Krystian Zimerman on his recording "Szymanowski: Piano Works"

1)
This recording was a dream I had in 1972 when I first heard the piece. I started to work on the pieces and won competitions with them. And the pieces have been with me for the last 50 years. I think 'Variations' is one of the most personal statements the composer has ever made.

2)
It's comparable to the most essential pieces of music, like Chopin's Third Sonata. There is also a "Marche funèbre" in it. And Szymanowski tried to commit suicide after it. There are many theories as to why this happened. Maybe it was the syndrome of Virginia Woolf, who wanted to commit suicide after every book he wrote and finally succeeded.

3)
Or was it simply the realisation that he was perhaps a little different from "normal people" at that age and that he might have many problems in life? There were problems in England at the same time. Oscar Wilde had to flee England for France because of the same problem.

4)
So you can imagine how much stronger it was in the Eastern Bloc countries where the connection with religion is even more vital. So, it is one of the most personal statements I have ever read from a composer.

And I could imagine that it would be especially appealing to young people who can read that kind of emotion, who have the same problems just getting through this time of puberty and so on.

5)
It's the discovery that they might not be the same as others and... whatever that is. I'm not talking about any particular region. I composed this record from different periods of his writing - the first period was very much towards Eastern music - Scriabin, Rachmaninoff.

6)
You can hear very clearly that Scriabin inspires the preludes very much. The variations are inspired by the expressionist music of that period, romantic music. The "Masques" are from another period. They come from Ravel's "Gaspard de la nuit" influence.

7)
From perhaps "Petrouchka" by Stravinsky. This triptych of three unrelated pieces is based on Greek mythology, later sagas and "Don Juan", a Spanish saga. In effect, three people who have nothing to do with each other. "Shéhérazade" is a thousand-year-old story.

8)
Later, the Tantris is based on the sagas of the "Tantris"; there are many. But we're talking about a period much closer to today - and very picturesque pieces. It's incredibly colourful music and precious when you hear it a few times. Especially the second movement, which was initially the first movement of Tantris, which is nothing but Tristan.

9)
It shows the mask of this man who tries not to be killed by King Mark. In the end, he is discovered by a dog that barks four times before the end of the piece.

This is similar to an idea in Chopin's Second Ballad, where the Switekianka eludes this man and drags him into the moor, where he eventually dies.

10)
And the bell rings at four o'clock - three o'clock, actually - in the morning. So, the play is something to be discovered. I will not say more because I could go on for hours. But the third section is the most Polish section, I would say. It goes into something that only Chopin dared to do.

11)
Mazurkas. And he achieves incredible mastery. Utterly different from Chopin's folklore. It's based on another folklore. Chopin's mazurkas are based on Mazovian folklore. His folklore is based on the Tatras. So, the melodies are entirely different. The basis of the material is completely different.

12)
And, of course, it's a hundred and something years later. So the tools: he's using atonality and so on. It's an exciting clash of the two: folk music in an atonal structure. It is a very daring experiment, which is fabulous! Full of colours. Full of incredible moods. Fantasy, hysteria, everything is there.

13)
But one of the reasons I made this record was the "Variations", where I kept breaking my teeth. I broke a tooth during the recording. And I never felt that I was playing it the way I should. So, the recording allowed me to rest between the pieces.

14)
Because it's incredibly physically demanding, and unfortunately, Szymanowski had huge hands. So, all these chords are uncomfortable and challenging to play.

You have to let go of that difficulty and concentrate on the music to make music and not to play the piano. I'm very grateful to Deutsche Grammophon for keeping some of the tapes.

15)
I started recording in 1991, and I recorded the Masques in 1994. And you know, the technology at that time was completely different. We were recording on these big Ampex tapes - you know, very uncomfortable, very cumbersome.

When Deutsche Grammophon moved from Hanover to London, they couldn't take everything with them and had to choose what was essential and what wasn't.

16)
By then, the recording was 20 years old, and there was no hope of being banned. I wanted to finish it for 2012. And around 2010, unfortunately, I was attacked by two Polish newspapers with very unpleasant and unjust statements, so the atmosphere was so poisoned by that time that I finally withdrew.

17)
My Chopin project in 2010 with recordings of Chopin sonatas, a project in 2011 with another Polish composer and my project in 2012 with Szymanowski was cancelled. I had a lot of health problems after that. But again, 2022 came, and I have tempted again and said: "I owe it to Szymanowski. Not to the Polish public or Polish journalists."

18)
But I owe it to Szymanowski. And I will be delighted to try". Finally, I called Yasuhisa Toyota, and he said: "Look, why don't you come to my concert hall, which I built with the experience of Suntory Hall and Kitara Hall? Why don't you come over? You can record every night. We have something every day, but you can sit there every night.

19)
And that was one of the most fantastic experiences. I was alone - just my tape recorder, the piano and this excellent acoustic of the hall built for Szymanowski!

The recording was completed a few days later. This is our duty. We want to bring what we believe to others so everyone can enjoy it.

20)
And, you know, people visit someone and bring a bottle of wine or flowers for the lady. I went to a concert and heard a piece that touched my heart. And I want to share that with these people. I don't want to force it on them. I'm sure they'll like it because I love it.

21)
I was utterly enchanted. I had the same feeling when I heard Rachmaninoff No. 3 and Rachmaninoff No. 2. As soon as the record was finished, I started again from the beginning.

And I couldn't stop. It was half past four in the morning, and my mother came in and said: "Are you crazy? You are going to school tomorrow."

22)
I said: "I can't stop. It's so beautiful; they have to hear it again." The moment it was over, what was the difference? There was no recording at that time.

Since then, some other pianists have recorded it very beautifully. Jerzy Sterczyński recorded the Variations very beautifully in Warsaw.

23)
A colleague of mine with whom I won first prize in a Prokofiev competition. Another colleague of mine, Piotr Anderszewski, recorded "Masques" some years ago. I don't know this recording, but he did a good job. I have never heard some of the Preludes by anyone else.

24)
And it was incredibly liberating because we were surrounded by music we already knew. And I once said in an interview: "I would give anything to hear for the first time the Moonlight Sonata!"

To discover it. We have already been programmed by someone else. Unconsciously, we have already heard this music somewhere.

25)
I can't remember you playing a piece you've never heard before. That's why playing the Lutosławski piano concerto was so exciting.

I suddenly realised there were so many ways to do the exact phrase that I got scared. And I went to him and said: "Look, it's written very precisely, but I can still screw it up in so many ways that I'm terrified."

26)
And he said: "I have only written it. You are the interpreter." And it's fascinating because you can notice this in a world of composition.

The most exciting time for me is the beginning of the last century – 1900. It's maybe the most exciting time for the human race. We forgot what an incredible place the world was at the "fin de siècle" and the beginning of this 20th century—for example, Italy and Spain.

27)
How much was the First World War destroyed? And we never recovered from that. And then came the Second World War. And we are still recovering from that, 120 years later.

I mean from the beginning of the century measured. But the significant thing that differs from any time after that is the variety.

28)
These people were not manipulated by photography yet. And when you look at how differently every composer is writing in various countries!

Here is still, you know: Brahms just finished, Liszt just finished, Wagner and so on. Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Stravinsky are coming - completely different aesthetics.

29)
There is Amy Beach in America, which has an entirely different writing style. In France, there are two completely different composers. Completely different aesthetics.

The same goes for orchestras. Even after the war, you could tell with your ears what the Rhenish brass sounded like, what the strings of the Vienna Philharmonic sounded like, and so on.

30)
The orchestras had their faces, had their ways... You could hear it after five seconds. This is Chicago. This is the Boston Symphony.

Today, I have no idea. Any orchestra can imitate anything. We have levelled the whole world into one plane. This is mainly because of the ease with which music can be bought. Ready-cooked music. And the fact that if you stick out of the model, you will be destroyed.

31)
I only received this recording 12 hours ago, last night. And if you look at the cover, how Deutsche Grammophon made it, it's got my and the composer's picture. So, very proud of this record, I took my Samsung, took a picture and wanted to send it to my friends.

32)
And now I'm getting a message in the Samsung: "Someone may have blinked". This camera has a function: if you take a picture of a group and someone blinks, the camera tells you. But no one is blinking here. It's a picture! I'm certainly not blinking. My eyes are open.

33)
A shiver went down my spine, and I thought: "My God if this isn't a message from him! And what does he mean?"

Krystian Zimerman: About his recording "Szymanowski: Piano Works"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hYAHSUSD8

Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman pays tribute to his compatriot Karol Szymanowski, revealing the multifaceted nature of the Polish composer's pianistic language. Having studied his solo piano works for decades, Zimerman sheds new light on lesser-known aspects of Szymanowski's output, helping to cement his reputation as one of the great composers of piano music. Zimerman presents a highly varied repertoire from 1899 to the mid-1920s on his DG album of Szymanowski piano works.

A strong thread of friendship runs through this album, linking both Szymanowski and Zimerman to the legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein and Zimerman to the world-renowned acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota. It combines repertoire recorded in the Toyota-designed Fukuyama Concert Hall with previously unreleased recordings of Karol Szymanowski made by Zimerman in 1994: Piano Works won the Piano category at the 2023 Gramophone Classical Music Awards.

In this interview, Zimerman talks about Szymanowski's life and musical language, his immersion in the writings of Debussy, Scriabin and Stravinsky, his works such as 'Masques' which portray three literary figures, Scheherazade, 'Tantris' or Tristan and Don Juan, and the fantastic story behind this recording.

INTERVIEW Yasuhisa Toyota (acoustic designer)

https://ebravo.jp/archives/96052