That was the opening of Beethoven's Piano Sonata
Opus 109 and it was performed by Paul Wee. I'm
Erica Worth and welcome to this Pianist Podcast.
Today I am speaking with barrister and concert
pianist Paul Wee about his life at the piano
with a particular emphasis on his new recording
of the late Beethoven sonatas on the BIS label.
Paul, it's great to have you on the Pianist Podcast
today. Thank you, Erica. It's great to be here
and thank you for having me. You're very welcome.
What I'd like to do is step back a little in
time first, because I know we're here to talk
about your album of the late Beethoven sonatas.
But first, for those listeners who don't know,
Paul is a top London barrister working in commercial
law. So I thought it'd be nice to start out by
talking about your double life career, as it
were. And when did you decide to really concentrate
on the piano? So when I started to concentrate
on the piano, would probably have been as a child,
I grew up thinking that that's what I wanted
to be. I fell in love with the piano, with the
music, with the literature at such a, well, at
quite an early age. And it was my dream to be
a pianist, a concert pianist, as far back as
I can remember. But cutting a long story short,
I... thought to myself when it came to the end
of my high school studies and I had to decide
whether to go full time into music at a conservatory
or to stay studying something else with music
on the side, I thought about it for the first
time and thought that as much as I loved the
piano and the music, the life of a concert pianist,
the realities that day to day that would involve
probably would not be for me. So I decided at
that stage to turn to the law. And I always kept
playing the piano. I knew that from the beginning,
one of the great advantages of being a pianist,
having the piano as your instrument, is that
you can always play completely on your own. You
don't need anyone else to make the literature
and the repertoire accessible to you. I always
continued to play. concerts here and there right
throughout the beginning of my legal practice
up till now i would play about two or three concerts
a year quite often in or around the inns of court
or you know in aid of various charities so the
piano was always part of my life bit in the background
now the the events of the past few years so far
uh i've been very fortunate in that they've seen
the concerts that I've given and the projects
that I've been taking on being a little more
visible and high -profile, but the sort of mix
of things has remained unchanged. Yeah, that's
very interesting though, because obviously, so
you decided piano, you're gonna take piano seriously,
but you know, most people, it's like, I need
an agent, I need a record label, you know, but
I don't know how it began with you and Biss Records,
but you have a recording contract with them.
It's something that... most pianists can only
dream of. How did that come about? Yeah, so that
came about. Again, I'm just, it's a constant
reminder of the role that luck plays in all of
this. It came about following a recital I played
in July 2016 for the Alcon Society. I played
the concerto for solo piano. And in the audience
at that recital was Bryce Morrison, the famous
critic and writer. And he came up to me afterwards
and said, you know, this is... this is this is
fantastic something needs to be done we need
to make a recording and i said well well i'd
love to do that but how you know uh he put me
in touch then bryce put me in touch with mike
spring formerly of hyperion now he's a very close
friend of mine mike helped me to make the recording
he said to me immediately up front well look
nobody is going to be interested in you uh just
because i say to them or bryce says to them he
is a great pianist he wants to make a recording
of alcan no one will make that happen it's not
how the industry works so mike said the way it
works these days is that you have to make your
own recording finance your own recording and
then you know we'll see what we've got we'll
see who might be interested in taking it and
that's exactly what we did we made the first
recording we decided to pair Alcon's Symphony
for solo piano alongside the Concerto for solo
piano. Once the recording was finished, we sent
it out. We sent it out to labels including this,
where Mike knew that the hardest thing in all
of this is having someone who will actually listen
to what you send them. Everyone's time is precious,
and again, you know... Everyone has so many demands
on their time. Simply a recommendation saying,
oh, you know, this is great. You really must
hear it is always, always going to fall on deaf
ears. But Mike knew that Robert von Baer of BIS
was different. He knew that Robert listens to
what is sent in to him. And that's exactly what
happened. Robert listened. He liked what we heard.
And he moved with amazing speed, you know, not
only to get the recording issued on BIS. in a
matter of months later that year but also to
lock in plans for future recordings even all
agreed before the Alcan was even released so
yeah it was it was a pretty extraordinary journey
and many things had to fall into place for that
to happen the way that it did I mean it is quite
remarkable because first of all Alcan you know
that's a composer a particular taste isn't it
um and then the next one was Talberg's L 'Art
du Chant. I mean, another work that, you know,
for pianophiles, you know, all your recordings
have been really for pianophiles, not your typical
mainstream repertoire. Well, in a way, in a way.
And that has reflected the... I guess the freedom
that I both have, given my relationship with
the piano, I don't need for other music related
reasons to record whatever programs I would happen
to be touring around with. I mean, you couldn't
really tour around viably with a program of Talberg.
No. Also, it reflects what this has given me.
all of these projects that i've suggested to
this and this is just you know down to i'm immensely
grateful to this and robert for being able for
being willing to sort of indulge uh my suggestions
my tastes and and the third factor is that they
reflect the works that i would have loved myself
to have seen recorded and that i therefore thought,
well, I'd love to do it myself. So the Talberg
in particular was a set that I think it is a
set still, that I think is very underserved in
terms of recordings. And yet there's so much
beautiful music written in there. I don't think
it's not accessible. You have, you know, some
transcriptions of very well -known arias from
very well -known operas, some beautiful leader
in there. it is music that actually incidentally
of all of my recordings performs the best by
some considerable margin on streaming platforms
so there is there is you know absolute appeal
to this music but yes it's a combination of those
things which um until now have meant that uh
what i have recorded is not necessarily your
standard fare absolutely and and so that there
were four and now with this fifth recording this
latest you have gone really in the different
path. You've gone to Beethoven, the late piano
sonatas. Most of us know them. Why have you suddenly
gone on that path? Yeah, so I'll start by making
one observation, which is to suggest that it
might not be as radical a shift as it may first
seem. And then I'll answer the question directly.
It is the first time that I am recording Beethoven
in the original, but it isn't the first time
that I'm recording very core mainstream repertoire
Beethoven, for instance. And for instance, the
recording in which I pair Liszt's transcription
of the Eroica Symphony with Alcott's transcription
of the Mozart D minor concerto. I mean, put aside
the transcription elements of this. These are
two of the most core mainstream. monuments of
the classical literature. So it isn't, I would
suggest, my first foray into the field. But of
course, when we talk about Beethoven in the original,
it is. And there is a little bit of a story there,
if you'll indulge me. So after the Henselt and
the Bronsart disc, Biss and I sat down to chat
about future projects, and we agreed on a provisional
list of six. Now, the late sonatas, they were
on that list. I had... proposed them myself,
as I had found myself drawn to them more and
more over the preceding years. I mean, in a way,
the works, they don't need any justification.
They're some of the most extraordinary utterances
in all of music, you know, specifically for their
searing humanity, you know. I've known them and
I've played them for years, all of them privately,
some of them in concert. None of this, none of
them were at all new or unfamiliar to me. But
although they were on the list, we hadn't planned
for them to be up next. What actually happened
is that we had had recording sessions planned
for March 2024 for a different project. But then
my wife and I, we learned the very happy news
that our second baby would be arriving in December
2023. And I knew that with a newborn baby at
home, I would not be ideally placed to prepare
the other planned. repertoire for those March
2024 sessions. And rather than cancel them, I
thought, you know, we should go ahead, but let's
go ahead instead with music that I'm much more
familiar with, that I knew much better. So we
decided to use those sessions instead to record
Opus 109, 110 and 111. And although it was originally
for practical reasons, there was also something
that felt, you know, substantively very right
about this. There is a way in which holding a
newborn baby in your arms, that sort of rhythm
of the first few days and weeks and months where
time just sort of dissolves around you, and you
cradle them as they sleep, you watch in awe as
they discover the world around them for the very
first time. Let me put it this way. I felt that
approaching this incredible music from... That
sort of day -to -day place of wonder and awe,
I felt that was an enormous privilege. I'm definitely
not saying that that's the only way to approach
these sonatas. Of course it's not. It's nothing
that Beethoven himself ever experienced. But
for me, immersing myself in this music, you know,
it touches the deepest nerves, I think, of what
it means to be human. You know, it's got some
of the most vulnerable... bearing of souls the
most aching tenderness a lot of that just felt
right at that point in time in my life and so
it was that combination as i say of practical
circumstances but also you know this this this
resonance i i i felt and i still feel between
you know the magic of those early months and
throwing myself immersing myself you know headlong
into this music that that has yeah led to led
to where we are now oh that's absolutely wonderful
and um when were the recording dates again when
were you in the studio yeah so we did opus 109
110 and 111 in march 2024 and then we returned
back later that year november 2024 uh to the
same venue at wyest and to do opus 101 and 106.
goodness and in between then you gave your wigmore
hall debut Yeah, it was quite a busy year for
me musically, 2024. That was in June 2024, yeah.
Absolutely. And how did that feel, a debut at
the Wigmore Hall? Did you ever in your wildest
dreams think you'd be giving a debut, playing
at the Wigmore Hall? No, is the short answer.
I absolutely didn't. And that made it, you hear
these words a lot, but it was quite literally
a dream come true. You know, as a concert goer.
It's my favourite venue in London. I've had so
many wonderful, transformative musical experiences
there over the years, sitting in the audience.
And yeah, the thought had never really occurred
to me that one day it would, it might be me up
there. And I'm, yeah, it's a memory and experience
that I will absolutely treasure. And I'm looking
forward, hopefully, to there being more to come.
Okay. And nerves? Did you, were you nervous?
Yes, definitely. Definitely. I always have an
element of nerves before any kind of performance,
I should say, you know, whether we're talking
about court or on the stage. It's fair to say
that being at Wigmore and especially immediately
beforehand, whether it's in the green room or
waiting in the wings to go on, it's fair to say
that that probably amplified it a little. I've
always enjoyed that sort of thrill of performing
because that's what it is. It's the other side
of that coin. And as I say, whether it's the
day job or whether it's as a pianist, it's part
of what makes every occasion magical and fun.
I would use the word fun. And, you know, we all
wonder sometimes, are we... Do we feel this way?
Do we have these nerves? Because, well, in a
word, imposter syndrome. Is it because, you know,
we're about to get found out or are we not sure
we've done the preparation? But then you think
to yourself, we've all read the stories about
Horowitz sometimes being so nervous that he would
have to be pushed physically out onto the stage.
And in my day job as well, you know, I've heard
from some of the most brilliant barristers, KCs
at the commercial bar, that they too always have
nerves before hearings. And I find that... reassuring.
Well it's so interesting because you know you're
up there at a hearing performing and you're on
stage at the Wigmore performing so there are
slight similarities there you obviously like
performing. Yeah absolutely absolutely I think
there are actually you know very many similarities
between the two and it's part of what keeps things
fun you know it is the culmination of so much
preparation on both sides both sides and then
but when it comes to it When you stand up in
court, when you go out on stage, that's when
it matters. It doesn't matter how many times
you've got it right in the practice room if it
doesn't come out the way you want it to on stage.
It doesn't matter how hard you're prepared, rehearsed
in your head, how the hearing's going to go,
if the witness says something completely unexpected
or if the judge asks you a question that you
haven't at all considered. It's what keeps it
fun. That's fascinating. That's fascinating.
Do you have any safety, I mean, with regards
to performing, getting nervous beforehand? Is
there anything you do beforehand to calm yourself
down? Not really, not really. I haven't had any
rituals, whether practical or purely, you know,
psychological. It's, yeah, nothing over the years
has built up. Okay. I'm looking at your, when
you were young, who you studied with, and I've
just realised that we both... share the same
piano teacher at some point in our lives, don't
we, in Manhattan? Absolutely. Nina Svetlanova,
who I absolutely adore and I miss her very much.
Yeah, you were in pre -college at Manhattan School
of Music. Yeah, that's right. From 2001 to 2005,
I went there on Saturdays alongside my regular
high school studies as well. Fantastic. And what
did you think she taught you, Svetlanova? ah
well so she taught me i would say she gave me
the foundations completely new foundations for
my approach to the keyboard my keyboard technique
if we want to use that shorthand i turned up
at nina's studio thinking that you know I knew
my way around the piano. I thought I was a pretty
nifty pianist. I was ready to bring her big pieces,
big repertoire that I wanted to charge through
with her very much as a hot -headed teenager
in high school in New York. Instead, she saw
what I had done, how I was currently playing,
and she brought me right back to basics. She
brought me right back to basics. She assigned
me movements from works that I had first played
as a child. And I thought to myself, well, what's
going on here? What's going on here? And in the
time that I had with her, which, you know, extraordinarily
looking back, I was only with her for two years,
actually. I was only with her for two years.
It was a very short period. She completely transformed
my piano technique from... top to bottom and
put it on. I would say for the very first time,
she introduced me to a principled approach of
what it means to use your hands, your body, your
arms, everything to navigate the keyboard. My
previous teachers, I think, were giving me technical
advice on a much more sort of surface -oriented
level, but she was the one who, for the very
first time, brought me right back to square one.
With hindsight, that was invaluable because what
it enabled me to do, because she'd given me the
foundations, the fundamentals, I was able to
keep working from them on the basis of what she
taught me, to keep advancing my own understanding
of technique, mechanics, for many, many years
after I stopped having regular lessons with her.
And it is entirely thanks to her that I have
the... technique that I have today and that includes
I have to say because what she taught me about
having an understanding of piano technique that
resides in the mind as a matter of principle
it's meant that I have never needed to say you
know sit down at a piano for one or two hours
every day to practice just to keep things going
instead I'm able to keep I'm able to go for weeks
at a time without touching a piano without playing
a piano and I can pick up where I left off and
That has been invaluable for me because I've
needed that. The day job often means that I don't
get to touch a piano for, you know, a very, very
long time. And I owe all of this to what she
gave me. That is remarkable. I mean, the fact
that you can go back to the piano four weeks
later and not feel like you've been awake from
it, really. That's remarkable. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. Well, I mean, of course, a lot of
that. The other part of that is that even if
I haven't been touching the piano, physically
touching the piano, I mean, I do always have
the piano, it's music in my mind, you know, and
whether you might think, to use the formal term,
practicing away from the keyboard or just something
in general, it is never the case that I'll go
for weeks without a time without thinking about
the piano or thinking about playing the piano.
Yes. And I mean, when you're at somebody else's
concert, like I know tonight, we will both be
attending our Caddy Volodos at the Barbican.
I'm a special pianist indeed. When you're sitting
there listening to him, obviously, I would have
thought you'll come away thinking, I should try
that. Oh, I like what he does here. Do you sometimes
think, bring that back to your own playing, your
own technique? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's...
it's a constant process and something that we
are so privileged uh in london to have you know
this never -ending stream of the greatest pianists
in the world always always coming to play and
of course you you go to listen i go to listen
to other people uh as often as i can i it's fair
to say i used to go to many more concerts than
i do these days because the children have arrived
and life is a lot more complicated but yes um
Always. I go to hear other pianists. It's not
with the primary aim of going and thinking, what
can I take away from them? But just because,
as I say, I love the piano. I love music. I've
always been going to concerts for the sheer joy
of it. But yes, every now and then you'll hear
a pianist, especially playing a work that you
think that you know very well, and you will just
be blown away by what you... what you hear others
do with them. And you can't help but think of
experimenting. I mean, some of the works that
Volodos is playing this evening are some of the
absolute works that have been very, very dear
to my heart for years. So I'm really excited
to hear him. But of course, the other side of
the coin is that when we're talking about specifically
pianists like Volodos, and there are very few
that that can be spoken of in the same way as
him. it's all fine and well saying oh i'd love
to take what volados does in those bars and do
it myself but no not in a million years not in
a million years no and we're all unique aren't
we and he is volados and that that's what makes
him so special and you are you yeah i mean what
i like also is your philosophy as a pianist once
you said to me that you're 95 a listener rather
than a performer you like being in the audience
that you feel is that true you're more inclined
towards that direction? Yeah, I mean, I'd say
that that's just a description of my relationship
with music. I am far more often the one sitting
in the audience or listening to new recordings
than I am the one on stage. I mean, it reflects
the very small number of concerts I give in comparison.
It's the setting with music that I Spend more
time within. Yeah, I get it. I heard you play
the Rachmaninoff Third with the Fidelio Orchestra
in June, this June. Would you like, and it was
great, it was fantastic, would you like to do
more concerto appearances? Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
In fact, I just played another Rachmaninoff third
the other day on Sunday with the Royal Orchestral
Society, conducted by Rebecca Miller. And that
also was just a total joy. That was at Duke's
Hall at the Royal Academy of Music. And yeah,
I'd love to play more concertos. I mean, there
are just, again, it's, it's... it's my love of
the literature there are so many incredible piano
concertos out there and although you can of course
have some fun playing the solo parts on your
own it's never the same thing as bringing them
to life with an orchestra and there's such a
breadth of of concertos out there that i would
adore to do it's just yeah i i would love that
do you think you need an agent for that do you
have an agent i don't have an agent i suppose
in theory an agent would be the conventional
way to get more well concert appearances generally
or more concerto appearances specifically uh
but i don't have an agent and i'm not sure that
that would be a likely path for me no i am not
looking to play as many concerts as possible.
I'm only able to play a small number. And when
my musical activities and my musical intentions
are put in that light, it's not obvious to me
that it would make commercial sense for an agent
to take me on. No. They'll be wanting to book
you constantly and you just don't have the time
in your diary. Absolutely right. And I have been
very fortunate so far that i've been able in
recent years to secure some very you know wonderful
performance opportunities on my own without an
agent and i will be a very happy man if that
can continue yeah well you seem to have the perfect
life balance career balance you know it's it's
amazing oh that's It might look like that from
the outside. It feels more like a constant state
of chaos on the inside. Well, yeah, I mean, to
be honest, balancing the law and music, it used
to be quite straightforward, quite straightforward,
quite simple. I would take... I would take on
a musical commitment, a concert, for instance,
put it in the diary and I would treat it in the
diary in the same way as any other legal professional
commitments. I'm a self -employed barrister,
so I can have a degree of control over what I
do. I don't have any any management or bosses
looking over me and saying, oh, no, no, no. What
are you doing? You can't you can't. take time
off to to spend uh preparing for a piano recital
uh of course um my cases have ongoing commitments
my clients have ongoing uh needs for advice and
so on so you're never completely free either
but i was able to put something in my diary figure
out in exactly the same way as i do for legal
commitments what sort of uh time will be needed
to prepare for this what do i need to set aside
to get ready and manage the diary accordingly
and it all you know um it all rumbled on very
very happily uh in that way for a while uh of
course what through a great spanner in the in
in the works is having children because that
it means your time is no longer your own yes
Then you cannot just, you know, take the 24 hours
of the day and use them as you would like. It's
a different ballgame. And it's, yes, as I say,
a perpetual state of chaos. But we're working
it out. We're working it out. Oh, well, yeah,
you need to take parenting seriously, of course.
And I can see that you do. Well, we try. We try.
Well, let's get on to, now we're coming towards
the end, so I thought we'd get on to something
a little bit more simple and light -hearted.
I'm going to throw some questions at you, and
if you can answer them off the cuff, that would
be great. So, here is the first one. If you could
play only one composer from now on, who would
it be? I would say... Schubert, if I am allowed
to keep, for instance, his songs, the leader,
even without just having that as part of it,
being able to play that, stick on the vocal line
on top, maybe with the fifth finger. But yeah,
Schubert. Oh, how come? There is everything in
his music that is so purely crafted. manifested
in a way in which the way that he expresses it
the nature of his writing it is so transparent
to the musical intention and there is no difficulty
for the sake of difficulty there is no florid
virtuosity now these are not things that i i
inherently disapprove of as you'll know from
my discography but it is just some of the purest
form of expression musical expression that there
is and it means that his music often hits me
that much harder than anyone else's yeah i understand
yeah okay next question one pianist dead or alive
you travel long and far to hear i would have
loved to have heard chopin All of the accounts
of his playing, his phrasing, his peddling, his
dynamics, his poetry, his manner of... Put it
this way. We are all these days, to some extent,
descendants of Liszt and the way that Liszt approached
the piano. Of course, that's far to say that
any of us have the magnetism, the charisma, the
personality of Liszt that lifted his concerts
to, you know, to the stratosphere and beyond.
But I think there is a lot of modern pianism
that we would recognise from Liszt, Talberg,
so on. But Chopin appears from the eyewitness
accounts and there are so many written down to
have been something else altogether. And he is
the one that I would... most have liked to have
heard. Okay, excellent. One person, dead or alive,
you'd love to play for? I would love to be able
to play one more time for our former teacher,
Nina Smetanova. I would love to be able to play
her share with her My Late Beethoven, Opus 110
in particular, which I know was a very, very
close work to her heart. Aww. Opus 110 is amazing.
Oh, that's sweet. Maybe, oh, that's a lovely
answer. Oh, okay. I used to go back to New York
a lot more often when my brother used to live
there and I would see her from time to time and
play for her maybe once every five years. But
she passed away within the last couple of years.
And I'm very sad that that door is no more. So
you'd go back every five years and play for her?
Sometimes more, sometimes more regularly than
five years, but from time to time. Wonderful.
Well, that's very special. Do you have any technical
struggles at the piano? Yeah, many, many, many
of them. But one that I think will always be...
beyond me for reasons that are non -negotiable
would be very large intervals. I don't have Richter
size hands so you know anything that goes beyond
white key to white key tenths I can do for instance
C to E but that's at the very edge of what I'm
able to do and if you're looking at certain pieces
where you have intervals of that width that are
filled in with notes in between and at speed
that can sometimes be done but it's it's it's
quite tricky i cannot go beyond so i can't do
tense like a flat to c f sharp to a sharp d to
f sharp and that does put certain works some
composers off limits now there are many many
tricks that you can do uh that will help you
to create the illusion of hitting those at once.
I'm not just talking redistribution. Obviously,
if you can bring in one hand to help the other,
that's the problem solved. But, for instance,
when you're playing composers like Talberg, who
had enormous hands, and his works, including
L 'Art Duchamp, are full of these deep, ultra
-luxurious, you know, tenths, you need to find
a way to overcome them. And... And listeners
to my Tolberg who have the score in front of
them will see the sorts of things that I am attempting
to navigate. It can be done in music that, as
is the case with many of those transcriptions,
is slower in tempo, so on and so forth. But the
moment you encounter that sort of writing in
more physical, more up -tempo passages, I'm out
of the game. No, you're right, because you haven't
really got the time to roll. a chord, have you,
if you're playing prestissimo? Absolutely. And
that means, for instance, that some works that
I would otherwise have loved to play, I don't
think I can execute at a level that I will ever
be satisfied with. So, for instance, the Liszt
transcription of the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven
is not something that I'll be turning to. Oh
my goodness. Okay, so you've obviously read it
and thought, uh -uh. Oh yeah, I've read quite
a lot, all of the nine and many others, but that
one won't be for me. That's amazing. Are you
a good sight reader? I'm all right, yeah, I'm
all right. I would say where my sight reading
isn't so strong is in open scoring, whether it
is sight reading from a conductor's score. or
just you know uh four -part chorales each in
their own stave but where we're looking at music
you know conventionally written for the piano
one two or sometimes three staves i'm i'm generally
all right yes okay i think i think you know for
for full orchestral score reading that's where
if i had gone to conservatory and studied conducting
for instance that that would have been a huge
help but i yes i can't pretend to do that at
sight no i can understand that What would be
your advice to an amateur pianist about how to
improve? The answer starts almost always by listening
back to yourself. Listen back to yourself. Quite
a lot of the time, you will find that what you
think you do well might not actually sound as
well as you. think it does and conversely what
you don't think you do well sounds rather better
than you imagined it's for amateur pianists in
particular and and i speak as one myself you
know you will decide for yourself what you think
are your priorities what are the aspects of pianism
of piano playing that you love most if what makes
your heart sing is beautiful tone production
then again listening back to yourself play both
in the moment but record yourself as well these
days with an iphone it's it's easier than ever
to stick something on and hear what you've done
uh and that is that is where you will really
know what to uh what what you need to do very
wise words my next question um slightly different
for you because you already do have another career
but it is if you weren't a pianist what would
you be well Yeah, I guess I have to say I would
be a barrister, a self -employed barrister. Self
-employment bit is important, but a self -employed
barrister playing the piano on the side. Okay,
that was a good one. Finally, one composer you're
not quite ready to tackle. Oh, that's interesting.
Do you mean musically or specifically as a pianist?
As a pianist, I would have thought, yeah. As
a pianist. Interesting. Well, that's really putting
me on the spot because there are so many composers
whose works I just adore. But as a pianist, one
composer I'm not quite ready to tackle. It could
be you don't have an affinity, you... I don't
know. It's really quite... It's fascinating.
I by no means love everything that everybody
wrote. But the flip side of that is that I find
so much to admire in some parts. You know, there's
almost always something I love. There's almost
always a weakness, works that I do adore, I will
fight for, I will give you, even if it's not
those of the usual suspects. Well, you don't
have to answer. I mean, let me talk from the
musical perspective, because there is an easier
example, I think, that might communicate what
I mean by a lot of this. So, for instance, a
composer I'm not quite ready to tackle as a listener
would be, for instance, Bruckner. I haven't yet
had my moment with Bruckner. I know that the
music is great. I know there is so much joy and
satisfaction and beauty to be found there. I
haven't crapped it myself. I've given it a go.
I've given it a few goes. But it is not yet music
that has struck home to me. I know that it will.
I absolutely know that it will. And the other
thing is that I'm in no hurry. You know, life
is, well, life is short. But we don't have to
rush out there and consume everything all at
once now. And I'm ready to wait and to bide my
time. I'm ready to wait and bide my time. yeah
fair enough yeah i think that's a fair answer
that's fine maybe then okay i can i can thinking
about that go back to one composer i'm not quite
ready to tackle from the pianistic perspective
it's not because i don't love the music it is
more because i find the music difficult to play
in a way that i would find interpretatively satisfying
in the long run. Interpretations that would withstand
multiple, multiple listenings. And that is quite
a lot of Schumann. I mean, I adore the music.
I mentioned earlier that, for instance, Volodos
is playing David's Gondola Dancer this evening,
and that is absolutely one of the works that's
closest and so dear to my heart. But so many
of the works of his that I... admire they are
so overwrought with intensity and passion and
that's part of what makes them so fun and yet
navigating that world that emotional world not
just not just giving up to it submitting to it
in the moment and uh letting all of those extremities
uh fly off the keyboard but harnessing those
into something that, as I say, will withstand
repeated listening, which is what you have to
do, I think, as a performer these days. It's
a very difficult balance to strike. Yes, I understand
that. And again, I'm not saying never. I very
much hope that one day I'll turn to so many of
these works that I love. But it's something that
at the moment I would... I confess I would feel
very intimidated to take on properly. I understand.
Yeah. Well, listen, we've come to the end and
we've got some Schumann for you to get to enjoy
tonight, haven't we, with Volodos? Maybe he'll
change your mind. Oh, well, if I could play it
like he does then. Oh, well, Paul, it's been
a real pleasure having you on the podcast today.
It's been a joy to chat with you. Thank you so
much for having me. Oh, I'm sure listeners will
have taken away a lot of interesting info from
you. So thank you again. And I look forward to
speaking to you and listening to you in the future.
Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much, Erica.
Bye -bye. Bye -bye. That was the scherzo from
Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, Op. 106, and
it was performed by Paul Wee. Pianist podcasts
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