in which the soloist and Konzertmeister co-direct the concerto - creates a feeling of 'maxi chamber music' which I think is essential for the drama and effect of these pieces.
KB: I agree too that pieces like the Emperor concerto are tricky without a conductor, but I am convinced that with enough rehearsal time and with the right attitude of commitment and dedication from the orchestra, it is certainly possible.
Rotterdam, 3 October 2020
Lahav is a gifted young conductor, on top of that he is an excellent pianist, he regularly conducts the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from the keyboard, since he became their principal conductor in 2018. One year later, he played a full recital in Rotterdam with a demanding program: Scriabin, Prokofiev and Moussorgsky. He seemed as determined and as self-assured at the keyboard as before the orchestra and this sparked my curiosity. I wanted to know more about his background as well as his ambitions and I was lucky enough to speak to him on a Saturday, in the middle of concerts with pianist Daniil Trifonov and his Rotterdam Philharmonic.
Lahav Shani (LS): No, it wasn’t!
LS: It’s a good question, I am not sure whether I know myself, but somehow you find the time when you know what’s ahead of you, you just find bits of time here, bits of time there, you grab whatever you have, but it’s more a matter of how intensive you get into the music. It’s not the quantity of time, but how deep you get into it, so if you really become involved with the music, interested, curious, you’ll find your way and just out of curiosity, you’ll find also more time, you will make more time.
LS: Yes, sometimes I catch myself if there is a score lying on the table for instance, I take it just to see something and I find myself standing for half an hour all of a sudden, I wanted to look at one detail, but then I get carried on without noticing, I have to get myself to the score, to the piano, this is the lazy part, but once I am there, the curiosity takes over.
LS: I don’t have a minimum or a maximum, it’s just whatever feels right, it’s never mechanical.
LS: No, on the contrary! I am very disorganized.
LS: I was offered to play a recital in Berlin in the Boulez Saal, and of course I was very happy about my recital debut as a solo pianist and I liked to repeat it more than once so I was happy that they wanted it also in Rotterdam and other places, for instance in the Beethoven Haus in Bonn. When I started conducting in Berlin in my early 20’s, I didn’t completely neglect the piano, but I put it on the side and it was Daniel Barenboim who pushed me back to the piano, I played for him and he said: “With your skills, you have to keep playing” and since then, I took it very seriously and I am very glad he pushed me back in this direction. Now I can’t really imagine to do just one thing, just conducting or playing, I am happy to be able to combine both tasks.
LS: A little bit, yes. Naturally, when you make small mistakes as a pianist, it’s heard and it’s resonating in the hall, when you make a small mistake as conductor, nobody knows (laughs), well, the musicians know..
LS: Yes, but it’s not easy to describe. When you conduct the orchestra, you also get your own sound in a way, I mean whatever you imagine in your mind, you should be able to put it into reality. It’s not so much about the sound, but this direct link between you and the music, the physical connection of course, any idea you have in your mind, you can put, theoretically at least, into practice at the moment. When the connection is so strong, like with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, you have the same feeling as a conductor, you feel whatever is on your mind, you can put into practice, it can happen in reality. It’s such a great feeling when this connection is there.
LS: I think it’s crucial, honestly I don’t understand how you can even become a conductor without even having at least the experience of performing on an instrument. I am not saying you should be a great soloist or instrumentalist, but to know how it feels to perform on an instrument, because then you conduct the orchestra. You can’t have any abstract ideas of the music, you should know how it feels for the musicians to play. If you ask them to take more time or to make a special sound, you need to be able to imagine how it is for them to breathe, to fill in the space. You are always somehow limited in the amount of expression if you don’t play an instrument yourself.
LS: In my case, I also play the double base, so I have a special relationship with string instruments, it’s something that I understand not only theoretically, I also feel it in my hands, so I can talk to musicians about bowings, fingerings, what strings they should use, I can get very technical with them, which actually is very helpful.
LS: For this, I have my wife who is a clarinettist..
LS: Well, it’s the same thing, plus the sportive elements of course, the muscles have to react to you, but in your mind, it’s the same thing. The piano should sound like an orchestra.
LS: You have to be relaxed as a conductor too!
LS: No, I don’t think so, it’s a good combination, technically speaking with all the instruments and also with singing, they all have in common that you need to have an inner tranquility to control your instrument, so if you are tensed, if there is one tensed muscle in your body, you cannot play the piano well. Maybe until a certain limit, but once it gets more difficult, you have to be free, the same happens with the orchestra, if you get tensed, the orchestra gets tensed immediately. It’s like a telepathic connection, if you are free, then all the musicians are free, you can breathe with them, they trust you more, they see that you are relaxed and they get relaxed as well, so in that sense, technically, it’s very similar.
LS: No, I am a musician (laughs). It’s not a career, it’s life to make music, that’s it!
LS: It’s not easy at all, but for this I should really thank my first piano teacher for 11 years, Hannah Shalgi, who gave me some very good basics of technique, if I don’t play for months and then I have a few days to get back into shape, I can do it pretty quickly because of this relaxed muscles and posture, you need to train your fingers again. It takes a few days for the muscles to remember what’s going on, however, it’s not like lifting weights, it’s finger muscles and flexibility, I think there is more in your mind to train than just the fingers.
LS: Well, the relaxation is the father figure of all the technical aspects, without that you can’t do anything.
LS: No, well, when I was younger, yes, there are enough scales in Beethoven! I don’t need to separate them.
LS: That’s correct.
LS: I started as a pianist, then I started playing double base on top of that, in high school, and that brought me to conducting. I was very curious to feel what it was like to play in an orchestra, I loved the repertoire, I just wanted to take part in it. We had a wonderful high school orchestra in Israel with very talented young musicians, that’s where I started my orchestral career. By knowing the repertoire and knowing how it feels to lead a section, I got more into the idea of leading the orchestra. It happened so many times when I played in the orchestra that in my opinion musical elements were missing, “Why are we playing this passage so loudly when it’s so intimate?” “Why do we rush?”, “Why don’t we listen to the horn when he plays a solo?”. I said: “I can’t sit here and complain, I have to maybe try it once to see if I can put this into the shape that I think is the right one and if not, I am fine playing in the orchestra.” And I loved it directly, I missed it!
LS: A lot of things can go wrong too if you walk in the street…why bother? I like the adventure, I like to play and conduct in general, especially with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Now they are used to it and we do it at least once or twice a season, mostly Mozart or Beethoven, but we also did Shostakovitch, Gerschwin. We have done the Prokofiev concerto once, with Martha Argerich as a soloist, so I was conducting the piece already with the orchestra, we worked on it when I was only conducting. It was important to do so before I play-conduct, and I knew that once we are used to it, it would be much easier, I know the problems that can occur when you don’t have a separate conductor. This concerto has such a clear inner rhythm, it’s something that the orchestra is supposed to control on their own, they don’t need someone to tick like a metronome, they can feel it themselves. The tricky thing usually is tempo changes, because when you have a conductor, you establish a new tempo very easily, and when you play, you can’t do it with your head, so this is something you have to rehearse with the orchestra, maybe more than usual, but you can make it!
LS: With this one, because I trust them and they trust me. I feel with this orchestra, I can try whatever I want since they are not afraid of anything.
LS: Yes, why not? It also works the other way around, I usually play-conduct Mozart, we did K 595 together in Rotterdam and last week, I collaborated with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and for the first time, I conducted this Mozart concerto and didn’t play it on the piano, and that’s also a great experience.
LS: Francesco Piemontesi, he made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, and I must say, it was a really great experience, not to play and just conduct, but it’s different. Playing, conducting, playing and conducting at the same time are all different experiences.
LS: I am also curious!
LS: I would love to, because I miss playing these concertos so much. Everything is possible, but I am not sure if I should do it, but it’s something to consider later. And yes, I like to play with other conductors, I played with Barenboim a few months ago, with Gergiev in Rotterdam, of course it’s a great experience and it releases you from a double responsibility obviously. On the other hand there is something very special when you combine both tasks, a chamber music quality..
LS: Of course, everything is chamber music on the stage, it should be! For me a conductor should be part of the orchestra, he is not an outsider who dictates something.
LS: Absolutely! The greatest feeling when you conduct and also when you play with other musicians, is when you sense that everything goes by itself, and you don’t have to worry about anything, you don’t have to show anything. Karajan had a wonderful image about this, it’s like you see birds flying in the sky, you don’t see one that leads and the others that follow, they all change directions at the same time.. This is how it feels, spiritually.
LS: Thank you very much! It’s also one of these moments that you let it happen, you indicate what’s important in that moment and then if it goes, you don’t interrupt.. That’s the art of conducting: to know when to be there and when to step out and let it happen. Sometimes you have to make these changes within seconds, you need to have a very strong feeling for it.
LS: Yes, I can say so. He was never my teacher, I never showed him how I conduct and he didn’t give me any comments, but he always wanted to see me in his rehearsals to know that I am there. Of course, I was very curious, I went to many of his rehearsals, especially in the opera, and learned a lot: just what you can achieve with an orchestra and how you can achieve it, what are your possibilities? Sometimes, I asked him questions about the score and we discussed it, when I started to conduct my own concerts, he was always there to support me and give me advice. I was very proud that he played in Rotterdam as my first soloist, we became very good friends.
LS: In many ways, of course. Most of what I know as a conductor comes from him, in terms of what you can achieve with an orchestra. It doesn’t mean that I do everything the way he does, not at all, we are different musicians and personalities with different tastes sometimes, but still.. I learned most of my tools from him. From other conductors too, as well as from my teachers. But his knowledge, his instincts are so rich and they cover so much: different styles and different repertoires. You can really learn when you sit in a rehearsal and hear him say something, how he achieves something. You are not supposed to copy that and do the same thing afterwards, but you should really take it inside, think about it, process it, and then it comes out from a different angle in a different piece, you know that something is possible now, you can use it.
LS: It’s inhuman!
LS: I didn’t hear that, but I still regard his piano playing, especially for Mozart and Beethoven, as absolutely ideal! It was wonderful to have him here as a soloist, not only because of the way he played, it was also the inspiration he gave the orchestra, the things he told the orchestra during the rehearsals, he is so inspiring as a musician!
LS: But then again, you can ask: why would you record any piece again? Why would you record the Brahms symphonies again, there are enough recordings of it.. If an artist feels he has something to say and especially someone like Barenboim, through the years he always developed, he was always rethinking what he already knew, I hope when I get to his age, that I still have the same amount of curiosity and ability to change my mind and rethink what I thought was obvious and not fall into a trap of routine or repeat what I know and what the public knows, just in order to please them..
LS: I think it was, yes, it was the first time.
LS: Yes, of course, I grew up with her recording!
LS: First of all, I knew her personally before and we get along very well. She is someone who absolutely needs to trust the musicians with whom she is working and we had a very good communication. I know the concerto very well, because I played it, I know from the recordings how she plays it, but she too, she changed over time! She actually changes from one rehearsal to the other, when we repeat a passage two or three times, it will be different each time.
LS: For me, it’s not intimidating, it’s what I hope to get from any artist!
LS: That’s a way!
LS: That’s the fun part, when I rehearse with an orchestra, I don’t tell them: “This is how we are going to play”, that’s not the ideal for a rehearsal at all. The concert is the moment to discover millions of things that you couldn’t do before, just by the fact that you are in a different atmosphere with a public. In the rehearsal you have to prepare all the conditions, everybody should know whom they should listen to, what is the balance, what are the problems that might occur, where do you need extra concentration to make a transition work, etc, all of this to make it possible in the concert to be totally free and spontaneous within the framework that you set for yourself. Then you let things happen, you explore new territories every time.
LS: For me that’s the essence of music making! Just repeating what you know doesn’t work, what’s special for music, is that it happens in time, when you do it, when you perform it, unlike painting. In the moment it happens, therefore it must be different every time.
LS: You have to accept that a performance is never perfect, never! There is no such thing, nothing is perfect in life. You can approach it, that’s what you try to do in rehearsals and from one concert to the next, you get closer and closer, but the closer you get to perfection, the more you realize that’s it further away than you thought. That’s also the beauty of it, you realize it can always develop more..
LS: Yes, we did, we even played a two piano recital in Israel.
LS: We had a day off in Tel Aviv and we said: “What should we do? Let’s have another concert!”
LS: Wonderful, it’s like being one mind!
LS: She is very sensitive and has great instincts, she is with you and then she takes you with her, it’s a wonderful game in a way, it’s a constant give and take.
LS: extraordinary!
LS: It’s a combination of things: a very good basic technique, a very strong mind, everything is new and yet to be discovered, for instance when we did the Prokofiev, she didn’t reproduce what she had done for decades, even though she feels very confident with the piece. She is always searching for details that can still be different, not better, but different.
LS: If that’s your approach, if you always try out things, you will never stop!
LS: I don’t know, we also played it in Vienna and it was different, she is reacting to the orchestra, of course.
LS: Not many can play it at 20! (laughs)
LS: You know, for all of my future plans, there is a question mark in this period, we used to plan things three, four years ahead and now we are lucky to plan the next three, four weeks!
LS: I lost all my concerts in the last six months like everybody else, I am lucky to play concerts in the Netherlands, it’s not obvious. The musicians are very much aware of the fact that they play and that it’s not obvious, I am grateful for that now, what we can do, is already a lot in these times. In America, it’s worse, no concerts in some places, they don’t even intend to open the season at all, it’s a nightmare. I feel so sorry for the musicians.
LS: You know, in June, we literally played for 30 persons, we played the Pastorale. Of course, I thought before: “Playing for 30 persons is like playing for no-one”, but then I realized: even if there is one person listening to you, you play completely differently, you perform. I also thought of Beethoven, if there had been 30 persons listening to this symphony, it would have been over the top. That might have been the maximum in his days, there was never an attendance of hundreds or thousands of people. The idea is to make music for people, period!
LS: Very good, he is a real searching artist. He is another one who does things completely differently every concert, he really listens to what comes out of the piano. He is constantly thinking of developing the sound world, to see what fits in a very honest way.
LS: He slowed down a lot…
LS: And during the second concert, he didn’t, I don’t know if you noticed? He did it very differently yet again. In the first concert, it almost came to a stop, but it felt right. For him a concert is not only a performance, it’s also an experiment. He is trying out things every time and I think, for him, he has try it out with the public, because you can’t know when you practice if it’s the right way. You have to do it with people listening and see what takes them and then you try out things. He is constantly developing as an artist. His approach is really beautiful.
LS: More than ever before! First of all for the fact that we are able to play. I talked a lot about our chemistry since our first concert and it’s still there. Even in these times with social distancing, one has to experiment, one has to stay flexible, one has not to be afraid of changes. This is just the perfect orchestra for that, because they want to try out music, they are curious, they don’t want to play safe and do what they already know for many years. They are very experienced musicians, talented, they know what do, still they want to develop, they don’t mind sitting in different ways, we tried circular sitting a few weeks ago, everything goes, as long as it serves the goal of better music playing and better delivery to the public.
LS: I think they are as good as any orchestra in the world and for me definitely it’s a huge pleasure to play with them, because they are completely fearless, they take risks and they don’t mind taking risks and falling off the cliff, it’s not the end of the world in musical terms. I agree with Harnoncourt, who said: “Beauty can only be achieved on the edge of catastrophe!”
LS: During every concert! I absolutely agree with Harnonourt, it’s the essence of music making.
Utrecht, 28 December 2006
Leif Ove Andsnes (LOA): Yes, I like this hall (main hall of Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht, WB), it’s one of the best modern concert halls
LOA: That’s a magical hall, but it’s impossible to compare them!
LOA: Yes, one of the strings broke, which hasn’t happened to me in a few years!
LOA: Yes, it was.
LOA: It can be frustrating, but it can also be fulfilling! There can be the excitement to meet other musicians for the first time, it’s a lot of give and take. You loose something, but you also gain something. The other musicians were wonderful last night, which made the performance special.
LOA: Yes, of course! Playing the piano is a source of energy and gives me inner calm. I don’t think in terms of stress.
LOA: Many lifes are hard....
LOA: We are now speaking about the year 2009, so I am booked three years ahead.
LOA: Yes, it is... Next year, I will play Brahms’s 2nd Concerto for the first time. The pressure can be hard if you think of something you haven’t done before.
LOA: There is an enormous amount of notes, but they are so well written for the hand that I feel a physical pleasure when I play it. Brahms’s writing is more vertical by comparison.
LOA: No, that’s because of the music...
LOA: I can stay away from the instrument, but if I don’t practise my muscles feel less supple. On the other hand, I got so used to practise, it’s almost a kind of meditation. If I don’t play, something is missing, I start to feel stressed.
LOA: No, it’s more a mental thing.
LOA: I can’t entirely learn a piece without the piano, but I can go through a piece when I sit in an airplane. Or before a concert, I think through the movements of the hands. If you can remember the movements, you know a piece really well, a lot comes from the physical movements.
LOA: I don’t have too much trouble, although mine is not photografic.
LOA: Every case is individual indeed, but there is certainly a lot of pressure. You can get very absorbed in your own world. If you can’t reach out to other people, you get into trouble.. I like being on my own, but music is also about communication. It’s a two way thing. If I play a Rachmaninov concerto, I am sitting alone at the keyboard, but at the same time I am communicating to 2000 people, it’s a paradox. That’s also the beauty of music, it can draw a lot of people together!
LOA: I am aware of the silence of the audience or of the non-silence when they are coughing. If I listen to myself in the hall, I also listen to what goes on in the hall.
LOA: The balance is not always perfect. That’s why musicians love festivals like this one (chamber music around the Dutch violonist Janine Jansen, WB). It’s fantastic to come together and perform after so much time spent alone. The work on the music has been very intense during this festival.
LOA: I didn’t start, I joined during the third year. It takes place in a fishing village, Risor. During a week, there are 20 concerts, that are always very crowded.
LOA: Yes, along with a viola player, Lars Anders Tomter.
LOA: Yes, I do. We do not only invite friends, but also musicians we hear about. I got to know a lot of people through this festival, which is wonderful.
LOA: Yes, for instance the Artemis String Quartet. When I got to know them, they weren’t that famous and now we regularly perform together. A lot of musicians have met each other thanks to this festival.
LOA: I take it as a compliment, knowing how much Tuboeuf admires these two pianists. I admire them too. I feel part of a pianistic tradition.
LOA: Richter, Michelangeli, Lipatti, Schabel.
LOA: They are very different, but they found all truth in music, they played very well and they were all serious..
There are also other pianists I admire, like Horowitz.
LOA: (laughs): I never heard any Schubert by Serkin!
LOA: No, I wasn’t bored with the piece, as I still find it a very fresh and amazing concerto. I did get bored with practising this piece, that’s why I stopped playing it in 1994, I said: “I am an established artist now, they should ask for other pieces than the Grieg Concerto”.
LOA: That was in 2002, I was curious to see how it felt to play it again and it felt very good. I also recorded it again and occasionally play it, but not very often. Next year, I will do it three times.
LOA: There are formal similarities, especially in the first movement. In both concertos, there is a middle section with a dialogue between the piano and wind, in Schumann it’s with the clarinet and in Grieg with the flute. For Grieg, Schumann was a model, he was only 25 years old and needed a model. He also stole from Beethoven’s fourth concerto, the slow movement and the way he starts the last movement. He took from his classical ideals... What is interesting to me is to see how emtionally different both concertos are; the Schumann is schizofrenic, it pulls you in two directions, although it’s mainly inwards, the Grieg is not so advanced in compositon technique, it’s more outwards.
LOA: Yes, I do, it’s virtually the only big piece that was really succesfull. Maybe the third violin sonata (opus 45) we played last night is another succesfull work. He had problems to write large scaled compositions.
LOA: It’s true that there are a lot of episodes in the first movement, although there are some beautiful melodic finds in the slow movement.
LOA: It sounds often too sentimental and it suffers from that image. If that happens, it becomes sirop and kitch... Grieg was a strong man and there is a lot of sincerity in his concerto.
LOA: Lipatti. Michelangeli is very good too.
LOA: I knew the place, since I lived in Bergen. I know the museum, the instrument is very beautiful, if not very big, it’s a Steinway B, but it has a beautiful sound, it’s kept in good shape.
The room also added to the sound with a lot of wood.
LOA: Yes, it’s interesting that you mention that work, I will play it for the first time in January (2007). It’s his most personal piece, that he wrote when he went through a personal crisis: his parents died and he had problems in his mariage. It’s a very strong piece I feel.
LOA: It’s one of the recordings of the past I really like!
LOA: Yes, I heard that live, he was very old, it was at the end of his life, it was a bit uneven...
LOA: Yes, it is. As a soloist, you have to shine among seventy other musicians, but ultimately, you listen to your surroundings and it’s the same music making, accompanying a singer or playing a recital is not a different profession!
LOA: (laughs): I quite like being by myself during a recital, it’s just me and the piano, I am more in control.
LOA: No, I did my own arrangement, I feel the original writing is quite thin. No wonder that people are intrigued to make their own versions or orchestrations.
LOA: It’s very convincing, although it still sounds very much like Horowitz..
LOA: He probably wouldn’t say much.... but I feel very confortable playing with him. His orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra is wonderful! We performed during a commemoration of Richter’s birthday (who would have become 90 this year) in Moscow and I did both the Grieg and Rachmaninov second concertos. It was very special to do the latter piece with that orchestra. Pletniev listens very well when he accompanies.
LOA: There are unique aspects in his playing, especially his creativity in passage works, he creates colours and waves I haven’t heard with others.
© Willem Boone 2006
Amsterdam, 10 March 2006
An interview with a legendary pianist like Leon Fleisher is not something you should pass up.. When I went to ask the master after his concert, one day prior to the interview, it proved difficult to find the right moment, until he came with the solution. What about the next day (Friday) at 12.00 am at the Concertgebouw? Hmmm, very tempting, but that was during my office hours at work! But then again, how often would I get this chance again? Thank God I grabbed the opportunity and I managed to get a few hours off from work to quickly go to Amsterdam. I met mr Fleisher in a small room underneath the stage of the main hall of the Concertgebouw, that just offered enough room for a grand piano and two chairs..
Leon Fleisher (LF): No, I always did. The left hand is the fundament of the music!
LF: No,it was a Dutch premiere instead of a world premiere! , but it has a fascinating story to it. Paul Wittgenstein commissioned the piece in 1923 and nobody could find a trace of it, although it existed in the Hindemith Verzeichniss. 3 years ago, his widow died. They lived in a farm in Pennsylvania and his children found a copy in a closet, along with a lock of Beethoven’s hair, which is weird, because that would make him Samson... but it could be true, since Wittgenstein was an avid collector. The piece was lost since 1923 and the copy was not the manuscript of Hindemith. There are sketch books in Hindemith’s hand with sketches of the piece that match, as I noticed when I had the chance to see them in Frankfurt.
LF: One year ago, in December 2004. I played with the Berlin Phillharmonic Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle.
LF: Yes, I also gave performances of it in San Francisco, Vienna, Lissabon and Prague.
LF: I think I am still the only one...
LF: He was a difficult man who had terrible fights with Ravel. He said he hadn’t paid all that money for an orchestral piece. He never performed the Prokofiev 4th concerto, which he also commissioned, either and even locked it up. It wasn’t performed until the second world war. Siegfried Rapp, a pianist who had only one arm, just like Wittgenstein, was the first one who managed to persuade Mme Prokofiev to unlock the safe where the score was kept. It is a wonderful piece, Prokofiev wrote it in Paris.
LF: It’s a different piece. The 4th concerto has an airiness, a particular lightness, whereas the second concerto is very Russian. The left hand concerto ends with a reminiscence of the 1st movement. It takes great courage to write an ending that fades away and almost evaporates...
LF: No, he wasn’t a particularly good pianist, but thank god, he was wealthy! He came from one of the richest families in Vienna. His brother Ludwig was a famous philosopher. They weren’t a happy family though, two of his brothers committed suicide...
LF: It’s from the late 30’s and it’s rather disappointing.
LF: I heard that story... The Ravel is incredibly written for the left hand. One of his goals was that you wouldn’t discern anything unusual if you listened with your eyes closed.
LF: I don’t think so. In public, you would be discovered! The writing is not awkward. You have to sit higher at the keyboard to get to the treble. The center of gravity shifts to your right buttock.
LF: That’s undeniable. It’s one of his greatest works, but the other pieces for piano and orchestra are masterworks in their own right, for instance Britten’s Diversions on a theme. The Hindemith is a wonderful piece, it’s written in the Concerto grosso style. There is an isolation that comes with the slow movement. He was a man of great wit who had a wonderful sense of humour. The ostinato is repeated every three bars, there are four quarter notes per bar, that would make twelve tones, but no, he wrote an eleven tone row. And you know, he was a great fan of model trains! There is a picture of Schnabel and him lying on the floor playing with model trains.
LF: I couldn’t say. Hindemith used the theme of the slow movement in a string quartet, as if he wanted to say: “I use the material in another composition if Wittgenstein doesn’t want to play it”. Wittgenstein paid 1000 dollars for it, which was an enormous amount at the time. He insisted on keeping the manuscript, that’s why nobody else could play it. Then he had a copy made of the original. The story goes that Mme Wittgenstein was a little gaga at the end of her life and used it to light the fire in her farm....
LF: Thank God!
LF: He played the viola, but also the piano and he conducted. There was a piano quartet at the time with Schnabel on the piano, Flesch on the violin, Hindemith on the viola and Casals on the cello! Not bad, I would buy a ticket to that.....
LF: No. The left hand is peculiarly made for the piano. The base line is the most important. You can play chords and tap out the melody with the thumb, but the reverse is not possible. It is a challenge to write for the left hand alone. Sometimes when composers are given limitations, the greatest creativity comes out. I was lucky to have works written for me. Lukas Foss wrote a concerto for me. And Gunther Schuller wrote a concerto for three hands on two pianos, one part for two hands and the other part for me. There is also a fascinating piece by William Bolcom, that was commissioned by the conductor David Zinman. He would have loved to ask Bartok, but he was dead. Bolcom was a student of Milhaud and followed an example of his teacher. He composed two different concertos, one for Gary Graffmann and half of the orchestra, the other one for me and the other half of the orchestra. They can be played together and separately. Milhaud did the same with the 13th and 14th string quartet. It’s interesting to play all three concertos in the same programme.
LF: Yes, we did it in New York and Philadelphia.
LF: No, the business has deteriorated.
LF: In the mid 90’s.
LF: I spent all those forty years trying. I was looking for therapies and went from western medicine to eastern medicine to northern to southern.. eventually I found two modalities. One is a physical therapy that is called rolfing, it’s a powerful manipulation of a tissue that is contracted. As of 1996, I get botox injections at the National Institute of Health outside Washington. Botox weakens the muscles a tad and it enables me to play with two hands again.
LF: Ecstatic!
LF: I tried every day, my muscles didn’t atrophy. I suffered from dystonia, a neurological movement disorder. There are two sorts, genetic or specific, what I have. Focal distonia means one specific spot in the body. French horn players get it in the lip and there Botox won’t help! There are 10,000 musicians who suffer from this.
LF: They don’t know what causes it. They don’t have a cure for it. Botox just relieves the symptons.
LF: I have more problems with scales... Brahms’s writing is more chordal, which causes no problems for me. I also did a new recording of the Piano Quintet with the Emerson Quartet.
LF: Not if you know how to do them. Scales are problematic for me now.
LF: Yes, exactly, but I constantly experiment. I also took up Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and Brahms’s second concerto.
LF: It’s a favorite piece of mine..
LF: Oh yes, they were very happy experiences, I did both Brahms concertos with Pierre Monteux and Beethoven’s G-major concerto with Van Beinum.
LF: He was not easy to make music with, because his standards were so high. He expected everybody to adhere to his standards, but I got along fine with him. I don’t know what is says about me.... Maybe because he adored my teacher Schnabel. And for some reason he liked my playing! I was the first soloist he had in Cleveland. He asked me to do the whole repertoire with his orchestra, the five Beethoven Concertos, Mozart K 503, the Rachmaninov Paganini Rhapsody, the Grieg and Schumann concertos, both Brahms concertos..
LF: And André’s reply was that he never played this table before....
LF: No, of course not, only those who are highly talented and understand my language. I had some very gifted students like Yefim Bronfman and young pianist, Jonathan Biss, who will make his debut in the Meesterpianisten series in Amsterdam next season.
LF: He has played for me several times.
© Willem Boone 2006