Pianists

"I finally came to see that all I ever was and all I’ll ever be is always here."

"Have you danced in the rain - seen all your money go down the drain? Picked yourself up with nothing to lose? Let someone else sing the blues! Ride this crazy life – day by day!"

"You walk with shoes on fire while you complain about the smoke."

"You’ve taught me to blend in, wearing your fake cobra skin; It fits so tight, I can’t breathe in, but you make me hang in. Oh, every time and time again, you aim to stop my fire with paraffin. And while I play the mandolin, you’re dancing with Rumpelstiltskin; Oh, I can hold my breath for longer than you think."

"Have you laughed your laughs, my friend? Will you ever fall in love again?"

"Smile at strangers on the London tube."

"Holding on to the same old ground, when all inside is screaming ‘out’!"

"You become a slave to the song. It (recording and producing a song) becomes a spiritual experience.""

"Moravec gave me this recording ages ago, but only now have I found the time and inclination to listen to it. I've no desire to pick holes in his interpretation and, when all's said and done, there's really nothing to pick holes in. These two sonatas aren't a part of my repertory, so I can listen to them purely for my own enjoyment (an enjoyment guaranteed, of course, by the composer). Moravec is an altogether admirable and professional pianist. He understands what he's playing."

"I have been described as a very mysterious human being and that hurts a little bit, because it's not like that at all."

"I think to look in the future, to plan another one, it's not realistic right now. But I don't close any doors. I'm very open for what comes up. At the moment, we are so happy with this one. I really hope people will like it as much as we do."

"Why should we do it? We have done so many songs, during such a long time. The fact that we had two divorces, and there was no meaning, I think, with getting together, again."

"I'm not the person who looks back or looks forward. I try to live in what is now."

"That means a lot, it goes from generation to generation, and you can't wonder why, and I think it's because it's such a good energy in it, and I think the girls and boys, they want to dress like us, and they want to sing along."

"I think I was more like the black sheep, maybe, that, I was someone that you could blame on, but we were actually agreed on, that we had to stop now, because we came to a point, when it doesn't feel good anymore."

"Deep shock and sadness I heard the sad news, Zoltán Kocsis passed away. He was a musical giant, one of the rare geniuses. His impact on our whole generation is immeasurable. The Budapest Festival Orchestra on behalf and in my own name sincerely farewell track from co-founding partner, from the many common music production partner and unforgettable musician, a role model. May he rest in peace."

"Sometimes I think someone upstairs saved me from being ordinary."

"I am startled, occasionally, to find “intelligence” used as the antithesis of “feeling”, as though the two played against each other. Nothing could be further from the truth. No intelligent interpretation is lacking in emotional values. What this probably means is that, depending on gifts and degree of maturity, some natures emphasize brain over heart. Where such an imbalance occurs, it must be corrected by conscious and concentrated application to emotional content. If an interpretation is unduly cerebral, liveness and color can be infused into it by attention to whether the theme is now in the right hand, now in the left; whether it is supported by an accompaniment which has significance of its own, or merely hums along."

"Like nearly all of the Leschetizky pupils, he represented the last vestiges of romanticism as it was actually practiced in the romantic period — which means pliancy, a perpetually singing line, concentration on inner voices and a free approach and a free approach to the notes. In Moiseiwitsch's case, freedom was always tempered by impeccable musicality."

"Any artist worth his salt thinks music far more than he practices. Practice divides the mind between music and the mechanics of managing hands and feet. Inward hearing has its roots in musical thought."

"The critics are occasionally pleased to compliment a pianist by saying that he plays in the grand style. Exactly what do they mean by that phrase? In the broadest sense, they mean a style of playing which penetrates deeper than the physical conquering of the piano. It concerns itself with the release of music. The “grand style” moved listeners through interpretation."

"She also used to wander around with a revolver, which she would show to all and sundry. It really was a bit much. She used to say: 'Hold this thing for me, but be careful, it’s loaded.’ One day she developed a crush on someone who didn’t return her advances. One can understand why; he must have been terrified of her. And so she challenged him to a duel. By the end of her concerts I always used to have a headache. She subjected her audiences to such a degree of intensity, an incredible intensity! And then there was her way of coming onstage; you had the impression she was walking through the rain. And she carried a crucifix and crossed herself before launching into the first note. I’ve nothing against this, but in Soviet Russia, at that time!… Of course, she cared for the poor, took them in and lived like a tramp herself. An eccentric woman and an extraordinary artist, but someone who always felt the need to invent things… Even so, I played at her funeral. Rachmaninoff."

"Maria Veniaminovna Yudina was a monstre sacré. I knew her, but only from afar – it has to be said that she was so odd that everyone avoided her. For her own part, she showed herself somewhat suspicious and critical of me. She said of me: ‘Richter? Hmm… As a pianist, he’s good for Rachmaninoff.’ From her lips, that wasn’t a compliment, even though she herself occasionally played Rachmaninoff. She had graduated from the Petrograd Conservatory in the early twenties, at the same time as Vladimir Sofronitsky – a giant of a man who played Schumann and Debussy magnificently and Scriabin like nobody else. By the end of her life Yudina was an outrageous figure, a sort of Clytemnestra, always dressed in black and wearing sneakers for her concerts. She was immensely talented and a keen advocate of the music of her own time: she played Stravinsky, whom she loved, Hindemith, Krenek and Bartók at a time when these composers were not only unknown in the Soviet Union but effectively banned. And when she played Romantic music, it was impressive – except that she didn’t play what was written. Liszt’s Weinen und Klagen was phenomenal, but Schubert’s B-flat major Sonata, while arresting as an interpretation, was the exact opposite of what it should have been, and I remember a performance of the Second Chopin Nocturne that was so heroic that it no longer sounded like a piano but a trumpet. It was no longer Schubert or Chopin, but Yudina."

"During the war she had given The Well-Tempered Clavier at a splendid concert, even if she polished off the contemplative Prelude in B-flat minor from Book Two at a constant fortissimo. At the end of the concert, Neuhaus, whom I was accompanying, went to congratulate her in her dressing-room. 'But, Maria Veniaminovna,' he asked her, 'why did you play the B-flat minor Prelude in such a dramatic way?' 'Because we are at war!' It was typical of Yudina. 'We’re at war!' She absolutely had to bring the war into Bach."

"I heard Edwin Fischer, who did not mean much to me. I heard another pianist in Berlin who had a big success and I thought he was awful — Mischa Levitzki. Just fingers, and you cannot listen only to fingers. There is a difference between artist and artisan. Levitzki was an artisan."

"Of the Russian pianists I like only one, Richter. Gilels did some things well, but I did not like his mannerisms, the way he moved around while he was playing."

"During his recital last night I experienced so many contradictory emotions that it is difficult to define them. In the first instance, a profound joy when I realized that this artist had not altered (and I believe he never will). Nothing in his playing or attitude betrays his [nearly] eighty years loaded with success and achievement. At the same time I felt a great sadness. How is it possible that Emil Sauer must play in the small Salle Erard, despite his glorious past, when a Brailowsky or Uninsky can pack the Salle Pleyel? It must be due to public opinion, which remains eternally superficial, dependent on trends made fashionable by snobbery and publicity. In the case of Sauer, there may be another explanation - it is as strange as it is sad to reflect that the present generation has never heard of him, while his own generation has faded away. No matter how paradoxical it may seem this is the truth. Emil Sauer, the international virtuoso and pupil of Franz Liszt, is being forced, at the end of a brilliant career, to attempt to make a 'name' for himself. Such, at least, is the situation in France!"

"He [Gilels] played in an easy, natural manner, with strong but unassuming musicianship. His technique was brilliant; years later Neuhaus, still astonished, was to recall Gilels's incredible octaves in Liszt's Spanish Rhapsody. Yet Gilels was never looked upon as a mere virtuoso. As a matter of fact, his programs did not often include music pour epater le bourgeois. He played a stedy diet of Beethoven (the Hammerklavier was a work that strongly engaged his last years), Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and Brahms. In many respects, the great virtuoso who put his authoritative stamp on whatever he played was, at the same time, a thinking man's pianist."

"If there is an Italian school, it is represented by the puzzling and redoubtable figure of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, the most important Italian pianist after Busoni (if Busoni be considered Italian). Purely as a playing machine, Michelangeli is a legend to his colleagues, who put him in the Horowitz class as a super-virtuoso. Some of his playing is startling in its sheer pianistic polish and perfection. His fingers can no more hit a wrong note or smudge a passage than a bullet can be veered off course once it has been fired. In addition he is a complete master of tonal application, as evidenced in his performance of Gaspard de la nuit. By any standards this is one of the triumphs of modern pianism. The puzzling part about Michelangeli is that in many pieces of the romantic repertoire he seems unsure of himself emotionally, and his otherwise direct playing is then laden with expressive devices that disturb the musical flow."

"["How was he when the concerts were over?"] Sometimes he resembled children in having fun with few things. He was essential in this too. But his greatest passion, outside of music, were racing cars. He drove a Ferrari. One day he took me from Moncalieri, where he taught courses, to Turin in his car. He darted through the streets. I was terrified. And he didn't say anything; he was like a statue, dead serious. He looked like Buster Keaton. When we stopped in front of the station, he turned his bird-like head and opened his mouth: "Don't tell me I have scared you""

"Emil Sauer was also a good pianist, good technique, style. Very good fingers. He was a Liszt pupil. He was at his best in salon music — Chopin waltzes, things like that. But I heard him play a very good, very correct Op. 109. Some of the Liszt pupils were horrible. One I never could understand was Siloti. He played very badly. Another Liszt pupil was the famous Moriz Rosenthal, and I hated his playing. He couldn't make one nice phrase. I don't understand how he got his fame. Perhaps when I heard him he was too old to have any control. He had dexterity but he had no real technique, and I don't think he really knew how to play the piano. He didn't make music."

"I think Michelangeli in some repertory is absolutely incredible, especially Debussy."

"Interesting pianist, but I think he is just a little bit meshuga."

"He's a real perfectionist. But I think that this fanaticism and and the extreme instrumental standards he set for himself prevent his imagination from taking flight and stop him expressing any real love for the work he's performing so impeccably. It's 'inspiration' that's missing. Is this a notion that's been banished from today's dictionaries? It would be a great shame if this were so. But – one doesn't judge a master."

"Ever since the time when the feat of playing whole programs without the notes originated among the great virtuosi of the first half of the nineteenth century, musical memory has occupied an important place in piano playing and in all serious piano study. Today the frequenters of concert-halls have come to take it quite for granted that all public performers on the instrument shall play from memory, so much so in fact that to have seen Vladimir de Pachmann with the notes of the Chopin F minor Concerto in front of him on the music-rack, or the late Raoul Pugno tripping gaily out onto the platform with the music of the Italian Concerto in his hand, was to have experienced a slight shock to one's accustomed sense of the fitness of things. Entirely aside from any feeling among the artists themselves as to the advantages or disadvantages of playing from memory, their audiences have quite decided that they want their Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, and all the rest performed without reference to the printed page, so that it well behooves the young aspirant for public pianistic honors to question himself about the quality of his musical memory."

"That's right. And the time when Cortot came to Vienna in 1947 remains one of my greatest pianistic memories. He came there to play for the first time after the War, and we all knew what the war had been for him, what his ideological engagement had been. Cortot played two programs. The first part of the first recital, how shall I say this... it was an absolute disaster. Cortot played Chopin's Fantasy, which is not very difficult from a technical point of view, but he didn't manage to play even one octave correctly. Jörg Demus was seated next to me, and he was seething: "My goodness, how is this possible? He's an amateur, I'm leaving at intermission!" After the intermission, however, Cortot came back on stage like a changed man. It was a different man, a different pianist. He had gotten ahold of himself. I couldn't believe how well he played the Sonata Op. 35 No. 2, which is such a perilous piece by comparison. At the end of the concert, with Gulda, we found Demus and tried to convince him that he had missed a major event: "That's impossible! I don't believe you – and I already sold my ticket for the second recital!" [laughs] In the end, we weren't able to convince him. A week later, in front of a sold-out house, with all three of us in attendance, Cortot played the 24 Preludes and the Kreisleriana. I can tell you that he went far beyond, in terms of depth, poetry, and spontaneity, all the recordings he had ever made of these pieces, which we knew so well. It was a revelation! It was so moving! All the pianists who were there agreed. When Cortot and Fischer were on the right foot, it was perfect, in terms of the cleanness of their playing, and not just from an emotional or spiritual point of view..."

"Alfred Cortot was always a controversial pianist. Some listeners revered his playing, particularly of Chopin, as the embodiment of essential Gallic virtues, intelligence, clarity and elegance. Others thought it pallid, mannered and inaccurate, particularly in his later years."

"Russian students? you ask. Yes, we have white Russians but not the Soviets. They have a wonderful school of their own which has produced superb musicians such as Sviatoslav Richter, Oistrakh, and Rostropovich. Those Russians that we have here chose freedom, but their Slavic temperament manifests itself just the same, and they have a marked talent for music."

"The outstanding exponent of the French school after Pugno was Alfred Cortot, a remarkable and unusual pianist. … After graduating from the Conservatoire, Cortot plunged into the musical life of Europe, and not only as a pianist. … How could he possibly find time to keep his fingers in shape? The answer is simple: he didn't. Cortot was always making mistakes or having memory slips. These would have been fatal with a lesser man. With Cortot they made no difference. One accepted them, as one accepts scars or defects in a painting by an old master. … There was in his playing a combination of intellectual authority, aristocracy, masculinity and poetry. Cortot had a unique style, and a Cortot performance could always (and still can be recognized from his records; he made hundreds) by its sharpness, point, clarity of line, unmistakable rubato, sheer intelligence—yes, and by its wrong notes, too."

"Infant prodigies do not necessarily become great musicians. I have had over three thousand pupils, and I am convinced that the proficiency which some display is no more than a manifestation of dexterity and an extraordinary natural imitative faculty of children."

"The musician's technique, in fact, should be as protean as the actor's. The best method of attaining this is by combining the qualities of the artist and the technician. To do this it is essential, that in addition to concentrating upon musical technique, one should keep in touch with the other arts. They provide that general culture to the musician without which he will never become a great artist."

"Sofronitsky was made for Scriabin, and Scriabin for Sofronitsky!"

"It seems to me that this last piece, The Poet Speaks, which is the title Schumann gave to this immortal work, should be a transition into a kind of intimate reverie. It is not just about making a beautiful sound and expressive phrasing. You also need to create a sense of dreaming. The truth is, you need to dream this piece, rather than play it. Will you allow me to take your place? These two phrases are not connected. They are two different elements… of the same musical state. Here, like a question… And here again, another, tenderly asking the way. And from this moment, you should convey the music not just through the notes but through some kind of inspiration drawn from its immortal spirit. Now the sonorities should fade away…grow fainter and dimmer…and you are left simply in the presence of a reminiscent dream."

"Backhaus was a wonderful pianist, not really representative of the German style. About him I can speak with real enthusiasm. He was more relaxed than most of them. I once heard him play the Chopin etudes and it was remarkable. In the first one in C major not a single note fell under the piano. It was fantastic. He heard me play Liszt's Feux follets and came up to me. “Horowitz,” he said, “I could never do that." But he was being nice. He could have if he wanted. I have often been asked what I consider the most difficult piece I have ever played. I can answer that quickly. It was Feux follets. The Liszt Don Juan is not an easy piece, either."

"How do I produce the effects which I obtain from the piano? … In answer I would say I produce them by listening, criticizing, judging—working over the point, until I get it as I want it. Then I can reproduce it at will, if I want to make just the same effect; but sometimes I want to change and try another."

"Mr. Backhaus rarely used a percussive touch, and only for a special reason. One might listen to recital after recital without hearing a single unbeautiful tone."

"My fans really love me, so they want to understand classical music and I want to help them. By watching me, they’ve learnt not to clap between the movements, to know some of the music I play quite well. I love the idea of playing quiet music on a big stage, you can feel every note bubbling in the air, with everybody following."

"I’m very happy that so many children are learning the piano because of me."

"My emotions are expressed through the piano. It’s easier to speak through the keys than through words."

"I'd play the piano at 5am."