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How long have you been playing the piano? 

I have been playing for 36 years  – since the age of 5! But for 20 of these years my playing was very occasional.  I have only taking it up again seriously in the past 6 months.

What kind of repertoire do you enjoy playing, and listening to? 

I still tend to return to the pieces I played well as a child/teenager: Beethoven, Scarlatti and a bit of Debussy.  I have just started attempting some of the Bach Preludes and Fugues but have never formally learnt any Bach before so finding it a challenge! I love to listen to Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Debussy.

How do you make the time to practise? Do you enjoy practising? 

Practising during the week can be a struggle as I work full time and am often not home in time to be able to practise without being an anti-social neighbour! But I try to practice at least 2 evenings a week and then for a hour or more each weekend. I do love to practise as I find it incredibly therapeutic – because you have to concentrate so much there is no ‘mind space’ available to think about the day-to-day hassles and worries that too often will encroach when doing other, less taxing, activities.  And, of course, when I practise in the privacy of my own home I always play superbly!

Have you participated in any masterclasses/piano courses/festivals? What have you gained from this experience? 

As a child and teenager I would regularly perform in festivals but nothing since.  I would love to at some point – perhaps when I am a little less rusty.

If you are taking piano lessons what do you find a) most enjoyable and b) most challenging about your lessons? 

I started lessons again a few months ago although didn’t get very far with the teacher.  However I have just recently started learning with Graham Fitch who is inspirational and brilliant!  In just my first hour with him I learnt more than I have in many, many years.

Has taking piano lessons as an adult enhanced any other areas of your life? 

Immeasurably.  Life in the corporate world (which is my current day-job) can be stressful and soul-less.  Recently things have become very difficult in my particular job and, partly because of this, I have found myself returning to those things that mean the most to me, and one of these has been returning to more serious piano practice.   Being able to ‘zone-out’ and concentrate on specific musical challenges is a wonderful way of switching-off from the stresses.  It reminds me of what is truly important and who I really am!

Do you play with other musicians? If so, what are the particular pleasures and challenges of ensemble work? 

I have not done so since being at school where I would often accompany friends in their exams and also accompanied the school choir and orchestra.  All a very long time ago!

Again, when I am less rusty I would love to do so again.

Do you perform? What do you enjoy/dislike about performing? 

Not since the 1980s!

What advice would you give to other adults who are considering taking up the piano or resuming lessons?

Do it. It can be life-saving.

If you could play one piece, what would it be? 

Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.   Maybe not a very original choice!

Rebecca grew up in Southampton where she started playing piano at age 4: her father has always been a very keen amateur pianist and she learnt to read music at the same time as learning to read.   She took all my grades and passed grade 8 at the age of 14.   Soon after that, real life took over.   She had her daughter very young (she is now 25), and then went to Southampton University where she studied English Literature. Rebecca then moved to Teddington and took her PGCE at Roehampton University.   She taught English for 2 years in a secondary school before re-training in Finance.  She spent 15 years in various finance roles – including 10 at a large Education and Publishing Company where she was a Divisional CFO.  Rebecca recently left this job to sett up a piano teaching practice. She has a particular interest in teaching early-years children as well as adult beginners and returners. Rebecca lives in Teddington with her daughter, Carmen, and studies piano with Graham Fitch.

rebeccasingermanknight.com

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Grade 8 does not represent the pinnacle of learning, and for the talented student, it can, and should, act as a springboard to auditions for conservatoire and music college, or at least to a Diploma, affiliated to a music school, such as Trinity College or the Royal College of Music. Diplomas provide a useful framework for the honing and maturing of performing and teaching skills.

Anyone who thinks a diploma is a simple step up from Grade 8, think again. While it is a logical next step for a competent musician who has achieved Grade 8, a diploma, even at the lowest level, is significantly more involved, requiring a high degree of attainment, combined with a professional attitude to preparation, communication, musicality, presentation and stagecraft. The diploma itself is a professional qualification recognised by other musicians and music professionals around the world.

Trinity College of Music defines the Associate and Licentiate Diplomas as follows:

Associate (ATCL, AMusTCL)

The standard of performance is equivalent to the performance component of the first year in a full-time undergraduate course at a conservatoire or other higher education establishment.

Licentiate (LTCL, LMusTCL)

The standard of performance is equivalent to the performance component on completion of a full-time undergraduate course at a conservatoire or other higher education establishment. [Source: Trinity College London website]

The criteria and standards one is expected to meet are far higher than for Grade 8: a quick glance through the regulations for the Trinity College of Music Diplomas clearly demonstrates this:

At ATCL and at LTCL you should be able to demonstrate knowledge of the composers’ intentions, with contextual understanding of the musical material:

  • the ability to communicate all technical and artistic aspects of the music at an appropriate professional standard, employing professional etiquette in presenting the programme
  • awareness of your own musical voice in interpreting the performance objectives, drawing upon a variety of experiences in an individual performance

[Source: Diplomas in Music: Performance and Teaching from 2009, TCL]

 

There are many other requirements to be considered, and met, when taking a music Diploma, and the rigour of the exam is reflected in the expected learning outcomes and assessment objectives. For example, unlike in the grade exams, at Diploma level you select your own repertoire (either from the broad syllabus or by submitting an own-choice programme for approval). The choice of repertoire is wide, and from it you must put together a programme that demonstrates a wide variety of musical styles, moods, tempi and technical challenges. In the exam, you are assessed not only on your ability to meet the criteria listed above, but also on programme planning and balance, choice of repertoire, stagecraft, and written programme notes.

In the last five years I have taken three performance diplomas (ATCL, LTCL and FTCL) and the experience of studying for and taking these diplomas has given me some remarkable insights into aspects such as:

  • A deeper understanding of musical structure, “architecture”, harmony, narrative
  • The composer’s creative vision and individual soundworld, and how to interpret it
  • A personal and authoritative interpretative standpoint based on solid background research
  • Historical and social contexts
  • Vastly improved technical facility and general musicianship
  • An understanding of performance practice
  • Learning how to be a performer:  to project and communicate the composer’s intentions to a high level, and to perform with original creative flair
  • Drawing on one’s own personal experiences (not necessarily musical ones) in individual performances
  • Developing a mature musical and artistic personality

Music diplomas also offer the chance to study without restrictions on length of study or the requirement that one is taught in an institution. On another level, they offer the satisfaction of achieving a personal goal.

More information about Performance Diplomas:

Trinity College of Music

Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music

London College of Music

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What is your first memory of the piano?

An upright piano in the family home

Who or what inspired you to start teaching?

Abandoned the unrealistic idea of being a performer!

Who were your most memorable/significant teachers?

Henryk Mierowski, John Hunt (pupil of Schnabel) and Harold Rubens.

Who or what are the most important influences on your teaching?

Harold Rubens

What are the most exciting/challenging aspects of teaching adults?

Their wide-eyed curiosity and eagerness to learn.

What do you expect from your students?

Hard work, self-discipline and RESPECT!

What are your views on exams, festivals and competitions?

All useful in their ways but only as a means to and end and not as an end in itself (often the case)

What do you consider to be the most important concepts to impart to beginning students, and to advanced students?

Respect for the composer above all – and the constant need to examine, intellectually and physically how things are achieved.  It is years since I have taught beginners so I’m not qualified to comment on this…

What do you consider to be the best and worst aspects the job?

Best – raising the level of achievement of a moderately talented player (the best can fend for themselves). Worst – not being able to do that, also feckless, indolent students with no care for their progress or even a modest desire to please me…..

What is your favourite music to teach? To play?

Mozart A minor Rondo or Chopin 4th Ballade 

Who are your favourite pianists/pianist-teachers and why?

Old oldies – Richter above all, Gilels, Cortot. Schnabel. In the case of Richter, sound and integrity.

John Humphreys studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Harold Rubens, and in Vienna on an Austrian Government Scholarship. He made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1972 with Busoni’s rarely heard Fantasia Contrappuntistica and since then has led an active life as a teacher and performer. He has broadcast on BBC Radio3, and played throughout the UK, in Iceland, Hungary, Austria, Holland and the USA. He is a Diploma Examiner for the Associated Board and both Artistic Advisor and jury member of the Dudley International Piano Competition. His recording (with Allan Schiller) of the complete two piano music of Ferrucio Busoni was released by Naxos in December 2005 and in March 2007 they recorded major works of Schubert as part of Naxos’s ongoing complete Schubert duet series due for release in January 2008. In January 2006 he and Allan Schiller were invited by the Wigmore Hall to present a recital on the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. In 1998 he received the honorary award of ARAM from the Royal Academy of Music for his ‘distinguished contribution to music’.

www.schiller-humphreys.com

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Janina Fialkowska (picture credit: © Julien Faugère / ATMA)

Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and make it your career?  

My mother was an ambitious ‘failed’ pianist. She got me started at age four and I enjoyed it from the beginning.

Who or what are the most important influences on your playing? 

A few people to be honest; certainly Alfred Cortot to begin with as he was the teacher of not only my mother, but also my teacher in Montreal (Yvonne Hubert…who also taught Louis Lortie and Marc Andre Hamelin!!) and my teacher in Paris, Yvonne Lefebure. I was then associated first as a pupil then as an assistant to the great Russian pedagogue who taught at Juilliard in New York, Sasha Gorodnitzki. His style was light years away from the French school I had been brought up in and from him I was introduced to the rich sound of the old Russian school. The biggest influence, however, was Arthur Rubinstein…He was my idol since I first heard him when I was twelve, and I was fortunate enough to have become his last pupil and close friend during the last 7 years of his wonderful life.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far? 

Just keeping my career afloat for the past forty years or so…it doesn’t get any easier.

What are the particular challenges/excitements of working with an orchestra/ensemble? 

Naturally if there is a conductor, it is always a help if he or she is a pleasant and flexible musician with good accompanying skills and a sensitivity to my own brand of music making. If the conductor is unpleasant but a brilliant musician, this can work, but not always. If he is pleasant and a lousy conductor, this also can work because then I just make alliances with the principals in the orchestra. If the orchestra is young or just not top quality, it can be very exciting especially if the players are enthusiastic…then we are all working very hard towards a common goal and the fun is to see how far we can get. With a great orchestra it is always a pleasure, particularly if I am playing Chopin and I can impress them enough that they also get some enjoyment out of the piece (Chopin concertos have rather sparse orchestral accompaniments and sometimes the orchestra members get bored). What I have always tried to do is to give my utmost, NOT just in the performances but also in rehearsal out of respect to my colleagues sitting around me.

Which recordings are you most proud of? 

Honestly…….I really don’t listen to my recordings once they are made public. I did, however, hear my latest Mozart CD ( K415 and 449 with the Chamber Players of Canada) as someone played it to me in the car driving somewhere. It sounded okay. I like my recording of the Paderewski Concerto and the Polish radio orchestra, but that’s mainly because I love the slow movement of that piece and no one seems to want to program it in concert anywhere so one never hears it which is a shame.

Do you have a favourite concert venue? 

Manitoulan Island, in the province of Ontario, Canada – a magical place, a pleasant little auditorium and the best audience of all.

Who are your favourite musicians? 

I assume you mean musicians that are still living?

There are too many to list but I will try and remember some; I have six Canadian pianist colleagues who I adore (Hamelin, Hewitt, Parker, Chang, Lortie, Laplante) .

Outside of Canada there is Imogen Cooper, Krystian Zimerman and Radu Lupu whom I admire more than you can imagine, and of course Perahia, Barenboim, Zacharias, Ax, Argerich, Sokolov, Jeffrey Swann, and MANY others. Of the younger generation I have been most impressed by the young Germans, Alexander Schimpf and Hinrich Alpers, the Georgian, Tamar Beraia, the Frenchmen Lorenzo Soules and Francois Dumont, the Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz and the Scottish/Dutch pianist Christopher Devine.

What is your most memorable concert experience?  

My comeback recital in Irsee, Germany in 2004. It had been exactly two years to the day in exactly the same venue that I had last performed before succumbing to a cancerous tumour which paralysed my left arm. After a muscle transfer surgery I came back to play in Irsee  and it was quite emotional for me. The hall was filled with friends not only from all over Germany but also from America and the UK.

What is your favourite music to play? To listen to? 

Mozart and Chopin are my favourites to play. Probably I’d enjoy a Lieder recital the most to listen to…….I love Mozart operas and I have a passion for Wagner.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians/students? 

That the composer comes first always. That one does not become a concert pianist for the money or to become famous but simply because one loves music deeply and one has a special talent to communicate a composers wishes and dreams to the audience. That playing the piano is not a sport but a deeply spiritual, artistic endeavor. That the more knowledge one accumulates and absorbs  about not just piano music but all great music and Art, the better an artist one will become …but only after many years of experience. One cannot hurry these things. The trick is to somehow pay the bills during those long years of study and experience gathering.

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time? 

At home working in my garden.

interview date: April 2014

Beloved the world over for her exquisite pianism, Janina Fialkowska has enchanted audiences for over thirty years with her glorious lyrical sound, her sterling musicianship and her profound sense of musical integrity. Blending her vast experience with her refreshingly natural approach “Fialkowska has become an artist of rare distinction as well as retaining all the virtuosity of her youth” (La Presse, Montreal, February 13, 2009)

Celebrated for her interpretations of the classical and romantic repertoire, she is particularly distinguished as one of the great interpreters of the piano works of Chopin and Mozart. She has also won acclaim as a champion of the music of twentieth-century Polish composers, both in concert and on disc.

Read Janina’s full biography here

www.janinafialkowska.com