Details

Written by: Willem Boone

Telephone interview, 20 March 2023

Willem Boone (WB): My first question is about an interview with you I read in which you said the Schubert Fantasy for violin and piano was the most difficult piece you ever played and that it was more difficult than any of the Rachmaninov concertos. I was wondering what makes that piece so difficult?

Nikolai Lugansky (NL): I would be much more nervous if I had to play the Schubert Fantasy in a week’s time than a Rachmaninov concerto. Technically, just playing the notes of this Fantasy makes it one of the most difficult pieces, for both instruments.

WB: Is it because it’s not pianistically written?
NL: Yes, that is one of the problems. Schubert was a poor musician and not a real piano virtuoso who knew exactly how to write conveniently and to make it seem difficult. For him, it was music he heard inside, I presume he had major problems playing his own works.

WB: Would you say it is more difficult than the third Rachmaninov concerto?
NL: Yes, it is! Technically, it’s more difficult, it also depends on the age you learnt the piece. I have played Rachmaninov since I was 19; I played the Schubert Fantasy with Vadim Repin for the first time when I was 30. It’s a big difference; what you study when you are a teenager is much easier to play than what you study after you are 30 years old.

WB: Is that the same for his solo piano music?
NL: For some of it, yes. I haven’t played so much of it. The C-minor sonata D 958 is very difficult.
WB: And is it more difficult because there are fewer notes than in Rachmaninov?
NL: It depends. His Corelli Variations have fewer notes than his third Concerto, but the Corelli Variations are more difficult. However, the question about what is difficult and what is easy is a very individual one! Alfred Brendel would answer this question differently than I would. 

WB: That’s true. And about Rachmaninov, is he your favourite composer?
NL: He is one of my beloved composers, one of my favourites; I have played almost all of his works, but I would say I have several favourite composers: let’s say there is also Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. However, there are more links with Rachmaninov: he is Russian and when I made my first trips to Europe and America, I was asked to play Russian music much more. Actually,  I was not unhappy; I played it a lot and never tired of it.

WB: I understand. How famous was he as a conductor?

NL: That’s an interesting question! In Russia, he was quite famous as a conductor and it is an interesting moment in his biography. The premiere of his First Symphony was a disaster, nobody liked it. When he composed this piece, he liked it and played it on the piano. He felt terrible after the premiere. It is said that he didn’t do anything the next three years after this happened, but this isn’t true. He almost stopped composing, except for one or two pieces in two and a half years, but he accepted a role as a conductor at private Amatov (?) Opera without experience five months after the premiere. If you are in a very deep depression, it is quite difficult to immediately start a new job. As a conductor, you have to communicate with people, in Russia his career as a conductor probably started earlier than his career as a pianist.  Then he became the conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre for five years. He did a lot of operas. The first one was Samson et Dehlila by Saint Seans. His concert career didn’t start until after the emigration, before he was dividing himself between conducting, playing the piano and composing. Composing was certainly the most important. 

WB: He made one recording of the Third Symphony. Was it the only recording he made as a conductor? 
NL: Besides the 3rd Symphony, there are also the Isle of Death and his own arrangement of the Vocalise for orchestra.

WB: I read in a French book, “Dictionnaire du piano amoureux”, when he moved to the United States that he almost stopped being a pianist and a conductor, but it helped his career as a pianist. Is that true?
NL: After he left Russia, he didn’t conduct much anymore, maybe only a few times, and he made his famous recording of the Third Symphony. He absolutely concentrated on his piano playing during the first ten years.

WB: Did he not compose anything anymore when he was in the United States or only very little?
NL: He composed 13 or 14 piano transcriptions during the first nine years and each one is part of piano history! If you take Liszt, he wrote a lot of wonderful transcriptions, a lot of normal ones and some of them I would never play. He did everything; Rachmaninov only wrote 13 or 14, but each one is a masterpiece. They were not original pieces, his first original work was the Piano concerto number 4, it was first published in 1926, although he had already started in Russia. 

WB: Do you agree that he played Chopin, Schumann and Liszt as if he was the composer as opposed to someone like Glenn Gould who played works in a very personal way?

NL: I think the comparison with Gould is not correct! It is a long story, but they are just different levels of genius. For me he is of course very personal, Liszt played Chopin études not like Chopin; he played them like Liszt, but he was the greatest pianist of the 19th century.Rachmaninov was certainly the greatest pianist of the first half of the 20th century, Glenn Gould is a different story.

WB: But would you agree that Rachmaninov played as if he was Chopin or Schumann when he played their music?
NL: I think if a performer plays on stage, everybody thinks: this is my music! With some, it is just comical, but with Rachmaninov, it was so powerful, you forgot to think, you were impressed by the power of the greatest pianist.

WB: I read that after his lessons with Zverev Rachmaninov never stopped warming up with Czerny’s exercises. What is your way to warm up before you start practising?
NL: I do have some; I use two or three Brahms exercises, I sometimes do one or two Czerny exercises if my fingers are cold and if I have to warm up very quickly, but I don’t have any system. I know that Rachmaninov in spite of his incredible technique was very disciplined, especially the first year after his emigration when he started his career as a pianist. He studied exercises one or two hours every day. 

WB: I read in the same book that Chopin’s Second Sonata served as model for his own Second Sonata. I was wondering whether there are any similarities between these two pieces, because they seem very different to me?
NL: I agree with you; I don’t see any similarities, except the tonality of B-flat minor. His own recording of Chopin’s Second Sonata is so impressive, it’s one of the monuments of pianistic art. The general dark mood, the presentiment of something very bad to happen, yes, of course, but otherwise, no, they have nothing in common. There is no scherzo, no funeral march.

WB: Exactly, I also read in the same book that when he played his own music, he seemed more reserved, as if he felt less free, ‘out of modesty to delve into the meanders of his deep soul.’ Do you agree?
NL: Partly. If you are familiar with Rachmaninov’s piano music and then listen to his recordings, the first feeling is: ‘How strict, how straight, how disciplined he is!’ If you listen more, you think: that’s the greatest art, the combination of unbelievable emotional power and very strict structure of his work. That makes it so impressive for me. It’s different with every piece, but it’s especially true with the Second and Third Piano Concerto, which are unbelievably straight and unsentimental.  The Fourth Concerto, one of his final recordings is incredibly warm and passionate for me.

WB: I read another very interesting story that he was a very strong man: ‘His force was colossal, once before a performance of his Second Concerto in Sint Petersburg, he wanted to move his stool closer to the piano by grasping the concert piano with his hands and it was the piano that moved towards him!’ Have you heard that story?
NL: You know, when the wheels of the piano were not locked and when the stage was not uneven, it can also happen with a weak …(?), so I’m not that impressed. But of course, he was very big, very tall and very strong! However, moving a piano on stage is a typical story, not only of Rachmaninov…

WB: I have a few questions about the Third Piano Concerto, do you usually play the short cadenza in the first movement?

NL: Yes, of course I know the big one.It’s interesting to know that Rachmaninov played both, but in the recording, he played the short one, which I like more, I have to say. It’s a concerto of unbelievable power and the big cadenza starts with the culmination, which is wonderful, but I prefer the short one. It starts with the piano and has only one culmination point.

WB: There is a French critic who really praises your playing, Alain Lompech once wrote that it is a bad habit of Russian pianists to slow down in the passage just before the coda in the third movement. He said a lot of pianists slow down, whereas the composer didn’t intend it. Do you recognize that?
NL: I know Alain Lompech, but I am thinking where in the score this happens exactly, before the code of the finale of the Third Piano Concerto?

WB: Yes, in the last movement, the last few minutes.
NL: There are more places where I do a little ritardando, there are hundreds of places where this might happen! For me it’s natural to slow down a little bit at the end. If you’re on stage, it depends on your mood, on how things went before, on how you feel…I don’t think it’s a question we can discuss during the interview and find a solution. You find the solution every time on stage, it’s different every time.

WB: I have a few questions about an interview your did in the French magazine Classica from February 2023: you said about the Etudes Tableaux opus 39: “He sensed what was going to happen, almost everything was written in a minor key.”I feel that there is some kind of paradox in his music, because even though a lot of music is written in a minor key, I still feel a lot of underlying energy. Is that possible?

NL: Of course, it’s possible, it’s true! He did a lot in his life and I would say he as a person had some intention to be not in depression, but… He described a recording with Fritz Kreisler, they recorded wonderful sonatas by Beethoven, Schubert and Grieg, he said he wasn’t happy with the takes and said he wanted to do it again and again until Kreisler said: “No, it’s perfect, let’s stop here’, to which Rachmaninov replied: “No, I am pessimistic, I always feel that something is not good.’ He was a pessimistic person, inside, he became very disciplined, which is not always common for Russians. His destiny was not so simple, he didn’t spend his childhood with his parents, but with his aunt, he had the feeling that nobody would help him. But speaking of energy… of course, there are people with more energy. His music has energy, but it’s a different energy, especially when he played his own music. You immediately see the direction, it’s almost always straightforward, there is great deal of energy. The minor key is not about ‘depression’, in his case, it’s the presentiment of the disasters to come, the First World War, the Russian Revolution…he had the feeling that something tragic would happen..
 he regretted that Liszt didn’t make any recordings.  

WB: You said in the same interview that Michelangeli payed the Fourth Piano Concerto a lot better than most Russian pianists. I was wondering what makes it so much better?
NL: It’s very simple, because Michelangeli was probably one of the three or four greatest pianists in history!  When I say he plays Rachmaninov better than other pianists, the same pianist will pay better Beethoven, it’s just because he was an unbelievable musician, not because of some spiritual Russian or Italian soul, no, because he was one of the greats. 

WB: Are there other pianists about whom you would say the same in other concertos or the Rhapsody?
NL: It’s probably not my style to say: “He or she is better”, if you discuss whether Russians are the best at Rachmaninov’s concertos, Michelangeli is wonderful with the Fourth Concerto, Martha Argerich is of course an unbelievable interpreter of number three, Zoltan Kocsis played number two wonderfully, in my opinion. No, with all my admiration for Michelangeli today, it’s still Rachmaninov himself whom I like the best in number four. However, we speak about great pianists, you enjoy it every time they play and you are happy, we don’t need to say who is number one, two or three.

WB: No, I agree. Again, in the same interview you said: “Along with Chopin and Liszt, he went the furthest in the universe of the piano” Do you mean that in a technical sense, since his music can’t be called modern or revolutionary?

NL: There are some composers we mentioned at the beginning of our conversation: Schubert, he is a genius and really one of my greatest loves in music, but many compositions he wrote for piano can be performed by string quartets, string sextets, small orchestras or even big orchestras. He just composed music and in this case it’s for piano or not for piano. When we speak about the piano music of Chopin, Liszt or Rachmaninov, it’s only piano music. It’s impossible to transcribe their music for orchestra, even though there have been attempts. Rachmaninov was a great orchestral or choral composer, but his piano music is unified: his legs, his arms and his piano are just part of his body. I feel the same with Chopin and Liszt. There are not many: it’s less tru even with Brahms, not at all with Beethoven! It doesn’t mean that some are better composers than others, they were all geniuses, but this unity with the instrument, like Paganini with his violin, is unique.

WB: And you said: ‘Albeniz is not far away, nor are Ravel, Debussy or Scriabine.’ What did you mean by that?
NL: I mean the same! Everybody creates their own style of piano writing. When you listen to the melodies, the accompaniment, the voicing, we understand: ‘This is Ravel!’, this is his piano writing, it’s unified as well. Debussy with his piano, Scriabine with his piano, Albeniz especially, he intended new things in piano writing. Sometimes, I put his name immediately after the names of Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov.

WB: I once heard a colleague of yours, Nikolai Demidenko. I spoke to him very briefly after a concert and I heard him tell someone that allegedly, there was a recording of Rachmaninov playing Liszt’s Dante Sonata, could that be true?NL: If there is a recording?

WB: Well, he claimed there was…
NL: You know, it could be true. I never thought about it. If it is true, I would be very curious to listen to it!
WB: So would I! There was this discovery not long ago of him playing parts of the Symphonic Dances, so I guess maybe there is more out there?
NL: It could be possible that he played excerpts of the Dante Sonata and someone discreetly recorded him, maybe… I have no idea.

WB: What do you think of this recently found recording of him playing parts of the Symphonic Dances?
NL: It’s unbelievably interesting and impressive of course. I would say with people of his calibre, everything: records, films, photographs should be published. 

WB: Indeed! This weekend, I heard the two-piano version of the Symphonic Dances. Was that the first version or was it first composed for orchestra?
NL: The official version was the symphonic version. In Rachmaninov’s case, we can’t be sure, because he was able to play everything on the piano immediately. He played this piece for himself on the piano, I think the two-piano version was composed later.

WB: I listened to your recent recording of the Etudes Tableaux and your playing reminded me of Rachmaninov’s, because I hear a lot of sobriety, but, underneath, there is a tremendous virtuosity and power. When I tell you that, is it the highest praise for you?
NL: Thank you very much for your kind words, Rachmaninov only recorded four or five of the Etudes Tableaux, I am sure if he had recorded all of them, he would play with a faster tempo than me. It’s nice to hear, but honestly I think that Rachmaninov as a composer and as a pianist is from another planet! We all listen to his recordings. Of the pianists who tried to come close to his recordings, I would single out the Hungarian pianist Zoltan Kocsis. He tried very quick tempos, close to the composer’s. It should not be the goal; because you have first of all find the harmony with yourself. If you try to be like somebody else, you cannot get the results, but for me it’s more important to study the score than to study his recordings. I don’t feel that I have to do the same.

WB: As a listen on your CD of the Etudes Tableaux, you played three piano pieces. Are these posthumous pieces without opus number?
NL: Yes, they were possibly composed weeks before he left Russia, so they’re very special. I think he was very depressed when he wrote them, because he knew he was going to leave his mother land. He felt things were going to take a bad turn. The pieces are special because of his very dark mood.

WB: I have two other questions, it’s a totally different subject. Nikolaus Harnoncourt once said: ‘Music is not there to please people.’ What do you think of this assessment?
NL: I would say: we don’t even know what music is for? I think it’s not the right question, Maybe music existed before us, before humanity. It’s very strange, but maybe if nobody lives on the earth anymore, music might still continue..If a person is very religious, it would be strange to ask him: “What is god for?” It is not the question. Music was born before homo sapiens, it existed. Sometimes it pleases people, sometimes it lifts them up. Music is in the air, the aerosols,  in scores and books, everywhere. The question is: what do we do to approach music? We have to study, to prepare our ears. The music doesn’t care what we think of it..

WB: My last question is about your teacher Tatyana Nikolayeva: what is the most important lesson you learnt from her?

NL: It’s difficult to say, because I was very young, 12 years old, when I officially became her pupil. At that age, you don’t analyse; you are natural. I learnt from her to be open to any kind of music, all possible interpretations, to listen to different sorts of music as much as possible. When they get older, 99% of people stick with their opinions,and she was more and more open to anything: new interpretations, new pianists. She was always curious and open. That was the greatest example. She could be very exact about details; it’s not easy to describe.     

Details

Written by: Willem Boone

Utrecht, 1 October 2005

Willem Boone (WB): I was intrigued when I read in an earlier interview with you that you attended conferences of Bela Bartok

Noel Lee (NL): That was in 1943 at Harvard. I was 18 years old and waiting to be called up to the army. I finished my first year and he was doing a conference on Transalvanyan folk music. He was a fine man, very quiet, except when he played exemples at the piano. The chairman wanted to keep him at the Faculty, but Bartok was too proud. The plan was to finish the lectures in 1945. But he fell ill, although he composed some other masterworks like the sonata for violin solo and the concerto for orchestra.

WB: Did you ever hear him play as a pianist?

NL: No, I didn’t, but he was an excellent pianist. In Budapest, he taught piano, not composition. I recorded his Rhapsody opus 1 and was the first pianist in France to record his Sonata, Out of Doors suite and Etudes in 1958. And I gave the first performance in France of his sonata for two pianos and percussion with an American pianist of Armenian descent, Luise Vosgerchian, who eventually became the chairman of Harvard Music Department. She was quite well known in Boston before she went to Paris.  We even had a conductor, Karl Husa, simply because no one knew the work. It had never been played and no one could give us a clue about it. This is something they don’t do any more nowadays. Of course, now everyone knows the work and there are many recordings of it. One of the percussionists was Serge Baudo, who became a conductor.

WB: You played for Strawinsky...

NL: Yes, that was in 1957 in Darlington in the UK. I did the concerto for two solo pianos with Paul Jacobs, Strawinsky was sitting in the audience.
After the concert, the director of the festival invited me to meet the composer afterwards.

WB: What was he like? You always read that he had a nasty character.

NL: He was a nervous, short and boney man. Very energetic too. He must have been around 75 years old by then.

WB: What did he think of your playing? He could be quite dimissive musicians who played his music!

NL: He could be nasty, but one evening around with wodka.. He wasn’t mean to us, he said he was happy, but he said it in a non-committed way. He clearly didn’t want to dwell on the subject.

WB: Earl Wild played in Amsterdam last weekend and was interviewed about his upcoming memoires, in which he also mentioned Strawinsky. He said that the composer was only interested in one thing: dollars...

NL: He had the reputation of being stingy, yes....I studied with Nadia Boulanger, who was a close friend of Strawinsky. She showed us the corrections she had made in his Sérénade en la and sonata. That was around the time I was supposed to record them. And she would analyse his latest pieces in class. She spoke of Mass, the first 12-tone piece he composed. That was hard for her, but she said: “It’s Strawinsky, no matter what style it is written in, it’s still Strawinsky!”

WB: Was he a good pianist?

NL: I never heard him play. His Sérénade en la was recorded though. By the way, I recorded an unpublished work of his, which the violonist Samuel Dushkin gave me, Tango for violin and piano. I recorded it later with Gérard Poulet on an all Strawinsky record.

WB: Were there other composers you have met or known well?

NL: Copland. I met him at Harvard when I was still a student. He was very generous with musicians. I never studied with him. I was the first pianist to record his three main piano works: the Variations, Fantasy and Sonata. He asked me in 1970 to play his concerto in New York for his 70th birthday. It was recorded on the Dutch label Etcetera. Then he had me come to New York later in the year for a concert of his chamber music. The last time I saw him was in 1980, when he conducted the Orchestre de Paris. The musicians said his rehearsals were very disorganised. He was already suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. In 1948, I got a scholarship and I went to Europe. Later, in the 60’s, Copland suggested I might return to the US, but I never did.

WB: One of your teachers was Nadia Boulanger, who taught many musicians. What did she exactly teach?

NL: She taught harmony and counterpoint, but her whole approach was based on making young musicians aware of what they were doing. She was going through the bottom of things. And she surrounded her pupils with an aura of confidence. I remember coming out of her lessons and feeling exhilirated. She was also a very good psycologist; she knew how to get out the best of each person. She didn’t do things superficially.

WB: Did you attend group lessons?

NL: I had private lessons mostly. She even gave lessons on Sundays sometimes! I also attended lessons in the class at the Paris Conservatory and also in the famous Wednesday afternoons at her home, where all her pupils gathered, plus other friends of hers, to read Bach Cantatas or study the latest Strawinsky work.

WB: How long did you stay with her?

NL: About five years.

WB: What was the most important thing she taught you?

NL: She put me on a road. I wasn’t sure of becoming a pianist, I was studying composition with her. I got confidence in myself and took my musical life in my own hands.

WB: Did you manage to keep that confidence in yourself?

NL: Yes, I think I did. Her mother had been very strict with her and used to ask: “Have you done everything that was possible?”. One shouldn’t take the easy way out, she passed that on to me.

WB: Wasn’t her sister Lily a very gifted composer?

NL: Yes, she was the first woman to win the Prix de Rome in 1913. Nadia made sure sure Lily’s music was played. She used to compose herself, but after her sister died she felt she had nothing more to say.

WB: She was very complimentary about you calling you “one of the most beautiful musicians I have ever heard”

NL: Ah, she wrote that about a recording of Beethoven sonatas I made in 1956 with the violonist Paul Makanowitzky who had been a student of hers.

WB: Does that mean anything to you, recognition of fellow musicians or teachers?

NL: Yes, especially at the time. I was a little nervous what she was going to write. She could be very possessive, if she liked you, she wanted you to stay in Paris.

WB: Quite interestingly, you played a few pieces by Gottschalk last night. What is your relationship to his music?

NL: I was asked to play a programme of American music in France in 1976 for the centenary of the American Independance. Gottschalk was the first important American composer in the 19th century. Then I went on to McDowell, Amy Beach, Griffes and Copland. Someone from Erato asked to make an all Gottschalk record. It’s no longer available in Europe, but you can get it in the USA now. The chairman of the Gottschalk association in the Netherlands heard that I would play some of his pieces and said: “I come!”. He brought me copies of all Gottschalk’s songs, harmonically they are quite conventional.

WB:Wasn’t he a contemporary of Chopin who also lived in Paris?

NL: Yes, he went to Paris at age 13. His mother was French, but he was not accepted at the Conservatoire, because he was not French! Théophile Gautier wrote about him. Later, he travelled by train through the USA with his cook, valet and piano...

WB: Would you say that his music is about as difficult as Liszt’s or Rachmaninov’s?

NL: It’s more the Chopin technique. The piece of last night was very Chopinesque. Souvenir de Porto Rico is a good piece, but he often wrote square 8 major phrase, which he repeated. I object to that, but that happens with many composers. Schubert did marvellous things without the conventional length of phrase.

WB: Schubert must be very close to your heart after you played all of his sonatas, included the unfinished ones, which you completed?

NL: Yes, I was the first one who did that. A critic said that completing unfinished works was like putting arms to the Venus de Milo... The original versions of the works still exist, no matter what one does to them. Many musicians have finished the works, the Henle Edition vol III, proposes completions by Paul Badura Skoda (which are not at all in a Schubert style, but more akin to Beethoven, but Badura Skoda is not a composer).  There will certainly be other versions in the future.

WB: Isn’t it difficult to compose in the style of Schubert?

NL: I had never a problem with his music. The base lines and harmonic system are very clear. You absorb his style.

WB: Could you compose in any style?

NL: No, for instance I couldn’t compose in the style of Ravel.

WB: Does it help that you are a pianist when you compose?

NL: All composers have been pianists, except Berlioz and Paganini!

WB: Do you always know why you wrote certain things and how you intended them?

NL: Not necessarily. IN songs you have to follow the text, which gives you a form.

WB: Can you play all of your works unlike Schubert who couldn´t play his own Wanderer Phantasy?

NL: Yes, I could, although I wrote in 1961 an Etude on rythms of Bartok, which I also played last night. I had no problems with this, but now it’s difficult... A firend said my music was diffcult. Maybe I would have a problem with my own concerto from 1973. The most important is to get the idea of the piece across. I might change hands, but the essential point is to have it sound. I don’t play the Ravel Left hand concerto, I love it, but it’s awkward, especially in the upper registers. It would sound better with two hands. I have often wondered whether pianists don’t cheat in recordings....

WB: I noticed in last night’s concert in Schubert’s song “Mirjam’s Siegesgesang”a phrase “Wehen, Murmeln, Dröhnen, Sturm” and you literally changed your playing. Are you aware of all the texts a singer has to sing?

NL: Yes, you must know the text if you play with a singer. The composer was inspired by the text!

WB: You worked with a famous Dutch bariton Bernard Kruysen.

NL: Yes, he was best known in the French repertoire. In 1978, we did a Winterreise in Paris and it was extraordinary. I was so moved... I played from memory, I don’t see why I shouldn’t do it if the singer performs from memory!

WB: Are there any musicians who are dear to you?

NL: Yes, a few. First of all, the violonist Paul Makanowitzky, with whom I formed a duo for ten years. We travelled a lot and played a lot here (= in the Netherlands, WB). He went back to the USA in 1965. In that year, I started teaming up with Bernard Kruysen. Then there is the pianist Christian Ivaldi and the violonist Gérard Poulet.

WB: What kind of relationship do you have with music?

NL: It’s very intense. Ever since I was a child, I knew there was no matter of doing anything else. I knew that I would never have a family and asked my mother how to iron....

WB: Is it a calling for you?

NL: Yes, it is.

WB: Can you live a day without playing the piano?

NL: I always try to practize. There are very few days a year I wouldn’t do that. After I finish practizing, I might read about music or compose.

WB: Last week, Earl Wild played in Amsterdam at almost age 90. What do you think of that?

NL: That’s fantastic!

WB: Would you still like to play at such a high age?

NL: If I were able, I suppose so! Many friends are very nice to me,they probably think: “O why doesn’t he stop?”but they don’t say it. There are a lot of things I could do if I couldn’t play the piano any more. I would orchestrate a few pieces, chamber music or piano music that sound very orchestral.

WB: Do you have any particular things in mind?

NL: Souvenir de Porto Rico by Gottschalk and Debussy songs. The colours are so obvious!

© 2005 Willem Boone

Details

Written by: Willem Boone

Utrecht, 11 November 2008

Paolo Giacometti is a pianist who communicates and not only when he’s seated at the piano. During a recital he gave in September 2008 in the “Theater aan het IJ’ (Amsterdam), he explained the works by Ravel and Debussy that were on the programme. This was a pleasant surprise which also helped to reduce the distance between the artist on the stage and the audience in the hall. This interview took place in a cafe in Utrecht, near the conservatoire. The cafe got busier and busier and I sometimes had problems understanding the pianist. However, since his answers were always pertinent and interesting , I was naturally more than willing to make the effort to listen. Giacometti spoke with a lot of sensibility and feeling about his profession and hardly needed encouragement.

Willem Boone (WB): How important are your Italian roots?

Paolo Giacometti (PG): They are increasingly important as the years go by. We used to speak Italian at home, my grandparents lived in Italy. It is my second home country. When I was one year old, I moved to the Netherlands with my parents, we came from Milan and were supposed to come for a year. It was a period of insecurity with the red brigades and student protests. Eemnes was an enormous culture shock. We had neighbours for the first time, in Milan you saw your neighbours probably only once a year! It was fantastic to have neighbours, I still call them uncle Cor and aunt Mies. At school, I never suffered from any bullying because of my Italian background. My parents taught me respect for architecture and beauty. They moved back to Italy after twenty years in the Netherlands and now they live in Como again. I realise how much this region of Italy still evokes the 19th century. Liszt lived there for six months, that’s where he wrote his Dante sonata. The atmosphere of the Années de Pélérinage has still survived. It also reminds me of my youth. I have kept my Italian passport for a long time, but when I heard that I would receive the Dutch Edison award, I thought it would be nice to also adopt the Dutch nationality. I must admit I was scared for a short while that they would withdraw the prize if I didn’t, so now I have a double nationality.

WB: What does Music mean to you?

PG: The same as religion to a vicar.. I couldn’t live without it, music is not only something you experience, it also carries you away. At the same time, you should be able to take a break from the music. When I was young, music came very naturally to me. My parents were both enthusiastic amateurs and I listened to many great pianists at home. I remember my first public performance in Hilversum. A lot of students were scared and nervous, I didn’t understand that at all. I was excited, but not nervous and thought it was a great thing to do!

WB: So nothing much has changed over the years?

PG: Actually not, no, although I did have doubts during puberty, when I thought: “Wait a moment, am I really a pianist, am I good enough?”I knew I had a talent and was able to achieve something whilst playing, but so many people wanted to become pianists. Why would I have the right to do this? It took me while before I could come to terms with it. It wasn’t certain whether I would be able to survive as a pianist or whether I could deal with the feelings of insecurity. But on the other hand, even in moments of great uncertainty, I still had the conviction: “This is the only thing I want to do, I can’t do anything else” and then if felt natural again.

WB: Are there moments that you get fed up with music?

PG: No, I  never get fed up with music, but there are moments when it is wise to not play all the time. Obsession can also become frustration, although it happens less and less to me know. Sometimes it is good to stay away from the piano for one or two weeks, it is healthy to take a break from music and it also allows you to see old friends again...

WB: You studied with Jan Wijn, who taught a lot of Dutch pianists. Do his students have something in common despite their obvious diversity?

PG: No, that’s what we have in common! It shows the importance of Jan Wijn. He is an exceptional teacher who knows what to say and what not to say. He was also very strict and honest. That’s what I now intend to do with my students now. He has been one of the biggest influences on my playing. The fact that I had to make my own choices, was not a reaction but a logical consequence. Wijn and my other teacher, György Sebök were complementary. They admired each other and therefore Wijn never felt threatened by Sebök, every year he invited him to give masterclasses in Amsterdam. I often went to Ernen in Switzerland where Sebök taught. His festival still exists, it is great honour for me to return to Ernen and play there.

WB: What made Sebök so great?

PG: He understood students and made sure they understood themselves. That was his exceptional and unique talent. He could solve problems and as a result, spectacular things would happen. Every lesson was different. There was simply no room for tricks or lies, even the slightest narcissism disappeared when he was teaching you, just the way he looked at you...

WB: How can you make someone understand themselves?

PG: That’s difficult to explain, but the key to this is the music. Sebök was a great pianist himself. Because of this, he had nothing to hide himself. You can only understand by seeing what happened during one of his lessons, it is too bad that this is no longer possible.... On top of that, he was very knowledgeable. This basis plus his greatest intuition could cause miracles.

WB: In an interview with you, we have to bring up Rossini, I have some questions about your recordings.

PG (enthuses): I’d love to speak about that!

WB: Who came up with the idea to record all of his piano works?

PG: I did. I was grateful that Channel Classics offered me the opportunity to record solo CDs. My first CD was dedicated to Schubert. Then I discussed further plans with Channel Classics. It wasn’t always easy. As a pianist, you can spend your entire life with works of lesser composers, not everybody is waiting for your Beethoven if there are already 15 other recordings available, that doesn’t mean that you are not entitled to give your vision of his music! In Milan, I often went to the shop of Ricordi, unlike the Netherlands, you can look around and read scores. I saw a whole cupboard with piano music by Rossini and didn’t understand at first.  These weren’t transcriptions or opera excerpts, but original piano scores. I sometimes bought sheet music and played pieces during my studies at the conservatoire. It is music with a special character, written by a genius. Later I asked Channel Classics with some apprehension whether I could record Rossini’s music and they were very positive. No one had ever done this before, but meanwhile I have two competitors. One of them, Stefan Irmer, has become a close fried, I haven’t met the other yet.

WB: Is there a market for this kind of CD’s?

PG: Obviously! The press gave my project a lot of attention. At the start of my career, I received a lot of support from my cooperation with cellist Pieter Wispelweij, but after that Rossini was the first big step.

WB: On your website, one of your CD reviews reads “major works of a genius”, could you give an example of this?

PG: The “Hachis romantique”is fantastic! I played it so often! A lot of people are surprised when they hear his music, they don’t know who wrote it. The subtlety of his music takes you by surprise and stays with you.  I am surprised about its emotional impact. He can also be very stubborn. Take his “Petit caprice d’après Offenbach”, that’s Satie at his weirdest! His music sounds frivolous and easy, but it’s also treacherous. Sometimes enthusiastic amateurs tell me that they bought the music after one of my concerts because it had sounded so cheerful and light. They concluded that the music was much more difficult than they thought and that it wasn’t that easy to play. He didn’t write big scaled, long works, but his compositions are not inferior compared to those of Beethoven and Schumann.   Among his 250 character pieces, there are about 30 or 40 that are incredibly beautiful.

WB: Could you see Rossini as a sort of Poulenc who also wrote satiric music with strange titles?

PG: Absolutely, that’s a good comparison! You see the same thing with Saint Saens and Satie. Rossini always had a reason to use these titles, sometimes he did this because he wanted to fool an editor. For instance he poked fun in one of his “Petits riens” “Oh! La fricaine”at the name of an operette by Meyerbeer “L’Africaine”. This made the editor believe that the piece had something to do with a transcription of a successful operette! Another example is “L’Album du chateau”, which includes no references to any castle! Rossini was a good business man. He knew about commerce. These weird titles were his way to distance himself from the world of editors.

WB: When playing a concert, how easy is it to include his music in the programme?

PG: People take a keen interest in his music: he is a successful composer and it is fantastic to show this element of his work! I often chose to dedicate a third of the programme to Rossini. It is always rewarding to play his music. The alternation of Rossini and French composers is especially rewarding.

WB: Which French composers specifically?

PG: Ravel especially. Both his music and Rossini’s have a certain silverly-like quality that is rather unique.

WB: How should one view Rossini from a technical perspective? Can his music be compared with any other music?

PG: It can be compared to that of Liszt especially, although Liszt had a much more complete idea of what could be done on a piano. Rossini called himself a fourth rate pianist, which he most certainly was not. It has been great to study Rossini in order to improve my technique. If I play Liszt now and to a lesser extent if I play Chopin, I notice that I benefit from having played Rossini.

WB: You play more unknown music, you recorded a CD with the Schumann Concerto coupled with the Dvorak Concerto, didn’t you feel like combining Schumann with the Grieg Concerto?

PG: It was a suggestion of Benno Brugmans, the artistic director of Het Gelders Orkest. The Dvorak concerto is fantastic, in fact it is a copy of Grieg’s style. I didn’t know the piece, but when I started studying it, I immediately fell in love with the concerto. It is monumental and very long. I remember the score was massive.

WB: The first movement is particularly long.

PG: Yes, that’s true. It is a very ambitious concerto, Dvorak wanted to prove something, like Schubert did with his Wanderer Fantasy or Ravel with his Gaspard de la Nuit. Technically, you can’t compare the concerto with his Piano Quintet. If you can play the latter, there is no guarantee that you can play the Concerto aswell!

WB: In what way is the Dvorak concerto amibitious?

PG: It has many notes: the piano is almost a second orchestra. The style is sometimes awkward, although Dvorak knew what he was doing. The third movement is particularly demanding technically speaking. It is easier to study a Liszt Concerto, as his material is based more on standard forms.

WB: Do you still play the Dvorak?

PG: I played it twelve times when I was making the record. It was a physical challenge: it felt like a Tour de France! I noticed that I had to refrain from certain things, like carrying heavy suitcases. Normally I am not obsessed by these kinds of things, but at that time, I was.

WB: Is there more unknown music you’d like to explore?

PG: At this moment, I love to work on the standard repertoire. As a contrast to Rossini, I recently recorded a Schumann CD with the Davidsbündlertänze and the Gesänge der Frühe on a beautiful Steinway in the Frits Philipshall in Eindhoven.

WB: I am a true Schumann fanatic, which seems to be rather rare, a lot of people find his music “weird”

PG (Pleasantly surprised): I am not at all surprised that people find his music strange, Schumann doesn’t compromise and is confusing in his music.

WB: With whom do you have more in common: Eusebius or Florestan?

PG: More with Eusebius. Every pianist has his own “basic” character, Lupu and Pires lean more towards Eusebius, Richter probably leans more towards Florestan, but even they can play very differently at times. I’d love to be like both, as a child I was overwhelmed by the Fantasiestücke opus 12

WB: Just the first of them, Des Abends...!

PG: Yes, I was very much attracted to the character of this piece, however Aufschwung is also fantastic.

WB: Which composers do you feel little or no affinity with?

PG: I have to be careful now, when I say “none”, that may sound arrogant. To continue with the last question, there is a link between Schumann and French composers: there is no country with as many Schumann lovers as France. My connection with the classical masters has been helped by studying Rossini. I feel more at ease with Mozart and my parents gave me a deep love of German romantic music. The only composer about whom I say “One day, but not yet”is Bach, although I love to play his Italian Concerto. I am not sure in which style I’d choose to play his music in. Gould is fantastic, but I wouldn’t approach Bach’s music in the same way. His music is so absolute that it offers many options and provokes one to make choices. All of these options and choices creat the risk of stressing your own personality too much. There has to be a symbiosis between his genius and the ego of the artist and I haven’t worked that out yet. I don’t have the same problem with Beethoven or Schumann, with their music I worry much less about whether my ego may be too big.

WB: Who are your favourite pianists?

PG: Most of my favourites are linked to certain performances, for instance Richter when he played the Diabelli Variations in Amsterdam in 1986 was unforgettable. One year later, Alfred Brendel played a Schubert cycle of four concerts, which I couldn’t tire of. It was a gift, a moment of grace. As an Italian, you cannot leave out Pollini.

WB: You don’t find him cold as many others always find him?

PG: He is an incredibly good pianist and a great pioneer of contemporary music. He is very politically engaged and a figurehead of the Italian intelligentsia. He combines his extreme intelligence with an aversion to cheap emotion. It is not always easy to warm to his playing, he knows no compromise and you have to take the time to savour his playing. Speaking of Italian pianists, there is of course Michelangeli. He stands for the obesession with the sound of the piano and (also) had a fantastic technique. Other than that, I am a great admirer of Perahia and Zimerman. They both show great responsability in their relationship with the composer, more than someone like Martha Argerich. She is of course phenomenal when playing Prokofiev, but when she plays Chopin I find her too whimsical. The emotional range of Pollini, Zimerman and Perahia seems bigger to me.

WB: Do you personally know Pollini?

PG: No, although we accidentally met. Not so long ago, I saw him at an airport, when he and I took the same plane. I was impressed when I discovered who was sitting in the same bus as me travelling to the terminal. I went over to see him and thanked him for everything he means to me. He  was very modest and friendly. 
 

WB: You are teaching yourself at the Conservatoire in Utrecht, do you have certain topics that you favour?

PG: I have no specific method, but I try to be very conscious of what happens and try to react in an intuitive way. My own teachers showed me that a life with the piano becomes more fun if you can make your own choices well. I try to make  students aware of the options that he or she wasn’t yet familiar with. 

WB: Are there things that you learnt by doing? For instance, Claudio Arrau said that he learnt to use the weight of his arm by looking in a mirror while practising.

PG: You learn many things: it has to do with being conscious. You become increasingly conscious of your fingers and your hands, your wrists and arms... I learnt to be no longer afraid of the mechanics of playing and my playing became more natural. Students often have problems with their posture and their technique which can to fears and tensions.  The most important moment for me has been to undergo a total physical experience as an extension of the musical emotion. After that I have no longer been frustrated when things didn’t work out straight away. The secret is to be patient.

Details

Written by: Willem Boone

Utrecht, 5 November 2014
Meeting up with Paul Badura Skoda is like a trip down memory lane: he has worked with luminaries like Wilhelm Furtwängler and David Oistrakh, Frank Martin dedicated compositions to him. He was one of the first musicians to play on period instruments and on top of that, he did an enormous amount of research, especially about Mozart. It was most of all an encounter with a very cultured artist, who – in spite of his 87 years – still maintains a busy schedule. When Badura Skoda was in Utrecht as a jury member for the Liszt Competition, we managed to speak at his hotel Karel V in the city centre. He actually forgot our first appointment, but thankfully we could reschedule the interview.

Willem Boone (WB): How long have you been playing the piano?

Paul Badura Skoda (PBS): 81 years, I started at the age of 6!

WB: What keeps you going as far as music is concerned?

PBS: Music is a reflection of life, there is always something new to discover. A life is much too short to know all these wonderful poetic works!

WB: Your colleague Vladimir Ashkenazy once said practising is “sweet slavery”, what do you think?

PBS: No, I experience practising as a natural form of learning, it’s a training that can be compared to a sport, for me it feels like jogging for others. It’s a joy, a travel during which I learn new things all the time, also in compositions that I have played for 70 years. 

WB: Does playing music make you intelligent at an old age? I heard a few colleagues of yours this year, who are also really old, such as Menahem Pressler or Christa Ludwig (as a teacher!)

PBS: Pressler is even older than I am … Of course, music doesn’t make you more intelligent, but it requires intelligence. The constant challenge of the memory activates the brain cells. Alzheimer among musicians is rare!

WB: Are you never tired of music?

PBS: Definitely not! I constantly change my repertoire and that’s why I don’t have the feeling of “déjà vu”. I recently played the wonderful sonata in D major D 850 by Schubert again that I hadn’t played for 30 years.

WB: What is your relationship with Liszt?

PBS: I am not happy about the label of „classical pianist“, since I also played a lot of Chopin, Schumann and Brahms. In terms of quantity, I may not have performed a lot of Liszt, but I owe him my first huge success with his First Piano Concerto when I was 20 years old. Thanks to him I became a Mozart specialist! At my first competition, I won first prize and Ingrid Haebler won second prize. A critic wrote at the time that “Badura Skoda deserved the first prize for his virtuosity, but musically speaking we liked the Mozart interpretations of Ingrid Heabler better.” I was so furious then that I wanted to play Mozart better than Haebler!
My teacher Viola Thern came from the school of Liszt. Her grandfather had been a friend of Liszt’s. She was always angry when his music was played in a superficial way, she hated “special effects”. She always said that Liszt was something distinguished. I also learnt a lot about Liszt from Edwin Fisher, he knew his works very well and he showed passages at the piano in a masterly way. Of course, we know him as a predestined interpreter of Bach and Mozart, but he also played the Bach Variations by Reger magnificently, that was unique.

WB: How genius was Liszt?

PBS: He was not as genius as Mozart, but you cannot measure geniuses! Liszt was as productive as Mozart, but the latter was a class in itself. Mozart can only be compared to Bach, his world is more human than Beethoven’s, whom I admire immensely. 

WB: What does a good Liszt pianist absolutely need to have, except for a transcendent technique?

PBS: personality, the willingness to communicate and the ability to do so. 

WB: Are these only needed for Liszt?

PBS: No, for any composer! Edwin Fisher said Schubert pulled his heart strings,  he felt as if in a better world. Great performers or artists such as Furtwängler or Frank Martin were people of great humanity, they tried to improve the world and themselves.

WB: Are there still similar artists around?

PBS: Yes, during this competition, I heard at least two or three pianists who have the same artistic principles. Jorge Luis Prats has all these qualities and a personality that pulls you along. Cyprien Katsaris is someone whom I also admire very much. We met again in 2013 after 30 years. He remembered that I had shown him a wrong note he had studied in Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto. Marc André Hamelin is also fantastic! I admire Leslie Howard very much, he has an incredible memory, his recordings of the complete piano works by Liszt are a huge merit!  

WB: The music of Liszt is often called „empty“ or „pompous“, to what extent is it misunderstood?

PBS: There are works where the effect or the circus-like element plays a considerable role. A legitimate part of making of music is pulling the audience along. That takes me once again to Edwin Fischer: he told that Rastelli juggled with five bludgeons. The same elegance inspired Fischer for his Mozart interpretations. Chopin said about Liszt, without mentioning his name, “When you can’t win the audience over, you can kill them!”, but in fact, he was referring to Liszt. I find that delightful! Liszt was a versatile composer, sometimes excessive, sometimes deeply religious, his Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude is a highlight. Bartok lauded the futuristic Liszt, who went towards atonality. On top of that, Liszt was one of the noblest persons, who always helped out colleagues, for instance Smetana or Grieg.

WB: You wrote an article called “A few personal thoughts to the problem of “competitions.”, so you consider them as a problem?

PBS: Yes, of course, it is the only occasion to get a lot of publicity and start a career when you are lucky. That is also the moment where you notice rivalry. At this Liszt competition, I had encounters with artists and they were so nice to each other, not at all like hyenas! Fair judgment is a problem though. I tell you about a statistic observation of mine: “The one who plays first, is unsuccessful”. He does not get a fair rating, since the members of the jury think they can’t trust their judgment yet after they have just started listening or there will be other contestants playing later on who are better… The American pianist Malcom Frager, who won the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels was the exception: he had to play first und he won!

WB: You did an amazing amount of research regarding the way to play Mozart. I should have read your book of course, but could you nonetheless tell me what you “discovered” with regards to the way of interpreting Mozart?

PBS: I discovered a lot! The first version was written 60 years ago. We have a lot of knowledge thanks to Mozart’s own hand writing and his letters. He often takes a clear stand in matters of  interpretation, he had guidelines, for instance “A tenor does not sing naturally.” For him, music had to speak to the heart, he was very clear about that.

WB: I have the impression that Mozart frightens pianists more than Liszt, is that correct?

PBS: He doesn’t frighten me! Mozart can express something …..(unauslotbar..) with little notes, you never touch the ground in his music. It sounds as if it were the simplest thing. Artur Schnabel said about Mozart it was too easy for children and to difficult for grownups!

WB: Was he right about that?

PBS: To a large extent, yes. When you play Mozart with simple, unaffected musicality, you mostly play everything correctly. 

WB: You completed a piece by Mozart, Larghetto and Allegro for two pianos. How do you do this?

PBS: It’s my specialty. I became so familiar with Mozart’s music that I have the feeling I could put myself in his situation. I also rewrote the accompaniment of the 2nd movement of the Coronation Concerto (Krönungskonzert) and I wrote cadenzas for the piano concertos for which Mozart didn’t provide any himself. A French critic wrote about my last recording of the concertos KV 466, 491 and 503: “One would think these cadenzas are Mozart’s own.”

WB: Could you compose in the style of Beethoven or Schubert as well?

PBS: I also completed incomplete works by Schubert, in 1969 I recorded the sonata D 840. That is a great work, but it has only two completed movements, the others are incomplete. I have completed them with youthful energy. I am especially proud of the 3rd movement, where only 16 bars are missing. I worked like someone who restores a painting! 

WB: What is the most common misunderstanding about Mozart?

PBS: I can’t say that in a few words. Perhaps there are misunderstandings when people do not see him as a uniquely talented person or when they don’t love his music enough..

WB: Is Mozart also in his piano works a vocal composer?

PBS: Yes and no, the vocal element plays an enormous role, but Mozart was also the Liszt of his time, there is a parallel to Liszt. 

WB: Do you think one has to know his operas really well in order to play his sonatas and concertos?

PBS: You have to know other works too! Among Mozart’s music both the piano concertos and operas are central. Certain characters from his operas, such as Figaro, the Count, Susanne, the Countess or Zerlina come back in his instrumental works.  

WB: Can you explain that?

PBS: The last piano sonata starts with a powerful unisono motif, followed by a mellow, charming melody. This dialogue is repeated. It is like the duet “La ci darem la mano” between Don Giovanni and Zerlina. 

WB: Could we say that the final of the Piano Concerto nr 17 reminds of “Le Nozze di Figaro”?

PBS: The theme of the last movement can’t be found in his operas!  However, the final presto has a clearly operatic character, it reminds us maybe more of “Die Entführung aus dem Serail”. In the Concerto KV 503, the last movement sounds like a scene from “Idomeneo”, the theme shows similarities. 

WB: You wrote an article about tempi during Mozart’s life, can it be that they were slower back then?

PBS: Not at all! The fast movements were played equally fast, there are studies that show this. The slow movements were played considerably faster than nowadays, an andante was truly “gehend”. I can mention Furtwängler and myself as positive examples (He explains that “Adagio” in Italian means “ad agio”= at ease! WB). When one gets older, it is often said that tempi become slower, I play without emotional difficulties in fluent tempi. 

WB: You also play on period instruments and called that a „conversion”. In what way was it a conversion?

PBS: Not in the sense that I switched instruments for ever. I like both: the old and the new ones. A lot of species got through an evolution, others survived billions of years, almost without any changes.

WB: But don’t sonatas like the Appassionata or the Hammerklavier benefit more from the dynamic potential of modern pianos?

PBS: I once had a personal experience in London, I held a lecture and then played the Appassionata both on a Hammerflügel from 1804 and on a modern grand piano. All those who were present thought it sounded more beautiful and exciting on the old instrument! I recorded the sonatas on historic instruments twice, for Harmonia Mundi and for Astrée. I really liked the experience. Beethoven walks on the edge, the instrument has to be almost destroyed. The second recording was on a Broadwood piano. During a session, one of the hammer heads broke off and you can actually hear it on the recording, which is very exciting! Both recordings of the Hammerklavier sonata are equally interesting: the one from 1985 is on a Conrad Graf piano, the live recording from Warsaw on a Bösendorfer, I can’t say which one is better!

WB: Isn’t it actually a dilemma: the modern instruments are probably too powerful for Mozart and Beethoven, whereas the old ones are not powerful enough for our halls and orchestras? Is that the reason that you play both?

PBS: With my own recording of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Anner Bijlsma, there was a problem when we were playing together: the piano sounded so soft, that hardly anybody could hear it any more. In Beethoven’s time, this was “normal”. Nowadays, the instruments sound artificially louder, but I tell you: authentic recordings have been falsified (manipulated), mine included…. 

There the interviews officially ended: Paul Badura Skoda had to go tot he concert hall Tivoli Vredenburg for a master class. I came along and he asked me to carry his bag (“It is heavy and I’ll have to show things on the piano”). He tells many anecdotes while walking through the city center, about Furtwängler (“The greatest one without a doubt, he told me that it is important to walk a lot. I also admired Hans Knappertsbusch because of his Bruckner and Wagner interpretations”), Josef Krips (“His teacher, Felix Weingartner, said: “There is only one tempo, the tempo!”), the Concertgebouw Orchestra (“My last performance with this orchestra was 40 years ago in the Second Piano Concerto of Frank Martin.”), I asked him whether he heard Rachmaninov as a pianist (“No, I didn’t, but I studied his recordings. He was very good in his own music, but he wasn’t good in Carnaval by Schumann or Chopin’s Second Sonata, it all sounded like Rachmaninov. I prefer Cortot!”)