Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; No. 1; Part 6

<v Steve Allen>I was just about to say, Paul, welcome back and in fact, I just said it. <v Steve Allen>[laughs] I'll say it every chance I get in these circumstances. <v Steve Allen>But inevitably, when you're on a great many stations and speaking to vast armies of <v Steve Allen>people all across the country, there must be a few hundred at least who would respond <v Steve Allen>by saying, what do you mean, welcome back? I just got in off the street, you know, turned <v Steve Allen>you on. Anyway, this is Steve Allen with our commentator and critic Paul <v Steve Allen>Hume. Coming up, we have the concluding performance from this first night <v Steve Allen>of finals from the 1985 Van Cliburn competition. <v Steve Allen>Barry Douglas of the United Kingdom and specifically Northern Ireland will be on stage <v Steve Allen>shortly to play the Brahms First Piano Concerto. <v Steve Allen>The orchestra, again, is the Fort Worth Symphony, under the direction of Stanisław <v Steve Allen>Skrowaczewski. Uh Paul earlier, as those who were with us will know, <v Steve Allen>we heard Barry Douglas play the Beethoven Second Piano Concerto. <v Steve Allen>You were telling me during a break that although it's numbered second, he actually wrote <v Steve Allen>it first. <v Paul Hume>It is the earliest of the Beethoven concertos. <v Paul Hume>And the only difference is that the uh the concerto we heard was published second

<v Paul Hume>and the concerto in C Major, which he actually wrote later, was published first. <v Paul Hume>And so it's always been a little confusing. But then that's another story, too. <v Steve Allen>Mm hmm. What would you anticipate now in the playing of the Brahms concerto? <v Paul Hume>Well, I'd be delighted to answer that question in just a second, but if I may, you didn't <v Paul Hume>call me on it, Steve, but I suddenly realized to my horror, that I made a mistake a few <v Paul Hume>minutes ago. So before the phones start ringing off the hook, I would like to say that I <v Paul Hume>know that Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev were not contemporaries. <v Paul Hume>I had in mind Rachmaninoff as Scriabin, and Prokofiev has a somewhat younger man, but <v Paul Hume>I was correct, of course, in saying that Prokofiev was a brilliant pianist as <v Paul Hume>Rachmaninoff was. I just wanted to clarify that for the record. <v Paul Hume>As far as the Brahms concerto goes, having heard Mr. Douglas play the Beethoven number 2, <v Paul Hume>which is in every way, by the way, the simplest and easiest in terms of musical <v Paul Hume>perceptions, as well as in sheer technical demands of all 5 of the Beethoven concertos, <v Paul Hume>I was very taken with his playing of it in every way. <v Paul Hume>I thought there was an incisiveness and energy and understanding of Beethoven's music

<v Paul Hume>and an understanding of the relationship of the piano to that music and with the <v Paul Hume>orchestra of that day. That's the most Mozartian of Beethoven's concertos. <v Paul Hume>The Brahms, as I suggested some time ago, is a very different matter. <v Paul Hume>It is a troublesome concerto sometimes, unless the conductor and the pianist understand <v Paul Hume>it completely and in sympathy with each other. <v Paul Hume>For instance, to turn to another example other than the one I mentioned with the New York <v Paul Hume>Philharmonic, Bernstein and Gould, only 2 or 3 years- 2 years ago, I heard one <v Paul Hume>of the leading American orchestras, at this point I'm going to go to anonymity for <v Paul Hume>obvious reasons. The conductor began the Brahms concerto, now it is not a difficult <v Paul Hume>concerto to conduct, but it begins with a slow beat, and the slow beat must be <v Paul Hume>very carefully provided so that the orchestra can play it properly. <v Paul Hume>And the pianist can come in in the right rhythm. <v Paul Hume>And the pianist was one of the most- was one of the most famous pianists in the world. <v Paul Hume>But again, there was a case of he- of his understanding being one thing and <v Paul Hume>the conductors another. And the performance that evening was an unhappy one

<v Paul Hume>because the first movement got off to such a difficult start. <v Paul Hume>And as matter of fact, that orchestra and that pianist went on a tour somewhat <v Paul Hume>international in scope. <v Paul Hume>And while I was not on that tour, I was told that it got worse from performance to <v Paul Hume>performance because they never got over that sense of unease with which they began. <v Paul Hume>Now you see how much psychological factors can influence first <v Paul Hume>class top drawer musicians. <v Steve Allen>Incredible. <v Paul Hume>And it's- it's strange that it should be this piece that in which I happen to know those <v Paul Hume>2 anecdotes. I know that that could be told of other concertos. <v Paul Hume>This is one of the great Brahms works for piano. <v Paul Hume>He was a man who used the piano many times in his songs, in his chamber music, in <v Paul Hume>quintets, in quartets, in trios and so forth. <v Paul Hume>This is one of the beautiful works for piano, but it is one that takes the greatest <v Paul Hume>degree of power. It was written, say, in the mid-70s, 1870s, <v Paul Hume>when the orchestra had about attained what we think of now as larger size, <v Paul Hume>although not the- not the orchestras of 100 204 pieces that we think of as

<v Paul Hume>standard among the largest orchestras in this country. <v Paul Hume>But an orchestra of, say, around 80 pieces. <v Paul Hume>It is not, however, speaking of the two concertos of Brahms. <v Paul Hume>It doesn't get the phrase that the second concerto does, which is sometimes described as <v Paul Hume>a concerto for the piano against the orchestra. <v Paul Hume>[Steve laughs] And yet this is really a more powerful concerto in ways because quite <v Paul Hume>often Brahms marks that second concerto in places, Allegro or Allegretto Grazioso- <v Paul Hume>gracious. There is nothing gracious about this concerto. <v Paul Hume>This is the big emphatic, powerful statement of a young man <v Paul Hume>at the height of his powers as a pianist and as a composer. <v Paul Hume>And Brahms scored enormous successes with it, when he himself appeared, as he often <v Paul Hume>did with the leading conductors of his day. <v Steve Allen>Ah. I see. [applause] <v Paul Hume>The concertmaster is back again and he is going to strike the A on the piano <v Paul Hume>to make sure that the piano, which has now been retuned, is the sound

<v Paul Hume>to which the rest of the orchestra will then tune. <v Paul Hume>Classically first the woodwinds- all the winds and then the strings. <v Steve Allen>It would be theoretically possible, would it not, and perhaps has even occurred, that <v Steve Allen>that A that is struck on the piano happens to be in ideal physical <v Steve Allen>terms, not the correct one. But everyone's got to go there anyway, right? <v Paul Hume>They must go there. Ordinarily, if it's properly tuned, then the orchestra has no problem <v Paul Hume>with it. Do you know, speaking very parenthetically, that the Boston Symphony Orchestra <v Paul Hume>uses a different A than any other orchestra in the United States of America? <v Steve Allen>I did not know that. <v Paul Hume>And now and then that makes problems, especially with a piano who can't adjust as easily, <v Paul Hume>say, as a violinist. <v Steve Allen>Hm. Fascinating. <v Paul Hume>The next applause happens, of course, traditionally when the concertmaster comes in, he's <v Paul Hume>been in and tuned the orchestra. After that, Steve, it's all yours. <v Steve Allen>[laughs] Well, the artists are now coming out, as the applause would indicate. <v Steve Allen>And onstage are, of course, pianist Barry Douglas and our condoctors <v Steve Allen>Stanisław Skrowaczewski. You'll hear the piano concerto number 1, as we've been saying, <v Steve Allen>in D Minor Opus 15 by Brahms.

<v Steve Allen>Mr. Douglas again makes some slight adjustments in the winding <v Steve Allen>up or down of the seat. <v Speaker>[Barry Douglas and orchestra play the Brahms concerto number 1 in D Minor, Opus 15]