Generally there are no smells onstage, so I heighten my hearing and completely immerse myself in the music. When you shut down one of your senses, you heighten the others. Why do you like to close your eyes when you’re playing in concert?Īfter so many hours spent on the piano, I pretty much know where all the keys are. If you forget about the structure, then you lose the logic of the piece, and then you lose the beauty. But what makes that melody work or shine is the waltz-like left hand, which often suffers. The right hand - the melodic line - is what draws most of us to Chopin. I pay careful attention to the left hand. 2, is one the best known pieces of classical music, regularly used in film soundtracks. Any small disturbance will break the spell, but in the studio I could keep that spell for much longer.Ĭhopin’s early nocturne, Op. To keep an audience invested in a performance, that sort of slow tempo would be nearly impossible in a concert hall, where there are external factors, like hums or slight noises. Why do you play the nocturnes faster in concert than on your new recording? He brought his own piano, a Steinway D, and I trusted him. For a solo piano recording, it’s very important what instrument you’re playing on - if it is not correct, there is very little you can do. We bonded when we first met in 2013, when I replaced Martha Argerich in an Orchestra Mozart concert with the late Claudio Abbado.
I have worked with him several times, and he and I have the same vision for how a piano should sound. I didn’t get to select my piano, but I was lucky enough to be able to choose Daniel Brech, who lives in western Germany, as my piano technician. In the end, it was just a very inspirational space. And we could easily adjust the electric lights if I wanted a different ambience. Also, there is natural light, which I really appreciate. And it isn’t too cavernous, so I didn’t have the feeling I was playing for an empty hall. We could have it to ourselves there was nobody in the office there were no distractions. We chose it because it was very practical during Covid. Why did you choose to record in the Meistersaal, an early-20th-century Berlin concert hall? They were not written to be played together - they are very individual pieces - but the slight adjustments I could have made to improve the flow of the recording were not worth compromising the tradition. After I recorded the nocturnes, I did think about the order. I am also traditional in how I listen to and present music. I’m the type of person who likes sending out postcards written in fountain pen, who uses a landline phone with a rotary dial. In recordings, the complete nocturnes are usually presented in chronological order. To play them in front of people - to break that private bubble - has been the challenge. The nocturnes make me feel like I’m at home at night and I have an emotion I want to express they’re pieces I play for myself. I have been scheduling many of them in my recitals to get that experience of communicating them. They’re not technically difficult - you can approach them from an early age - but it is very difficult to make them sound good. I had dreamed of recording them for quite a while, but I knew that to do it well I would have to play them in concert first, to get the right emotion. How did you prepare for this new album of the nocturnes?
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