You've played Prokofiev's music all around the world -- do you have
any insights into Prokofiev's universal appeal?
The naturalness of Prokofiev's music seems to leap out at people who are
also natural themselves. There is enough variety of styles and expression in
this music to please everyone somewhere. I think people would be even more
keen towards Prokofiev if it wasn't for the stereotype of the steely Soviet
composer that has been propagated through the political ideological battles
waged around him.
You've been compared to Glenn Gould and Leopold Godowsky among
others. How do you respond to these comparisons?
I really enjoy the comparison to Glenn Gould, since he is one of my
pianistic Troika (the other two being Horowitz and Richter, but Cortot is
there as well as a late discovery). His attitude has always been a model
for why one plays the piano. His iconoclast views on recordings are still
(unfortunately) current for the classical recording industry, and have been
what have nourished my own views on recording.
As for Godowsky, I appreciate the comparison, but don't really see myself
as a technical wizard who plays better in private than in public. Perhaps
however there is something similar in how he used his intelligence to
create music, rather than play up strength and speed.
I find I have more of a Cortot than a Godowsky. I've never been bothered by
wrong notes, as long as the musical ideas are intact. Cortot's playing, and
his writing, emphasize the musicality of the work he's exploring. He never
forgets the fact that a real person wrote the music, and that a real person
is playing it. That kind of human element is lacking in a lot of the
super-human images of the great pianists we know.
And you've also mentioned Sviatoslav Richter's name several times too.
Like Gould, he blazed his own trail. In fact, Gould was very fond of
Richter's playing (and neither was very fond of Mozart!) It seems you share
a kinship with those pianists who eschewed the beaten path and approached
music their own interpretive way, yet were reverential to the composer's
original music -- both studied the score and historical context of the
music they played as well. Did you ever get a chance to meet or hear
Richter or Gould?
I had the wonderful opportunity to hear Richter play many times. It was
one of my great discoveries when I came to Paris for the first time to find
out that Richter was pursuing an active performing schedule in Europe, in
fact, was playing over 100 concerts a year! In the United States, we heard
nothing about that. He was invisible, having decided not to play again in
the States because of various personal and professional reasons.
So I heard Richter play 5 or 6 times, and even bumped into him at the
Yamaha studios in Paris, where he practiced when he was in town. I worked
often on his personal piano when he wasn't in town, and wondered how he
could sit so high and still play. I never got up the courage to speak to
him, but am happy to have this incredibly pure, utopic vision of him in my
imagination to guide me still.
I never had the opportunity to hear Glenn Gould live, but I have most of
his television and filmed appearances, and admire him in the medium he
wanted himself to be seen in. His writings are even more important to me
than his recordings. I could not give up the Brahms Intermezzi by Gould,
but I could give up all the rest I think if it was a matter of choosing
between his recordings and his writings.
Speaking of Paris, you've lived there a number of years now. This
has provided you the opportunity to get to know the Prokofiev family.
You published an interview with Oleg Prokofiev (Prokofiev's second son) in Volume 8 of your Prokofiev
cycle. Tell us about your relationship with the Prokofiev family.
When I first arrived in Paris, I had an opportunity to call upon
Prokofiev's widow, Mira, who was still alive. I didn't follow up on it
quickly enough, and she soon after became very ill and passed away.
I met Oleg Prokofiev backstage after an all-Prokofiev recital in Paris. He
had come unannounced, and was the first person who presented himself as
soon as I stepped off stage. As you can imagine, the shock was huge! Since
then, we saw each other regularly, either in Paris or in London where he
lived. After his death, his family planned a memorial concert for him where
I played Bach, which he listened to all the time.
Although Oleg didn't live with his father except as a young child, his knowledge
of the literature and repertoire was vast. It was fascinating to hear
stories about his father - as a real person, which is the gist of my
interview with him. Meeting Oleg was a way for me to access Prokofiev in
real life.
The older son (Sviatoslav) lives in Paris, and I've been in contact with him as well, as
well as his son Serge. The entire family is made up of very nice, curious
people.
Prokofiev started writing music at age six. It's my belief that you've
recorded more of his Juvenilia piano works than anyone else.
Tell our readers about these works and what insight it gives us
into the developing Prokofiev, and their kinship with later published
works like the Third
Piano Sonata.
These early works are wonderfully naive in their emotional content -
completely extreme, either totally languorous or angry or joyous. They show
that Prokofiev's emotional language began by being direct, and only later,
when his intellect occasionally took over, did he sometimes distance
himself from his own expression. This is in contrast to some other
composers who begin in stylistic pureness and correctness and later become
sure of their emotional language.
They also show the innate pianistic quality of Prokofiev's music. It is
impossible to understand Prokofiev without having a sense of the piano as
an instrument, as a guide to textures and shape.
It is interesting to note that, after having written so many wonderfully
smart and brittle pieces for the piano, Prokofiev chose to present himself
to the public in his first official Opus as a round, rolling Romantic. The
Etudes Opus 2
are much closer to the character of the Juvenilia, and the
Opus 3 and
4 pieces
are in the direct lineage of those early works.
A select number of artists have transcribed Prokofiev's works for
other instruments over the years. Several famous transcriptions come
to mind: Heifetz's 1937 transcription of excerpts from the
Love for Three Oranges, Joseph Szigetti's transcription of the
Gavotte from
the First Symphony, Rostropovich's cello transcriptions, and
Tatiana Nikolayeva's Peter
and the Wolf. To this esteemed list we can now add your brilliant transcriptions
of the Lieutenant Kije Suite. What motivated you to write the transcription?
The Lt. Kije Suite was one of my favorite pieces as a child, which I
listened to over and over again. At one point, I wanted to remember that
old recording, which I couldn't find anymore. The recordings I had listened
to later were lacking something of that old recording, or in any case were
different. So in order to recapture that spirit, I was obliged to play it
myself.
How did you transcribe it? How long did it take?
I worked on it slowly, starting in 1988 with the Romance. But it really
took shape during the summer of 1990, when I put finishing touches on
Romance and The Wedding, and then in 1991 or 92 when I finished Troika and
the Burial. I tried working on the Introduction, but there is something
innately orchestral about that which defied transcribing, like Ravel's
Bolero! In a way, I've come to like the reduced version of my
transcription, which starts off with the trumpet call then follows
immediately with Romance. The smaller dimensions of the piano seem to call
for a slightly smaller dimension for the music, so four movements seems
more appropriate.
How have the Kije transcriptions been received in your public
recitals?
No doubt about it, this is the one transcription that I play that has
never had less than a total success! No one really seems to care in this
particular case that it is a transcription, whereas playing the Blue Danube
or Schubert/Liszt seems to irk a part of the public.
Do you plan to publish these transcriptions?
I would like to, but the one publisher who should do it isn't
interested. So come to one of my concerts where I play this transcription,
and you can find the score on sale in my own version!
Other than Prokofiev, you've recorded works from a broad range
of composers including Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Rossini.
Other than Prokofiev, which composers do you like to play? Of those,
do you connect on a personal level as said you have with Prokofiev?
I have played something of many, many composers. There is always
something that I can connect to with a composer. Sometimes there is only
one piece, sometimes many pieces. Sometimes there are pieces that I cannot
stand, and cannot connect with at all! I've never let stylistic issues come
into play when it comes to choosing repertoire. So I've played Rameau,
Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Weber, etc, to Scriabin, Granados,
Albeniz, Copland, Bernstein, Carter, Rzewsky, and a lot of young composers
of today. I'm always interested in looking at music I don't know, either
new music or unknown works of historic composers. And if I connect on some
level, I'm eager to incorporate it into my repertoire and perform it for
others in order to show them how to connect with it as well.
Chopin's music was for me much to close for a long time, and only now, with
distance and a voluntary absence from his music do I have the objectivity
to perform his music again in public. Liszt is a composer I admire very
much, but there is a lot of Liszt that I don't particular care for. If there
is one composer who I feel closest to in terms of style, it is Prokofiev,
but I would say that my tastes are more for a particular kind of
composition, and when any composer touches on that element, I feel a
connection.
Lastly, what do you plan to record next?
My latest projects include Liszt's Annee de Pelerinage, more Chopin,
Brahms Violin Sonatas, and some curious music which will touch the New Age
crowd! I have lots of other ideas, and one of the wonderful things about
working with Harmonia Mundi is that my producer is willing to listen to my
ideas and generally accepts them. There are few pianists on their roster,
which means I have a very free choice in repertoire, which I take advantage
of! Of course, don't expect me to start recording the Beethoven Sonatas,
but certainly more Chopin and Liszt, Debussy and Ravel, and older and newer
music as well.
