The pianist Fou Ts'ong played a solo concert in Jordan Hall including Chopin's Opus 35 Sonata. In the famous "Funeral March," he made an unbelievable racket with the left-hand trills. They were noisy, unpleasant, almost veering out of control. In a masterclass at New England Conservatory, during that same visit to Boston, Fou Ts'ong manifested such subtly refined attention to details of sound, and line, and phrase. Everything. But, those trills … [Read more...]
Humble pie
In Cleveland, at the Ohio Theatre, they told me Philip Glass just recently played there on the piano I was using. The next pianist coming soon is Krystian Zimerman. This sort of thing makes you feel humble. And it occurred to me -- that might even be about where my playing is artistically (?), pianistically (!), or aesthetically, somewhere in between Glass and Zimerman... … [Read more...]