An interview with Mikhail Voskresensky. The professor and his students will be appearing at the X International Piano Festival.
– I’ve heard the opinion that the most important quality for any writer is intuition. But what is the most important quality that a pianist must have?
– In order to be a good musician you have to have several qualities. Including, of course, intuition. But without a good education that alone will not help. We are, after all, “practitioners” – moving our fingers over the keyboard. And that’s why we absolutely must have a good school. I studied under Lev Nikolayevich Oborin, and the famous Matsuev studied under Nasedkin and Dorensky.
We’ve had famous musicians: Sofronitsky, Gilels and Sviatoslav Richter! I would imagine that many remember these great names. Although at times they are forgotten... They had that intuition! But if Sofronitsky hadn’t studied under Leonid Nikolaev in St Petersburg and hadn’t had such phenomenal qualities – willpower, clarity of thought and knowledge – then intuition would not have helped.
You also have to preserve your individuality, as there are many pianists today and each of them has had a great basis – their fingers run, they play very fast. But is it interesting to listen to them? For it to be interesting the performer must have a vivid and interesting artistic persona.
– And how is this artistic persona developed?
– You cannot develop an artistic persona! An artistic persona is given by God Himself! You need talent. If you have it, it must be fostered. Intuition is a major component of talent. But you can’t be a musician with intuition alone, because in our work professionalism plays a major role.
– Apropos, your school teacher Ilya Rubinovich Klyachko wrote about professionalism. In one review he commented that you have managed to achieve “the most difficult thing – expressiveness of form in general”. What technique do you use to achieve this?
– None! You don’t need any techniques for that (laughs). You need to be able to read the work. When I start to work on something I initially play it from start to finish. I try to understand what it is saying to me and what I personally can say to it. Here the sources are incredibly important. There are manuscripts, original editions, meaning publications produced during the composer’s lifetime; there are subsequent publications which featured various editors, as was the case with Frédéric Chopin. He had three publishers during his lifetime and each time, on receiving amendments, introduced some changes to his scores. Nowadays people scratch their heads, wondering what Chopin’s final wish actually was.
It is important to impose your will on the score, your own understanding of the music, your erudition, imagination and concepts, moreover not just about the work in question but concepts about the world, God and life itself. It’s an immense complex of knowledge created by the artist and the interpreter as a whole. Without us, a work printed on paper does not exist! The pianist is the secondary author. He reveals to the audience what the composer wanted them to hear.
Of course, one has to go by the directions dictated by the composer. A reading of a score based entirely on personal perceptions leads to libertarianism, I would even go so far as to say it leads ton unprofessionalism. I believe that the performer should subject his own will to the tasks, thoughts and ideas present in the composer’s work. It’s not just sitting down, performing and playing as you should. In the process you come alive in the work itself. Moreover, I try to hear other performers. But that’s the second stage, when I already know roughly what I want to say. It is very useful to listen to how Gilels or Sofronitsky played. But an exact copy is always dead art.
– Do you have any rules for good behaviour in music?
– Yes! You need to have good taste. And you get that from your teachers and when working alone, yourself. You have to go to concerts. I know many pianists that perform many concerts but never listen to their colleagues and so they can’t imagine what’s happening in the music world and they sometimes “wither” in their own “nests”.
– Has your attitude to the profession changed over time?
– Of course, one’s attitude changes. You gain experience and your wold-view alters. If you continue to work.
I remember one conductor I adore telling me once about a famous pianist “He is at an age where they perform only for money, and as they don’t pay money at home he doesn’t play at home! That’s why his concerts are always so successful!”
In our profession career growth is limitless. With the music of Bach it is possible to say a great deal, and having said a great deal you understand you can say a great deal more. It’s an endless process. It’s a wonderful state of joy to live in your profession!
– In your performing style there seems to be an exemplary order in everything and an exquisite balance. Do you like such order in life as well? Are you a perfectionist?
– Nothing of the kind! Who told you that? (laughs)
– That’s what the music critics say.
– You need order, you can’t be mad! (laughs). But order without temperament is boring.
I firmly believe that I am one of those pianists who need the process of creation to be fresh and new each and every time. At home you prepare, you understand how to play, you think about it a lot, you rehearse. And it seems as if everything’s ready. But you come on stage and everything’s different! Not in the sense that you do a crescendo instead of a diminuendo. I mean something more subtle. There is the word “inspiration”. And as that word exists, that’s great.
My teacher Lev Nikolayevich Oborin told me about a story about Arthur Rubinstein. Once Lev Nokolaevich noted that Rubinstein didn’t appear before a concert and I asked him” “How so?” I myself observed when, in 1964, Rubinstein came to us in Moscow. We, as young musicians, raced to his rehearsal. He came, he took a long time to select a piano, and then he performed terzettos and quartets, the glissando from Ravel’s and then left. He didn’t rehearse his own programme! And to Oborin’s question Rubinstein responded: “You understand, I want to be fresh for the concert. If I do the same thing all day it’ll be a tired performance.” This is very important to be fresh and inspired, as if a co-creator with the original work.
Anton Rubinstein once spoke of this. He had been listening to the young Alfred Cortot who was then sixteen. He performed the Appassionnata. Rubinstein was sitting in a chair (laughs). And after the performance he told the master of the house, Cortot’s teacher, “Your cognac is very good! Pour me another glass!” The poor Cortot moved towards the door and on the threshold heard the words of the maestro “Remember, young man, the Appassionata must be recreated each time anew!” It seems to me that they are great words.
– Among your own pupils are there any who continue the traditions of Voskresensky the teacher?
– I don’t teach teachers. I train musicians! And the musicians who study under me are all different, of course. I have never ever tried to bring them to a standard. I teach them to think, to consider a work as it was written, to imbue it with your soul, your thoughts, your expression.
I have many wonderful students. I won’t list their names. They could all be teachers if they wanted to be. The important thing is to create! I am certain that anyone who wishes to dedicate themselves to education will continue my school somehow merely because they studied under me.
These traditions go back many centuries. I was taught by Oborin. He was a teacher who, undoubtedly, took up the teaching traditions of Igumnov, and I consider him my musical grandfather. Igumnov was a contemporary of Tchaikovsky – and their time was a great age. Of course we must observe traditions. That’s something I can only dream of – for my students to continue my work.
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