>> David Plylar: Hello,
my name is David Plylar
and I'm a music specialist
and producer for Concerts
From the Library of Congress.
This fall, we are continuing
our virtual concert series
with guest artists
from around the world,
and though we would much rather
be welcoming them to the Library
in person, we are thankful
that they have been willing
to share their work with
us remotely while we strive
to safely navigate
the ongoing pandemic.
Today it is my great
pleasure to speak
with pianist Leif Ove Andsnes,
who joins us today from Norway.
Earlier this year, he
prepared a wonderful recital
for Spivey Hall recorded
at the beautiful Edvard Grieg
Museum in Bergen, Norway.
We're delighted to be
able to share this concert
for a brief period with our
Library of Congress audience.
First, welcome and thank you
for speaking with me today.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Thank
you, a pleasure to be with you.
>> David Plylar: I wanted
to ask how you've been
managing, given the pandemic.
Are you finding now more
opportunities to play in public
or are you still somewhat
limited in what you're able
to do or has -- have things
been improving for you?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Well,
I have to say right now it's
really picking up in Europe.
I just finished a
six-concert tour in Europe
with the violinist Christian
Tetzlaff and we had six concerts
in eight days in five countries,
and it was very exciting
because it was sort of the first
time that it was as intense
as that, and as -- yeah,
that I was as free to travel
and it seems to continue.
I mean, I have more problems
getting to the States.
I don't seem to -- at the moment
it's difficult to get a visa.
I'm supposed to be with New
York Philharmonic in October,
but we'll see, and but I'm
very excited that things are --
there are still restrictions.
There are places.
We played two days
ago in Moscow.
We could have one-third
of the audience there.
Other places, they can
fill up the hall as long
as people are showing they
are vaccinated and so on,
so there are different
restrictions
in different countries
but we can play for people
and we can travel more freely,
which is just wonderful.
>> David Plylar:
That's fantastic.
What -- I know that you have
recordings of things come
out during the pandemic.
What were you -- what did you
find yourself weren't able
to perform live?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Actually,
I've been in the
lucky situation.
I mean, living in Norway, it
hasn't been completely closed
and I was able in this one and
a half year to play quite a bit
of smaller concerts, you know,
sometimes down to 20 people
in the audience and up to
200, never more than 200,
and it's amazing what -- how
grateful one is in the end just
to play for group of people.
I mean, I had some really
wonderful touching moments
with smaller recitals here
and there and also to be able
to work within a
regional orchestra,
sometimes only streaming but
other times for an audience
of 100 or 200, and it's been
wonderful in a way to connect
with the musical life
of my own country,
because I usually
travel a lot abroad,
and so that hasn't
been too bad for me,
but I was at the same
time, also working
on some recording projects,
and one of them was these
Dvorak pieces that is part
of the program that's -- that
you will be showing today.
>> David Plylar: Fantastic.
Well, I know that for
the audience members,
it must have been a
great pleasure to be able
to actually witness live
programming, so I'm jealous
of them as well as
-- but I'm pleased
that you were able to do that.
I understand that in the
past, you visited the Library
of Congress, the music division
at the Library of Congress.
Is that true, and if
so, what did you look
at when you were there?
Do you remember?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: I was very
happy to have a closer look
at Rachmaninoff's Fourth Piano
Concerto which is a special case
when it comes to manuscripts
because there are
different versions of it,
and I ended up playing the later
version which is mostly played
and recorded earlier, but I
was very interested in looking
at the earlier versions
and at the Library
of Congress you have all of
them and there is a much longer,
extended version, and there's
also a sort of middle version.
I can't remember
exactly the years now.
I mean the -- he ended up
revising this concerto.
I guess it was one of the last
works he revised and worked on,
and he was so heavily criticized
for the first performance
of the first version, and
one -- then one, you know,
maybe thinks, oh, that might
have been the reason why,
because it wasn't successful.
Maybe he thought oh, I
have to change things,
because even geniuses like that
can get uncertain of, you know,
if they have -- what they have
delivered, and but I ended
up thinking that
of these versions,
his last revision was maybe
the best, but I don't know.
I mean, you know, one day, I
might go back to that early one,
and in any case, it was very
interesting to see the process
in these three versions, what he
went through and what he cut out
and what he changed and
making it more practical,
sometimes in the orchestration
and between the piano
and orchestra, because that's
particularly difficult.
One wouldn't think that
it was so difficult
in a Rachmaninoff concerto,
but the Fourth is really
a complicated piece,
so I wanted to look at
the change these changes,
and I was very grateful
for those hours
in the Library of Congress.
>> David Plylar: Oh, fantastic.
I'm so glad you got to do that.
Well, we definitely
have an open invitation
to you next time
you're in Washington.
Please feel free
to drop by and --
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Thank you.
>> David Plylar: --
assuming we're open.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: No,
I know you have a lot
of wonderful things there,
so I'd love to see more.
>> David Plylar: Sure, sure.
Well, let's look at a little bit
about your program
that you've prepared.
Originally, you prepared
it for Spivey Hall,
but we're so pleased that
you're allowing us to do it
at the Library as well, I
mean -- as part of our series,
and so you start with the
Pathetique Sonata of Beethoven.
I know that in your discography,
you have the Beethoven journey
project with the concerti,
but I don't believe that you've
recorded many of the sonatas.
I think you had Opus 110
maybe, but I'm curious.
Was this going to be part of
a project that you were going
to do during the 250th
birthday celebration that kind
of got waylaid a bit or when --
what drew you to play
Beethoven right now?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Well, it
was interesting, because I,
as you mentioned, I did
a big Beethoven project
in between 2012 and 2015,
and which was concentrated
on the piano concertos, on
the five piano concertos,
and the choral fantasy and
recording these pieces together
with the Mahler Chamber
Orchestra, and then, when I --
when it was getting closer
to 2020, I was thinking,
should I do a big Beethoven
project again, or -- ?
And I decided actually,
that it was a bit too early.
I was in the middle of
preparing a big Mozart project
with the Mahler Chamber
Orchestra and,
but then COVID changed
everything, and I sat there
like everybody else
and was thinking oh,
maybe I should still
study some Beethoven
that I haven't studied, and the
Pathetique Sonata, of course,
it's the kind of piece that
I went through as a child
and played it, you
know, as a youngster,
but I had actually never played
it as a professional musician
and in concerts, funny enough.
It's such a famous
piece, and so that was one
of the sonatas I
looked at and studied,
and the other one being Opus
109, which I recently played
for the first time, as
well, so I actually,
the pandemic period made me
study a bit more Beethoven
than I had planned to do,
because I hadn't actually
planned to do any Beethoven
in the -- it was sort of
an either or situation.
Either I really go
for it, or I let it go
and debate it later on, and
I got to do some Beethoven,
so I'm happy to have gotten
into the Pathetique, which is,
of course, an extraordinary
piece written when he was
about 30, and making his
breakthrough in Vienna.
>> David Plylar: Yeah, you
know, it's one of the pieces
that everybody knows,
but when you --
it doesn't take away its
freshness, and its uniqueness,
so it's great to hear it played
well, and not just, you know,
whomever, you know, fiddling
through it as a, you know,
as a kid too, and if
this doesn't, you know,
it's wonderful to hear that
performed the way that you do.
I should mention that we
happen to have the manuscript
to Opus 109 at the
Library of Congress --
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Okay.
>> David Plylar: -- so next time
you're there, please drop by,
but it is actually digitized
and available online as well.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes:
Right, right, right.
I'd love to see it,
you know, physically.
That'd be really
wonderful, and well, I mean,
the Pathetique Sonata is,
you know, it's also one
of these pieces which I mean
it's still sort of early period
for Beethoven but it's -- he's
marking something new with this.
It's the first sonata he begins
with a slow introduction,
and you know, you just feel
with his first chords that okay,
this is serious business.
This is --
>> David Plylar: Right.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: --
something of a statement
and of course, that
introduction suddenly bursts
into a very dramatic virtuosic
movement where all kinds
of crazy experiments going
on and, with these tremolos
in the bass of the piano,
creating a sort of murmur
and a lot of tension, and for
instance, is this business
of crossing hands, which he's
doing so often in that movement,
which is, I mean, he
must have also thought
that it was the kind of
show off effect, you know?
And --
>> David Plylar: Sure, sure.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes:
-- that doesn't --
and it doesn't really
occur much.
I mean you find it in
Bach's Goldberg Variations,
but apart from that, I mean,
it wasn't really used much
at the time, and so it's really
going out there with new things
in this piece, and
then of course,
you have this really memorable
and so beautiful second movement
that you think -- I
mean, some people say
that Beethoven was not the
greatest writing tunes,
but you know, you just hear that
and you think this
is really memorable.
It's something that goes
straight to your heart,
and it's extraordinary, and
then the last movement is more
classical, in a way.
I'm thinking of it more as a
greeting to Mozart, this rondo,
so it has, you know,
it has a lot
of different faces, this piece.
>> David Plylar: Yeah, no, it's
definitely, I think it's one
of the first of those
early pieces
that shows the orchestrational
variability in his piano writing
that is so phenomenal and it
becomes a part of, you know,
of his writing overall for
the piano as he keeps going,
so yeah, thank you
for programming it.
We're going to enjoy
that as the opener.
You know, just to look at
the next pieces that are
on the program, well,
first of all, I should say
that over the course
of your career,
you've exhibited a particular
emphasis on the music
of composers known in part,
at least for their
musical nationalism,
not meaning that in a
negative way, but just in terms
of an association with
a particular country,
and you always seem
to present this music
with absolute conviction,
regardless of what the origin is
of the country, and
I'm wondering
if you're particularly drawn
to the music of composers
who incorporate [inaudible]
or highlight those types of,
you know, dance components
and things like that.
Is that something that you're
particularly attracted to?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes:
I don't know.
I mean, I'm fascinated by
these different flavors of --
and there has been -- it's led
to some really wonderful music
that composers have picked
up their country's folk music
and that I mean, that goes
back to Beethoven as well.
I mean, you know, you think
of Beethoven's late pieces
and they're full of --
it's a mixture of this
very spiritual world
and then very folky,
German dances, and whatever
and I think there's a lot of
storytelling in that world,
and I -- so I guess I often --
yeah, I'm quite drawn to that
and in this program,
certainly also with both Grieg
and Dvorak has that
element, dancing element
and the storytelling and flavor
of those nations' folk
music and folk background.
>> David Plylar:
Yeah, one of the --
I particularly admire your
repertoire choices across --
I mean, I've come
to know it more just
through your discography,
but that you don't
always just include --
so I mean, you have recorded
all the lyric pieces of Grieg,
but you also include Norwegian
dances, Norwegian folk tunes
and things like folk songs
and also by composers
that Grieg clearly
influenced down the road --
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Right.
>> David Plylar: -- and so
yeah, and so it's just I love
that about your range of music,
that you've been able to bring
to light some of these pieces
that, you know, while we may --
the average concert goer
may know the lyric pieces,
they may not know these other
pieces that are almost just
as exciting and interesting.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: I think
I mean, playing the piano.
there is such a wealth of
pieces out there and repertoire
and wonderful things
that we so rarely hear,
because I mean almost all of
the great composers have written
for this instrument and so it
becomes a choice and of course,
I want to play the great
Beethoven sonatas and Chopin,
Schumann, and so on, but I think
also, you know, being Norwegian
and having grown up with that
music, I'm naturally going
to maybe feel closer to that
than Spanish piano music
or American, for that matter,
and I'm not saying that --
I'm absolutely not
saying that, you know,
the Norwegians are the ones,
only ones that can understand
Grieg's music or the Hungarians,
the only ones who can undrestand
Bartok's music and so on.
I don't believe in
that at all, you know?
You can do it with passion and
but, of course, this is music
that I've played a lot,
and it's been around me
like Beethoven's music,
and I feel very confident
and very familiar with
Beethoven's language,
and I do it with Grieg
because I've played him
since I was five, six years old,
and some of these other
Norwegian composers as well,
and I -- so I've sometimes
tried to make recording projects
and concert projects with the --
with including this flavor
from for my part of the world,
I guess, and, and I appreciate
when others are doing
that as well.
It's the world has become
such -- so small in a way.
I mean, it's such a global
environment, but it's wonderful
that there's still pieces
and differences of nations
and different flavors that
we can enjoy, and yeah.
>> David Plylar:
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, the -- you chose --
you've chosen four
pieces from Opus 54,
the Opus 54 lyric pieces for
the Grieg, and one of the things
that that comes to mind is
that I can just imagine,
say Rachmaninoff listening
to the Notturno and having
that kind of seep into his
own, you know, influencing him
as a composer in his
own way of writing.
There's something about it that,
especially as he was developing,
I think this was the early
1890s, when this was composed
that this is -- I could
see that becoming a part
of what influenced him, and it
led to his further development,
and I'm wondering if --
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Even like
early Debussy maybe, you know --
>> David Plylar: Oh, sure.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: --
there's something very French
about it also, that middle
section and very hazy
and impressionistic, and yeah.
>> David Plylar: Yeah.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Yeah.
>> David Plylar: No, absolutely,
and I guess, I'm wondering,
just with your experience with
Norwegian music in particular,
how great of an influence
did Grieg's music have
on the subsequent generations?
Or was this the thing that
people felt like they had
to augment or get away
from, or what was your --
what's the general
response it got?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes:
Well, I mean always --
>> David Plylar: And that's
kind of a broad question...
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Yeah,
but I know I mean Norway is a
small country and with a figure
like Grieg and Grieg had
great success in his lifetime,
and Norway became independent,
I mean, we were a colony
under Sweden, and before
that, under Denmark,
and it became independent
in 1905,
two years before Grieg died,
and Grieg was sort of part
of that movement, and he became
such a symbol of, you know,
our nation and also using the
Norwegian folk music and then
so it's such a great influence
then, and was inspiring,
of course, to the next couple
of generations of composers,
but I mean, it might have been
also difficult to free oneself
from that idiom, and you see
very often then these composers
trying to write also
miniatures, like Grieg
and with the same sort of use
of folk music and trying to find
that special flavor, but it
took a while before they managed
to free themselves from
this very influential figure
and so maybe Norway was rather
late in except a few exceptions,
like a composer like
Fartein Valen
who just went completely his
own way and went to Berlin
and studied Schoenberg's
techniques and so on,
but the Norwegian composers
were a little bit late
in getting influenced
by these new languages
that happened in Central Europe.
It took a while, but I
mean, he was you know,
he was very influential
and inspirational as well,
and you find some good
music and some composers
that really went even deeper
into the folk music and I mean,
one could argue that Grieg uses
the folk music and combines it
in a very classical way with
his German training and somebody
like Geirr Tveitt who is a
very interesting composer,
who collected thousands
folk tunes in the same way
that Bartok did it in Hungary.
I mean, he thought
that Grieg's handling
of the folk music wasn't serious
at all, and so, you know,
the but yeah, it's interesting
how the composers have been
battling with the influence
of, of Grieg in this country.
>> David Plylar: I remember you
included some of his music on,
was it The Long,
Long Winter's Night
or a recording from
a while back?
But I remember enjoying
it very much.
It was --
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Thank you.
>> David Plylar:
- very beautiful.
Yeah, no, you know,
looking at --
not that they're a pair at all,
but looking at the Dvorak pieces
that you have on there on this
program as well from Opus 85,
I just remember when I was
a kid, I didn't realize
that Dvorak had written
much solo piano music,
and I was awakened
to that fact really
from a recording
that I remember.
It was called Czech
Miniature Masterpieces,
and I think it was Antonin
Kubálek was the pianist.
This is a long time ago.
I think it was in the
early 90s or something,
but on that recording, it
was mostly things like Suk
and other composers like
that, but it had one piece
from the Opus 85, which
was the At the Old Castle,
and I remember it being --
it struck me as suddenly this
is a fully formed, very unique,
absolutely pianistic work
that, from a composer
that I thought was not
a composer of piano,
and so I'm wondering if that's
been your experience at all
with Dvorak, or why doesn't --
why don't people play his music?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Yeah,
it's a very interesting case,
and the difference of course,
with Grieg and Dvorak is
that Grieg was a pianist and
primarily wrote piano music
and songs, also some orchestral
music and, but you know,
piano was his instrument.
With Dvorak, he's composing in
all kinds of genres, I mean,
from opera, church music,
a lot of symphonic music,
chamber music, wonderful things,
but he has also written
piano music,
which has a very strange
reputation coming from the fact
that Dvorak himself wasn't
a pianist and it's sometimes
like it's awkward to play.
It's clear it is -- you know,
here and that it's not written
from a composer-pianist,
but that's certainly
not all the time,
and he also writes sometimes
really wonderfully colorful
for the piano, and for
me, this opus, Opus 85,
the Poetic Tone Pictures
is the one exception,
the one masterpiece, and
it's written, you know,
in sort of primetime Dvorak.
He's writing the Eighth
Symphony the same year,
the Requiem year after.
He has just written his
wonderful popular piano quintet.
I mean, it's just bursting
with invention, melodic,
harmonic characterization and
he writes this 60 minutes --
I'm doing extracts today
but in this program --
but 60 minutes cycle, 13 pieces,
really ambitious, and he writes
to a friend that I've tried
to be poet a la Schumann
and I hope somebody would
be brave enough to play all
of them together because
that's how they are,
you know, meant or conceived.
And he said but of course
nobody will have the courage
to do that, and at
that time they will --
they usually would
just pick, you know?
They would rarely
play a whole cycle,
even the Schumann cycles would
be, you know, picked here
and there, a selection.
But I've played this now
quite a few times as a cycle
and I will do so also in
the next couple of years,
and it's a wonderful,
wonderful journey, and it feels
when you finish with it like
the -- it belongs together,
though they are 13 different
character pieces and it's --
there are Czech dances,
Furiant, Bacchanalia,
really virtuosic things, very --
some very serious pieces
At the Hero's Grave
and On the Holy Mountain and
other pieces called a joke,
and I think that I'm
very lighthearted so it's
like a diary and but so
full of wonderful things.
I've grown to love
this music so much
and I simply cannot
understand that it's not played.
For me, it's the great forgotten
19th century piano cycle,
basically.
>> David Plylar: And as -- and
you've said that you were --
you've just recorded
it recently?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: I
have recorded it in April
and I think the CD will be out
next year and so looking forward
to do -- to present
that and also
to play this much
more in concert.
>> David Plylar: Yeah,
that's fantastic.
You know, I'm -- I love
that you're an advocate
for these lesser known
works as well as the --
I mean, you play all
of these, you know,
all the Chopin Sonatas, every
-- all the Rachmaninoff,
everything so well, but I love
that you also are an advocate
for these lesser known works,
and I guess a question I have
for you is how do you
discover all these?
Do you spent a lot of
times sight reading?
Is this part of your [inaudible]
background growing up?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes:
Well, curiously enough,
when I was little, my parents
had an LP of, with these pieces.
My father had bought a bunch
of LPs in London on a trip,
rather randomly, I think, and
there was a recording of this
by the Czech pianist Radoslav
Kvapil, and I remember,
I listened to these pieces when
I was young, and I played --
and I got hold of the music,
and I played one of them
in a youth competition when
I was 12 or so, and so I --
I've sort of vaguely
known about them, and I --
now and then I've looked
at them and thought, oh,
it's actually really great.
Maybe I should do more of them.
And I did a group like 10
years ago, five or six,
and then a couple of years ago,
I thought, let me look again
at the whole cycle, you know?
-- because there were
a couple of pieces
that I thought were thorny
and difficult to handle.
And I decided to
throw myself at it
and really do study
the whole thing,
and it became also my
COVID-period project now,
you know, because I had suddenly
more time to do it, and so happy
to do it, and like
you say, I mean I --
the most wonderful thing
is to always play music
that you believe in,
whether it's famous or not,
but it sometimes adds an extra
value for me if I can present
such wonderful music by --
I mean, here we even have a
very well-known composer who --
>> David Plylar: Right.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: -- just
of some reason the
piano music is left out.
It's sort of forgotten,
and to present that
and people don't know
it and are delighted,
and hear it maybe
for the first time.
That's a wonderful feeling.
>> David Plylar: Yeah.
Well, thank you for doing it.
We really appreciate
it, having it on there.
We're -- it's very excited to be
able to present it for people.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Thank you.
>> David Plylar: I just have
an aside kind of question
that just occurred to me with
respect to Grieg's music.
Have you have you performed any
of his song transcriptions or is
that something that's
of interest?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: One or
two, I've done but it's funny.
You mentioned Grieg's songs,
because I actually I just did
a recording couple of weeks ago
of Grieg songs with a great --
>> David Plylar: Oh, fantastic.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: with the
great dramatic soprano Lisa
Davidson, who have just made
such a breakthrough all over
and is just a really
wonderful singer and musician
and she asked me a couple
of years ago whether I would
ever consider doing this
with her, and I've done
so with great pleasure,
and we will have concerts
coming up in January
in different places in
Europe, and hopefully later
in the States as well,
and that's a whole Grieg
recording with only songs --
>> David Plylar: Wonderful.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes:
-- so we -- yeah.
>> David Plylar:
That's wonder --
I mean I think that
those are underperformed
and they're really beautiful.
This is really --
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Well,
I think that that's so much
because of the language,
you know.
Of course there a lot sung in
Norway by Norwegian singers,
but most of them
are in Norwegian.
I mean, there are there are a
few wonderful songs in German
as well, but because
of the language,
it sort of doesn't get done
much, and I think is a shame,
and actually, when you look
at Grieg's time, I mean,
he put a lot of effort
into making sure
that the German translation
was very good
and these kind of things.
I mean, he -- I don't think
he was Puritan in the way
of thinking that it
has to be Norwegian.
They could be sung in German,
or maybe also in English,
and I think it's just a shame
that these songs
are not being done.
I mean, I -- somehow I think
it's his greatest music,
you know?
Really, he's so inspired by the
poems, and there's a freedom
in his language sometimes, like
in this great cycle, Haugtussa.
I just think it's
extremely inspired some
of his absolute greatest pieces.
>> David Plylar: Well, I look
forward to that very much.
That's very exciting
to hear about that.
You know, one other thing I
wanted to mention about some
of your recent recordings
and was hoping maybe you could
say a few words about it,
is that you've also done
some advocacy for new music
and you've done -- you --
in 2020, you had two recordings
come out that are fantastic
of Sorensen, and I know I'll
mispronounce -- Hvoslef, or --
>> Leif Ove Andsnes:
Yeah, Hvoslef.
>> David Plylar:
Yeah, they're --
but they're wonderful
and I just -- is that --
is performing contemporary
music, is that something that --
is something that
you do more often
or is it just an
occasional thing, or what?
Can you say a few
things about that?
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Well, I
have to say maybe unfortunately,
it's been more of an occasional
thing the last 10 years for me.
I've -- that's when I got a
family and it became I had
to reduce certain things in life
and I've played a little
less chamber music,
a little less contemporary
music, and so and I'd love
to come a little more back to
it now, I mean, with composers
that I really believe are
special and but I was very happy
to do these two recordings,
both of these concertos
written for me.
You mentioned that recording,
The Long, Long Winter Night,
which I made many years ago and
there's a composer on there,
Harald Saeverud who
was a great figure.
When I moved to Bergen in the
in the mid '80s, he lived here
and he was 90-something
and I played for him,
and he's the father of Mr.
Hvoslef, and so there's a --
you know, the two great
composers in that family.
>> David Plylar: Oh, wow.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: And Mr.
Hvoslef is about 75 today
and so I've been very
happy to play both
of these great persons' music
and Bent Sorensen is possibly
the contemporary composer I've
worked most with and he
wrote several pieces for me
and among them this wonderful
second piano concerto La
Mattina, which is for chamber
orchestra, and I recorded
with the Norwegian
Chamber Orchestra.
>> David Plylar: Wow.
This is just another aspect of
your wide ranging repertoire.
I really enjoyed them.
You know, I think maybe the
last thing I might ask you,
and then of course, you can add
anything you'd like, but I --
you know, maybe coming back to a
bit more traditional repertoire,
you also have interesting
projects
that you've been working on,
like the Mozart Momentum
project,
and maybe you can say
a few words about that.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Absolutely.
I'm in the middle of also
preparing the second part of it
because this became
a very special moment
in this very closed period
that we went through.
I mean, it had such a
difficult birth, this project
with the Mahler Chamber
Orchestra and tour
after tour got cancelled because
of the situation we were in,
but in November of last year,
there was a pocket of time
when you could actually
do something.
We thought we were able to,
to do a small tour in Germany,
but then Germany
closed, but not entirely.
We were able to get
to the Philharmonie
in Berlin and record together.
The first part of the
Mozart Momentum project,
which is it consists of
two years in Mozart's life.
The first being 1785,
and now, this November,
we will be on a -- on the longer
tour and record the second part,
which is pieces from 1786.
And the reason for calling it
Mozart Momentum is because I
and the orchestra think
that there is something
very special happening
in Mozart's music in this time.
I mean, they're wonderful
years, with all kinds
of great music being written,
The Marriage of Figaro
and other things, but especially
in the genre of piano concerto,
there is something
happening there
with the D minor number 20,
where for the first time,
he's separating more the
solos from the orchestra.
It has especially to do
with the first movement
when after the introduction of
the orchestra, which is full
of restless music and very
dramatic, the soloist comes
in with -- enters with
music of a very lonely voice
from far apart from
the orchestra,
and that is revolutionary.
That has never happened
in a concerto before,
because the soloist
always used to elaborate
on the music you had
heard in the introduction
from the orchestra, so
he must have thought oh,
I'll do something
completely different
and you see it in
his next concerto.
So he follows up on that and
when you then look at somebody
like Beethoven, he
just loved this idea,
and then he separates the
-- you know, more and more
and when he gets
his Fourth Concerto,
he lets the piano start
instead of the orchestra
and so it's everything
upside down,
but I mean it really
happens here.
Mozart plants a new seed,
and also it creates a
different psychological drama
in this genre of
the piano concerto.
It's -- the soloist
is not so much part
of the ensemble anymore,
but it's the individual,
and this is also the beginning
of what one could maybe call
this heroic piano concerto
from the 19th century, I mean
thinking of all these great
and wonderful, famous pieces,
Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt,
Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff,
Grieg, and so on,
where there's often a sort
of heroic role as a soloist,
and I think it starts
here with Mozart.
It's a very -- it's
a pivotal time
in the genre of piano concerto.
Thereby the Mozart Momentum,
as we call it, the project,
and we are to be doing
then another recording now
and we're doing several
big tours, and hopefully,
at some stage also coming to
the States with this project.
>> David Plylar: Absolutely.
You know, another thing
I enjoy about it is
that you also include
in addition
to the piano concerti you have
like the Fantasia G minor
piano quartet, things like that
to show that range
beyond just the --
that piano concerto idiom.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Yeah,
I forgot to say that.
>> David Plylar:
It was really --
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: We
didn't only want it to be
about piano concertos, but
to show different sides
of what Mozart was doing with
pieces with piano in them
and chamber music and also
in the 1786 there's this
wonderful concert aria,
"Ch'io mi scordi di te"
for soprano, and piano,
and orchestra, which we will be
recording with Christina Carr,
the German soprano, so we try
to show different music
from these two years.
>> David Plylar: Well, this
is wonderful and exciting,
and I'm so pleased that you
were able to available to speak
with me today about these
projects and about the program
that we're presenting, so I
just want to thank you so much,
again for joining us,
and I hope that all
of these projects
keep going smoothly
without any further
interruptions and whatnot.
Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Thank you.
It's really a pleasure talking
with you, and I look forward
to my next visit at the
Library of Congress, really.
I hope it's soon.
>> David Plylar: Oh, absolutely.
You're welcome anytime.
>> Leif Ove Andsnes: Thank you.