Alexis Weissenberg Special Interview

the pittsburgh or is it was pleased to present in your broadcast premiere of an exciting new recording the final third piano concerto with pianist alexis weisenberg performance has been released on rca victor records with the chicago symphony orchestra under the direction of john spratt and we are fortunate to have with us the soloist discuss the recording details as well as other aspects of his career and life weisberg welcome to them you are the actor thank you alexis weisenberger something of an anomaly a brilliant and promising young artist who after initial critical acclaimed exposure to the concert going public beginning in nineteen forty seven and continuing until nineteen fifty five voluntarily withdrew for some years to delve into other aspects of the artistic world he was born in sofia in nineteen twenty nine received his first piano and composition lessons from the bulgarian cast a joke but the gulf among his teachers in subsequent years me being cool

at the juilliard school it began his performing career in his native bavaria and enjoyed several cancer triumphs in the middle east and south africa but considers his first concert to have been his debut at carnegie hall in nineteen forty seven other engagements in the winning of the cup and lemon tree toward fall when the industry begins oh i'm sure there must've been continued consul activity and some recordings as that sounds yes for about a period of ten years i continued mostly knew i came back to the states at the few senators including new york and then in nineteen sixty six or seven i decided to take a sabbatical i don't like that word because i think it sounds into a false i don't believe in an artificial environment sentimental or just think that one has to look inside once in a while and i think because of putting them out this project that life what you have to build that in it the definitive line an

absolute separation between what is imposing of talent and what does hasta become imposing a personality and that you can't mix professionally one has to eat that first and then sort of digest it and put it back on the stage in a completely new vision and that more personal visions there is of course a celebrated precedent for this in return of all it's for twelve years and man speaking a president not exactly not be using the two reasons have our enemy we relate to he is certainly multiple be on one hand but then just so forceful because i admire and respect the man so much and secondly because i think everyone has and unfortunately that it doesn't completely different vision for it and sometimes it spilled on an emotional basis that you use about either dam sits in a physical mississippi sometimes your personal life can intervene in a way which imposes a certain secretion from stage of medication i

think is the common or missing many of his even if they haven't really stopped saying having waited this has been one more thing just because during that period they're playing has been probably less attractive less imposing and this dominating did you have a lot of his transition period of missing in that it is in a way more efficient and i completely did you have a feeling when you return oh yes definitely you felt you playing was why aren't playing was less they fitted it was listed at the galapagos concrete and that is at this point of course it is very easy to continue because if you walk into a successful which most younger this on the big scale that it's been attempting to continue because in business unfortunately continue to pop up it's very tempting to continue playing and continue having the lancet says they didn't believe it i think that's the main part of it was that there was much more interested in being a

success without becoming a top political reporters often just think that you can think about the difficulty did you always have in mind going back into this always some of it is at that age i hoped i would reach a stage when i would leave the stage without actually abandoning it officially in the mind of the audience were in the months of musical collaborators need to always continue in addition to keep up your you practice you're mentioning what more than ever been doing that what you just said and that there's much work that goes away from it you see the west but the bulk of it is it that he's had a little time to think that much time to work i mean you're inevitably traveling do is find guns and you can always do u x hours exercise on the keyboard but it is such a thing but because his face and so much love and so many changes of ours food languages that at one point you have an entity

that has the west has nothing to make it happens with us a wet conditions a week he should rather canceled amid continuing their teenage years of course the danger after one's name disappears from the public eye is difficult to get back to visit that and the danger that i think it's at least one has to take the senate wouldn't have a single doubt about it on behalf of indians did you also have a minority report during this period yes and no i mean last night at the iowa border the head by eliminating most pieces and trying to make a much more profound and personalized if you that is where the work became the and wrote about the long and laws were there with their concentration on for two or three or four composers to give us a lot of buzz rachel and this is about that was about all of course i kept think about

that at an indignation that's that were there was enormous amount of fun work and those four it's not particularly in a situation and waterworks that knocks the answer these kidnap pope of course we hear that you have what is now an historic recording of the third article which i think is called from old notebooks separate what i think is historic because israel no it's a star is very good and very hard to get from would you ever consider record re recording artists will say oh because i don't like all the services equally well you have not mentioned in the composers that you listed for struggling and yet speaking specifically of our digital recording we'll hear the scene you have i think lead back into the public eye at least in this country with your performance and so i call it the robinsons didn't mention of mosul that it

forms and i think that has always fun part of my life in my life more personally that i think have a slight advantage has been brought up on tchaikovsky and mining of scouting this this forced out of the actual development to the development of the candidates in most most islamic countries the writing is so much innovation too much about genetically and afterwards kevin infighting among its first pianist acknowledge of the people is concerned that most teachers in all those countries almost impulsive and then he forms but so much of the natural climate is basing all emotional basis in office but today this music as if it was just the most natural thing in the world forbes and in the late eighties and speaking of that you're mentioning teachers was this part of the world i'm curious senator levin said the concentration with your first teacher of twelve years

at the videotapes came tell us something about the stands read a fascinating not known to very many people i think now having virtually disappeared from the minds of most authentic country gorbachev was homeless the composer an accident and some self loathing to stop this given that any he did not really performance for the ages five to fourteen he conducts and he's still composes and he still i think acknowledges the best composers and teaching bob beatty is an obsession to sixty eight now i don't believe in classes i don't think that certain people together to learn that one man in and out of these is individualistic and complex and apps like this as playing in music everybody's hands are different necessity and everyone has different psychological problems with photos of instrument

that's in the picture can only be excellent if he devotes the entire hour two hours individually each people can get musical knowledge and it can give general ideas on his coaching all cinema mostly in music to a class of second forty people but you can't do anything more for the investigation this is a levee that was a phenomenal to have a classic had individual people's and devoted most of his life out of them then comes the fact that the most loving countries on one hand that is simply a biological assimilation with instrument which happens immediately the people are just born with a great facility in the best and most mobile sense of the world to play an instrument that is there something maybe it is the quiet the officer boats gliding is coming from a similar thing about a lot of gun is born that he'd normally be getting all those countries soon just played naturally an exceptionally well

it to believe it and inexplicably ok yes i have never had any problems with that you know there could be a very it physically i began as everyone else did it is i think it's that these are this is it is for the service of that it's a muscular in mississippi than they are burned this is going to go visit the jurors insisted and the interested again only sound most so because it's a beautiful song on that much of the village dozens of holmes's example so hoffman's example going into sound is something that is being five to a neglected in most other schools i think to me it's the obvious reason why i want to make and saying well this is the way to easy and greenaway cheaply

that this the grandson of awareness and its replacement of the human voice always the minute to do not sing in try to make sing another miserable this you want to try to make a decision boys and an interesting that his hand oh wait on the table becomes an instant problem and something that has to be solved once and forever and be incorporated the new system which of the music you play for the rest of us this is evidence was very insistent extremely difficult and the uk made all his pupils listen to themselves constantly course didn't have to reporters that house that about it which were never be accomplished the typical assessing one of those facing many guns is that they can't hear themselves well this is not something that comes naturally have to develop it you not only have to develop it from work you have to develop it for performance because if you cannot be objective to perform second of the form interestingly

you saw that accidents the only justified by pioneers of that tells any accident that that is giant another accident it is external but inwardly you should always be able to the sort of like the last week separation from her own body and be physically able to listen to self from afar i was also the stress of that these super performed is that he lost it cannot control something from the inside it didn't always he then stayed with other teachers mr westerberg court and wants fascinates me is that one and ask supporters what did you study there may get a sense that it was for those clothes are they sure that they needed and oscar mostly for but buckley took a patient's knowledge of bach inventions and she was definitely like nobody else in the meantime i had mostly some of that the juilliard when i arrive in the states in

nineteen forty seven who i got to really one of the really great teachers she was cut those featured witches have many many wonderful generous level skills stay stoic and important and then london says a knowledge of music and shows incredible <unk> concessions that tested my competition i was purely on the basis of institutional i thought it was one of the few native american performers of it is fundamentally romantic composer getting back to the particular recording we're going to hear a sharply in discussing this briefly often like so to speak you had mentioned that requires third capture it had been a kind of milestone for a structure created you tell us something about this it was also the soldiers maki oh good for me because a physical abilities when i was a young first recording and individuals

money of song which is still magnificent impression and then off and all my i just happen to be played by any opponents that became important mostly and foremost a little difficult than it might have been one of the folk which is a toast for the injured and the nightly my first performance this orchestra was in philadelphia was sitting on the us to the us competition with or the focus and that's what i said and so it remains the opening official opening of primary competitor that time the one pre sabbatical and then some of the other points at which is the other point is that after ten years of retirement i came back too many cities but of course with a poster that is not only for superstitious reasons but simply because of the bees very much think that you've been recording for some years in your

prior to be appearances with an ear for what yes i have recorded for his master's voice in europe and they've heard the recordings of chewing gum and well that was before i came to america and to any evidence of recordings of french label called the man two separate because it came out at one point that was all that was a great confidence now tell us something about the circumstances of the prison recording we're talking about you're invited to do it i take advantage goes into your this was in conjunction with an actual performance and bowles and thirty four loss of part of michael to discuss jupiter it was on the list of read that well we chose to record during the time of my contact with them i asked us to qualify for politically and actually and asian american businesses should do this with the consent forms and then record afterwards which is much better because we do have any funny experience a recurrent or anything unusual and you know they

called festival definitely one of the big legal decision makers of professional that nothing funny that happens looking at it the best this first editions episodes was a very happy because i am very quick recording reputed i'm very proud to say into sessions that you also recorded the things at the same time which we may look forward not at the same time to try to go to the us to it so mohammed in the synagogue for us to get through which a new movie out next winter and out this coming winter until this poem you're going to do some restrictions in the meantime people continue to say which comes out as the kid to say and i should also mention almost forgot the golden that is huge but had an important according to meet which would call this lawsuit and you had mentioned earlier your debut with our orchestra with are offered up on monday is how do you find investors to work with what do you have strong feelings about them but i think

it's a bit of the eight it's a manageable size that is i think about the can ruin his soloists performance without wanting to eat that is a clash of personalities it obviously is a negative element forgotten nothing so his condition didn't really mean that there's the phones all the content of based on the fact that you know these naturally in accompaniment of even a definite musical collaboration and i think if you do not have an intelligent marriage because obviously they've yet to find somebody who'd implementing these you know i think should at least make an effort to have an intellectual understanding which when you have cancer on both sides it's quite possible and culture means in that case also respect her my greatest fan only professional ambition is back to do this i do not want within the limits of possibilities to perform with any of that

i'd even younger representative and famous established combat this but i believe mostly in collaboration i'm ready to make as many i'm out of rehearsals for example in order to make the performance as frustrating as it is possible and the more and more i'm very careful before accepting an engagement to see who conducts and the program goes with the city over with the two of us that is i was that enough to be simply because i had wonderful and they have been forming coalitions with such as islands look at the risk of existing plan i had played with mr bernstein i played with sinister so and i think this is already in its own such a guarantee of high level of musicianship and professional performance that it is also and incisive that makes it clear that the idea that

emotion has to the soldiers become back or retirement migrate experience in this election was was that with the cutting of course who helped tremendously reopen the field of active cost of getting by offering a unique opportunity because let me open to ending cinematic season with him last year there also the navy film i believe you know this together of the tchaikovsky violin concertos the flat and of course that was a tremendous abandon this had a very good experience for me and we also play together a new program would you describe what i've noticed that in his eyes that because i don't see anybody ever has described it as a musical button that i think is one of the very few musicians who i absolutely gorgeous film they want a mistake and he's very easy contrary to what most people may

believe when he believes in somebody's i have any fabric and that that is helpful understanding they sold land intelligent and he's being that's it was so is the nephew he likes but i think if you like somebody then he's absolutely open in serving clothes which is a great advantage of clothes i was curious incidentally about how you went about coming back to the concert world and they're speaking other words when did you decide to do it how was it done physically just sort of let it be known that you're available well not at all i was never really out of course of giving competing i kept from getting closer to you not too many that kagan in the two countries and it's not a decision you can take a long time it has to coincide with a certain climate that is as of eighty four years ago for it i think it's because i think that i have always been

and he studied repeat itself but he does it goes in cycles that are moments when a dramatic atmosphere is not needed an audience of a public emotionally after the war which had the proof that once that emotion and exhausted and one was rather be dictated by what one could call it a magic performance and when needed imagine it ending this fantastic pushing it a little humility this is psychological and that a justified i mean it's not it's not a novelty has been formal and doing his thing and then comes a moment when one gets that at that time once again to relax which has me that one has to vomit want to stress too relaxed and feel that means of one becomes more vulnerable and more open to direct emotions and less complex about that that has been proving

the sentiment is improving literature and has been proven they've been at it definitely music all composers today but most dramatically in the sense of understanding and those who did sixty years ago even as the medium of the average has been called more modern that is more emotion into real composers that is nothing but farmers have become baltimore human being accessible i have found there is a kind of romantic renaissance on the horizon we hear much more about the composers of the late nineteen hundred such as tiger woods kind of people of that sort of being brought back you might say coming into favorite game where it's ten fifteen years ago everyone would have laughed if anyone dreamed of programming at a concert works are individual things is heel that we are some speak on the brink of romantic figure that i had hopes and then settle the debate that we're coming back to memphis isn't that not a rejuvenation of the tremendous isn't it is to boldly new invention it because of the

imposition of un is america has a bunch of that today and tomorrow as our grandfathers used to be nothing certain people who have been actually fix their emotional habits at a certain time before the war could not easy and the standards and they may be shocked by it because they they're more sentimental than romantic but the icing the new divisions definitely looking forward that we've also had that they couldn't say that this new the movement who was naturally hippies and all sorts of other excesses but i still think all this as proof that the man tries to realize and gives weight for the first time again to feelings in general without frustration which is i think we've reached the point of which are for which all the audience is waiting i would say most were somewhere in there is the performance newly released on rca of the concerto number three d minor opus thirty of sergei rachmaninoff with the chicago symphony orchestra under the direction of george brett and of course hosts alexis west

fb you have heard in your broadcast premiere of a new rca recording the requirement third piano concerto in d minor opus thirty with alexis was in rehearsal with the chicago symphony orchestra under the direction of george patch or so westerners where you go from here what are your plans for the fourth in the first part of next year tour of almost almost two months i'm going to minneapolis it's the charlottesville chicago miami mexico city montreal quebec and with us in december when we replay so this is a complicated to have it is that for each city a new conservative angeles public that it's the first letter with a force of two third the two rounds go

to think that minors that maybe they'd have arrest in there are you are you make a ship this is the most of my colleagues that the way i need to be very much of anything for patience to have a particular part of the world fencing i think it was the visions of them stick the workplace less tvs ever been to the house which injured with us today is mr alexis wesson there were most interesting and entertaining commentary on his career his experiences and the rock one off piece which we just heard is as albert the track speaking fb