Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and make it your career?
There are no musicians in my family but we always had a piano at home (my mother played as a hobby pianist) and my older sister was also having lessons, so I started playing as soon as I could climb onto a piano stool. I didn’t decide to become a professional pianist until quite late – I was 16 when I was in professional environment for the first time at Chetham’s School of Music and knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Who or what were the most important influences on your musical life and career?
My most important influence in my musical life was definitely my time at the Royal College of Music. I really feel that I met many of the most important people in my life today there and that I found myself as musician, pianist and person in the seven years I studied at the RCM for.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
I think the greatest ongoing challenge for a musician is to be able to accept that each piece of music you choose to play is a life-long work. You will never be entirely content with what you have achieved at the time or when you come off stage. You always strive for something better – but in a way, it’s also the beauty of music making.
Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?
My debut album for the label KNS Classical is very exciting. I recorded a disc with two major works by Schumann (Sonata No.3 and ‘Davidsbündlertänze’) which are both very special to me.
Which particular works do you think you play best?
I can identify myself most with the German Romantic repertoire. I always felt that the music by Brahms and Schumann were very innate in me. But I also enjoy playing many works by Liszt and much of the Russian repertoire. I have been able to explore much of this with my professor and long-term mentor Dmitri Alexeev.
How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?
I tend to have long-term projects for the next few years and I usually combine these with my current interests. I always think that coherence or an inner connection of works in a recital programme is very important.
Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?
I don’t necessarily have one favourite concert hall but one of my favourites is definitely the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg. It’s a beautiful hall with a wonderful acoustic and it brings back great memories as Hamburg is the city where I spent most of my childhood.
Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?
Currently works by Schumann and Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. I always love working on every programme I choose for each season. For listening it’s perhaps slightly different – I tend not to listen to that much piano music. I mainly listen to orchestral and chamber music and operas. I do occasionally enjoy listening to Jazz as well.
Who are your favourite musicians?
Many great artists from the past have given me much inspiration over the years, it’s impossible to list all of them but there are a few that I would single out: Furtwängler, Edwin Fischer, Sofronitsky, Kempff to name a few.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
The most memorable concert I have experienced was a piano recital by Radu Lupu in Brighton where his rendition of Schubert’s Sonata in A D959 was beyond description..…
What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
First and foremost, to choose music as a career for the right reasons – one must love music to the extend that you could not live without it. Being creative, imaginative and respectful towards the music you are playing.
Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?
Having the freedom to combine concertizing, teaching and family life.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
To lead a harmonious life where I can enjoy music and family life to the full.
Caterina Grewe’s debut solo album of piano music by Robert Schumann is available now on the KNS Classical label. More information
German-Japanese Pianist Caterina Grewe, born in Tokyo in April 1988, has performed to great critical acclaim throughout the UK and continental Europe as a Steinway Artist.
A new weekend festival of chamber music in a beautiful setting by the river Thames in Twickenham
The festival, which takes place over three days, features performances by international artists including baritone Roderick Williams (who will also premiere a new work), Julian Milford, Alisdair Beatson, Thomas Carroll, Emily and Daniel Pailthorpe, and the London Conchord Ensemble, with special guests Simon Callow and James Redwood.
The opening concert showcases soloists from London Conchord Ensemble playing well-loved pieces by J S Bach, musical master of the Baroque. Featuring the Oboe d’amore Concerto and Flute Suite, with its famous dancing ‘Badinerie’, the programme culminates in the eternally popular Double Violin Concerto. All concerts take place in St Mary’s church, Twickenham, an elegant eighteenth-century church with views to the river.
The ‘Raymond Variations for Piano’ (Set: 1) by S. G. Potts are based on the Andantino themes from the Raymond Overture of 1851 by French composer Ambroise Thomas (1811 – 1896). The work received its world premiere in London on 2nd December 2015 at the 1901 Arts Club, performed by Lorraine Womack-Banning as part of a concert in memory to her late husband Raymond Banning (former professor of pianoforte at Trinity College London)
The Variations are based on the three Andantino themes which form a central part of the Raymond Overture (although the third andantino theme from the overture is in itself a variant of the second theme). There are nine piano variations in total which include a mix of both full and short partial variations (including a very short declamatory two chord introductory variation). The variations are not numbered or set-apart in a conventional manner, rather they form part of a continuous whole, and are separated only by bridge passages and/or cadence points. They have been written for the most part in an easily accessible tonal style (with a passing nod to Messrs. Beethoven and J.S. Bach). A pdf perusal copy of the score can be downloaded from the British Music Collection at: http://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/… And a more in-depth analysis of the variations can be found at: http://open.academia.edu/StephenGPotts
The recording heard here in this ‘virtual performance’ has been produced through Sibelius 7.5, in anticipation of the next live performance(s) due to be filmed and recorded later in the year. In agreement with the composer, and until September 2016, Lorraine Womack-Banning holds exclusive performance rights to the Raymond Variations, after which time the sheet music will be published and made available for wider performance.
Lorraine Womack-Banning, who premiered the work at the 1901 Arts Club in December 2015, writes about the music:
In April 2015 I received an email from Stephen Potts asking me to consider giving the premiere and making a recording of his new composition.
I agreed to consider this project and Stephen then sent me the MP3along with a couple of pages of the score to help me make my decision. I was stunned to open the title page ‘Variations for Piano on the Andantino Themes from the Raymond Overture (by Ambroise Thomas 1811-1816)’ as I had just arranged to play a Memorial Recital for my late husband the Pianist and TrinityCollege of Music Professor Raymond Banning; it seemed as if fate had sent this score especially as it transpired that Stephen had no knowledge whatsoever of Raymond nor my connection to him.
As soon as I listened to the MP3 I absolutely loved Stephen’s composition and it was agreed that I would premiere it at the Memorial Concert for Raymond at the 1901 Arts Club on December 2nd 2015, the 3rd Anniversary of Raymond’s death.
The longer I live with this work the more I love it: the openingAndantino theme is deeply romantic with little indication of turbulence to come later. I love the drive and dark energy of the Variations and the dramatic ending. It is a work of extremes and a great piece to play. I will always feel strongly connected to it.
The composer, Stephen Potts, kindly took part in the Meet the Artist interview series:
Who or what inspired you to take up composing, and pursue a career in music?
My first hearing of the Tchaikovsky 1st piano concerto when I was 14 sparked my interest in classical music, this inspired me to study music seriously, and in particular to take up composition.
Who or what were the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?
I feel I have been influenced most by the music of Beethoven and J. S. Bach more than any other composers. I admire the raw passion and strength inherent in Beethoven’s style and the contrapuntal and fugal writing inherent in Bach. On a more personal level, I was helped early in my music career by Layton Ring (former harpsichordist with the Northern Sinfonia) who helped stage my first large orchestral work (Romanza for Violin and Orchestra) and who successfully conducted a number of performances of this piece in the Newcastle Chamber Orchestra’s 1992 season.
What have been the greatest challenges/frustrations of your career so far?
The greatest challenge I usually have is in being satisfied with what I have written. I am by far my own most severe critic, this usually results in compositions taking an extremely long time to complete. Frustrations often include raising sufficient awareness of my music, which then leads to difficulties in finding performers to perform the music. I became so frustrated some 20 or so years ago at being unable to get much of my music performed and published that I gave up writing music completely; I instead concentrated on bringing up my young family and began a career in computing. In fact I have only just returned to composition some 3 or 4 years ago, and now that I am older and wiser, I don’t concern myself nearly as much about performances or publication. I am particularly less concerned with publication as there are so many other opportunities available today, especially with the avenues that have opened up thanks to digital media. It is also nice that publishing houses are not now monopolising (so much) what is delivered to an audience.
What are the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece?
The pleasures of working on a commissioned piece include: dedicated performers; a guarantee of a performance(s); and payment. Although with payments currently being so seriously low for a commissioned piece (on average within the UK only £918, Source: Sound and Music Composer Commissioning Survey Report 2015), I feel commissions are a luxury I can ill afford! However, I am fortunate enough that I do not have to rely upon commissions, this also brings with it the advantage that I can write what I choose, whenever I choose.
What are the special challenges/pleasures of working with particular musicians, singers, ensembles and orchestras?
There is the opportunity to write to an individual musician’s strengths, and you are usually ensured of a very committed performance; also the opportunity to learn from individual performers and to receive their feedback during composition can be very valuable to a dedicated composer, particularly in my case, as I am not a performer myself. Therefore I find that not being a performer, I tend to have a very good relationship with musicians performing my music, they tend to trust me to write the music and I trust them to perform it.
Of which works are you most proud?
I am proud of all the work(s) I write, otherwise I wouldn’t class them as ready for release, (I have actually shelved many more works than I have released) this due to being such a stern critic of my own work. I am very proud of the Raymond Variations for Piano (Set: 1) which I have just recently completed, but also equally as proud of the piece I am currently working on, a mixed choir setting of Longfellow’s Christmas Bells, I am particularly proud of the melody I have written for this piece and I believe it captures the essence of the season in the manner of carols from the Victorian age.
How would you characterise your compositional language?
Tonal, with occasional elements of advanced 20th and 21st century harmonies where appropriate. Uppermost in my mind when I write music is that it needs to be passionate and that I need to reach out and engage with the audience. I do not write for academics, critics, or academic/critical praise; with me it’s always the listener first and foremost. I like it if an audience can walk out of a concert whistling or humming one of my melodies, to quote Webern, I will know I am accepted as a composer if I ever hear a Postman whistling one of my melodies!
How do you work?
In many different ways, but the composition process is always very difficult for me, I think long and hard before I ever begin a piece. I have to be fully committed to the idea, and it all stems from an initial melody, motif or text; I won’t begin a piece until these aspects are clear in my mind. Tools I use are a piano for initial improvisation, and (nowadays) Sibelius software to notate and produce the score. The piano improvisation part usually comes first, (although I do often create melodies in my mind away from the piano) then I move onto notating with Sibelius, But once I have devised a theme or motif I am content with, (and this always goes through many changes) I develop that idea thoroughly in my mind and this is where the true composition process takes place. For example, once I decided that I wanted to write some variations on the Raymond overture, my mind couldn’t rest, I developed and mentally wrote the introductory variation in my kitchen while doing some cooking. But even after I have finished a piece, I invariably make changes: days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years later. I also find that if I am unable to sleep at night, that working on a piece as I am lying in bed can be very productive, it enables me to gather my musical thoughts from that day. I especially find the peace and quiet a perfect setting for creating some new snippets of music, and for developing and discarding other music that I might currently be working on.
Who are your favourite musicians/composers?
Composers: J. S. Bach, Beethoven, and Janacek from the Baroque/Classical/Romantic periods, and Carl Vine the Australian composer, and Jennifer Higdon the American composer, from contemporary music.
Some favourite musicians include, pianists Andras Schiff, and Khatia Buniatishvili, and conductor Mark Elder.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
The premiere of my ‘Romanza for Violin and Orchestra’ in 1992 at the Newcastle Gulbenkian Theatre, this was the first time I had heard one of my full orchestral works publicly performed, it was received quite favourably, and I went home that night very pleased.
What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?
This is tricky…I think one thing I would personally raise to composers is: don’t feel pressured into writing atonal music (or ‘modern’ music) simply to try to impress academics, or to develop the cause of composition, or simply to write in an accepted contemporary style. This can be done in many other different ways (in my own personal opinion) which can incorporate tonal harmony and melodic motifs. Having written in both styles, I can personally state that I find it much more difficult to write in a tonal style, but ultimately it is more rewarding. However, this is not to say that I dislike contemporary art music written in the more ‘modern’ style, there are many pieces I could list that I really do like that are written in just this style.
Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?
Seated in a nice concert hall awaiting the premiere of my 9th symphony…So I’d better get started on those other 8!
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
That’s easy, spending time in and around Southwold, and on Southwold beach with my partner Emma, then later relaxing and watching the sun go down with a nice pint of beer to hand.
What is your most treasured possession?
My late father’s watch, it reminds me just how important time really is.
What do you enjoy doing most?
Studying and learning, I particularly enjoy studying and listening to new pieces of music.
Away from music, I love to spend time with my two year old grandson Harry.
What is your present state of mind?
Hopefully it’s enough to say that I am an optimist.
Stephen G. Potts was born and lives in the North East of England. He has recently returned to composition following an almost 20 year period of absence from music. He has studied: Traditional and 20th Century Harmony; Orchestration; Advanced Composition, and holds a Master’s degree in music. Works in progress (during 2016/17) include: a mixed choir setting of H. W. Longfellow’s Christmas Bells, and Set 2 of the Raymond Variations for Piano.
Richard Goode plays Schubert’s last three piano sonatas at Royal Festival Hall, Wednesday 25th May 2016
“….the most delicate nuance, significance everywhere, the keenest expression of the particular, and finally the whole suffused with a romanticism…..And the heavenly length…..”
This quote from Schumann actually refers to Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony, but the phrase “heavenly length” is often used in relation to Schubert’s late piano sonatas. The final triptych, drafted in the spring of 1828 and completed a few months before Schubert’s death in the autumn of the same year (extant manuscripts suggest a preliminary sketch and then a full final version), are big works, each with four movements, meticulously structured with cyclic motifs running through each individual sonata and the set as a whole, revealing Schubert’s innate sense of musical geometry and bold treatment of the traditional sonata form. These are works in which one sees the entire arc of the work mapped at the very beginning, neatly concluded at the close of the finale, and it takes a particular performer to tackle both this musical architecture and the sonatas’ length.
Some pianists, and scholars, feel these sonatas can be legitimately “shortened” by omitting the exposition repeat in the first movement. In the C minor (D958) and A major (D959) sonatas, this repeat adds only c5 minutes to the length, while in the final sonata in B flat (D960) observing the repeat creates a first movement of c20 minutes, which is as long as an entire early to mid-period Beethoven sonata. Personally, I always feel somewhat cheated myself, and on behalf of the composer, if the exposition repeat is omitted in performance or on a recording. But I suspect some pianists omit the repeats because they feel the audience cannot cope with such a long programme, or perhaps because the performer wants to be out of the hall and heading home before the pubs close. This misjudges audiences’ expectations, in my opinion. Those of us who choose to hear Schubert’s last three piano sonatas in concert are prepared for a long evening – that is the great pleasure of this music when played well.
(photo: Steve Riskind)I have enjoyed Richard Goode’s recordings of Schubert’s piano sonatas and his recording of the penultimate sonata, D959, remains my benchmark. Thus I went to his concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall (part of the International Piano Series) with a great deal of excitement and anticipation, helped in no small part by the fact that I met a pianist friend there who like me is very fond of Schubert’s piano music.
Occasionally, very occasionally, I go to a concert where from the opening notes I can tell it will be a perfect evening. This year there have already been a few (Pavel Kolesnikov playing Debussy Preludes at Wigmore Hall, Steven Osborne at St John’s Smith Square, Pierre-Laurent Aimard playing Messiaen’s ‘Vingt Regards’ at Milton Court); these really are the “wow” moments of my concert-going life, performances so outstanding, exhilarating, spell-binding, magical and above all memorable, that to write a review of the event afterwards has felt like a heavy task because I could never put into words exactly why the concert was so wonderful. I deliberately chose not to review Richard Goode’s concert for Bachtrack.com (and yet here I am writing about it now) because I wanted to immerse myself in the sound, to listen to every note, every idea, every nuance, every shading and colour. I didn’t want to have to get up the next morning, with the memory of the music still resonating in my mind and imagination, and “explain” the concert in a review.
I’m not going to describe each sonata in detail – there will be other reviews no doubt for that. In fact, what follows is a series of responses to what I heard, notes I made in the programme during the concert, and thoughts shared between myself and my concert companion.
Heavenly length
Richard Goode observed all the exposition repeats, yet at no point did the sonatas feel long. Some pianists feel a need to muck around with the pulse and rhythm in Schubert in an attempt to highlight aspects such as the rapid emotional voltes faces or extraordinary harmonic shifts which colour Schubert’s music. In fact, by maintaining a clear sense of pulse and rhythmic vitality the longer first and final movements moved forward apace, yet never hurrying nor pushing the tempi, and the works actually felt short, even with all exposition repeats intact. In all three sonatas, the finales were vibrant and colourful – in the D958 the tarantella became a witty dance, in the D959 and D960 one felt Schubert’s urge to say more, so much more, that the ideas were still tumbling from his mind and pen.
Schubert’s soundworld
Goode can do Beethovenian robustness and muscularity when required (the C minor Sonata contains a number of obvious “hommages” to Beethoven, while the references are more subtle in the D959 and D960), but he has a keen sense of the ethereal qualities of Schubert’s writing too. Thus his fortes and fortissimos were rich and orchestral, never strident, while the softest end of the dynamic range was delicate yet still focused. At times the sound shone or glowed from within, thanks to Goode’s superlative clarity of tone, touch and articulation. Schubert’s magical and daring harmonic shifts were highlighted, Goode lingering over them briefly before moving on to the next one, so that they became fleeting and elusive rather than obvious.
Simple but never simplistic
There’s an awful lot of baggage, theorising and debate surrounding Schubert’s late music, in particular the extraordinary Andantino of the D959, a slow movement quite unlike anything else Schubert wrote. That Schubert was dying of syphilis and the debilitating side-effects of the cure is known and documented; likewise that he was living in a city ravaged by war and social upheaval. Whether these sonatas are his response to his illness or his social situation, or are his “last words”, a farewell, a valediction, is open to debate, but I get frustrated by pianists who try to read too much into the music and allow their interpretations to be overly psychological, clouded by the psychobabble. Goode’s approach to this music is straightforward – he gives us what is on the page but what we hear is enriched by his long association with this music and his evident understanding of it.
Some pianists take the Andantino at Adagio and turn it into a funeral dirge. Goode opted for a lilting tempo to highlight the simple melancholic folksong qualities of the opening melody. The middle section opened like a Bachian fantasy, increasingly interrupted by the frenetic trills and triplets before the full savagery was unleashed. In the slow movement of the D960, the tempo was restrained, but it never dragged. The result was a movement of extreme concentration and contemplation whose atmosphere shrank the vastness of the Royal Festival Hall to the intimacy of Schubert’s salon. Compare this to the expansiveness and breadth of the first movement which unfolded like a great river plotting its final course.
This for me was an example of how Schubert’s piano music should be played: unfussy (yet with a clear understanding of the importance of the music’s bold structures and harmonic landscape), witty, robust, melancholy, joyful, intimate and expansive. Richard Goode returns to the Festival Hall in 2017 in a programme of Beethoven – a concert I greatly look forward to.
Just to add that Goode played the entire programme from the score, with a page-turner (his wife in fact): at no point did this detract from his ability to communicate this wonderful music.
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This quote from Schumann actually refers to Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony, but the phrase “heavenly length” is often used in relation to Schubert’s late piano sonatas. The final triptych, drafted in the spring of 1828 and completed a few months before Schubert’s death in the autumn of the same year (extant manuscripts suggest a preliminary sketch and then a full final version), are big works, each with four movements, meticulously structured with cyclic motifs running through each individual sonata and the set as a whole, revealing Schubert’s innate sense of musical geometry and bold treatment of the traditional sonata form. These are works in which one sees the entire arc of the work mapped at the very beginning, neatly concluded at the close of the finale, and it takes a particular performer to tackle both this musical architecture and the sonatas’ length.
The Cross-Eyed Pianist 