Whats so appealing about Tchaikovskys First Concerto?
Well, it’s like a big production, a blockbuster movie or soap opera, like with big ranges of emotion when you see the whole work. Like a great story. Exactly, and I always relate music to telling a story, all the gradations of knowing how to build to the climax somehow. That’s the difficulty of it, because most pianists who play this piece, they think it’s for showing how fast or how loud you can play it. Of course, there are moments like an earthquake, but that’s really not the important thing. As in telling a story, you have to guide it, knowing what to show and when. Right, the mystery of it is important. And the mastery is important, too, because you have to be above the technical aspects in order to make it flow, and to know what kind of emotion you have to put into it. You’ve been praised for your performance of the Rachmaninov Third Concerto, which is incredibly demanding, and also one of my favorites. As a teenager, I once saw Van Cliburn perform Rachmaninov’s Second at the Bre
