{"id":14153,"date":"2013-07-29T08:53:06","date_gmt":"2013-07-29T13:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=14153"},"modified":"2013-07-29T08:53:06","modified_gmt":"2013-07-29T13:53:06","slug":"interview-the-art-of-interpretation-begins-with-first-impressions-for-pianist-cedric-tiberghien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/07\/29\/interview-the-art-of-interpretation-begins-with-first-impressions-for-pianist-cedric-tiberghien\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: The art of interpretation begins with first impressions for pianist C\u00e9dric Tiberghien"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Eric<\/a>
(Eric Manas photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are so many great classical pianists in the world that we’ve had to wait past C\u00e9dric Tiberghien’s 38th birthday to hear him for the first time in this city. Thanks to the Toronto Summer Music Festival, we get a solo recital at Koerner Hall on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Tiberghien, who grew up about 100 km north of Paris, has been playing professionally for about 20 years, winning over audience after audience, conductor after conductor. His success has taken hundreds of overnights, dozens of concertos, numerous collaborations and a handful of critically praised recordings.<\/p>\n

The French pianist brings a fascinating programme to his Toronto d\u00e9but, bookended by Franz Schubert (Six Moments Musicaux<\/em> to get us centred and the dramatic C minor Sonata<\/em> to close). In the middle are pieces by Claude Debussy and Alban Berg’s remarkable Piano Sonata<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Tiberghien admits that the programme wasn’t entirely his idea. He originally wanted explore the parallels between two Viennese composers from different eras — Schubert and Berg. Toronto Summer Music qualified its invitation with a request for some French content, as well.<\/p>\n

The musician chose the Debussy pieces because they were written in the first decade of the 20th century, the time when Berg’s very different Sonata<\/em> was born.<\/p>\n

He sees a relationship between the Schubert and Berg Sonatas<\/em>, because both are tightly structured works.<\/p>\n

Schubert was notorious for his sprawling, repetitive musical ideas — but not so with the C minor Sonata<\/em>.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s anti-Schubert, because it\u2019s much closer to Beethoven,\u201d in key choices and strength as well as length, explains Tiberghien. \u201cEvery section is the essential. It\u2019s all about the form \u2013 it’s a sonata I really like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pianist admits that Tuesday’s recital will be the first time he performs the Berg Sonata<\/em> in public.<\/p>\n

Given a gruelling concert schedule, I ask Tiberghien how he knows a piece of music is ready for a paying audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know; that\u2019s the big problem in my life,\u201d he retorts, with a wry chuckle.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s the main stress thing in my life. It\u2019s not performing on stage, but organizing the preparation of all the different programmes.<\/p>\n

“I used to be completely crazy, playing a different programme for each concert and playing 20 concertos in one season. I\u2019m trying to reduce this a little bit, bit it\u2019s still not working,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n

But he does have a way of learning new works that gives him satisfaction: He starts by simply sight-reading through a piece, sometimes years in advance.<\/p>\n

“I do it to see what happens \u2013 without thinking but discovering a piece,” Tiberghien explains. “This is a very important moment of the process, because very often we come back to that after a lot of work, a lot of decisions, a lot of mistakes, and return to something that is very close to that first approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

He first set his eyes on the Berg Sonata<\/em> — it had sat on his pianist’s bucket list for a long time — three years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI perfectly remember the day I received the score at home,” Tiberghien recounts. “I read it. It was a complete shock \u2013 and every time I play this piece I want to feel this shock, and I want the audience to feel this shock.<\/p>\n

“This is not beautiful; it has to be shocking. The ideas, the intensity, the complexity, all of it has to be shocking, and I\u2019ve worked to find this. I hope it works,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

Berg’s one-movement Sonata<\/em> is only 12 minutes long, but it\u2019s so dense and there\u2019s so much meaning packed into it that, \u201cIt\u2019s as challenging to play as a complete Schubert sonata. It\u2019s a real challenge physically as well as psychologically,\u201d says Tiberghien.<\/p>\n

I ask the pianist how much of himself needs to go into a piece of music.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such an important question for a performer: whether you have to bring something to what you perform, or whether you need to be completely transparent,” he explains, with relish. “My position, which is really strong, is that we shouldn\u2019t be transparent. The performer has a personality and I should take what the composer says \u2013 sometimes it\u2019s enormous, there are so many details\u2026 so I try to bring something personal to it. Sometimes it\u2019s very difficult.”<\/p>\n

And the interpretation is always changing, evolving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many ways to play pieces, and it changes over a lifetime,” Tiberghien says. “Fifteen years ago, when I played Debussy\u2019s music, I was focusing on the quality of tone and the colours, but, at some point, I realized that this [interpretation] was nearly sterile, that just thinking quality of colours and tones is not enough.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s like what the composers say, it\u2019s a tool to tell a story\u2026 I\u2019m trying to go beyond using colours.\u201d<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

You’ll find all the details of Tiberghien’s recital\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s a great example of the pianist’s dramatic turn of interpretation in action, in a recording for the BBC of Maurice ravel’s Scarbo:<\/p>\n