Secrets from today’s brutal piano world By Michael Johnson and Frances Wilson

As we all know, startling levels of commitment and energy are required to learn, memorise and perform complex piano music. It can be a satisfying life but it’s not for everybody. The profession today is crowded, overly competitive and often lonely. And yet as the 26 conversations in our new book “Lifting the Lid: Interviews with Concert Pianists” reveal, the piano still exerts a strong attraction, seducing would-be professionals and continuing to bewitch, delight and excite players over long careers.

Some of our interviewees give sage advice on how to function in today’s piano world. Christine Croshaw, the British pianist and performance coach, put it best: “Be curious. Allow yourself to experiment. Be kind to yourself. Embrace uncertainty... Follow your dreams... Enjoy the journey.”

The book, just published on Amazon, offers surprisingly honest insights into the life of a professional, providing a glimpse beyond the notes and the concert stage – ranging from years of intense study to practicing and performing, to choosing repertoire and recording. Some interviewees share their reflections on the nature of success as a musician, and advice for young musicians considering a professional career.

Despite the wave of young talent arriving from China, Japan and South Korea, our selection is Russia-heavy. These pianists grapple with the controversial definition of the Russian School of playing. Is it all about fast and loud? Not at all, says Irina Lankova, a Russian now settled in Belgium, in our interview. “The secret of Russian pianism is probably in the singing and depth of sound, in the rich scale of colors and nuances, and a special expressiveness. We avoid making it overly sugary.”

What does a true artist hope to achieve? Russian virtuoso Boris Giltburg feels he is successful if he helps the audience “forget their troubles and be transported to wherever the music can take them.”

The Serbian pianist Ivo Pogorelich, trained in Moscow in the Russian School, has attracted the extremes of praise and criticism during his long career. He calls piano life a “struggle” and he should know. He has been there. So how does he defind perfect happiness? “Not seeking it on purpose,” he says.

Some key insights from the interviews:

MARC-ANDRE HAMELI N: I must bore some people because I don’t move around when I play. Some people take this as emotional detachment but my contention is that one should come to concerts to listen, not to watch... Reproducing my gestures just wouldn’t work. (My plain) always looks effortless, like I’m just brushing the keys, but there is force at work, a lot of force.

RUDOLPH BUCHBINDER: I have no problem with criticism if the critic declares what is right and what is wrong. What I don’t like is the critic who says, for no reason, “It was too fast.”

KYLE GANN: Mozart is wonderful, but I would far rather live in a new creative world analogous to his than live as a tourist endlessly visiting a preserved simulacrum of his world every day.

IVAN ILIC: I increasingly felt the need to find my own way, and I subsequently lost touch with all my teachers over the years. Ultimately I’m a loner and feel one is better off learning the most important musical lessons alone.

MELINDA BARGREEN: Usually there are two ways to steer a (critical) review: the pianist was having an intermittently off night, or the pianist should go out and shoot himself/herself. I mainly prefer the former.

FRANCOIS DUMONT: I firmly believe that the music you play forms you as a musician. For example, Chopin teaches you the art of cantabile. Bach develops your polyphonic abilities, which is for me a fundamental task in the art of piano playing.

PHILIPPE BIANCONI : Of course I am plagued by doubts. This is part of the artist’s life. But I continue to work and perform. I have moments of depression but I try to transform these doubts into positives. Many artists have these doubts. Some don’t talk about it. But doubt is always there.

BORIS BERGMANN: (In my recorded improvisations) certain passages revealed a style or a musical language that I could not identify as deliberate or pre-existing in my works. It just happened. My conscious mind was not involved.

FRANCOIS-FREDERIC GUY: Music fills my life, my existence. Even when I am not at the instrument, even when I am speaking of other subjects... Through music, one can express things that words cannot.

ALESSANDRO DELJEVAN: Why is a young student with talent studying more than eight hours a day? To win a competition, not to become a real musician, not live life with intensity and using heart and head with honesty. In a world where everybody is talking about a sexy dress, or even quantity of notes I am different.

LYDIA JARDON: My real passion in music is to resist popularity rankings and market forces. In my view, these currents impoverish our cultural richness. Any artist who stops creating simply dies. It seems to me essential to keep learning and recording new repertoire.

JEAN-FRANCOIS DICHAMP: I remember as a student that when I wanted a particular recording I would go to a record shop, order it specially and wait several weeks for it to arrive. But this waiting period was also part of the pleasure, and when the record arrived it was a big event! Today there is no waiting. Everything is just a click away. Is the pleasure the same? I don’t think so.

REED TETZLOFF: As I worked on the (Charles Ives) piece, I felt it was drawing expressive reserves out of me that I didn’t know I possessed. I had no choice but to let loose and fling the music out into the atmosphere, come what may.

IRINA LANKOVA: At age of 13, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. This persisted until the day I pushed the door open to the Gnessin Musical College (in Moscow). From that moment there was no second option for me. That’s where I wanted to belong.

IVO POGORELICH: Art is my profession, career is my occupation. There are two types of challenges and threats. The external ones should sometimes be ignored, at other times confronted. What comes from oneself however is different. The general principle I followed was not to bite off more than I can swallow. In other words “less is more”!

STEPHEN HOUGH: (The greatest challenge is) just doing it -- day after day. Specifically, the extreme contrast between being as tough as a old boot offstage, travel, hotels, paperwork, and as sensitive as a bejewelled ballet shoe when at the piano. It requires a unique kind of schizophrenia.

BENJAMIN GROSVENOR: I am increasingly drawn to chamber music. Playing with a handful of colleagues and finding during the performance that we seemed all to be firing off one another’s imagination and involvement is a wonderful feeling.

JOANNA MACGREGOR: The piano is like a universe. You can use it to compose and to perform - it represents so many different styles of music from early French keyboard music and Bach, to Beethoven and John Cage, jazz and blues. I’ve always loved the piano.

BORIS GILTBURG: In a way, every experience you have, every book you read, every movie you watch, every place you visit, every encounter you have, every moment you spend with friends or family, they leave a mark on you and direct you indirectly and therefore leave their mark on your playing.

VIKINGUR OLAFSSON: I came to the piano quite early -- when still in my mother’s womb. She’s a piano teacher and when five months pregnant she played her diploma recital at Berlin University, so I was quite close to the keys from the beginning. I started playing the piano before being able to speak and there are pictures of me at the piano as soon as I was tall enough to reach for the keys, high above my head.

TAMARA STEFNOVICH: Think about what the role of a musician is today and how you can be at best useful for today’s society -- for me certainly not playing only older repertoire, but thinking how to link music of all times to extraordinary creations of today. Challenge yourself by not copying someone else’s path ...In short, less image, more substance

PAVEL KOLESNIKOV: It is a bit embarrassing. I was about 6 years old and I went to a symphonic concert to hear a violinist. She was wearing a velvet dress, in an unbelievable hue of purple. I thought I’d never seen a colour more sumptuous... and I decided I wanted to play violin. That’s how my path in music started.

JEREMY DENK: One of the things that bothers me most about young musicians today is the sense of the metronome working behind everything with no sense of rubato. Without it the music just begins to sound like a diagram.

CHRISTINE CROSHAW: When the time came for my entrance onstage, the most extraordinary thing happened. I found myself following the figure of a woman, another version of myself. I suddenly felt quite confident, knowing that she would lead me safely to the piano. As I sat down on the stool, I sensed her sitting down by my side, and I felt entirely at ease. As I played the opening bars I felt her gradually drift away. I had a sense that all was well, and the music seemed to play itself.

MARGARET FINGERHUT: If we are still going to persuade people to come and hear live music, we have to find ways to make that experience more meaningful and relevant, be it collaborating with other genres such as dance, the visual arts or theatre, working with living composers, or simply being able to talk to your audiences in an engaging manner.

END

Link to the book on Amazon:

Lifting the Lid: Interviews with Concert Pianists Paperback – February 26, 2024