There is no bigger difference when facing master pianist
Grigory Sokolov on stage just before the beginning of a concert to meeting
him afterwards. Sokolov doesn�t lose any time when appearing on stage, he
takes his bows and seems already totally absorbed by the music, one
wonders if he notices the audience� The atmosphere in the hall is
reminiscent of the concerts of the legendary Sviatoslav Richter, with only
a small light on the piano, which made it difficult to see the facial
expression and hands of the pianist. Backstage, Sokolov is just the
kindest person, who takes his time and responds in a very intelligent and
disarming way to the questions� Willem Boone had an exclusive interview
for Piano-News.com with the Russian master pianist after his recital on 18
February 2003 in Utrecht.
WB (Willem Boone): You have great affinity to music that
has been originally composed for harpsichord, e.g. Byrd, Couperin and
Rameau. How did you discover this music?
GS (Grigory Sokolov): You can�t really say I �discovered� Byrd,
Couperin and Rameau. They are great composers, their music will always be
modern and live forever. You don�t need to discover them. They are
frequently performed, although not very often on the piano. These are
great names.
WB: You play the trills and ornaments in this music so
fantastically, have you played the harpsichord or do you have one at
home?
GS: No, not at all. It is a totally different instrument. As with the
piano, you need to commit your entire life to it. Every composer has his
own sound world and this atmosphere is independent of the instrument.
WB: Is it difficult to find the printed scores in
Russia?
GS: For Rameau, the complete edition has been
published for some years. For Couperin, there is also a complete edition
in four tomes from Budapest. I don�t know if it is difficult to find them
nowadays, but there are (public) libraries of course.
WB: Do you have other plans to play more harpsichord music, eg
Scarlatti?
GS: I never know what will come next. I don�t
have any idea what my next recital programme will look like.
WB: You give many recitals and play sometimes with orchestra.
What about chamber music? Do you like to play any?
GS: No,
I don�t.
WB: Are there no partners with whom you�d like to
play?
GS: That�s the problem. There is so much music that
has been written for the piano, we pianists can only play a very small
part of it. Chamber music is of course wonderful, but you need to find a
partner with whom you really have something in common. You need so much
time the find the right partner! Then you need to practice in order to
find out whether you are on the same wave length. When two musicians get
together and are ready perform after two rehearsals, you are speaking of a
compromise, rather than a common interpretation. Of course, there have
been examples of wonderful musicians who spent most of their lives playing
together. Since there are so many beautiful things written for piano solo,
I prefer to play myself instead of searching for the right partner!
WB: Is that also the reason you play relatively seldom with
orchestras?
GS: No, that is an entirely other matter,
because orchestral music has been composed in a different way. When you
play with an orchestra, the piano has the leading part, whereas the other
musicians accompany. In chamber music, nobody has the lead, both or all
partners are equal.
WB: Doesn�t playing concertos with an orchestra require a
certain partnership with the conductor?
GS: Not to the
same extent as playing chamber music. Normally, you will have two
rehearsals and then the concert will take place. It�s good when a
conductor has his own interpretation, conductors play everything . But
even if he has different ideas, he has to follow his soloist. It is
another way of playing together.
WB: Are there conductors with whom you particularly enjoy
performing?
GS: I�ll mention a few names with whom I
worked recently: some of them accompany really well. That is a gift. A
very good conductor is Moshe Azmon, as well as Alexander Lazarjev, Fedor
Glutschschenko, Trevor Pinnock..
WB: Trevor Pinnock is
interesting, doesn�t he mainly concentrate on playing on period
instruments?
GS: O yes, he plays the harpsichord, but he
conducts everything, we played both the Chopin concertos in Ottawa,
Brahms�
WB: Gergiev should be sensational
too.
GS: We haven�t worked together very often.
WB: People in Western Europe tend to speak of �the Russian
piano school�. Is there actually such thing as a �piano school�in your
country or are there probably several?
GS: I don�t think
so. What counts in art, is the fact whether things or people are unique.
Let�s take for instance Glenn Gould. Does he belong to a school and if so,
to which one? The Canadian school? Glenn Gould is simply Glenn Gould, as
Emil Gilels is simply Emil Gilels. That should say it all. Sofronitzky,
who also lived in Russia, was again a totally different pianist. Both he
and Gilels were geniuses, if not at all comparable. You simply can�t take
them together and say: �That is the Russian piano
school�.
WB: Does that mean that the so-called �school� of
Neuhaus hasn�t really existed?
GS: Not really, no. Both
Richter and Gilels studied with him and developed into very different
personalities.
WB: Speaking of Richter, your playing sometimes remind me of
your great colleague. I sometimes had the impression of listening to four
pianists, because he always seemed to find the right sound. How do you
manage to always find the right sound for the right composer? Is that an
intuitive process or does it happen automatically when you
play?
GS: Intuition is probably situated on a higher
level, if you look at the way your brain works. There is no clear
distinction between the intentional and the intuitive. I think there is
basically no problem. As I said before, every composer has his own sound
world, everything varies; colours, articulation, dynamics, all means of
expression change from one composer to another.
WB: Isn�t
it difficult though to switch from one sound world to another? Tonight,
you played Beethoven sonatas and then you played as one of your encores
the virtuosic Toccata from Ravel�s Tombeau de Couperin. Isn�t that quite a
change?
GS: No, it�s not that difficult, since there are
often at least two or three composers on a recital programme.
WB: Would there be a distinct Sokolov sound and would you be
able to recognize yourself on the radio?
GS: I probably
wouldn�t, since I never listen to my recordings. However you often hear a
true personality and provided you know these personalities well, you could
say: �This sounds like �.�. I think here of Gilels, Sofronitzky, Gould and
Schnabel.
WB: What do you think of recording
CD�s?
GS: I only record live, not in
studios.
WB: Do you dislike recording in a
studio?
GS: Yes, I do. It is such a different
atmosphere!
WB: Will there be more live recordings of
yours? Those which have been published by Opus 111 are
fantastic!
GS: I am being constantly recorded. Every
programme has been taped at least twice or three times. All the tapes are
now in Paris with Opus 111.
WB: When will these be
released?? I can tell you that I have friends all over the world, most of
whom worship you and can only think of �more, more,
more!�
GS: Diffiult to say, it is my fault. I should go to
Paris, listen to the tapes and approve them.
WB: What do you think of the current crisis in the music
industry?
GS: That is a normal situation. In the
beginning, the discovery of CD�s was very interesting, because it enabled
people to hear the music once again after a concert. Normally, once the
concert is over, everything has died, except for the memory. Thanks to the
CD, it was possible to bring back the memory of the concert, which was
great. The interesting thing with old recordings is that they may not
sound perfect, but they do have a lot of atmosphere, whereas the process
of editing has gradually become more and more artificial. It now happens
that one take was taken out and replaced by a few other measures.
Furthermore, CD�s have a sterile sound, you hear nothing; no noise, no
atmosphere, there is no life, just a clean sound. It is striking that a
great musician used to be better live than on records, now it is the other
way around; you now get a sterile CD and hear something different live.
And why would one need sterile CD�s without personality? With the current
CD industry, you can record all the music there is, but once this has been
done, it is over.
WB: If you select a grand piano, what are your
criteria?
GS: Difficult to say, there are roughly more
�levels�; the grand piano should be basically ok, which rarely happens.
Every instrument has its own problems, as with elderly people. A piano has
never been 100% tuned. You first need to solve the most important
problems. After the first selection, you mostly keep two or three
instruments that are relatively good. I expect a grand piano to respond
equally well to, say, Byrd or Stravinsky. Sometimes, technicians make
mistakes and ask me �Would you like a mellow or a brilliant instrument?�,
which sounds as if I were asked� �Without legs or without arms?�. I need
both of course!
WB: How did you like the grand piano
tonight (in the main hall of Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in
Utrecht)?
GS: Not bad. It is an 11 year old instrument I
believe. You should be able to determine whether it is a good or a bad
instrument when it is more than five years old. It also depends to a large
extent on the hall in which you play. Some pianos sound good in the hall
of Vredenburg, others don�t. These two factors are very closely linked for
me.
WB: Is there much difference between the acoustics of
this hall and those of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, where you played
the same programme two days ago?
GS: I don�t think so. I
don�t know how many people there were tonight, since it was dark in the
hall (reply of WB: not enough!). It�s difficult to say when the hall is
not full, but both halls tend to be over-acoustic.
WB: What do you think of a critic who said: �Sokolov makes love
to the piano�?
GS: You always have to ask yourself what
people mean by this. Anyway, the piano is an instrument with unlimited
possibilities.
WB: You will play Mozart�s Piano Concerto in A major K 488
soon. Is this the first time you will play a Mozart
concerto?
GS: Oh no, I have played this concerto before
and will now perform it in Berlin. I also played several other Mozart
concertos, among which the C minor and the C major concertos.
WB: What do you think of the Dutch audience? Do you believe
there are several audiences?
GS: audiences are difficult
to compare. Even if you are playing two consecutive nights in the same
city, the audience will be totally different every time. It is a very
complex conglomeration of several �layers� of education. There are first
people who are really well educated, they respond very well to music and
�make� the atmosphere, second there are those who may have been less well
educated, but who dearly love music and third there are people who happen
to be there. It is always a mixture.
WB: Is that the same
in all countries?
GS: Yes, more or less. Generally
speaking, you probably find more educated audiences in Germany, Austria
and Switzerland. For Russia, I have to stress that St Petersburg is a big
city with a very good audience. By the way, you will find there a very
beautiful venue, the main hall of the Philharmonie, one of the best, if
not the best of the world. I also like the small(er) hall, when it is
full, it is even better than the main hall. They are quite famous and
have very good acoustics.