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Speaker 1: All episodes of Art Fraud are available right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's our show. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing from my Heart Deo. My guest today
Speaker 1: is the brilliant pianist Laife Uvas. This is as performing
Speaker 1: a work from a fellow Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg's Piano
Speaker 1: Concerto in a Minor with the Bergens Philharmonic Orchestra. Honest
Speaker 1: Now has received accolades for his musical prowess since he
Speaker 1: was a teenager. He won second place in Eurovision's Young
Speaker 1: Musician of the Year contest at age eighteen. Since then,
Speaker 1: he's been nominated for eleven Grammys, holds an honorary doctorate
Speaker 1: from Juilliard, and was called one of the most gifted
Speaker 1: musicians of his generation by The Wall Street Journal. To
Speaker 1: put it simply, anst. Nous is a superstar of the
Speaker 1: classical world. From two thousand twelve to two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: as this undertook an intense and ambitious multi year project
Speaker 1: interpreting one of the greatest sets of work for piano
Speaker 1: ever written, Beethoven's Piano Concertos. He recorded and performed all
Speaker 1: five concertos in fifteen countries across three continents with the
Speaker 1: Mahler Chamber Orchestra, all while conducting from his piano bench.
Speaker 1: His latest release is Mozart Momentum seventeen eighty six, a
Speaker 1: project that pairs him with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra again.
Speaker 1: This time, anst. Nous is exploring a time of immense
Speaker 1: creativity and growth in Mozart's career, concentrating on the specific
Speaker 1: period that would forever change the form I wanted to
Speaker 1: know what his piano of choice is and what it
Speaker 1: takes to bring out the best from his instrument, basically
Speaker 1: a Steinway D model. And yeah, when I say my
Speaker 1: favorite piano, I mean there are many many good pianos.
Speaker 1: And what I've learned over the years is that more
Speaker 1: important actually is the piano technician, because a great piano
Speaker 1: technician can bring out the best of a in a
Speaker 1: mediocre piano actually can bring something of a jewel out
Speaker 1: of something which is rather gray. So over the years
Speaker 1: I have now a network of piano technicians that I know,
Speaker 1: and I sometimes bring them on tour, and that's incredibly valuable.
Speaker 1: I often compare it with you know, Formula one cars.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say yeah, because you need the technicians on hand,
Speaker 1: you know, right next to you there and then and
Speaker 1: before viewing the recording and and and you know, yeah, absolutely. Now,
Speaker 1: you make some pretty laudatory comments about Beethoven. You say,
Speaker 1: Beethoven is really the most meaningful music there is, and
Speaker 1: every composer was trying to write something meaningful. But with Beethoven,
Speaker 1: every phrase and around every corner, there was such context,
Speaker 1: such surprises, such original ideas. When did you first fall
Speaker 1: so deeply in love with Beethoven above all, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, as a child, I felt this music had
Speaker 1: a lot of gravity, but it was it was a
Speaker 1: little bit for and it was like something I thought,
Speaker 1: I will need time to understand this. Also, playing it
Speaker 1: was kind of uncomfortable because Beethoven goes for the extremes,
Speaker 1: so the right hand would go very high up and
Speaker 1: the and the left hand very goot down in the travel,
Speaker 1: you know, in comparison with with Grego or Shopower modes
Speaker 1: that where it was more. I was more dealing with
Speaker 1: the middle of the keyboard, and that was uncomfortable for
Speaker 1: childs naturally, and to feel and understand that space in
Speaker 1: the music which he creates between the base and the
Speaker 1: travel and wanting to go to the extremes, and that
Speaker 1: took some time for me, but naturally, you know, something
Speaker 1: like the first moment of the moonlight so not. I
Speaker 1: played it probably when I was seven or eight, and
Speaker 1: and I felt that, you know, there is some real depth,
Speaker 1: there's some something going on here. So literally, when you
Speaker 1: talk about the expanse and the range and the keyboard,
Speaker 1: Beethoven sounds like it's something you have to grow into
Speaker 1: or some of his composition to physically into it, unless
Speaker 1: you have a junior sized piano, which do they make those?
Speaker 1: They don't know. No, that's that's the advantage of a pianist.
Speaker 1: And of course I didn't reach the pedal till I
Speaker 1: was about nine or something, and I started playing when
Speaker 1: I was five, so there was some disadvantages in the beginning.
Speaker 1: And when you played the first moment of the moli
Speaker 1: or not that you you need the pedal um otherwise
Speaker 1: it becomes rather dry, comes in handy. Yeah, who were
Speaker 1: the maestros? You think we're really great piano players? Oh well,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously, um, obviously barn Boy is somebody who
Speaker 1: has done it from both disciplines, from being a teenager.
Speaker 1: Christoph Eschenbach is another one. Just some people that come
Speaker 1: to mind. I mean, so many of the conductors have
Speaker 1: played the piano, but some have played, you know, more professionally,
Speaker 1: more professionally than others. But it's actually, I think a
Speaker 1: real advantage to play the piano, you know. I often
Speaker 1: I am amazed at some conductors at conductive meetings and
Speaker 1: they sit down and start playing, and wow, you know
Speaker 1: the one. I mean, somebody who really plays whenst This
Speaker 1: is Antonio Papano, who is chief conductor of Covent Garden,
Speaker 1: the opera house in London for for so many years
Speaker 1: down and he started as a repetitor. And to really
Speaker 1: control an opera, I mean, it's such must be such
Speaker 1: an advantage to actually being able to play the opera
Speaker 1: from a piano score and to understand the harmonies and everything.
Speaker 1: And with my motor project now I'm of course trying
Speaker 1: to conduct myself as well, and and with the beta
Speaker 1: to try to do two disciplines as one which can
Speaker 1: be difficult, but which actually is really rewarding in that
Speaker 1: music when when it works with an orchestra, because I
Speaker 1: feel part of the narrative all the time. The problem
Speaker 1: with the piano chatter is that you can often I
Speaker 1: feel like you're waiting for your entrance and be a
Speaker 1: bit on the side, and then it's my entrance, that's
Speaker 1: my turn, then it's the orchestra's turn. When I'm conducting
Speaker 1: or leading the orchestra at the same time, I'm in
Speaker 1: the narrative of the music constantly, and there's a great
Speaker 1: feeling of flow in the music making. When you talked
Speaker 1: about as a child and you're passion for Beethoven. The
Speaker 1: ensemble you're performing with this is a mall chamber orchestra. Correct,
Speaker 1: and that's what you did the Beethoven project, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna do they So when you finish with them six
Speaker 1: years ago the Beethoven thing ended, had you worked with
Speaker 1: them in an ongoing way, or you would get a
Speaker 1: lot you you weren't performing with them. Well, but you're
Speaker 1: gonna pick it up before the COVID So it wasn't
Speaker 1: that long. Yes, we started talking about a new project,
Speaker 1: but it took a few years before we actually But
Speaker 1: why them? What about them? Well, it became so special
Speaker 1: for me to do this project for three years with them,
Speaker 1: with all the Beta chatters, and we did about eighty
Speaker 1: concerts together, three recordings. And I've never had the feeling
Speaker 1: that I could work on pieces going so far in
Speaker 1: terms of detail. And this is an ensemble that you know,
Speaker 1: you suggest something and you get something slightly different, which
Speaker 1: is better than you imagined. You want a really explosive
Speaker 1: chord followed by silence, and you get an amazing sound
Speaker 1: from them. I've never come across an ensemble that it's
Speaker 1: searching for kind of truth in every project they do,
Speaker 1: you know, they are touring ensemble. They don't actually have
Speaker 1: a geographical home. They have an administration in Berlin, but
Speaker 1: they play all over Europe, mostly in Europe, also other continents,
Speaker 1: but it's a touring ensemble and to be a member
Speaker 1: in the orchestra you have to do six of the project,
Speaker 1: so it's a lot of traveling for the members. And
Speaker 1: when you choose that kind of lifestyle, you choose it
Speaker 1: because this is important. You know, this is not just work,
Speaker 1: this is your life. Did work period of three years
Speaker 1: and especially the same three years, yeah, and the law
Speaker 1: here we played several times all the five Beethoven's again
Speaker 1: and again in ten twelve different cities we had residencies,
Speaker 1: and to revisit these pieces, which we had already recorded
Speaker 1: and already taught with, was so wonderful. And I started
Speaker 1: the project thinking of Beethoven as structure and contrast and
Speaker 1: revolutionary music, and so I ended up thinking of him
Speaker 1: as as freedom. You know, that's really what the music
Speaker 1: is ultimately about. And that's how we felt in the
Speaker 1: last concept. Was such a spontaneity and freedom in the concept,
Speaker 1: and I have to say that's how I feel also
Speaker 1: now with the Mozart with just different music but in
Speaker 1: different ways. Now you're focusing on the Mozart project, like
Speaker 1: a couple of years. Yeah, this sevent period where he
Speaker 1: has this explosion of creativity and the surge of creativity
Speaker 1: in his life. And I'm wondering from your experience, don't know,
Speaker 1: all the great composers have that kind of a period
Speaker 1: in their life, well, and certainly Mozart, I mean outse
Speaker 1: that seemed to have it most of his life, though
Speaker 1: I don't think he was such a wunda kin in
Speaker 1: terms of composition as he maybe his portrayed as you
Speaker 1: know it. We don't see the real masterpieces until he's
Speaker 1: about twenty. But then the last fifteen years of his life,
Speaker 1: I mean, he was constantly writing wonderful things. But something
Speaker 1: specifically happens with the piano concertos in this period, and
Speaker 1: that's why we call it Mozart Momentum eighty six. So
Speaker 1: he starts, he expands everything. He's expands the narrative, the
Speaker 1: drama of the music. He expands the orchestration, he brings
Speaker 1: in clarinets, he brings in more instruments to the orchestra,
Speaker 1: and he expands the dexterity of the solo part, you know,
Speaker 1: the possibilities, and it's the first time in the history
Speaker 1: that you feel he's separating the solos a little bit
Speaker 1: from the orchestra used, so you have sometimes the feeling
Speaker 1: of this heroic role that the soloist would get so
Speaker 1: much in the nineteenth century and Beethoven with you know,
Speaker 1: if you think about the Emperor Concerto, for instance, you know,
Speaker 1: starts with this kind of flourish after the first chord
Speaker 1: in the orchest journey say here I am, and you're
Speaker 1: being thrown out on on on the gladiator stage, and
Speaker 1: you are potentially the hero. And that that's very much
Speaker 1: a big element of those big concertos that we know
Speaker 1: so well inli from the nineteenth century, from Schumann Greek
Speaker 1: to Rockmaninoff and Mozart started this. This is the very beginning,
Speaker 1: i think, in so for me it's the most important
Speaker 1: moment in the history of the genre of the biano. Concerto.
Speaker 1: Sore is the Mozart Project in the same name as
Speaker 1: the Beethoven Project, where you and the ensemble will travel
Speaker 1: and tour and perform around the world and do dozens
Speaker 1: of performances of these concertos and before you record them,
Speaker 1: or you'll record them live. The project has been limited
Speaker 1: by the pandemic. But the fact that we managed to
Speaker 1: do both these recordings and and now in that we
Speaker 1: did the three week tour in Europe with twelve concerts
Speaker 1: in Brussels and Hamburg and the wonderful new help Filarmony.
Speaker 1: We had a resident residency of three concerts and then
Speaker 1: recording and music friend and Vienna right before they closed
Speaker 1: the country in fact for another lockdown. So I feel
Speaker 1: extremely lucky to have been able to do these four
Speaker 1: CDs two double CDs of recordings with this orchestra. And
Speaker 1: what I I mean we're dealing with, you know, history
Speaker 1: is it's a long time since the eighteenth century, and
Speaker 1: I want to keep this personal and it helps me
Speaker 1: to choose a specific time, like one or two years
Speaker 1: and put on the glasses and really look at what
Speaker 1: happened there. And then it was also really interesting time
Speaker 1: in Vienna. I mean most he was in a way
Speaker 1: the first freelancer. I mean he quit his job for
Speaker 1: the archbishop in Salzburg when he was twenty one and
Speaker 1: he said, I'm going to Vienna. Vienna's piano land. He
Speaker 1: said that's the name of your next album, Piano Land right,
Speaker 1: quite commercial. And he created his career, of course with
Speaker 1: the piano as a center piece and with the piano
Speaker 1: and focus, and that's why all these piano concertos and
Speaker 1: all this, all this music with piano keeps coming. And
Speaker 1: then of course the operas and all that. And he
Speaker 1: was lucky because there was an emperor, Joseph the Second,
Speaker 1: who was very liberal and big supporter of the arts
Speaker 1: and created an environment just there and then, so I
Speaker 1: think we should be very glad that he ended up
Speaker 1: in Vienna. How has the recording aspect of your career
Speaker 1: changed in your lifetime. I'm assuming there are some similarities
Speaker 1: with popular music in terms of the difficulty of getting
Speaker 1: labels to want to record. Like when you do the
Speaker 1: beto On project, do you go with a recording contract
Speaker 1: in hand already you're not gonna bother doming unless you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna put it down with somebody or yeah,
Speaker 1: that's evolves in time. I've had for the last years
Speaker 1: an exclusive recording contract with Sony Classical and and so,
Speaker 1: and they very much wanted to do this Beto On project,
Speaker 1: and they're also doing the Mozart project, but of course
Speaker 1: everything has changed so much. I mean I started making
Speaker 1: recordings around where you know, we had the CD boom
Speaker 1: and everything seemed possible. And you know you I recorded
Speaker 1: Jan Chick piano music and it's sold thousands and thousands.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I wasn't, you know, very well known
Speaker 1: or anything. It's just amazing to be part of that journey,
Speaker 1: but where everything seemed possible and today it's it's something
Speaker 1: completely different. But I find it really important to do
Speaker 1: it for myself, you know, for every project to have
Speaker 1: well for often for a project to have an end
Speaker 1: end goal. And I learned so much from the recording
Speaker 1: as well. There's no situation where you have to analyze
Speaker 1: your playing so much as when you record. I often
Speaker 1: do a take and I go and listen and think, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean it needs to more contrast, less taking time there,
Speaker 1: you know, move over there, all kinds of things, and
Speaker 1: then you play yourself closer and closer to where you
Speaker 1: think you need to be to do many takes, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: lots and lots. And and also I take part of
Speaker 1: the editing process after now, after the New Year's I
Speaker 1: will I will take part in our last Mozart recording.
Speaker 1: And that's been a wonderful thing with the COVID period
Speaker 1: is that I've learned that there is a possibility called
Speaker 1: source connect where you can I can join my producer
Speaker 1: and editor online and we can do this work online.
Speaker 1: I used to travel to London for two days for
Speaker 1: each recording and do editing together with with my people there.
Speaker 1: But that's really intense. You know, you listen the whole
Speaker 1: day and after the final cut I do, of course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no producers from that you work with when you
Speaker 1: defer to them, there is a discussion, of course, but
Speaker 1: it ultimately becomes very personal. And I I said, you know,
Speaker 1: that's the way I wanted to go. And that's why
Speaker 1: I really like that take because that means something to me.
Speaker 1: And that's why I will ultimately be disappointed when I
Speaker 1: get the first editor recording because I haven't put it
Speaker 1: together and I know the producer did his best, but
Speaker 1: it's really really personal. So I need to be part
Speaker 1: of that process. When you perform, whether you're with the
Speaker 1: march or orchestra or whomever, is there a typical preparation
Speaker 1: you have before you go on stage or are you
Speaker 1: I mean I've spoken to some of the biggest stars
Speaker 1: of popular music, some of them older from you know,
Speaker 1: the seventies and so forth. Some of them talked about
Speaker 1: I take a nap before the show. You know that.
Speaker 1: There's all kinds of different approaches. I've always done that.
Speaker 1: I've always done that, and I you know, you can't
Speaker 1: you can't eat a lot right before you go on
Speaker 1: stage then, but also you mustn't be hungry also, so
Speaker 1: you have to time these things a little bit. And
Speaker 1: I've I'm always trying to nap, and I was really
Speaker 1: good at it, like twenty years ago, and today I
Speaker 1: might get, you know, seven minutes of sleep, but or relaxation,
Speaker 1: but that's enough sometimes. And it's interesting. I find that
Speaker 1: the body seems to hibernate in the afternoon often before
Speaker 1: I mean often in the afternoon. Mind does I mean
Speaker 1: the brain knows that I need to deliver in the evening.
Speaker 1: It just gets very low in the afternoon. If I
Speaker 1: have to do something big, I don't I certainly don't
Speaker 1: want to see people. I'm not very social. And and
Speaker 1: before a concert and I get to the whole, you know,
Speaker 1: quite early, and and just prepare for myself thinking about
Speaker 1: the piece, playing a little bit backstage, and and and
Speaker 1: these kind of things. And also physically with the yes,
Speaker 1: I feel I have to prepare. I have to do
Speaker 1: some core exercises, these kind of things, maybe one or
Speaker 1: two yoga positions, so you know, actually get into shape
Speaker 1: because it's it's of course, you know, athletic. Yeah. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying this conversation with lafe Un, check out our
Speaker 1: episode with another giant of the classical world, pianist Long Long.
Speaker 1: We spoke before a live audience in New York City
Speaker 1: in two thousand nineteen. One thing good about connotation is
Speaker 1: that it's kind of pushes you to play better than
Speaker 1: you're normally does because you you try to play without
Speaker 1: round notes, you try to be concentrate on what you do.
Speaker 1: But also, in the same time, if you are too
Speaker 1: serious about compotation, you lose your soul. You know me
Speaker 1: that you are afraid to do something wrong. And as
Speaker 1: you know in art, sometimes when you really do something unique,
Speaker 1: you are actually not really on the page, you're actually
Speaker 1: doing something. But that that is a really great moment.
Speaker 1: Here the rest of my conversation with celebrated pianists Long Long,
Speaker 1: and here's the thing dot Org After the break leafe
Speaker 1: Uba Honest no shares what he believes all great pianists
Speaker 1: haven't coming. I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to
Speaker 1: here's the thing. This is lafe Vera Honest nous and
Speaker 1: the Mallard Chamber Orchestra performing Beethoven's piano can share to
Speaker 1: number five and E flat major from the Beethoven Journey.
Speaker 1: Honest had the good fortune of being born into a
Speaker 1: musical family, which allowed him to begin charting his career
Speaker 1: path from an early age. My parents are teachers and
Speaker 1: music was the main subject. So I'm lucky because I'm
Speaker 1: from a really small community. I'm from an island on
Speaker 1: the western part of Norway, and I had absolutely no
Speaker 1: friends who did music and played. But there was a
Speaker 1: piano in our home, and there came a few kids
Speaker 1: who wanted to have piano lessons from my parents, and
Speaker 1: and I saw this and I said, I also want
Speaker 1: to play. I'm very flush with admiration for the Norwegian
Speaker 1: people because of the work I've done with climate change
Speaker 1: and how the expenditure of hundreds of millions of Norwegian
Speaker 1: currency from their sovereign oil accounts to purchase land and
Speaker 1: to protect land and the rainforest in South America. I mean,
Speaker 1: what the Norwegian government has done with the Norwegian people
Speaker 1: are doing on behalf of climate change is really just amazing.
Speaker 1: Well thank you, but I think we really have to.
Speaker 1: I mean, we are a very origination that that became
Speaker 1: rich because of the island, and we have to do
Speaker 1: something sensible with money. But you see, this is an
Speaker 1: island off the coast. Your parents were music teachers, and
Speaker 1: I mean, was there any pushing or there was There
Speaker 1: was no pushing. They just let you decide. It was
Speaker 1: my decision. I liked playing, but there's always, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a moment. And then for me, it was probably
Speaker 1: when I was twelve years old when I thought it
Speaker 1: was much more interesting to do social things and football
Speaker 1: all and I I played also in a in a
Speaker 1: school band. I played euphonium, you know, and I was
Speaker 1: in the choirs, and it was a kind of diverse
Speaker 1: musical childhood. And it's very lonely just to play the piano,
Speaker 1: and I really had no friends doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: So I guess there was some pushing involved, you know,
Speaker 1: for a few years there. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I knew inside that this was my language, because I
Speaker 1: remember sitting down when I was about eight. I remember
Speaker 1: Christmas when I started having the joys of sight reading,
Speaker 1: you know, just simple pieces Greek Chopin, and feeling these
Speaker 1: harmonies and actually exploring them for the first time myself
Speaker 1: and I I really felt that this is my first language.
Speaker 1: I was a very shy boy, but this here I
Speaker 1: could express myself. That's interesting, that's very very well. But
Speaker 1: your first language. I believe that all the great pianists
Speaker 1: have something in common, as you said, this first language idea.
Speaker 1: What do you think you have in common with all
Speaker 1: the other great pianists. You have the ability to do
Speaker 1: what you have a peculiar nature that leads you to
Speaker 1: what What do you all have that helped you become
Speaker 1: so great at what you do? I mean, I do
Speaker 1: remember quite early on that I had a feeling that
Speaker 1: people listened when I played, you know, and that was
Speaker 1: already as a child or you know, early teenage years,
Speaker 1: and that was very inspiring. I I thought, Okay, I
Speaker 1: I have a voice, I have something to say, and
Speaker 1: I felt that inside like a burning desire to to
Speaker 1: share this music with people. I played a lot for
Speaker 1: people when I when I was young, my parents would
Speaker 1: take me around the local partisan things and and I
Speaker 1: would play for I would always love that. And I
Speaker 1: think that's really important that you love sharing it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like it's about sharing, and we we all have
Speaker 1: that in common. Otherwise we just couldn't do it. And
Speaker 1: you see some people just having been pushed and they
Speaker 1: become adults and they have no motivation anymore, because it
Speaker 1: has to be within you. You can become, you know,
Speaker 1: great at playing the piano, but if you don't have
Speaker 1: a feeling that you have that voice and you really
Speaker 1: really want to share, there's no way you can. You
Speaker 1: can have this lifestyle. Now, when you're playing with the
Speaker 1: chamber orchestra, there's a relationship between them, with you and them.
Speaker 1: You're the soloist. There's the ensemble, and there's the soloist.
Speaker 1: And and I'm assuming that without apology, the task for
Speaker 1: everybody there is to support the soloist. The soloist is
Speaker 1: what's the music itself is what's featured. But the performance
Speaker 1: of the soloist is ever so slightly more front and
Speaker 1: center than the than the work of the ensemble itself.
Speaker 1: Describe that meaning, do these people naturally do what you
Speaker 1: need them to do. Do they just fall into place
Speaker 1: or do you need to kind of tell them what
Speaker 1: to do what you need. Well, I'm working with them,
Speaker 1: and I have, you know, opinions and ideas about the
Speaker 1: music and what I want. But these are strong personalities
Speaker 1: and and they offer different things. And when we talk
Speaker 1: about Mozart's music, it's so much about dialogue. There are
Speaker 1: many many places in these in these pieces where I
Speaker 1: am accompanying them. I actually think that Motas music is
Speaker 1: maybe the music which is most about human beings and society.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's much about nature, like a lot
Speaker 1: of scanning a Nordic music, for instance, But it's it's
Speaker 1: always about people. It's it's theater, it's it's opera and conversation.
Speaker 1: And that's so wonderful. When I play with them, I
Speaker 1: sit in the middle of the orchestra. We take the
Speaker 1: lid of the piano, so I'm sitting actually with the
Speaker 1: back to the audience. But I'm seeing the musicians, they
Speaker 1: are seeing me. We hear each other extremely well, and
Speaker 1: that intimate contact is is crucial to that kind of
Speaker 1: music making and and to mos As well. I think,
Speaker 1: I mean he wouldn't have had a conductor when he
Speaker 1: when he was playing these things. You have performed in
Speaker 1: some pretty exactic locations on the edge of a cliff.
Speaker 1: I'm no Asian. I mean that's you know, you have
Speaker 1: your Norwegian so fiorids. I have to be injected into
Speaker 1: the process somewhere an oil we go off the coast.
Speaker 1: But beyond these more exotic locales that you've been performing in,
Speaker 1: are the cities that you love to return to. Are
Speaker 1: their places that when you get there they feel like
Speaker 1: home more than others. Absolutely, But and that's the wonderful
Speaker 1: thing with touring. I remember actually my US manager when
Speaker 1: I was twenty, who I started working with, said, you know,
Speaker 1: the most important thing in this business is to build
Speaker 1: up a network of friends and and acquaintances and places
Speaker 1: and holes. And you know that we have a feeling
Speaker 1: of home wherever you come, if it's Los Angeles or
Speaker 1: Tokyo or in Oslo. What I've been very careful at
Speaker 1: keeping at the same time is connection to home and
Speaker 1: being able to play in smaller holes in Norway once
Speaker 1: in a while. And I've also basically for the last
Speaker 1: twenty five years been involved in festivals. I have at
Speaker 1: a moment at a chamber music festival in in Rosendal,
Speaker 1: which is a beautiful small village in western Norway by
Speaker 1: the fjords and and mountains. And for you know, a
Speaker 1: small week, we do twelve concerts and I'm curating the program,
Speaker 1: I'm putting the people together. And that's also another part
Speaker 1: of sharing in another part, you know, way of feeling
Speaker 1: connected to my home country and doing something more here
Speaker 1: than just jumping around playing different programs. So for me,
Speaker 1: it's been important to spend summers, especially in my part
Speaker 1: of the world and to feel connected here. Now I
Speaker 1: also have a family, so there's a different connection. But
Speaker 1: but it's three kids. I three kids, and how old
Speaker 1: are that? They are eleven and we have twins, right,
Speaker 1: Any musical, any musical, but we already have rumblings. They're
Speaker 1: already have a piano trio in the house. So there's
Speaker 1: there's cello Island the piano. But we'll see how long
Speaker 1: that lasts. But there's some fun. Yeah. Yeah, when you
Speaker 1: come to the US, which I've always thought those people
Speaker 1: who love classical music in the US, there are a
Speaker 1: decent number of them, maybe not as many as I like.
Speaker 1: And that task that all the great ensembles have of
Speaker 1: cultivating the next generation of audience, you know, like the
Speaker 1: Philharmonic would do a lot of heavy ticketing and give
Speaker 1: a lot of free tickets to students to try to
Speaker 1: get them just to just to have that latent learning.
Speaker 1: You know, you're gonna hear this piece I talked about
Speaker 1: when I was a child and they had us do
Speaker 1: mandatory music classes, and we had a guy who would
Speaker 1: come in and play I mean, and he was he
Speaker 1: was lovable and he was nuts, this guy. And we
Speaker 1: were in eighth grade, in the middle of working class
Speaker 1: Long Island, and he was playing us Manati operas on vinyl.
Speaker 1: He was playing the medium and a telephone and we'll
Speaker 1: be sitting there going, what the hell is this guy?
Speaker 1: But I do believe. I'm I'm a firm believer in
Speaker 1: latent learning where you dropped that seed on the ground,
Speaker 1: and not always, but for many people it's gonna bloom later,
Speaker 1: you know, down the road. And so for me when
Speaker 1: the popular music see to have anything to say to me,
Speaker 1: when popular music remained even even more sophomoric in terms
Speaker 1: of I love you, why don't you love me? It
Speaker 1: was all like for kids and I turned on the radio.
Speaker 1: I turned on the radio, and there came the final
Speaker 1: strains of Shalty, the Chicago, the Mall or nine, and
Speaker 1: I never turned back, and I never turned back. And
Speaker 1: now I listened to minimal popular music, I mean music
Speaker 1: that's contemporary popular music. None. I couldn't even tell you
Speaker 1: who these people are, which is also a sign of
Speaker 1: my age. But do you give some credit to your
Speaker 1: old teacher for you know the men I do believe
Speaker 1: in respecting the ideas of people. Were that person took
Speaker 1: the time to tell me about that? Why did they
Speaker 1: want me to know that? And in music, I feel
Speaker 1: like in classical music, there's people who they don't realize
Speaker 1: how much they love classical. Maybe not all of it.
Speaker 1: Maybe they don't need to be listening to Stravinsky. Maybe
Speaker 1: they have like everything much more lush and kind of romantic.
Speaker 1: But there's class music that that they want in their
Speaker 1: life and they just don't know it yet. Yes, And
Speaker 1: that's you can come into your life later, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that there's there's an age, you know,
Speaker 1: when when you were so open to these kind of things.
Speaker 1: I mean, my piano teacher I got when I was fourteen,
Speaker 1: was the first person I knew he was a professional musician,
Speaker 1: and he gave me was kind of notice. But he
Speaker 1: gave me some cassettes of Scherenberg piano music, and and
Speaker 1: also some more standard chopin and things and and these
Speaker 1: are things that stay with me. I mean, I was
Speaker 1: so hungry for this stuff because nobody had had given
Speaker 1: me introduction to these pieces and these pianists that he was,
Speaker 1: you know, Paulini's recording of Scherenberg or whatever. But there's
Speaker 1: so little today in school, you know about music. How
Speaker 1: do we how do we how do we get out there?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we mustn't be afraid to take
Speaker 1: kids to classical concerts. Also that of course they will
Speaker 1: be bought part of the time. But something stays I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I loved it. Maybe I was very
Speaker 1: unusual in this respect, but I my parents took me
Speaker 1: to concerts, piano recitals, some orchestra concerts when I was
Speaker 1: ten eight. Those experiences stay today. I remember how it
Speaker 1: smelled in the concert hall, you know how certain gestures
Speaker 1: of the pianist or the conductor, or how it felt
Speaker 1: physical in the stomach. You know how according it's just
Speaker 1: a college symphony could make you feel totally extatic symphony
Speaker 1: and it's just a college fifth symphonical. Yeah. Um well,
Speaker 1: I think the people like you and long, long and
Speaker 1: on and on and on with all these people that
Speaker 1: we've enjoyed. You have a gift from God. You know,
Speaker 1: you have a calling. I look at people like you
Speaker 1: and say, what choice did you have? You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is what you wanted to do, of course, is
Speaker 1: what you had to do. It's absolutely not to sacrifice,
Speaker 1: because this is my life. It's not work, it's just
Speaker 1: it's just who I am. I have. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is how I communicate with the world basically, Maestro laife Us.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying this episode, don't keep it to yourself,
Speaker 1: Tell a friend, and be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. You can listen to all four selections
Speaker 1: of the music from this episode and more in a
Speaker 1: curated Spotify playlist of my favorite pieces from Lafe Vasus.
Speaker 1: You'll find a link to the playlist in the show
Speaker 1: notes of this episode. When we return, laife Uva shares
Speaker 1: with us the composition that makes his heart race. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is Lafe Ubas performing rock. Moaninov's piano can share to
Speaker 1: number two in C minor with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know his favorite places to play in
Speaker 1: the United States and what makes a great concert halls unique.
Speaker 1: I mean, New York is such a musical home to me,
Speaker 1: and I've had many wonderful experiences in elkn Center, but
Speaker 1: not as not so much for the whole, but Carnegie
Speaker 1: certainly it's absolutely a magical place to me, especially maybe
Speaker 1: for piano recycling. I mean, which other all can you
Speaker 1: feel that you're feeling it and you can create the
Speaker 1: intimacy when it takes two eight hundred people. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's really quite extraordinary. I think Sevence Hall in Cleveland
Speaker 1: is wonderful. Symphony Symphony Hole in Boston, the New Disney
Speaker 1: Hall in in Los Angeles is quite Someone said that
Speaker 1: hole in Miami is a good hole, and that's very nicely. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now in the United States where we had, you know,
Speaker 1: for a while for decades, we had a wonderful recordings
Speaker 1: and a kind of a battery between an ensemble and
Speaker 1: a maestro. So lots of this is not just in
Speaker 1: the United States but in North America. So with the
Speaker 1: Montreal Slatkin, with this St. Louis Zel, with the Cleveland Shalty,
Speaker 1: with the Chicago Bernstein, New York and so forth. But
Speaker 1: Montfred Honick in the Pittsburgh I mean, they really keep
Speaker 1: he keeps putting out recordings. I mean they keep recording music,
Speaker 1: and it's so beautiful. He's very genuine, very genuine musician,
Speaker 1: and so honest and really believes in what he's doing,
Speaker 1: and really I enjoyed a lot time. I'm going there
Speaker 1: actually in March playing with him, hopefully. What are you
Speaker 1: gonna play? I'm playing the Benjamin Britain Concerto, which is
Speaker 1: really fun. Britain wrote, I'll find out. I'll come see you, okay, right,
Speaker 1: that would be heaven. Are you coming to New York
Speaker 1: anytime soon? I'm with the Pittsburgh and Chicago Symphony in
Speaker 1: in the spring, and I was supposed to be with
Speaker 1: the ne yok Philharmonic this fall and I couldn't get
Speaker 1: a visa, you know, because of this situation before November,
Speaker 1: it was very difficult to get a visa for the
Speaker 1: States for Europeans because there was such a backlog of
Speaker 1: applications and things. But we're working out some plans. I'm
Speaker 1: playing recycled Lincolnegie next next season. So one of the
Speaker 1: benefits I think for what you do, because I always
Speaker 1: say to people that in the movie business, the difficulty
Speaker 1: is that you don't really get to see the place
Speaker 1: that you're visiting that much because the days are long,
Speaker 1: and if you have a decent role in you're shooting,
Speaker 1: most days you go to New Orleans, or you go
Speaker 1: to a foreign city, anywhere you go in the world,
Speaker 1: and the days that you're free to be a tourist
Speaker 1: there are few and far between. What are your favorite
Speaker 1: cities to come rolling into? What's the city that you
Speaker 1: just get excited to go to? What I love in
Speaker 1: this business. For instance, I was just in Brussels, and
Speaker 1: that's the place where I've played a lot, one of
Speaker 1: the places I've played most in in in Europe. And
Speaker 1: I love that you can have done a great concert
Speaker 1: in London two days earlier and nobody in Brussels would care, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you have to convince every every place you
Speaker 1: go that you have something to offer. I love the
Speaker 1: fact that you can maybe over time build an audience
Speaker 1: in different places. So when I played in Brussels the
Speaker 1: first time, I had a hundred twenty people coming to
Speaker 1: the concert, and now there might be twelve hundred instead,
Speaker 1: And that's really really heartwarming to feel that you have
Speaker 1: that loyalty from the audiences. But also if you don't
Speaker 1: deliver that, of course they will not come back. When
Speaker 1: some of the people I've interviewed from your world have
Speaker 1: all in their own way said the same thing, which
Speaker 1: is as difficult as the work can be, the other
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult thing for them as writing music. I mean
Speaker 1: they said that's the hardest thing to do is to write,
Speaker 1: to write their own original music. Have you done a
Speaker 1: lot of writing over we would describe your writing career
Speaker 1: over the last No, I've never felt very rarely felt
Speaker 1: compelled to compose. That as a teenager, I often sat
Speaker 1: down and improvising at the at the keyboard and finding
Speaker 1: melodies of things reminded me of other other music. But
Speaker 1: then I found how much joy there was in discovering,
Speaker 1: you know, composers music and recreating them. Because I think
Speaker 1: many people don't understand how much freedom we have as
Speaker 1: classical musicians they think that we have a school in
Speaker 1: front of us, and it says, okay, it's supposed to
Speaker 1: go fast, and it starts soft and then gets a
Speaker 1: little louder and it's all set. But of course not,
Speaker 1: because if it's a legal in the beginning, that means fast.
Speaker 1: You know what is fast? That's just one of the parameters.
Speaker 1: I mean you talked about tempo earlier, how much it
Speaker 1: can vary in a piece likely to lean or in
Speaker 1: in in in a modern symphony. But also if if
Speaker 1: I see piano, which means soft in the beginning, what
Speaker 1: is soft? If I play in my living room, I
Speaker 1: can be very silent and it might still sound rather loud.
Speaker 1: If I play in Carnegie Hall and I play the
Speaker 1: same dynamic, nobody can hear me. I have to pronounce
Speaker 1: it in a very different way. Even when it says
Speaker 1: piano in the score, and what kind of piano are we? Are? We?
Speaker 1: Does the music mean? Here? Is it full of tension?
Speaker 1: Or is should it be very secretive? Should it be
Speaker 1: very confessional? You know all these kinds of things. So I'm,
Speaker 1: you know, more and more discovering how much freedom there
Speaker 1: is inside these course they're they're just dots. On a
Speaker 1: piece of paper. I mean, we we have to bring
Speaker 1: them um to life. And I've in my life being
Speaker 1: much more attractive to that than than trying to write
Speaker 1: some bad music. I was. I said to Brompton one
Speaker 1: time we went to dinner with him, and I said
Speaker 1: to him, is there a piece or there are there
Speaker 1: pieces for you which are just more, uh like the
Speaker 1: equivalent of like a double black diamond ski run for you?
Speaker 1: Were there a piece? You sit down and you've mastered
Speaker 1: this piece, you've played many many times, and you know
Speaker 1: and you know what you're doing, but you nonetheless have
Speaker 1: a pause before you put your fingers on those keys
Speaker 1: and said, this is a tough one. This is one
Speaker 1: that demands more of me than any other piece. Are
Speaker 1: there pieces like that for you? Oh? Yeah? And in
Speaker 1: different ways, you know, also for the memories sometimes, you know.
Speaker 1: And of course if I play rock mind enough. Third
Speaker 1: piano Concerto, it's it's a huge piece. But I played
Speaker 1: that since I was twenty two, and it's very demanding physically,
Speaker 1: but it's also very comfortable to play somehow because it's
Speaker 1: so fantastically written for the instrument. The fourth concerto, it
Speaker 1: was much less known is extremely hard for the memory,
Speaker 1: so I would my my pulse would always go up
Speaker 1: before playing that piece over four. Yeah, and I played
Speaker 1: that a lot as well. That's always with some tension
Speaker 1: because it's much more asymmetrical and weird and sometimes like
Speaker 1: jazz improvisation, and to memorize the whole thing is is
Speaker 1: really really you know, it's tough together with the orchestra.
Speaker 1: Is there a decent stock of piano concertos from Ratmlino? Well,
Speaker 1: you've done them already. I've done them. There are the
Speaker 1: four Piano Concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody UM, and that's
Speaker 1: wonderful stuff. Revel. You know, I have some really favorite
Speaker 1: composers that I've hardly played a note of, and Rebel
Speaker 1: is one of them. I've never played the piano concertos.
Speaker 1: I'm very little of the solo repsode, but I absolutely
Speaker 1: love listening to it. I don't know what it is
Speaker 1: I would as a pianist. I think I find more
Speaker 1: freedom and creativity in playing Debucy, you know, the other French,
Speaker 1: great French composer. But I adore Ravel and I absolutely
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the luxury you have on your pianis
Speaker 1: you don't need to play everything because there's so much.
Speaker 1: Well listen. Thank you. I'm very grateful to your great
Speaker 1: and best of luck with the finishing your project. Okay,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, my thanks to lafe uva honest Nous.
Speaker 1: We leave you with honest performing composer Les Checks Peace
Speaker 1: our evenings from the Piano series entitled On an Overgrown Path.
Speaker 1: The musical selections in today's episode are presented with the
Speaker 1: kind permission of Warner Classics and Sony Classical. I'm a
Speaker 1: Mic Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio Think Coming