Classical Domain: Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I, commissioned the Korngold piece on the program. Wittgenstein was finicky, or maybe catholic is more appropriate, in his musical tastes, did he play the Korngold?
Gary Graffman: Wittgenstein did play the Korngold suite, it's a wonderful piece, I've played it a lot actually.
There's not a lot of chamber music written for the left hand. There are a lot more concertos written for the left hand then there is chamber music.
Of course it's all, with some exceptions, because of Paul Wittgenstein. There is a Janácek chamber workCapriccio which was written for a strange assortment of instruments: piano, piccolo, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba. Janácek wrote for a Czech pianist Otakar Holman who was injured during the First World War. [the work was written in 1926, and originally titled Defiance referring to Holman's decision to continue his career with only one arm, but he later changed it to the more fashionable neo-classic Capriccio.]
Still, basically all the majority of music that we associate with the left hand is, was written for Wittgenstein. He didn't play everything he commissioned, he was very difficult to please.
For example the Prokofiev forth concerto, he got he music and wrote to Prokofiev, “I just received this, I read it through, I don't understand one single note of it and I'll never play it.”
And he never played it.
Things he did play, like the Ravel concerto, which is one of the great works of the repertoire — even two-handed pianists play it. First, the work has a huge cadenza and another extended section when the piano plays without orchestra, so two very long sections with no orchestra — so, Wittgenstein wrote to Ravel, “If I'd wanted a solo piano piece I'd have asked for a solo piece.”
Then there's the Korngold who wrote a wonderful one-movement concerto, which sounds like a Strauss tone poem in many places. He wrote that If I had four hands, not just two, no one would hear me because of the way you orchestrated this piece.
CD: So not only did he reject a lot of compositions, but he's hard to please at the same time. The poor guy is commissioning all these works and he's not happy with anything being too new — he needs new but didn't need modern....
GG: There are also three piano quintets written by Franz Schmidt, for the left hand. There is one that was written for me, by Jennifer Higdon who is a wonderful composer. I've played if four or five times and I'll play it again this summer. There is more in the literature, but not much is performed.
Strauss himself wrote two works for left hand piano an orchestra. I've never performed them, but I recorded one, with the Vienna Philharmonic and André Previn, it's called Parergon. The other is called Panathenäenzug both scored for huge orchestras.
It's strange that they are not performed more often, particularly Parergon. Certainly there is not question that Strauss knew how to orchestrate, but the common complaint is that the orchestrations are so thick and loud, the piano is barely heard. On a recording it's no problem, just get some good microphones in the right placement.
CD: Korngold is having resurgence, particularly at chamber concerts. And, importantly (I think) for New York, City Opera just did Die Tote Stade.
GG: Die Tote Stade is done much more often in Europe, it's a wonderful opera. Then there is the violin concerto, I grew up with the Heifetz recording. it was considered so difficult only Heifetz could play it. Now of course practically every violin student at Curtis plays it.
CD: I wonder what that says about interpretation and facility...
GG: There is a difference, plus there are more people playing now. I'll give you another example that depicts the difference. Once only Rachmaninoff and Horowitz would play Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto. It was considered something they could play but most others couldn't. Now it's become standard repertoire for every 16 or 17 year old pianist in music school.
Korngold was the golden boy, in Vienna they were preparing him to be the next Mozart, there are operas before Die Tote Stade, that were a tremendous success. Things go in and out of fashion, also the fact that Korngold was associated with Hollywood did not help, particularly as contemporary music become so University centered.
Music was going other directions, particularly in the US, but Korngold continued to composer the way he felt. Yes now there does seem to be a little renaissance of his music.
You know, when I was a student, nobody was especially interested in Korngold, When I started to play, when I was in my twenties and thirties, you never saw anything. Now there is a lot of chamber music being performed, we have moved past simply the Heifetz recording of the violin concerto.
There is a lot of Korngold chamber works, not just the great piece we are playing with the Chamber Music Society.
CD: OK, so just for the record, you've performed Brahms in the past; not to put you on the spot, but can you form a thread, say between Brahms and Korngold?
GG: Yes, but really it could also have been with several other influences as well, Strauss for instance... If you are a composer at this point in Vienna, you cannot help but be influenced by Brahms.
As for Brahms' music, I have performed about everything, the concertos both — a lot. Lots of solo works, most of the chamber music, quartets, trios etc... the violin sonatas. In fact two of the three violin sonatas I performed many years ago have recently come out on records, they were not commercial recordings, there were concerts at the Library of Congress. Now released on Bridge Records.
One of the recordings is Sonata No. 2 in A Major, which was part of a recital that I did with Berl Senofsky. I also had several concerts with Henryk Szeryng. Among other pieces we did the other two Brahms sonatas. I released the recording of the Sonata No. 1 in G major, but I did not give approval for the third, the d minor; maybe I should have? It was a concert and things happen, hit a wrong note, or something.... It was a good performance never the less, but I don't know that it ought to be out on record. Henryk who, unfortunately, is not around anymore, would not have wanted it released.
The two recordings are available from the Library of Congress
CD: The other work on the program is Leon Kirchner's solo work for the left hand called For the Left Hand.
GG: It's a beautiful work, inspired work.
I learned the piece several months ago, and I first performed it in Shanghai, and recently in Santa Fe. It is just recently that I played it for Kirchner, several times, and he told me to ignore several things in the music.
CD: I hope you have the annotated score, for posterity. People will read that Kirchner studied with Schönberg but the work, is lyrical...
GG: Lyrical, Romantic and inspired.
It was originally written for Leon Fleisher, a few years ago. I don't think Leon recorded it, which is too bad, I would have liked to have heard the work before I learned it.
Now, of course Leon is recording two hand works again, I don't know that he will go back and record more left hand works.
CD: It would have been interesting to find out if Kirchner gave Fleisher the same tips...
CD: You recently retired from Curtis, are you planning more concerts?
GG: I am doing more concerts now, I was in Europe Australia and China; I am going to Hong Kong, and Korea. I'm getting an honorary doctorate, I don't have a real one, but I have many honorary ones, at the Cleveland Institute. The next day to Italy, then back to Florida for a festival and then to Moscow... it's not much of a retirement, but that's what I'm doing.
CD: OK, so the last word; since you're retired now, any free advice on teaching or listening?
GG: Well am supposed to be retired, I was the president and director at the Curtis Institute — until two months ago, after being affiliated with Curtis for 25 years. I still teach there, now I have five students instead of three. But I have not taught all my life, before Curtis, I did have a few students, but few, extremely few.
There is one important thing I learned about teaching, it was from Horowitz. I studied with Horowitz after I graduated from Curtis. I though that it would be a sort of great pianist treatment “ Oh no, no, I do it this way” and then he would sit down and play something his way.
But, in fact he didn't touch the piano, at all. We would criticize me in the direction that he thought I wanted to go and did not succeed, in other words, on my terms. Once and a while he might say “I think you're on the wrong track, ” but very, very seldom. Usually it was more “If that's what you want to do, I don't think it's convincing.” He would not say it was not convincing because I was doing it my way instead of his way. He'd listen
So what I learned from that, subliminally, is that everybody's different. there are as many great interpretations of Beethoven's Appassionata sonata as there are great pianists to play it. That's what I try to do to an extent, it's up to the student to decide.
CD: Thank you very much Mr. Graffman.
Through Brahms (II) -- A Path From Schubert to Kirchner
David Shifrin, Clarinet; Ida Kavafian, Erin Keefe, Violin
Andres Diaz, Cello; Gary Graffman, Andre-Michel Schub, Piano
Daedalus Quartet
Min-Young Kim, Violin • Kyu-Young Kim, Violin
Jessica Thompson, Viola • Raman Ramakrishnan, Cello
Brahms: Clarinet Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 120, No. 2
Brahms: Klavierstucke, Op. 118
Webern: Langsamer Satz for String Quartet
Kirchner: For the Left Hand (NY Premiere)
Korngold: Suite for Two Violins, Cello and Piano, Op. 23
November 5, 2006 5:00 pm
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center Details
November 7, 2006 7:30 pm
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center
Details
Gary Graffman Biography
The celebrated pianist Gary Graffman has been a major figure in the music world since winning the prestigious Leventritt Award in 1949. For the next three decades he toured almost continuously, playing the most demanding works in the piano literature both in recital and with the world's great orchestras. He also made a series of highly acclaimed recordings for Columbia (CBS) and RCA, including concertos by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Brahms, Chopin and Beethoven with the orchestras of New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago and Boston, and with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, Eugene Ormandy and George Szell.
In 1979, however, Mr. Graffman's performing career was curtailed by an injury to his right hand. His performances are now limited to the small but brilliant repertoire of concertos written for the left hand alone, most of them commissioned early in the century by Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I. In addition to the famous Ravel Concerto, these include major works by Prokofiev, Britten, Richard Strauss, Franz Schmidt and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Mr. Graffman played the North American premiere of the latter concerto, written in 1924, with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic in 1985 and has recorded the Strauss “Parergon” for Deutsche Grammophon with the Vienna Philharmonic led by André Previn.
The reduction in Mr. Graffman's concert activity has provided him with a remarkable opportunity to expand his horizons beyond the stage. Most notable has been his leadership of the renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He first joined its piano faculty in 1980 and became Director of the all-scholarship conservatory in 1986, following such illustrious predecessors as Josef Hofmann, Efrem Zimbalist and Rudolf Serkin. He was appointed President of The Curtis Institute in 1995 and remains active as a teacher and coach of piano and chamber music students.
Mr. Graffman's performing career was auspiciously linked to his academic life in 1993, when he joined conductor André Previn and the Symphony Orchestra of the Curtis Institute of Music for the world-premiere performances of Ned Rorem's Piano Concerto No. 4 (for the Left Hand). Dedicated to Mr. Graffman by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer-who is also a Curtis alumnus and faculty member-the concerto was performed at Philadelphia's Academy of Music and, a day later, at Carnegie Hall. A compact disc recording of the premiere is available on New World Records. This work has most recently been performed by Mr. Graffman with the San Francisco Symphony and Zurich's Tonhalle Orchestra.
In April 1996 Mr. Graffman performed the world premiere of William Bolcom's Gaea Concerto for Piano and Two Left Hands with his friend and colleague Leon Fleisher. The work, commissioned jointly by the Baltimore, St. Louis and Pacific symphonies, was given its premiere by the two soloists and David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony, first in Baltimore and then at Carnegie Hall. It was subsequently heard with the Saint Louis and Pacific symphonies and, in November 1998, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, again with David Zinman conducting.
In 2001-02 Mr. Graffman gave world premiere performances of three concertos, all of which were written for him: Daron Hagen's Seven Last Words with the New Mexico Symphony and Buffalo Philharmonic; Richard Danielpour's Zodiac Variations with the National Symphony in Washington, D.C.; and Luis Prado's Concerto for Left Hand with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. In March 2003 he premiered another concerto written for him, this one by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, with the Minnesota Orchestra. This work was recorded by Reference Recordings. In the 2004-05 season Mr. Graffman has been re-invited to perform with the orchestras of Baltimore, Seattle, Phoenix, and New Jersey in the United States, as well as the Shanghai Philharmonic and Moscow Symphony abroad.
Gary Graffman is the author of highly praised memoir, “I Really Should Be Practicing,” published by Doubleday in 1981 and issued in paperback by Avon the following year. He has also written popular articles on non-musical subjects and found time to pursue a scholarly interest in Asian Art (which he collects) and photography. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania and The Juilliard School, among others. He has been honored by the City of New York with its Handel Medallion, by the City of Philadelphia on its Walk of Fame, and by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as recipient of the Governor's Arts Award, recognizing him for his varied accomplishments, including his “leadership of Curtis.“
Gary Graffman was born in New York, of Russian parents, and began to play the piano at age 3. His father, a violinist, had given him a small fiddle, but when the instrument proved too cumbersome, piano lessons were substituted, though a return to the violin was planned. The young Graffman's affinity for the piano soon became evident, however, and at 7 he was accepted by the Curtis Institute for study with the renowned Isabelle Vengerova-exactly 50 years before he would become the school's director. After graduation from Curtis, he worked intensively for several years with Vladimir Horowitz and, during the summers, at the Marlboro Music Festival with Rudolf Serkin.
A Gary Graffman Discography
