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.

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