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

My mother taught me to read prior to kindergarten. The nuns at St. Athanasius considered this a problem, as i would be bored and get into trouble. they offered piano or French lessons at $15 a week as an ultimatum. I remember my first piano lesson, and reading music made immediate sense; a connection was made and i never looked back.

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

I most admire some of the greats from the past: Rachmaninoff, Schnabel, Gould. i am also inspired by string instruments in their capacity for true expression. with that in mind, i presently gain most inspiration from the kids who play on From the Top, and my colleague, Matt Haimovitz.

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

Dealing with adverse reactions to my crossing genre lines in my choice of repertoire, mostly from Neanderthals of the Classical music industry.

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

Knowing when to lead and when to follow, reacting and interacting in the moment.

Which recordings are you most proud of?

My upcoming Liszt recording of the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique and other Liszt arrangements; my Stravinsky record; both of my Radiohead CDs.

Do you have a favourite concert venue?

Hard to choose, but Mechanics Hall in Worcester is a great recording venue, ditto the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Upper Manhattan; Meyerson Hall in Dallas.

Who are your favourite musicians?

Nicolaus Harnoncourt, Jordi Savall, Sir James Galway, Bernard Herrmann, Danny Elfman, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, Matt Haimovitz

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Listening: my teacher, Russell Sherman in numerous recitals
Performing: collaborating with Matt, Sir James

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

Rachmaninoff and Ravel are two favourites to perform, also Shostakovich.
I listen to The Bad Plus, Bill Evans, Elliott Smith

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

That one’s own creation of the present moment in music is most important, not submitting to some foregone conclusion as to what’s appropriate.

What are you working on at the moment?

Goldberg Variations, Rachmaninoff Concerto #1

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

Costa Rica

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Spending all day with my cats

What is your most treasured possession?

Elliott, my Tonkinese cat

What do you enjoy doing most?

Reading

Christopher O’Riley appears with Lara Downes in The Artist Sessions on 29th May, at the historic Yoshi’s SF, with a performance of his new Oxingale Records BluRay/CD O’Riley’s Liszt.

Christopher O’Riley is an American classical pianist and public radio show host. He is the host of the weekly National Public Radio program From the Top. O’Riley is also known for his piano arrangements of songs by alternative artists, including alternative rock band Radiohead.

Christopher O’Riley studied with Russell Sherman at the New England Conservatory of Music. Christopher O’Riley splits his time between Los Angeles and rural Ohio. His radio and tv show can be found on-line at www.fromthetop.org. His personal website (including a full biography) is at www.christopheroriley.com.

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I purchased my ticket to hear Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski almost a year ago, to avoid disappointment: he is a pianist I’ve long wanted to hear live, in particular after seeing ‘Unquiet Traveller’, the wonderful and quirky film about him by Bruno Monsaingeon. In it, Anderszewski revealed himself to be a sensitive, thoughtful and original musician, and his comments about the need to “sing to Mozart” struck a special chord (forgive the pun!) with me as I was, at the time of seeing the film, involved the final work on Mozart’s Rondo in A minor K511 for my diploma, a work full of arias and operatic statements, with an opening melody that looks forward to Chopin at his most intimate.

Anderszewski is a famously perfectionist musician (he walked off the stage during the semi-finals of the Leeds Piano Competition in 1990 because he wasn’t happy with his playing) and is one of the few musicians I’ve encountered in interview to talk openly about performance anxiety and the loneliness of the concert pianist (more here). But there was no sense of a precious personality at work when he strode onto the stage at Queen Elizabeth Hall on Thursday night, to a full house, and launched into a sprightly and colourful ‘Allemande’ of Bach’s French Suite No. 5, its melody streaming forth. Bach’s French Suites are more intimate than the English Suites, and Anderszewski offered a persuasive and thoughtful account, particularly in the exquisitely measured Sarabande and the stately Loure. The faster movements were dancing, witty and playful.

Despite being called English Suites, there is nothing especially English about them: they are essentially French in the dances featured in them, and are ‘player’s music’ rather than concert pieces. Anderszewski brought the grandiose opening ‘Prelude’ to life with a strong sense of the orchestral textures and fugal elements, and the following movements were elegantly presented. It was in the ‘Sarabande’, a movement which fully exploits the dark hues and gravity of G minor, that Anderszewski’s exquisite control, sensitivity and beauty of sound really came to the fore. He is also unafraid of exploiting the possibilities of the modern piano to the full, including the use of the pedal to create rich, warm sounds and shimmering pools of colour, and to highlight the melodic aspects of the movements. A marked contrast to the rather more mannered, traditional interpretations of Bach’s keyboard music.

After the interval, the less well-known Book 2 of Janacek’s On An Overgrown Path, a suite in five movements written at a time when the composer was coming to terms with the untimely death of his daughter Olga. These intensely introspective movements are emotionally searing and highly personal, imbued with references to Moravian folk music and harmonic fragments akin to Debussy’s soundworld.

It was in these pieces that Anderszewski’s ability to move from the most delicately nuanced pianissimos to rich, full fortes was most evident, and the subtleties and shifting moods of these poignant works were highlighted with great sensitivity and insight.

If we were wondering whether Anderszewski could also offer passion and sweeping virtuosity, without compromising his beautiful quality of sound, we were left in no doubt after his performance of Schumann’s Fantasie in C Major, Op 17, a work the composer described as “a profound lament” for his wife, Clara. It was a grandiose, declamatory and heartfelt close to a superb evening of piano playing of the highest order.

After several curtain calls, Anderszewski returned the piano and announced he would play the French Suite again. The audience laughed, a little uncertainly, perhaps not sure that he meant this, but by the time he reached the Sarabande, it was quite obvious he intended to complete the entire suite. It is rare to be given such a generous encore: indeed, I could have happily listened to Piotr Anderszewski playing Bach all night, such was the allure of his sound, understanding and musical sensitivity.

Piotr Anderszewki – Unquiet Traveller. More about the film by Bruno Monsaingeon here

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This week I had the very interesting and unique experience of meeting and playing some rather special pianos which reside at Hatchlands Park, near Guildford, home of the Cobbe Collection of keyboard instruments. The collection includes not just pianos (including a number with very famous and unusual connections, autographs and provenance), but also harpsichords, spinets and organs.

The collection was assembled over forty years by Alec Cobbe with the intention of bringing together instruments by makers who were highly regarded or patronised by composers, and eighteen of the instruments were actually owned or played by some of the greatest classical composers, including Purcell, J C Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Bizet, Mahler and Elgar. In 2007 it was revealed that the 1846 Pleyel in the collection was a piano which Chopin had had shipped to England for his concerts here in 1848 (more on this remarkable story here). The piano had been in Alec Cobbe’s collection for twenty years before this discovery about its history and use was made.

Chopin is said to have favoured the French-made Pleyel, praising it for its sound and describing the piano as “the last word in perfection”. I heard the famous Pleyel being played in a recital of music by Chopin at Hatchlands in July 2007, not long after its back story was revealed, (Nocturnes Op 55 and Piano Sonata in B minor) and talking to the pianist afterwards piqued my interest in the instrument, in particular the pianist’s comments about controlling the dynamic range of the instrument.

While I’m not, in general, a big fan of “period instruments”, there are good reasons for experiencing Chopin’s music on the make and era of piano he would have favoured, and for both listener and pianist it highlights several interesting aspects of his piano music which are sometimes overlooked when playing it on a modern piano. In particular, he is said to have favoured the softer, more mellow sound of the Pleyel (over the other great French piano maker, Erard). As the late Charles Rosen observed: “what interested him were subtle gradations of color, inflections of phrasing, and it was what he expected from performers.” (source: The Chopin Touch by Charles Rosen, New York Review of Books). Chopin observed that each finger had a particular characteristic and quality of touch and, therefore, sound: for example, delicate passages were played with the weakest fingers (fourth and fifth), while passages requiring a cantabile melodic line employed the strongest fingers, often one finger alone. This runs counter to the received piano pedagogy of the day – that all the fingers were equal.

In my study of a handful of the Études, Nocturnes, Waltzes and Mazurkas, and the first Ballade with my current teacher we have often discussed the issue of touch and sound quality. Also, the assertion from many of Chopin’s contemporaries and students who heard him play that his dynamic range never rose above mezzo forte, even in passages marked forte. This led me to develop a sense of “warming up the sound” rather than deliberately increasing the volume of sound: this also enables one to retain a beautiful sound, even when playing more loudly. Obviously, one cannot hope to replicate exactly the sounds and textures Chopin himself achieved, but it is possible to employ the techniques he used and taught (absolute suppleness and flexibility of hand and arm, for example, a sense of “ease” at all times).

When we hear Chopin’s music performed on a modern, concert grand piano, we sometimes forget about the subtle shadings, nuances and colours that are possible in his music – and which he probably insisted from his students (and himself when he played). And because, more often than not, we hear Chopin’s music performed in quite large venues, we may also forget that much of his output was of “miniatures” – intimate, interior pieces to be enjoyed at home or in the salon, rather than the concert hall.

The 1846 Pleyel in the Cobbe Collection is not a big piano. It is the kind of instrument one might have at home, a “parlour piano” rather than a concert instrument. Its touch, action and sound were akin to my teacher’s Blüthner (early 20th century). There was a fractional delay between depressing the keys and hearing sound, which was slightly disconcerting at first (as is evidenced in the rather hesitant opening measures in my recording of the Nocturne Op 62 No. 2), but overall this was an “easy” piano to play. It felt quite effortless, in comparison to the Erard (autographed by Thalberg) which was really quite hard work, in particular in trying to achieve a very smooth, singing legato in Liszt’s Sonetto di Petrarca 47.

Since Chopin was said to revere Bach, I felt it was appropriate to play some Bach on the Pleyel (the ‘Adagio’ from the Concerto in D minor after Marcello). In this piece, I really enjoyed the delicate tone of the instrument. Minimal pedal was used throughout and the light action of the piano enabled me to keep the ornaments soft and floating.

The Liszt Sonetto is very much work in progress, but it was nonetheless interesting to attempt to play this, and the Sonetto 104 (from my LTCL programme) on a piano contemporary with their composer. I found the Erard really quite “effortful” (particularly compared to the Pleyel): it seemed one had to work for every single note.

I am very grateful to Alec Cobbe for granting me special access to these interesting pianos (normally reserved for scholars and performers rehearsing for concerts). Visitors to the house, which is managed by the National Trust, can view the collection of keyboard instruments, and also hear some of them in concert. Please see the links at the end of this article for further information.

The Cobbe Collection

Hatchlands Park

Further reading:

Charles Rosen on Chopin (New York Review of Books)

Chopin’s Pedagogy: A Practical Approach (transcript of a presentation given by David Korevaar, University of Colorado)

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Jocelyn Pook (image credit: Matthew Andrews)
Jocelyn Pook (image credit: Matthew Andrews)

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

I came from a family in which music and art was important. To this day I don’t know how my mother, a single woman raising 3 children with no money, managed to pay for piano lessons for all of us, but I’m glad she did. There were free violin lessons offered at my primary school so I took up the violin when I was 8, then changed later to viola. I had inspiring and encouraging teachers along the way, in particular my first piano teacher Jean Marshall who also encouraged my early interest in composing.

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

I used to compose simple songs on the piano as a child, but it didn’t occur to me to take this further, and when I went to music college it was as a performer, studying viola and piano. After I left, I began working as a professional viola player – sometimes performing in theatre companies and pop bands. Seeing how untrained musicians, some of whom couldn’t even read music, were able to compose, inspired me and gave me confidence, so that when small composing opportunities subsequently came my way – such as writing music for my quartet, or a friend’s video, a colleague’s dance piece, etc. – I seized the opportunity.

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

I am usually filled with trepidation at the start of every new project. Each feels like the biggest challenge at the time. My last piece, Hearing Voices, a song cycle for voice, orchestra and recorded voices, was the first commission for symphony orchestra (for the BBC Concert Orchestra) so that was a big challenge.

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

Working with a symphony orchestra was exciting because there are so many possibilities of texture and timbre and combinations of instruments. It’s fun to play with large forces, especially percussion and brass sections which I have less experience of using, and it’s always so thrilling when you hear it all come alive.

Which recordings are you most proud of?  

My albums Flood, Untold Things and Desh.

Do you have a favourite concert venue? 

No, there are many I love!

Who are your favourite musicians? 

Yehudi Menuhin, Daniel Barenboim, Nigel Kennedy and Gustavo Dudamel are amazingly talented artists whose passion for music has inspired and communicated so widely. And they don’t shy away from ethical and moral issues.

Plus, singers such as Kathleen Ferrier and ones I’m lucky enough to work with: Melanie Pappenheim, Natacha Atlas, Tanja Tzarovska, Manickam Yogeswaran, Parvin Cox and Lore Lixenberg.

What is your most memorable concert experience? 

A gypsy ensemble that played in our living room in Serbia.

Tell us about your upcoming performances at Tête à Tête Opera Festival?

Tonight my multimedia song-cycle Hearing Voices will be performed at the festival at King’s Place. I first performed the piece in 2012 and have reworked it for a second performance this year. I’ll be joined again by director Emma Bernard and mezzo-soprano Melanie Pappenheim for this performance in addition to Laura Moody, Susi Evans and Preetha Narayanan. The piece focuses on the topic of mental health and I used recordings of my mother, Bobby Baker and Julie McNamara as well as videos by Dragan Aleksic. It’s a very personal piece for me as my family have been touched by mental illness for three generations.

Tomorrow night is my vocal work Anxiety Fanfare and Variations which is also about mental health. I’ll be joining the Nottingham People’s Choir and my Jocelyn Pook Ensemble to perform the work with soloists Donna Lennard, Melanie Pappenheim, Jonathan Peter Kenny and Richard Morris. Anxiety Fanfare looks at the day-to-day feeling of anxiety which affects so many people now.

What else do you have coming up?

The west-end play King Charles III is transferring to Broadway in October at the Music Box Theatre which is hugely exciting – I’m off to New York for rehearsals in September. It was a great project to work on and it’s amazing to see how far it’s come, I can’t wait to see what the American audiences think too!

What is your most treasured possession? 

My daughter.

What do you enjoy doing most? 

Writing music and spending time with family and friends

What is your present state of mind? 

Pretty chilled out considering I’m writing this on a flight back from China!

Further information/links:

The DESH soundtrack is available on CD now on Pook Music (PM001) and the single ‘Hallelujah’ is available to download on iTunes.  DESH returns to Sadler’s Wells in June for a third run after a sell-out world tour.

Jocelyn Pook’s next collaboration with Akram Khan, iTMOi, will be performed at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, Tuesday 28 May – Saturday 1 June.

The Brodsky Quartet and singer Lore Lixenberg premiere a new song cycle, which includes music by Jocelyn Pook, at Drapers’ Hall on Monday 24 June as part of the City Of London Festival.

To find out more information about Jocelyn Pook, visit her website www.jocelynpook.com

Best known for her score for Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Jocelyn Pook is an award-winning composer who writes music for film, television, theatre, dance and the concert platform.

Jocelyn graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1983, where she studied the viola. She then embarked on a period of touring and recording with artists such as Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson and PJ Harvey and as a member of the Communards. She has also toured extensively with The Jocelyn Pook Ensemble, performing repertoire from her albums and music from her film scores. For her music-theatre piece Speaking in Tunes she won a British Composer Award and, for the National Theatre’s production of St Joan, she won an Olivier Award. Jocelyn has worked with a variety of acclaimed choreographers including, most recently, Akram Khan Company on the contemporary solo work DESH. Jocelyn has established an international reputation as a highly original composer of screen music following her score for Eyes Wide Shut, which won a Chicago Film Award and a Golden Globe nomination. Other film scores include: The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino (Dir: Michael Radford), Time Out (L’Emploi du Temps, Dir: Laurent Cantet) and Brick Lane (Dir: Sarah Gavron). She also contributed a piece to the soundtrack of Gangs of New York (Dir: Martin Scorsese).

Jocelyn has composed scores for television shows and commercials, and was nominated for a BAFTA for Channel 4’s The Government Inspector (Dir: Peter Kosminsky). With a blossoming reputation as a composer of electro-acoustic works and music for the concert platform, Jocelyn continues to celebrate the diversity of the human voice. Her work Mobile was a commission from the BBC Proms and The King’s Singers and is a collaboration with the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. Portraits in Absentia was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and is a collage of sound, voice, music and words woven from the messages left on her answerphone. Ingerland, Jocelyn’s first contemporary opera, was commissioned and produced by ROH2 and performed in the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Studio Theatre in June 2010 to wide acclaim. Jocelyn has chaired and been a judge on various panels including the British Composer Awards, Ivor Novello Awards and BBC Proms Young Composers Competition.