Facing the music: Jonathan Biss

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/23/facing-the-music-pianist-jonathan-biss-q-and-a

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How do you listen to music?

When I’m at home, I listen with proper speakers, but when I’m not – which is more often the case – it’s on my phone or computer, with headphones. I do feel some regret over this, but my greater regret, honestly, is that the majority of the music I hear is recorded and not live, which I believe is how it’s meant to be experienced.

What was the last piece of music you bought?

Recorded: Thomas Adès’s Piano Quintet, printed: Schubert’s Winterreise.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

I have plenty of good, old-fashioned Jewish guilt, but I really don’t understand why any of it would be focused on this topic! There are plenty of pieces that I love but don’t think are profound – Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence comes to mind – but, highly uncharacteristically, I feel perfectly OK about it. In fact, maybe I’ll go listen to the Tchaikovsky right now…

If you found yourself with six months free to learn a new instrument, what would you choose?

… OK, I’m back. Based on brutal personal experience, I doubt that six months would get me very far! That said, I’d probably choose the cello – I would like to know what it’s like to be that physically connected to the instrument, and I would love to know how it feels to be able to draw the sound with a bow. I’ve always wished the piano were played with a bow.

Is applauding between movements acceptable?

There are certain pieces where the relationship between the movements is complex and significant, and in those cases I find it distracting. But with some other pieces, I almost miss it when it doesn’t happen. In the end, as long as the audience’s response feels genuine, I don’t much care if it involves applause or silence.

What single thing would improve the format of the classical concert?

I sometimes find it frustrating that concerts tend to be single-genre. I would love to go to a concert that mixed symphonic music with solo piano music, chamber music, lieder … It would open up the possibilities of interesting programming exponentially, and the variety of sonority would be an added bonus.

What’s been your most memorable live music experience as an audience member?

There have been so many! The one that springs to mind is Leon Fleisher’s Carnegie Hall recital in 2003. It was his first two-handed recital there in something like 40 years, and quite aside from the historical significance, he gave the most otherworldly performance of the Schubert B flat Sonata I have ever heard, or expect to hear. No one breathed for about 42 minutes.

What was the first ever record/CD you bought?

I honestly have no idea. But the first one I ever loved (I was eight and didn’t do the buying) was Rudolf Serkin playing the Appassionata.

Do you enjoy musicals? Do you have a favourite?

There’s an episode of Seinfeld in which Jerry is dragged kicking and screaming to the opera, while asking: “Why is everybody singing? Who sings?” While I love a fair bit of opera – not from top to bottom, maybe, but a lot of it, that sums up my feelings about musicals. No matter how brilliantly written the music and/or words are, I can’t suspend my disbelief.

How many recordings of the Beethoven symphonies do you own? Do you have a favourite?

I only have one complete set of the Beethoven symphonies, but in the case of certain special favourites – like the 4th – I might have as many as 10. Carlos Kleiber conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra is one I come back to again and again.

Which conductor of yesteryear do you most wish you could have worked with?

If I can leave aside politics and answer on purely musical terms, I’d probably have to say Furtwängler – I find his Beethoven and Brahms to be remarkably inspired (and therefore inspiring).

Which non-classical musician would you love to work with?

I’m not sure I would have wanted to work with her, but I wish I had at least heard Billie Holiday. I think I would have learned a huge amount from her – her way of inflecting a phrase, of colouring it and then recolouring it, was one-of-a-kind.

Imagine you’re a festival director here in London with unlimited resources. What would you programme – or commission – for your opening event?

Apparently there’s a reason I’m not a festival director – it took me ages to answer this – too many possibilities! If I’m dreaming, I won’t restrict myself to the living: it would be an evening of Bach cantatas, with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing, with György and Márta Kurtág playing selections from his Játékok (including new ones, composed specially for the occasion) as interludes. But tomorrow the answer might be different…

What do you sing in the shower?

Italian opera. Verdi, most often – I still half-expect to be discovered, à la Fabio Armiliato’s character in Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love. I’m very good.

• Jonathan Biss performs at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on Tuesday 31 March. His latest CD, Beethoven Piano Sonatas Vol. 4, is out now (JB Recordings).