Piotr Anderszewski on interpretation

To me it’s all about how you read and translate the music you play: the most important thing is to reach the point where you feel you understand what happened in the composer’s mind before he actually wrote it. Musical notation is a very sophisticated yet imperfect system; it was the only way for the composer to communicate to us. I am of course playing as much as possible what is written in the music – that is extremely important to me. But that’s only the beginning. It needs to lead me to understand the intention, to feel the driving force, the spirit that made it all happen. It’s as if you are trying to go backwards in a time machine.

Of course its a very subjective approach. And with a work like Gesange der Fruhe, considering Schumann’s state of mind at the time, it is not a very healthy process … But what’s most important is that when you play, the music should feel as if it’s being created for the first time right here and right now. This, for me, is what interpretation is about.

– Piotr Anderszewski, Polish pianist

Jessica Duchen, “In search of Schumann”, BBC Music Magazine, May 2012, p. 28.

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

, ,

Featured Content

Mozart’s daily schedule
“…at 6 o’clock in the morning I’m already done with my hair; at 7 I’m fully dressed; – then I compose until 9 o’clock; from 9 to 1 o’clock I give lessons. – Then I Eat, unless I’m invited by someone who doesn’t eat lunch until 2 or 3 o’clock as, for instance, today and […]
Abstraction IX
Title: Abstraction IX Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Brass quintet (2 trumpets in B-flat, Horn in F, trombone, bass trombone) Product medium: PDF score and parts SAMPLE:
Quotes
QUICK LINKS: Audience reception Composers General Performance practice Performers Style Symbolism Teaching methods The creative process The experience of art The purpose of the arts Work ethic Works See also: ANECDOTES AUDIENCE RECEPTION Quick links COMPOSERS Quick links GENERAL Quick links PERFORMANCE PRACTICE Quick links PERFORMERS Quick links STYLE Quick links SYMBOLISM Quick links TEACHING […]
The key of E-flat
“[The key of E-flat] was reserved mostly for moments of sublime seriousness, appropriate for dying thoughts, or of love unto death, whether human or divine.” – Heartz, Daniel (2003) Music in European Capitols. New York: Norton. Cited in: Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, p. 144.
George Sand on Chopin’s compositional process
“His creation was spontaneous and miraculous. He found it without seeking it, without forseeing it. It came on his piano suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head during a walk when he was impatient to play it to himself. But then he began the most heart-rending labor I ever saw. It was a […]
A lock of Beethoven’s hair
Once a devoted admirer, wife of a Vienna pianist, longed for a lock of the composer’s outrageously unkempt hair, and asked a friend to get her one. At his suggestion, Beethoven, who was a practical joker of boorish capabilities, sent her a tuft from the chin of a goat. The trick was discovered, and the […]
The technique of conducting
“Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.” – Leonard Bernstein, conductor, composer and pianist. Cited at QuotationsBook.  
Sondheim’s pass times
Sondheim is a lover of games, and collects antique ones (many were destroyed in a fire that swept through the lower floors of the house in 1995). He has a passion for murder mysteries, puzzles (he once spent 18 months devising cryptic crosswords for New York magazine), word play and anagrams. His own name, he […]
Comfort in the score of Saul
In 1862 Brahms left Hamburg for Vienna. Brahms was not at all sure that he would remain long in Vienna; but he must have had some premonition that his Hamburg life was nearly over.  He found it hard to say goodbye to his old father and mother; though this time he could leave secure in […]
George Gershwin at the piano
The theatre director Rouben Mamoulian describes Gershwin’s playing: George at the piano was George happy … like a sorcerer celebrating his Sabbath.  He would draw out a lovely melody like a golden thread, then juggle it, twist it and toss it around mischievously, weave it into unexpected intricate patterns, and hurl it into a cascade […]