Journal

Beethoven

Emperor concerto

The emperor concerto was one of my signature “workhorse” pieces. I won the Juilliard competition to perform it at the commencement concert at Alice Tully Hall, with the whole school and then-president Peter Mennin in attendance. My teacher Sasha Gorodnitzki had trouble getting over the reality of women performing the piece, and used to call it the “Empress” concerto whenever any of his female pianists performed it, so it was that much more ironic that I was the one to give him the prestige of winning against all of the men in the competition. Figure that!

Beethoven

Piano Sonata, Op 111

Working on the Opus 111 is like trying to visit heaven before you know the meaning of it. It was Beethoven’s final piano sonata and he was completely deaf when he wrote it, so when I play the music I can only try to imagine his thought process when writing it, and contemplate my own as I work through the piece.

I’ve performed it for many artists. When Robert Mann heard my performance at the Naumburg final at Carnegie Hall, he told me that he could even follow my thought process. When I played for Slava Rostropovich at an impromptu master class, he told me the left hand should speak as well. My teacher Gorodnitzki in his true pianistic fashion, used to taunt me about the balance of sounds and trills in the second movement.

I have yet to give a performance that completely satisfies me, but perhaps that will never come, and perhaps that’s what makes it such a special piece of music...

Chopin

Polonaise Fantasie

Learning the Polonaise Fantasie in my teens is a confusing process to say the least. It is not a Beethoven sonata where you can instantly make sense of it, or a Bach fugue where one can train to understand the underlying form. Even after spending many lessons working on it, I still felt like I was wandering through a cloudy maze...but then I asked to play for Murray Perahia, and he painted such a clear picture of that fantastical piece to me, that after just a few hours I came away with a complete understanding of it, one that will stay in my head forever.