Leif Ove Andsnes Speaks the Language of Music

I just couldn't even look at it because it was so garish and so not by Rothko. We're talking about eighty million dollars in fake paintings, or more precisely, forgeries. All episodes of Art Fraud are available right now. Okay, here's our show. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing from my Heart Deo. My guest today is the brilliant pianist Laife Uvas. This is as performing a work from a fellow Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg's Piano

Concerto in a Minor with the Bergens Philharmonic Orchestra. Honest Now has received accolades for his musical prowess since he was a teenager. He won second place in Eurovision's Young Musician of the Year contest at age eighteen. Since then, he's been nominated for eleven Grammys, holds an honorary doctorate from Juilliard, and was called one of the most gifted musicians of his generation by The Wall Street Journal. To put it simply, anst. Nous is a superstar of the

classical world. From two thousand twelve to two thousand fifteen, as this undertook an intense and ambitious multi year project interpreting one of the greatest sets of work for piano ever written, Beethoven's Piano Concertos. He recorded and performed all five concertos in fifteen countries across three continents with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, all while conducting from his piano bench.

His latest release is Mozart Momentum seventeen eighty six, a project that pairs him with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra again. This time, anst. Nous is exploring a time of immense creativity and growth in Mozart's career, concentrating on the specific period that would forever change the form I wanted to know what his piano of choice is and what it takes to bring out the best from his instrument, basically

a Steinway D model. And yeah, when I say my favorite piano, I mean there are many many good pianos. And what I've learned over the years is that more important actually is the piano technician, because a great piano technician can bring out the best of a in a mediocre piano actually can bring something of a jewel out of something which is rather gray. So over the years I have now a network of piano technicians that I know, and I sometimes bring them on tour, and that's incredibly valuable.

I often compare it with you know, Formula one cars. I'm gonna say yeah, because you need the technicians on hand, you know, right next to you there and then and before viewing the recording and and and you know, yeah, absolutely. Now, you make some pretty laudatory comments about Beethoven. You say, Beethoven is really the most meaningful music there is, and every composer was trying to write something meaningful. But with Beethoven, every phrase and around every corner, there was such context,

such surprises, such original ideas. When did you first fall so deeply in love with Beethoven above all, I don't know. I mean, as a child, I felt this music had a lot of gravity, but it was it was a little bit for and it was like something I thought,

I will need time to understand this. Also, playing it was kind of uncomfortable because Beethoven goes for the extremes, so the right hand would go very high up and the and the left hand very goot down in the travel, you know, in comparison with with Grego or Shopower modes

that where it was more. I was more dealing with the middle of the keyboard, and that was uncomfortable for childs naturally, and to feel and understand that space in the music which he creates between the base and the travel and wanting to go to the extremes, and that took some time for me, but naturally, you know, something like the first moment of the moonlight so not. I played it probably when I was seven or eight, and and I felt that, you know, there is some real depth,

there's some something going on here. So literally, when you talk about the expanse and the range and the keyboard, Beethoven sounds like it's something you have to grow into or some of his composition to physically into it, unless you have a junior sized piano, which do they make those? They don't know. No, that's that's the advantage of a pianist.

And of course I didn't reach the pedal till I was about nine or something, and I started playing when I was five, so there was some disadvantages in the beginning. And when you played the first moment of the moli or not that you you need the pedal um otherwise it becomes rather dry, comes in handy. Yeah, who were the maestros? You think we're really great piano players? Oh well, I mean obviously, um, obviously barn Boy is somebody who has done it from both disciplines, from being a teenager.

Christoph Eschenbach is another one. Just some people that come to mind. I mean, so many of the conductors have played the piano, but some have played, you know, more professionally, more professionally than others. But it's actually, I think a real advantage to play the piano, you know. I often I am amazed at some conductors at conductive meetings and they sit down and start playing, and wow, you know

the one. I mean, somebody who really plays whenst This is Antonio Papano, who is chief conductor of Covent Garden, the opera house in London for for so many years down and he started as a repetitor. And to really control an opera, I mean, it's such must be such an advantage to actually being able to play the opera from a piano score and to understand the harmonies and everything.

And with my motor project now I'm of course trying to conduct myself as well, and and with the beta to try to do two disciplines as one which can be difficult, but which actually is really rewarding in that music when when it works with an orchestra, because I feel part of the narrative all the time. The problem with the piano chatter is that you can often I feel like you're waiting for your entrance and be a bit on the side, and then it's my entrance, that's

my turn, then it's the orchestra's turn. When I'm conducting or leading the orchestra at the same time, I'm in the narrative of the music constantly, and there's a great feeling of flow in the music making. When you talked about as a child and you're passion for Beethoven. The

ensemble you're performing with this is a mall chamber orchestra. Correct, and that's what you did the Beethoven project, and you're gonna do they So when you finish with them six years ago the Beethoven thing ended, had you worked with them in an ongoing way, or you would get a lot you you weren't performing with them. Well, but you're gonna pick it up before the COVID So it wasn't that long. Yes, we started talking about a new project, but it took a few years before we actually But

why them? What about them? Well, it became so special for me to do this project for three years with them, with all the Beta chatters, and we did about eighty concerts together, three recordings. And I've never had the feeling that I could work on pieces going so far in terms of detail. And this is an ensemble that you know, you suggest something and you get something slightly different, which

is better than you imagined. You want a really explosive chord followed by silence, and you get an amazing sound from them. I've never come across an ensemble that it's searching for kind of truth in every project they do, you know, they are touring ensemble. They don't actually have

a geographical home. They have an administration in Berlin, but they play all over Europe, mostly in Europe, also other continents, but it's a touring ensemble and to be a member in the orchestra you have to do six of the project, so it's a lot of traveling for the members. And when you choose that kind of lifestyle, you choose it because this is important. You know, this is not just work,

this is your life. Did work period of three years and especially the same three years, yeah, and the law here we played several times all the five Beethoven's again and again in ten twelve different cities we had residencies, and to revisit these pieces, which we had already recorded and already taught with, was so wonderful. And I started the project thinking of Beethoven as structure and contrast and revolutionary music, and so I ended up thinking of him

as as freedom. You know, that's really what the music is ultimately about. And that's how we felt in the last concept. Was such a spontaneity and freedom in the concept, and I have to say that's how I feel also now with the Mozart with just different music but in different ways. Now you're focusing on the Mozart project, like a couple of years. Yeah, this sevent period where he has this explosion of creativity and the surge of creativity

in his life. And I'm wondering from your experience, don't know, all the great composers have that kind of a period in their life, well, and certainly Mozart, I mean outse that seemed to have it most of his life, though I don't think he was such a wunda kin in terms of composition as he maybe his portrayed as you know it. We don't see the real masterpieces until he's about twenty. But then the last fifteen years of his life,

I mean, he was constantly writing wonderful things. But something specifically happens with the piano concertos in this period, and that's why we call it Mozart Momentum eighty six. So he starts, he expands everything. He's expands the narrative, the

drama of the music. He expands the orchestration, he brings in clarinets, he brings in more instruments to the orchestra, and he expands the dexterity of the solo part, you know, the possibilities, and it's the first time in the history that you feel he's separating the solos a little bit from the orchestra used, so you have sometimes the feeling of this heroic role that the soloist would get so much in the nineteenth century and Beethoven with you know,

if you think about the Emperor Concerto, for instance, you know, starts with this kind of flourish after the first chord in the orchest journey say here I am, and you're being thrown out on on on the gladiator stage, and you are potentially the hero. And that that's very much a big element of those big concertos that we know so well inli from the nineteenth century, from Schumann Greek

to Rockmaninoff and Mozart started this. This is the very beginning, i think, in so for me it's the most important moment in the history of the genre of the biano. Concerto. Sore is the Mozart Project in the same name as the Beethoven Project, where you and the ensemble will travel and tour and perform around the world and do dozens of performances of these concertos and before you record them, or you'll record them live. The project has been limited

by the pandemic. But the fact that we managed to do both these recordings and and now in that we did the three week tour in Europe with twelve concerts in Brussels and Hamburg and the wonderful new help Filarmony. We had a resident residency of three concerts and then recording and music friend and Vienna right before they closed the country in fact for another lockdown. So I feel extremely lucky to have been able to do these four

CDs two double CDs of recordings with this orchestra. And what I I mean we're dealing with, you know, history is it's a long time since the eighteenth century, and I want to keep this personal and it helps me to choose a specific time, like one or two years and put on the glasses and really look at what happened there. And then it was also really interesting time in Vienna. I mean most he was in a way

the first freelancer. I mean he quit his job for the archbishop in Salzburg when he was twenty one and he said, I'm going to Vienna. Vienna's piano land. He said that's the name of your next album, Piano Land right, quite commercial. And he created his career, of course with the piano as a center piece and with the piano and focus, and that's why all these piano concertos and all this, all this music with piano keeps coming. And

then of course the operas and all that. And he was lucky because there was an emperor, Joseph the Second, who was very liberal and big supporter of the arts and created an environment just there and then, so I think we should be very glad that he ended up in Vienna. How has the recording aspect of your career changed in your lifetime. I'm assuming there are some similarities with popular music in terms of the difficulty of getting

labels to want to record. Like when you do the beto On project, do you go with a recording contract in hand already you're not gonna bother doming unless you know you're gonna put it down with somebody or yeah, that's evolves in time. I've had for the last years an exclusive recording contract with Sony Classical and and so, and they very much wanted to do this Beto On project, and they're also doing the Mozart project, but of course

everything has changed so much. I mean I started making recordings around where you know, we had the CD boom and everything seemed possible. And you know you I recorded Jan Chick piano music and it's sold thousands and thousands. I mean, and I wasn't, you know, very well known or anything. It's just amazing to be part of that journey, but where everything seemed possible and today it's it's something

completely different. But I find it really important to do it for myself, you know, for every project to have well for often for a project to have an end end goal. And I learned so much from the recording as well. There's no situation where you have to analyze

your playing so much as when you record. I often do a take and I go and listen and think, no, no, no, I mean it needs to more contrast, less taking time there, you know, move over there, all kinds of things, and then you play yourself closer and closer to where you think you need to be to do many takes, oh yeah, lots and lots. And and also I take part of the editing process after now, after the New Year's I will I will take part in our last Mozart recording.

And that's been a wonderful thing with the COVID period is that I've learned that there is a possibility called source connect where you can I can join my producer and editor online and we can do this work online. I used to travel to London for two days for each recording and do editing together with with my people there. But that's really intense. You know, you listen the whole

day and after the final cut I do, of course. Yeah, there's no producers from that you work with when you defer to them, there is a discussion, of course, but it ultimately becomes very personal. And I I said, you know, that's the way I wanted to go. And that's why I really like that take because that means something to me. And that's why I will ultimately be disappointed when I get the first editor recording because I haven't put it together and I know the producer did his best, but

it's really really personal. So I need to be part of that process. When you perform, whether you're with the march or orchestra or whomever, is there a typical preparation you have before you go on stage or are you I mean I've spoken to some of the biggest stars of popular music, some of them older from you know, the seventies and so forth. Some of them talked about I take a nap before the show. You know that. There's all kinds of different approaches. I've always done that.

I've always done that, and I you know, you can't you can't eat a lot right before you go on stage then, but also you mustn't be hungry also, so you have to time these things a little bit. And I've I'm always trying to nap, and I was really good at it, like twenty years ago, and today I might get, you know, seven minutes of sleep, but or relaxation, but that's enough sometimes. And it's interesting. I find that the body seems to hibernate in the afternoon often before

I mean often in the afternoon. Mind does I mean the brain knows that I need to deliver in the evening. It just gets very low in the afternoon. If I have to do something big, I don't I certainly don't want to see people. I'm not very social. And and before a concert and I get to the whole, you know, quite early, and and just prepare for myself thinking about the piece, playing a little bit backstage, and and and these kind of things. And also physically with the yes,

I feel I have to prepare. I have to do some core exercises, these kind of things, maybe one or two yoga positions, so you know, actually get into shape because it's it's of course, you know, athletic. Yeah. If you're enjoying this conversation with lafe Un, check out our episode with another giant of the classical world, pianist Long Long. We spoke before a live audience in New York City

in two thousand nineteen. One thing good about connotation is that it's kind of pushes you to play better than you're normally does because you you try to play without round notes, you try to be concentrate on what you do. But also, in the same time, if you are too serious about compotation, you lose your soul. You know me that you are afraid to do something wrong. And as you know in art, sometimes when you really do something unique, you are actually not really on the page, you're actually

doing something. But that that is a really great moment. Here the rest of my conversation with celebrated pianists Long Long, and here's the thing dot Org After the break leafe Uba Honest no shares what he believes all great pianists haven't coming. I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to here's the thing. This is lafe Vera Honest nous and the Mallard Chamber Orchestra performing Beethoven's piano can share to number five and E flat major from the Beethoven Journey.

Honest had the good fortune of being born into a musical family, which allowed him to begin charting his career path from an early age. My parents are teachers and music was the main subject. So I'm lucky because I'm from a really small community. I'm from an island on the western part of Norway, and I had absolutely no

friends who did music and played. But there was a piano in our home, and there came a few kids who wanted to have piano lessons from my parents, and and I saw this and I said, I also want to play. I'm very flush with admiration for the Norwegian people because of the work I've done with climate change and how the expenditure of hundreds of millions of Norwegian currency from their sovereign oil accounts to purchase land and

to protect land and the rainforest in South America. I mean, what the Norwegian government has done with the Norwegian people are doing on behalf of climate change is really just amazing. Well thank you, but I think we really have to. I mean, we are a very origination that that became rich because of the island, and we have to do something sensible with money. But you see, this is an island off the coast. Your parents were music teachers, and I mean, was there any pushing or there was There

was no pushing. They just let you decide. It was my decision. I liked playing, but there's always, you know, there's a moment. And then for me, it was probably when I was twelve years old when I thought it was much more interesting to do social things and football all and I I played also in a in a school band. I played euphonium, you know, and I was in the choirs, and it was a kind of diverse

musical childhood. And it's very lonely just to play the piano, and I really had no friends doing the same thing. So I guess there was some pushing involved, you know, for a few years there. But on the other hand, I knew inside that this was my language, because I

remember sitting down when I was about eight. I remember Christmas when I started having the joys of sight reading, you know, just simple pieces Greek Chopin, and feeling these harmonies and actually exploring them for the first time myself and I I really felt that this is my first language. I was a very shy boy, but this here I could express myself. That's interesting, that's very very well. But

your first language. I believe that all the great pianists have something in common, as you said, this first language idea. What do you think you have in common with all the other great pianists. You have the ability to do what you have a peculiar nature that leads you to what What do you all have that helped you become

so great at what you do? I mean, I do remember quite early on that I had a feeling that people listened when I played, you know, and that was already as a child or you know, early teenage years, and that was very inspiring. I I thought, Okay, I I have a voice, I have something to say, and I felt that inside like a burning desire to to share this music with people. I played a lot for people when I when I was young, my parents would take me around the local partisan things and and I

would play for I would always love that. And I think that's really important that you love sharing it. I mean, it's like it's about sharing, and we we all have that in common. Otherwise we just couldn't do it. And you see some people just having been pushed and they become adults and they have no motivation anymore, because it has to be within you. You can become, you know, great at playing the piano, but if you don't have a feeling that you have that voice and you really

really want to share, there's no way you can. You can have this lifestyle. Now, when you're playing with the chamber orchestra, there's a relationship between them, with you and them. You're the soloist. There's the ensemble, and there's the soloist. And and I'm assuming that without apology, the task for everybody there is to support the soloist. The soloist is

what's the music itself is what's featured. But the performance of the soloist is ever so slightly more front and center than the than the work of the ensemble itself. Describe that meaning, do these people naturally do what you need them to do. Do they just fall into place or do you need to kind of tell them what to do what you need. Well, I'm working with them, and I have, you know, opinions and ideas about the music and what I want. But these are strong personalities

and and they offer different things. And when we talk about Mozart's music, it's so much about dialogue. There are many many places in these in these pieces where I am accompanying them. I actually think that Motas music is maybe the music which is most about human beings and society. I don't think it's much about nature, like a lot of scanning a Nordic music, for instance, But it's it's always about people. It's it's theater, it's it's opera and conversation.

And that's so wonderful. When I play with them, I sit in the middle of the orchestra. We take the lid of the piano, so I'm sitting actually with the back to the audience. But I'm seeing the musicians, they are seeing me. We hear each other extremely well, and that intimate contact is is crucial to that kind of music making and and to mos As well. I think, I mean he wouldn't have had a conductor when he

when he was playing these things. You have performed in some pretty exactic locations on the edge of a cliff. I'm no Asian. I mean that's you know, you have your Norwegian so fiorids. I have to be injected into the process somewhere an oil we go off the coast. But beyond these more exotic locales that you've been performing in, are the cities that you love to return to. Are their places that when you get there they feel like home more than others. Absolutely, But and that's the wonderful

thing with touring. I remember actually my US manager when I was twenty, who I started working with, said, you know, the most important thing in this business is to build up a network of friends and and acquaintances and places and holes. And you know that we have a feeling of home wherever you come, if it's Los Angeles or Tokyo or in Oslo. What I've been very careful at keeping at the same time is connection to home and being able to play in smaller holes in Norway once

in a while. And I've also basically for the last twenty five years been involved in festivals. I have at a moment at a chamber music festival in in Rosendal, which is a beautiful small village in western Norway by the fjords and and mountains. And for you know, a small week, we do twelve concerts and I'm curating the program,

I'm putting the people together. And that's also another part of sharing in another part, you know, way of feeling connected to my home country and doing something more here than just jumping around playing different programs. So for me, it's been important to spend summers, especially in my part of the world and to feel connected here. Now I also have a family, so there's a different connection. But but it's three kids. I three kids, and how old

are that? They are eleven and we have twins, right, Any musical, any musical, but we already have rumblings. They're already have a piano trio in the house. So there's there's cello Island the piano. But we'll see how long that lasts. But there's some fun. Yeah. Yeah, when you come to the US, which I've always thought those people who love classical music in the US, there are a decent number of them, maybe not as many as I like.

And that task that all the great ensembles have of cultivating the next generation of audience, you know, like the Philharmonic would do a lot of heavy ticketing and give a lot of free tickets to students to try to get them just to just to have that latent learning. You know, you're gonna hear this piece I talked about when I was a child and they had us do mandatory music classes, and we had a guy who would come in and play I mean, and he was he

was lovable and he was nuts, this guy. And we were in eighth grade, in the middle of working class Long Island, and he was playing us Manati operas on vinyl. He was playing the medium and a telephone and we'll be sitting there going, what the hell is this guy? But I do believe. I'm I'm a firm believer in latent learning where you dropped that seed on the ground, and not always, but for many people it's gonna bloom later,

you know, down the road. And so for me when the popular music see to have anything to say to me, when popular music remained even even more sophomoric in terms of I love you, why don't you love me? It was all like for kids and I turned on the radio. I turned on the radio, and there came the final strains of Shalty, the Chicago, the Mall or nine, and I never turned back, and I never turned back. And now I listened to minimal popular music, I mean music

that's contemporary popular music. None. I couldn't even tell you who these people are, which is also a sign of my age. But do you give some credit to your old teacher for you know the men I do believe in respecting the ideas of people. Were that person took the time to tell me about that? Why did they want me to know that? And in music, I feel like in classical music, there's people who they don't realize how much they love classical. Maybe not all of it.

Maybe they don't need to be listening to Stravinsky. Maybe they have like everything much more lush and kind of romantic. But there's class music that that they want in their life and they just don't know it yet. Yes, And that's you can come into your life later, you know. Yeah, And I think that there's there's an age, you know, when when you were so open to these kind of things. I mean, my piano teacher I got when I was fourteen, was the first person I knew he was a professional musician,

and he gave me was kind of notice. But he gave me some cassettes of Scherenberg piano music, and and also some more standard chopin and things and and these are things that stay with me. I mean, I was so hungry for this stuff because nobody had had given me introduction to these pieces and these pianists that he was, you know, Paulini's recording of Scherenberg or whatever. But there's so little today in school, you know about music. How do we how do we how do we get out there?

I mean, I think we mustn't be afraid to take kids to classical concerts. Also that of course they will be bought part of the time. But something stays I think. I mean, I I loved it. Maybe I was very unusual in this respect, but I my parents took me to concerts, piano recitals, some orchestra concerts when I was ten eight. Those experiences stay today. I remember how it smelled in the concert hall, you know how certain gestures of the pianist or the conductor, or how it felt

physical in the stomach. You know how according it's just a college symphony could make you feel totally extatic symphony and it's just a college fifth symphonical. Yeah. Um well, I think the people like you and long, long and on and on and on with all these people that we've enjoyed. You have a gift from God. You know, you have a calling. I look at people like you and say, what choice did you have? You know, I mean, this is what you wanted to do, of course, is

what you had to do. It's absolutely not to sacrifice, because this is my life. It's not work, it's just it's just who I am. I have. I mean, this is how I communicate with the world basically, Maestro laife Us. If you're enjoying this episode, don't keep it to yourself, Tell a friend, and be sure to follow us on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

get your podcasts. You can listen to all four selections of the music from this episode and more in a curated Spotify playlist of my favorite pieces from Lafe Vasus. You'll find a link to the playlist in the show notes of this episode. When we return, laife Uva shares with us the composition that makes his heart race. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. Yeah, this is Lafe Ubas performing rock. Moaninov's piano can share to number two in C minor with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

I wanted to know his favorite places to play in the United States and what makes a great concert halls unique. I mean, New York is such a musical home to me, and I've had many wonderful experiences in elkn Center, but not as not so much for the whole, but Carnegie certainly it's absolutely a magical place to me, especially maybe for piano recycling. I mean, which other all can you feel that you're feeling it and you can create the intimacy when it takes two eight hundred people. I mean,

that's really quite extraordinary. I think Sevence Hall in Cleveland is wonderful. Symphony Symphony Hole in Boston, the New Disney Hall in in Los Angeles is quite Someone said that hole in Miami is a good hole, and that's very nicely. Yeah. Yeah. Now in the United States where we had, you know, for a while for decades, we had a wonderful recordings and a kind of a battery between an ensemble and a maestro. So lots of this is not just in

the United States but in North America. So with the Montreal Slatkin, with this St. Louis Zel, with the Cleveland Shalty, with the Chicago Bernstein, New York and so forth. But Montfred Honick in the Pittsburgh I mean, they really keep he keeps putting out recordings. I mean they keep recording music, and it's so beautiful. He's very genuine, very genuine musician, and so honest and really believes in what he's doing, and really I enjoyed a lot time. I'm going there

actually in March playing with him, hopefully. What are you gonna play? I'm playing the Benjamin Britain Concerto, which is really fun. Britain wrote, I'll find out. I'll come see you, okay, right, that would be heaven. Are you coming to New York

anytime soon? I'm with the Pittsburgh and Chicago Symphony in in the spring, and I was supposed to be with the ne yok Philharmonic this fall and I couldn't get a visa, you know, because of this situation before November, it was very difficult to get a visa for the States for Europeans because there was such a backlog of applications and things. But we're working out some plans. I'm

playing recycled Lincolnegie next next season. So one of the benefits I think for what you do, because I always say to people that in the movie business, the difficulty is that you don't really get to see the place that you're visiting that much because the days are long, and if you have a decent role in you're shooting, most days you go to New Orleans, or you go to a foreign city, anywhere you go in the world, and the days that you're free to be a tourist

there are few and far between. What are your favorite cities to come rolling into? What's the city that you just get excited to go to? What I love in this business. For instance, I was just in Brussels, and that's the place where I've played a lot, one of the places I've played most in in in Europe. And I love that you can have done a great concert in London two days earlier and nobody in Brussels would care, right, I mean, you have to convince every every place you

go that you have something to offer. I love the fact that you can maybe over time build an audience in different places. So when I played in Brussels the first time, I had a hundred twenty people coming to the concert, and now there might be twelve hundred instead, And that's really really heartwarming to feel that you have that loyalty from the audiences. But also if you don't

deliver that, of course they will not come back. When some of the people I've interviewed from your world have all in their own way said the same thing, which is as difficult as the work can be, the other incredibly difficult thing for them as writing music. I mean they said that's the hardest thing to do is to write, to write their own original music. Have you done a lot of writing over we would describe your writing career over the last No, I've never felt very rarely felt

compelled to compose. That as a teenager, I often sat down and improvising at the at the keyboard and finding melodies of things reminded me of other other music. But then I found how much joy there was in discovering, you know, composers music and recreating them. Because I think many people don't understand how much freedom we have as classical musicians they think that we have a school in front of us, and it says, okay, it's supposed to go fast, and it starts soft and then gets a

little louder and it's all set. But of course not, because if it's a legal in the beginning, that means fast. You know what is fast? That's just one of the parameters. I mean you talked about tempo earlier, how much it can vary in a piece likely to lean or in in in in a modern symphony. But also if if I see piano, which means soft in the beginning, what is soft? If I play in my living room, I can be very silent and it might still sound rather loud. If I play in Carnegie Hall and I play the

same dynamic, nobody can hear me. I have to pronounce it in a very different way. Even when it says piano in the score, and what kind of piano are we? Are? We? Does the music mean? Here? Is it full of tension? Or is should it be very secretive? Should it be very confessional? You know all these kinds of things. So I'm, you know, more and more discovering how much freedom there is inside these course they're they're just dots. On a piece of paper. I mean, we we have to bring

them um to life. And I've in my life being much more attractive to that than than trying to write some bad music. I was. I said to Brompton one time we went to dinner with him, and I said to him, is there a piece or there are there pieces for you which are just more, uh like the equivalent of like a double black diamond ski run for you?

Were there a piece? You sit down and you've mastered this piece, you've played many many times, and you know and you know what you're doing, but you nonetheless have a pause before you put your fingers on those keys and said, this is a tough one. This is one that demands more of me than any other piece. Are there pieces like that for you? Oh? Yeah? And in different ways, you know, also for the memories sometimes, you know. And of course if I play rock mind enough. Third

piano Concerto, it's it's a huge piece. But I played that since I was twenty two, and it's very demanding physically, but it's also very comfortable to play somehow because it's so fantastically written for the instrument. The fourth concerto, it was much less known is extremely hard for the memory, so I would my my pulse would always go up before playing that piece over four. Yeah, and I played

that a lot as well. That's always with some tension because it's much more asymmetrical and weird and sometimes like jazz improvisation, and to memorize the whole thing is is really really you know, it's tough together with the orchestra. Is there a decent stock of piano concertos from Ratmlino? Well, you've done them already. I've done them. There are the four Piano Concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody UM, and that's

wonderful stuff. Revel. You know, I have some really favorite composers that I've hardly played a note of, and Rebel is one of them. I've never played the piano concertos. I'm very little of the solo repsode, but I absolutely love listening to it. I don't know what it is I would as a pianist. I think I find more freedom and creativity in playing Debucy, you know, the other French,

great French composer. But I adore Ravel and I absolutely I mean, that's the luxury you have on your pianis you don't need to play everything because there's so much. Well listen. Thank you. I'm very grateful to your great and best of luck with the finishing your project. Okay, thanks a lot, my thanks to lafe uva honest Nous. We leave you with honest performing composer Les Checks Peace our evenings from the Piano series entitled On an Overgrown Path.

The musical selections in today's episode are presented with the kind permission of Warner Classics and Sony Classical. I'm a Mic Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio Think Coming