Category Archives: Talking heads

Matt Dunkley – Discovering new worlds

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Matt-DunkleyMatt Dunkley’s debut album as a solo artist is long overdue – because until now he has spent his time working with other people.

The list of artists for whom he has produced is an impressive one, including Massive Attack, Patti Smith, Nick Cave and the Kronos Quartet – while within the discipline of the film soundtrack, Dunkley’s principal form of work, he has worked on The Dark Knight, Inception and Black Swan. This prestigious CV only heightens the anticipation for Six Cycles, shortly to be released on Village Green and recorded with the Babelsburg Film Orchestra.

Dunkley spent some time with Arcana to talk about his past, studying with the renowned composer Christopher Palmer, and his present – while also recommending some music for us to enjoy.

Can you remember your first encounters with classical music?

MD: I can remember my first encounter very clearly. It was a junior school trip to a Saturday morning children’s concert at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, South London. The orchestra played, amongst other pieces, Tchaikovsky‘s 1812 Overture. I think it was the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, an orchestra I’ve since conducted many times. I was transfixed, particularly by the brass section – and soon afterwards I started learning the trumpet.

What are your memories of studying trumpet and piano at college? Did they push you in the direction of composing?

Music College was a wonderful experience. I was pretty focused on being a professional trumpet player back then, but I did start writing and arranging for small college ensembles. Learning the classical repertoire and having the discipline to spend long hours practising and performing day in and day out was an excellent training for my future career. After a few years as a freelance professional trumpet player, I began to move towards arranging and composing more seriously.

What did you learn from studying with Christopher Palmer?

Chris taught me everything. He was an amazing orchestrator and arranger, a brilliant producer, and a gifted writer and academic. I learnt so much from him. He had worked with Maurice Jarre and Dimitri Tiomkin in Hollywood. He was an expert on William Walton and many of the post war English composers, such as Britten, Delius and Tippett. Just looking over his shoulder and absorbing that depth of learning was inspirational for me. He taught me how to orchestrate, and he taught me how to listen. Really listen.

I remember the first recording session I attended with him. The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields were recording some Walton film music that Chris had reconstructed. After the first take (which to my ears was perfection) he went on the talkback and proceeded to rip the performance to shreds, albeit with great charm and politeness. He showed me, in that moment, how high the quality bar should be set. He wanted perfection – and on take four he got it!

Is it beneficial to conduct your own material, and does the composition process continue if you do that?

I love conducting my own material, and for this album, which I conducted in Berlin with the Babelsberg Film Orchestra, I made many small changes on the floor of the studio, making adjustments in phrasing and volume, changes in the voicing of chords, and even altering the notes of a melody at one point. When you have the orchestra playing live in front of you, you hear things that inspire you to adjust your writing, to make the living, breathing being that is an orchestra really come to life.

What do you love about writing for orchestra, and strings in particular?

The orchestra is such a wonderful instrument, capable of so many colours and moods and effects. Once you know how to harness the power of this instrument the possibilities are endless.

Strings are the basis of it all, and for this album I chose to just use a string orchestra, with piano, violin and cello solos. There is something so organic and visceral about a string orchestra. The textures, the colours, the power, the beauty.

Are there any particular circumstances behind ‘Six Cycles’? You have mentioned a painting, poetry and a personal loss, but are there specific examples?

Each one of the six ‘cycles’ was inspired by something very personal to me, but I decided to give each piece an enigmatic title as I wanted the listener to have their own emotional responses to the music, and not to be led by me. I can tell you, for example, that Cycle 6 was inspired by a beautiful love poem by Brian Patten, Simple Lyric, which means a lot to me. But the listener might feel something entirely different when hearing that piece. That’s the wonderful thing about music. It’s so subjective.

Are you composing to imaginary pictures with some of this music?

I’ve done that in the past, certainly. But for Six Cycles each piece had a very clear inspiration. I wrote these pieces separately over a two year period, whenever inspiration struck. It was only when I began to collect them together that I thought of them as one work, or cycle.

There is some very powerful writing for string orchestra here, and a subtle but constant movement of colour. Was that your aim with the music?

Thank you, and yes. I try to achieve the feeling of ebb and flow in my string writing, with the music always in motion, whether externally with climactic loud driving rhythms or internally with subtle quiet movement between the inner voices. Even the moments of stillness have shifting sands beneath the surface.

What has been your most satisfying piece of pop work to date – either in composition or musical direction?

I’ve been very lucky to work with some wonderful artists throughout my career. Working with Tom Jones (on his duets album Reload) was pretty special, as was working on albums with the Pet Shop Boys, Catatonia, Massive Attack, U2 and Badly Drawn Boy.

Who was most rewarding to work with…and if you’re able to mention names, who was least?

Well I tend to find that the most talented artists are the easiest and most rewarding to work with. Any of those mentioned above fall into that category. It’s the less talented that cause all the problems…..but I’m too discreet to name names!

What does classical music mean to you?

Classical music was my first love and it still means everything to me. I grew up in the 1970s / 80s and my older brother and younger sister were all over the pop music of the era. Classical music was mine and it still is. It’s my go-to place in good times and bad.

What piece or piece(s) for the cinema would you recommend to Arcana readers? Both obvious and less obvious would be great!

I’ve been lucky enough to work on many, many movies in my career, and I have a great love of music for the cinema. Here’s a list of some of my favourite scores – some obvious, some less so…

Víkingur Ólafsson – a true classical music entrepreneur

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vikingur-olafssonIf you wanted a definition of a classical music entrepreneur, Víkingur Ólafsson would surely fit it.

The Icelandic pianist, performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto no.2 this week with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia Orchestra, is Artistic Director both of Vinterfest in northern Sweden and of the Reykjavik Midsummer Festival. He runs a record label (Dirrindí) and has run a ten-part series with Icelandic National Broadcasting Service called Útúrdúr (Out of Tune), looking to encourage new classical music audiences through performance, interviews and demonstrations at the keyboard. He generously took some time to talk to Arcana recently about his career and aspirations.

Can you remember your first encounters with classical music?

I could say my very first encounters were when I was still in my mother’s womb, while she was completing her soloist degree from Berlin’s University for the Arts. She did a huge solo recital when six months pregnant with me! So I was close to the keyboard from the early stages. But more concretely, there are pictures of me reaching for the keyboard high above my head, before I started to speak.

What are your memories of studying piano – are there any pianists / teachers who have left a lasting influence on your career to date?

I saw the piano primarily as a toy – simply the best toy in the world – as a boy. I still do actually. I think I’ve been very fortunate that all my very good teachers maintained this sense of freedom towards music within me, which meant that I never had to be asked to practice – I just felt like playing the piano a lot.

I started listening to some of the great pianists in my early teens, mostly recordings from the 1930s and 1940s. On the one hand, classicists such as Clara Haskil and Dinu Lipatti fascinated me – I don’t know how many dozens of times I listened to Lipatti’s last recital album. On the other hand, I loved the big romantic players – the piano poets – like Benno Moiseiwitsch, Sergei Rachmaninov, Josef Hoffmann, Ignaz Friedman and Alfred Cortot, pianists from the so-called ‘golden age of the piano’. I remember listening incessantly to Friedman’s Chopin mazurka recordings, and trying to imitate them – with very little success I should add. So my early influences came from very different directions.

In my late teens and early 20s, as a student at Juilliard, I had two great piano teachers who, I now realize, could be seen as coming from these very different directions – Robert McDonald the classicist with his unbelievable sensitivity for the proportions of musical form and architecture, and Jerome Lowenthal, the freest musical spirit, master of the spontaneous.

You have performed recently with Vladimir Ashkenazy before in Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. What did you take from that experience?

It is a privilege to work with Maestro Ashkenazy. It is a special feeling to have one of history’s great pianists on the podium. I can feel that he knows every single note I play on such a deep level. He’s completely with me every second. I’ve been asked whether it is intimidating to have a great pianist like Ashkenazy conducting, but quite on the contrary it really gives me a sense of freedom.

How would you introduce Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto to a newcomer?

When I heard the Second Piano Concerto in my teens, I actually didn’t like it at first. I remember saying it was too superficial. In retrospect, I now realize how superficial I was. It is a brilliant piece of music, written by one of the most captivating personalities in music history. I feel safe to say that Liszt was the greatest pianist of all time. The way he wrote for the instrument, and the way his performances have been described by his contemporaries, the way he invented much of modern day piano technique…he’s a man I have unlimited admiration for.

Liszt lived an enormously glamorous life as a young man and was probably the most famous musician of his day, but gradually turned more towards spiritual practice and even joined a monastery for a time. And I feel the piece contains these two contrasting sides. It is a musical narrative, which seems to take place somewhere midway between the grand and glamorous salons of Paris of the 1840s and a reclusive monastery up in the French mountains. I feel it is a one man’s quest, an Ein heldenleben of sorts.

How was Vinterfest last week – and how do you see the festival evolving in the future?

It was beyond my expectations. I chose the theme ‘New Worlds’ and we explored it in various ways. One concert was called Animal Worlds, featuring music of insects, whales and birds, another looked at the First and Second Viennese schools through juxtaposing the violin and piano fantasies of Schubert and Schoenberg, then there was my John Cage prepared piano workshop, the Eight Seasons of Vivaldi and Piazzolla and lots more.

I was extremely happy to have a Boulez In Memoriam concert with Michael Barenboim playing Anthèmes 2 for violin and electronics with IRCAM sound engineers. That was such a gourmet concert to listen to – I’ve never heard more beautiful electronics. It took place in a rather awesome car company and the audience was totally into Boulez’s music – nobody complained of it being to ‘too modern’ or ‘difficult’. Which of course it isn’t.

What can we expect from Reykjavík’s Midsummer Music this year?

The theme will be ‘Wanderer’ – and we will be exploring it in Harpa Concert house with artists such as Viktoria Mullova, Kristinn Sigmundsson, Ursula Oppens, Jerome Lowenthal, Tai Murray and more. The dates are 16-19 June, and I’m already looking forward to it.

As an Artistic Director of festivals, what do you look for when you are programming such an event?

To make sure that no festival is too similar to any other festival from earlier years. I don’t want people to be able to predict my festivals. In this respect, I love to work with a closely defined theme. Even if it means 10x more work for me to make the puzzle work with all the factors that need to be taken in to consideration, it allows for each year to have its own distinct palette of colours.

You have worked closely with Philip Glass. What appeals to you about his music, and what is he like as a person?

Mr Glass is such a unique and warm person. He is extremely brilliant of course, and knows what he wants, but is also very open-minded about interpretation. He has this creative energy that is simply put astonishing. I’ll give you an example: After we had done a long day of traveling in the early morning, checking-in to a hotel, going straight to sound check, giving a performance of his complete Etudes, he took me out to a restaurant. This was in Gothenburg in early 2014, and I felt happy but a little exhausted around midnight when we were having the last toast of the evening before heading to the hotel to rest. Or so I thought.

When asking for the bill, Mr. Glass also asked for a large cup of strong black coffee (!) and I asked him how on earth he could drink that before going to bed. He gave the following response: “but Víkingur, I haven’t had any time to compose today! I always compose 5 hours a day, and will do that now in my hotel room”. He, 78 at the time, made me feel like an old man. I was 29 at the time.

Icelandic music seems to be in a very exciting place at the moment. What is it about the country that inspires so much creativity?

The creative output of my fellow countrymen is undeniably impressive and vast when considering the inhabitants on the island are only around 330,000, but there is no simple answer to this question. The island itself is a very special place with strikingly varied and beautiful natural scenery. Maybe this has an influence on the Icelandic people’s (often overblown) sense of themselves as being unique and thus wanting to express themselves creatively through a medium…

Maybe the long and dark winters and the isolation of the island have something to do with this… Maybe it’s got to do with how young we are as a cultural nation, we are not very burdened by the past. I don’t know really…

You are also performing with Viktoria Mullova and Matthew Barley in June – what will you be playing?

We will be playing Schubert’s Piano Trio no.2 and Ravel’s Piano Trio.

What does classical music mean to you?

You might as well ask: “What does nature mean to you”. It means the world to me.

What piece or piece(s) of new Icelandic music would you recommend to Arcana readers? Both obvious and less obvious would be great!

How about Daníel Bjarnason’s Piano Concerto No 2 ‘Processions’ which he wrote for me in 2009, with its first two movements written in the grand tradition of heroic concertos before the third movement concludes the work with something close to techno music…

As a nice compliment from a very different direction, check out Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s album Aerial, out on Deutsche Grammophon. You will find both on iTunes and Spotify.

Víkingur Ólafsson plays Liszt’s Piano Concerto no.2 with the Philharmonia, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy, at Symphony Hall, Birmingham on Tuesday 1 March. For tickets click here

You can find out more about the Midsummer Music festival in Reykjavik here, while you can also discover Vinterfest here

Life, the Universe and Music – a conversation with Vasily Petrenko

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vasily-petrenko
Photo (c) Mark McNulty

Richard Whitehouse talks to conductor Vasily Petrenko about the music of Enescu and Scriabin, his work with two orchestras who have flourished under his direction (the Oslo Philharmonic and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic) and not confusing your Petrenkos!

Chatting with Vasily Petrenko is precisely that: an informal exchange of ideas and anecdotes with none of the potential divisions between interviewee and interviewer. Not that this in any way belies his commitment as a conductor, having brought the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to the 15th Enescu Festival in Bucharest (they first appeared here four years ago) for two of this event’s most ambitious concerts – the second of which featured the Romanian composer’s lavish and hugely demanding Third Symphony (given its London premiere only last February). Was this a work Petrenko had conducted previously?

“No, and I can’t wait to hear how it comes together this evening [for the record, it was an undoubted highlight of the festival]. Enescu still suffers from being thought of as a composer of folk-inspired music, but there’s far more to his thinking. The Third Symphony is an important stage in the evolution of the genre after Mahler, and only really makes its mark in a large venue such as the Grand Palace here in Bucharest. I doubt whether it could ever become a repertoire piece, yet much the same was said of Mahler’s symphonies up until the 1960s so you can never be sure.”

Hopefully Petrenko will soon bring his other orchestra to the Enescu Festival – the Oslo Philharmonic, of which he has been Chief Conductor since 2013. Having appeared at the Edinburgh Festival last month, and with a UK tour next March, theirs is building into an equally auspicious partnership – underlined by the imminent appearance of Scriabin’s First and Fourth Symphonies on the LAWO Classics label. Although no longer the cult figure he once was, Scriabin is still viewed with a degree of suspicion and his abilities as a symphonist treated with some scepticism.

lawo‘

“I think there are several reasons for this, not least his premature death in 1915 and the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution three years later which meant that Russian music took a very different route from that on which Scriabin was headed. Clearly the piano music – the sonatas in particular – has become part of the twentieth-century repertoire, and I feel that the five symphonies are due the same recognition. You have to remember, too, that Scriabin’s evolution came at a time of immense ferment across all the arts – not least music; indeed, I tend to feel that the history of music from the Renaissance onwards is one of an increasing acceleration, so the early twentieth century was a real explosion of possible ways forward. Only now, perhaps, can we view this era more objectively and get a balanced overview of what was achieved. When this happens, I’m sure that Scriabin’s symphonies will be seen as crucial to their time.”

Was it fortuitous that The Poem of Ecstasy was being designated on this new disc as Symphony no.4? “Not at all, and you can be sure that Prometheus – The Poem of Fire will be given as Symphony no.5 when we record it. Scriabin himself had no doubt these pieces followed on chronologically from his previous symphonies and it’s not difficult to hear why. I think what we might call ‘extra-musical’ factors have tended to draw attention away from their musical content – the formal rigour and especially the thematic economy of which the composer was capable by then.”

Petrenko’s commitment to the Scriabin cause is such that he is keen to perform and, if possible, record Preparation for the Final Mystery that the composer had envisaged prior to his death, and which was realized over the course of three decades by musicologist Alexander Nemtin. “I imagine that the precise nature of Scriabin’s Mysterium [a week-long synaesthetic ‘happening’ in the foothills of the Himalayas, intended to bring about the purification of the human race] can never be known, and maybe even the composer wasn’t too sure beyond the overall concept. Yet the ‘Preparation’ as Nemtin has realized it is more than an indulgence: I feel it stands up as a musical statement in its own right, and would be a great way to crown our work with Scriabin. I’ve little doubt, too, it would come across much more effectively in Oslo’s Konserthus than some remote performance space in the Himalayas!”

Mention of the Konserthus is a reminder that the orchestra finally looks set for a new concert hall – to be situated on the waterfront at Filipstad, with the Oslo Philharmonic as the principal tenant and the project to be financed in conjunction with the building of a congress hotel on the adjacent site. Petrenko remains optimistic, albeit cautiously so, concerning future developments.

“Thirty years on from the initial proposals, and this looks like becoming a reality. Of course, there will always be those who say such a project is taking up resources that could be better used elsewhere, but if you consider the positive impact this is likely to have in terms of infrastructure and employment, then there can be little doubt why it should get the go-ahead. I very much hope it will come about during my tenure with the orchestra.”

Indeed, there seems no reason why Petrenko’s four-year contract in Oslo should not be extended before long. In Liverpool, meanwhile, he has an open-ended contract which only requires him to give three years advance notice of when he wishes it to be concluded.

“This is ideal in that it enables us to plan ahead, with more than enough time in hand when either of us feels the need to move on. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved together so far [not least cycles of Rachmaninov symphonies for Warner and Shostakovich symphonies for Naxos], and there’s no reason why it should end when we’re able to put on concerts such as those at this year’s Enescu Festival. That said, I was more than a little surprised when I received congratulatory emails and tweets about taking on the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra from 2018 [actually the conductor Kirill Petrenko]. It’s great to be popular, but some people had evidently confused their Petrenkos!”

Stephen Kovacevich – a truly great pianist

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Steven Kovacevich Photo: David Thompson/EMI Classics

If you were asked to name some of the world’s greatest living classical pianists, the chances are it would not be long at all until you got to the name Stephen Kovacevich.

Kovacevich has just reached the age of 75, but despite some recent health problems it is clear when Arcana has the privilege of meeting him that he is in good physical, mental and musical shape. He is the perfect host, too, pouring coffee as we prepare to discuss aspects of his career to this point, based around the recent issue of a handsome box set with the collected recordings he has made for Philips. These include legendary performances of Bartók, Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms – all of which he will discuss over the course of the next half hour.

kovacevich-philips

To begin with, however, it’s back to the start. What are his earliest memories of playing the piano? “I can’t remember the very first one”, he considers, “but I know that it was in San Pedro, about an hour and a half south of Los Angeles. My grandmother had an upright piano, and I probably tinkered with that but I just remember that it was there. I don’t remember much. Then I had at around the age of seven the local piano teacher, who was OK, then I had lessons with a very good teacher in San Francisco where my family moved to Berkeley. I remember thinking that I wasn’t very good, because I found it difficult at the age of eight or nine, but by the age of eleven I was playing quite well. I gave quite a good concert then, and looking back I probably wouldn’t be ashamed of it today – or maybe I would be! Then I studied in San Francisco until I came here to work with Myra Hess, a great artist.”

myra-hess
Myra Hess

“She was a profound artist”, he says of his teacher, “and I had a choice of going to Juilliard, with a scholarship at the college there, or coming to London. I chose London because of the repertoire, and Myra Hess’s repertoire interested me more. Juilliard is so competitive.”
What were the lasting things he learned from study with her? ““I was 18 or 19”, he recalls, “and I could play well, but I think it was rather monotonous in terms of variation of sound. I remember the first lesson was on the Brahms Variations on a theme of Handel.

The theme, which can be sight read, we worked 45 minutes just on that, trying to get a ‘trumpet sound’ that was perfect, a sound that was ‘dolce’. Just working on that started to provoke other areas of your imagination. She was a great teacher, with repertoire that interested me at that time. I hadn’t liked Beethoven very much until I heard her play it, and she really understood late period Beethoven. I was privileged and benefited greatly from that, because genuinely – if immodestly – it was the only music I was interested in.”

I mention to Stephen how I have been listening recently to his recording of Bartók’s Piano Concerto no.2, made with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra for Philips:

“It’s one of the best I ever did!” he says emphatically. “Everything I could do musically, mechanistically, emotionally, is there, and I was lucky because when I first heard the piece I then went and bought the score. I’m not being coy, but I just didn’t think I could play it! I dropped in on Colin Davis and I wasn’t fishing but I simply said, “Colin, I’ve heard this incredible piece but I think it’s beyond my abilities”. He was in charge at the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the time, and he asked me to play it at a Prom nine months later.”

“I knew if I couldn’t do it that I could always cancel, but that I would never forgive myself for not trying! I had never played anything so difficult – and actually there isn’t anything more difficult! It was the making of me – in some ways a bit too much, because I developed muscles, and a sound which was on the cusp sometimes of being too …but I had it in my repertoire. It made a lot of things possible, but also psychologically, if you can play the third Rachmaninov concerto, the second Bartók, the second Brahms maybe, the Beethoven Hammerklavier Sonata, if you can do these things it gives you a certain pride. The Chopin Études, I can’t play them properly but I can play them alright. But Bartok’s Second I can play. So that gave me some confidence. It’s a frightening piece, you know!”

Kovacevich goes on to reminisce about his early experiences with the concerto. “The first performance I gave was at the Proms, and a very distinguished composer who learned with Myra Hess, he turned the pages for me. In the middle of the second movement he got lost, and just sat down! Thank God the passage is so difficult that I had memorised it. He just sat down and gave up, and this was a live Prom!”

And what about that recording session? Just listening to the results, the listener gets an idea of the sheer adrenalin generated by the performance. “Colin and I had performed it ten times – in New York, and on tour with the Scottish National Orchestra, and in several performances with the BBC. I knew the recording went well because the first performance at the Proms was OK but nothing special. Then the next performance I stopped in the studio recording, but the performance after that was the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival, a live broadcast. I was so terrified I couldn’t even do the BBC balance test. Can you believe it?! They did it cold. There is a passage which I had missed before and two of my friends, very famous and wonderful young players, they embraced each other when it was coming up, and I got through it! And when I did I went completely nuts and really played out of my skull. So I knew if I could survive a concert then I could do a recording. I just went for it, and I remember Colin knew it very well by then too, we knew how we did it together, so we did not have any problems. I think it took three sessions. One session we concentrated on the sound but then we did two and a half sessions on it.”

What was it about Stephen’s relationship with Sir Colin that worked so well? “Well it stopped, but when it worked I can only say there was similar passion and energy, and in those a similar sense of tempo. He then became more spacious, so it didn’t work because I didn’t do that – and both are perfectly valid journeys. At that time he was a firebrand, with the Beethovens and the Brahms and the Bartók. I think he loved the first and third, and that’s appropriate. At the time he was doing the Rite of Spring but interestingly enough he stopped becoming interested in doing it. I had to trust him on it but I didn’t understand it. I think he turned away from that kind of wild stuff. I never heard anyone conduct Berlioz the way he did; I heard two staged performances of The Trojans – just marvellous. Why he stopped, I don’t know, but it did. Thankfully we did more Mozart piano concertos, Schumann, Grieg, Bartók and both Brahms, Stravinsky and all the Beethovens.”

One of Kovacevich’s favourite stories is of his recording with Martha Argerich of Bartók’s Sonata for two pianos and percussion. One of the pianos had been dropped, and was unplayable – but somehow they found a replacement so that recording could take place at an unearthly hour. Was that the right time to record it after all?! “I think the second movement is definitely a late night piece”, he agrees, “but the rest is so difficult – almost as difficult as the Second Piano Concerto. Again it’s a piece of savagery. The first movement, if that’s not an onslaught I don’t know what is! As you know the piano was dropped, and they tried to say that nothing had happened, and then at about 8 at night they were trying to find another piano for the session. Steinway was closed, I don’t know how they found it, but at about two in the morning another piano arrived, and that’s when Martha starts working. I was gaga at that stage but the adrenalin kicked in, and we finished probably around 6:30 or 7:00. If you had said I was going to be recording at 2:30 then of course I wouldn’t have accepted it, but there was nothing else we could do!”

Kovacevich will give a concert at the Wigmore Hall in honour of his birthday, taking place on Monday 2 November. The first half consists of Debussy’s En blanc et noir and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, both with Argerich at the second piano. When did he last play these pieces? “I last played the Debussy with Martha at her festival in Lugano, about two months ago, so that is in our fingers.

The Rachmaninov is the first time I’ve ever played it, and I just came back from Brussels two or three days ago where we rehearsed. I think our rehearsing is done. My new love is Rachmaninov. I’ve always loved him but now I think I’ve completely fallen for him!” Is that in a sense that makes him want to play his music? “Yes. I’d like to learn some of the solo music, but it’s no joke at my age to learn this type of repertoire, especially when it’s not the kind of repertoire that is my home territory. Now my favourite Rachmaninov concerto is the second. I can’t play it, but I have a few months where I don’t have a concert. I have to learn the Bartók Second Violin Sonata, and I will try and do the Second Piano Concerto or some of the shorter pieces.”

Clearly he still has a keen spirit of discovery, and I ask what it is about Bartók that particularly appeals to him? “The rage, because you feel much of the music – rather similar to Beethoven – has protest, anger, rage at the brutality and suffering that people go through. When you feel it is not just an individual thing, but society is doing it – like the Second World War which was going on – that’s a feeling of oppression. I think he captures that sense of rage and I think Beethoven is the only one to my mind who does it in the same way. Stravinsky’s rage in The Rite of Spring is ferocious, but you don’t feel it is a negative piece. Whereas Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, the String Quartets, the Piano Concerto no.2, the Out of Doors suite – the music of the night and The Chase especially. The Chase (the last movement of Out of Doors) is about one animal chasing another, with a chomp at the end! That’s it, but it is not music for Blue Peter!”

I note that when listening to the Out of Doors Suite, it seems Bartók finds parts of the piano that no one else seems to find. Kovacevich nods. “The piano writing is magnificent, and the music of the night – Ravel or Debussy did not write more exquisite music and super sensitive sonorities, but the music of the night in the second piano concerto, that’s a dark atmosphere, and the chase is frightening.”

This is perhaps why some see Bartók’s music as containing roots of rock, and I suggest it may be why his music has been used in horror films. Stephen agrees, but has more to add. “Another fact that isn’t known about him, which I have read, is that he had the feeling of an isolated person. When he was very young he had a skin disease that was so unpleasant to observe that at that age, only his mother could touch him. It cleared up, and he had beautiful skin after, but there was a feeling that he was probably physically isolated. I’m guessing but I think it stayed with him.”

A love of dance also stayed with Bartók in his music. “Absolutely. You take the Mazurkas of Chopin, you push it a bit further and you get some of the dance rhythms in Bartók. Also a composer who is surprisingly dark sometimes in his dances, but where nobody plays them, is Grieg. He is not the boy next door! I love Grieg. He wrote so little, but Peer Gynt is wonderful. It is also terrifying, and I find Anitra’s Dance scares me! There is a shadow there.”

The Philips set includes Kovacevich’s recordings of the late Brahms piano works, providing a nice contrast to the concertos:

Does he find now that at the age of 75 he appreciates composer’s late works more than he used to? “No, I don’t think so. I have always had a weakness for composers’ third period works. Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms as well. I was always intrigued, so I don’t think about that.” Can it go the other way, to exploring composers’ young works? “I enjoy early Beethoven much more now than I did in my twenties, for sure. But the late stuff, there is something about the third periods which is different.”

At the moment Schubert appears to be the one with whom he feels the strongest connection – and his last Piano Sonata, the famous B flat major work numbered as D960:

“This work means a lot to me and to many, many people,” he says. “In the late Beethoven sonatas, in Op.110 the aria speaks so personally about late thoughts, and I think that the B flat sonata in the slow movement is in that area. The sonata before has this amazing outburst in the slow movement, and where does that come from? If you just played that passage, you would never know it was Schubert! It could be Liszt, Rachmaninov, Musorgsky, but never would you think it was Schubert. And where does it come from? Woody Allen, in his film Crimes and Misdemeanors, in the murder scene, he chooses that String Quartet of Schubert with the eerie tremolos at the beginning, they are like a slap in the face. Woody Allen, who knows music upside down, chooses Schubert for moments when the centre does not hold:

Does it feel with the Schubert piano music that he is playing songs sometimes? “I wouldn’t say so. Maybe with some of the Impromptus, but I think when he writes piano sonatas it’s not just melody with accompaniment, there are more ingredients than that.” I comment how in late Schubert it feels like time has stopped sometimes. “Well the late String Quintet is a good example of that, but it is inexplicable. I mean, I love it but I have no idea what it’s all about! There is something there, where the imagination is supercharged from him. And also the lyricism, it defies analysis, you don’t know why it is so beautiful – it just is.”

Given the story of the Bartók session above, I wonder if he has any other unusual stories of recording sessions or performances? “I was doing a Prom once, where I was playing the world premiere of the Piano Concerto by Richard Rodney Bennett, and they had forgotten to lock the wheels of the piano! It was a live broadcast, and as I played the piano started to move away from me, and it went straight into the cello section! So these guys were playing cello and they saw this massive beast heading towards them. The piece begins quite quietly and there is about a ten second break just after you start, so in those ten seconds I reached into the piano, pulled it back to me.

Of course the audience laughed, and this time it didn’t move. That was quite scary! Yet even as I was bowing, the phone rang backstage and the Beeb said, “It’s the Daily Express. Did your piano start to go into the cello section?!” Unlike me I just calmly pulled the piano back. And of course the audience loved it.”

Kovacevich has conducted more recently, and enjoyed a series with the London Mozart Players at the Cadogan Hall, performing all the composer’s symphonies and piano concertos. Did it give him extra insight into the music in any way? “Not into the music, but with conducting it is different to the piano. No matter how anxious you might be you don’t have to play the notes, so when you’re on stage conducting, and you know the piece very well, you can actually concentrate on the music, to a degree more than when you are playing. So I was walking on stage and looking forward to the concert. The first time I performed the Ninth Symphony I was looking forward to it! The first time I played the Emperor Concerto I wasn’t looking forward to it!”

“I loved conducting”, he says. “I’ve conducted the Beethoven Symphonies, the Brahms, Sibelius‘ Fourth, the Tchaikovsky Pathétique. I wanted to do those pieces. I’ve lost interest, I don’t know why exactly – I think because when I am conducting I have to concentrate so much that part of my concentration is actually on playing the piano. I have done all the Beethoven concertos from the keyboard, and I find it easier to play them when I’m conducting too – I think the Emperor paradoxically is easier to play! The Fourth is harder to coordinate, as it has more flexibility, and when we performed we placed the piano in the middle of the orchestra so that the winds and I could hear each other. I loved doing those concerts at the Cadogan Hall where we did the concertos and symphonies.”

What role has music played in Stephen’s life outside of performing? “It has been a source of consolation, which is one of the things that music is for. Late Beethoven when I was younger was a source of consolation. I remember being very blue and Wagner‘s Die Meistersinger getting me out of it night after night. Also Brahms – it’s like someone consoling you.”

And does he listen to any music besides classical? “I like the ‘black jazz’ from America in the 1930s and 1940s and I love the American musicals, I think they are phenomenal. I love Gershwin, I think he’s phenomenal, and he has a lyrical gift which is fabulous, really inspiring. The fact he and Schoenberg used to play tennis in Los Angeles – can you imagine?!”

Talk turns to audiences, and more specifically how classical music could boost its own. “How often, especially in the days when I dressed in tails to go to a concert – you would get into a taxi and the driver would say what you are doing? I would say I’m playing a concert – do you ever go? “No”, would be the response. Do you enjoy it? “Yes”. Why don’t you go? I don’t know how many times but the response is “I’m embarrassed – I wouldn’t know how to behave”. I know the same thing. I would love to go more jazz, but I’m shy to go to a jazz club because I think I would not know how to behave. The feeling of sticking out – if classical music could get rid of that it would be good. It’s an uphill battle.”

Does he think classical music can portray itself as being slightly removed? “I would think only a small percentage of musicians would want to exclude anybody. This whole idea of clapping between the movements, I find it fine – but some people are horrified by it, and I think that’s ridiculous.” So is it less the musicians but more the audiences? “You could say it destroys continuity, but Mozart and Beethoven had plenty of breaks between movements. I think most musicians would welcome it. I don’t stand up when it happens but I acknowledge it with a nod of the head and a smile, for sure. When I was young I went to some Indian concerts with Ravi Shankar, and during the concert people were shouting but not loudly. I asked for the translation and they were saying, “to this there is no answer”. That is such a wonderful response to a turn of phrase!”

The Complete Philips Recordings by Stephen Kovacevich is out now as a box set – and is available to buy from the Universal music store here

Proms Interview: Tansy Davies – Re-greening

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Tansy Davies Photography by Rikard Österlund

For the annual appearance of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at the BBC Proms, listeners will be treated to a performance of Mahler’s farewell to life, the Symphony no.9.

Prior to this, however, they will hear a new piece of music all about bringing new life to proceedings. Re-greening was written by composer Tansy Davies as a complementary piece to the Mahler, and in a short notice and generously arranged interview with Arcana the composer gave a guide to her new work and her Proms history:

Do you remember your first encounter with the Proms?

I must have been aged around 15. I just turned up with a couple of friends, not having planned or looked at what was on. We prommed of course, and I know that the programme included Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. The atmosphere was palpable, and I loved every second.

What was your first Prom as a composer?

In 2010, when I wrote Wild Card for the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Have you written for the National Youth Orchestra before?

No.

Where did the idea for Re-Greening come from?

The concept emerged out of a collaboration between the NYO, Sir Mark Elder and myself. It’s a celebration of youthful exuberance and Spring. The commission brief, which was flexible, included the following ideals: references to old English melodies, singing in the orchestra, no conductor, and the orchestra would consist of upwards of 165 musicians. And it should create a feeling of freedom within the orchestra, before Mark Elder enters the stage as the voice of experience, to lead them through Mahler 9.

Did you have a particular location in mind when writing it?

I see the piece as being rather like a journey around a forest. The place I was thinking of is Earth (Re-greening the Earth…); and an old English forest.

What is it about an old English forest that you have represented in the piece, or were you looking to capture the overall atmosphere more?

That was really just part of my inspiration; drawing on ideas about reaching back to our roots as humans with a deep connection with nature (the structure is loosely based on a shamanic wheel of the year). But I think the way the music is layered to me suggests a forest like quality; interweaving arpeggio-type figures bubbling or erupting up from the cold earth in winter, and scales or lines reaching up to the light.

As you are writing a piece to complement Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, was it important to write a piece with a lot of opposite elements?

It was important to find something unique, performable and right for the group and the occasion, within the given constraints.

What do you like about Mahler as a composer?

The epic film-like quality of his vision.

How do you portray the colour ‘green’ in classical music?

That’s not something I’ve tried to do, although green is the colour of the heart-chakra, and my music mostly comes out of this part of me.

Neon for chamber ensemble of 7 players

Is it fair to say that through your career as a published composer you have tended to work with smaller ensembles, working gradually up to orchestral composition?

No – I think it has been more haphazard than that! It’s true that I wrote for smaller groups in most of my early music, but I’ve actually written quite a lot of orchestral music over the years. You can include chamber orchestra music in that, and my Requiem As with Voices and with Tears, which is for chorus, string orchestra and electronics.

Were you pleased with the production of your opera Between Worlds, and the reception it got?

Over the moon!

Tansy Davies and Deborah Warner talk about their operatic collaboration, Between Worlds, staged at the Barbican Centre recently

What else are you working on at the moment?

My next piece is for symphony orchestra, I’m very excited about it, but I can’t say any more just yet. I’m thrilled to have had so many opportunities to write for orchestra; I never planned it that way, but I absolutely love getting a feel for how to work with the medium.

If you could see one other Prom this season, which one would it be?

There are many and some wonderful things that I sadly can’t get to. But I hope to attend the BBC Scottish Symphony playing Sibelius and Michael Finnissy (16 Aug), and then Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia in Bartók and Shostakovich (24 Aug). After that I am also attending the next two Proms – the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner (Prom 54, Nielsen Flute Concerto and Janáček Sinfonietta) and the SWR Symphony Orchestra with François-Xavier Roth (Prom 55, Bartók Concerto for Orchestra and Boulez …explosante fixe…

Tansy Davies’ Re-greening will be performed at the Proms by the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain under their conductor Sir Mark Elder, on 8 August 2015. For more information about the composer head to her website, where you can hear http://www.tansydavies.com/works/ excerpts from her catalogue of works.