Watch more exclusive interviews and concerts of the 2023 Verbier Festival at https://iiil.io/iRJj
Christian Thompson — Host
Interview recorded at medici.tv's Studio 30 (Verbier, Switzerland) in 2023.
© JBP Films
Dive into the heart of classical music with medici.tv! Get closer than ever to the artists you love and have an unforgettable experience with 100+ live webcasts each year and 1,800+ videos.
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Christian Thompson — Host
Interview recorded at medici.tv's Studio 30 (Verbier, Switzerland) in 2023.
© JBP Films
Dive into the heart of classical music with medici.tv! Get closer than ever to the artists you love and have an unforgettable experience with 100+ live webcasts each year and 1,800+ videos.
A rare and exclusive selection of concerts, ballets, operas, documentaries, master classes, behind-the-scenes and interviews!
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AmusantTranscription
00:00 My name is Christian Thompson, here we are in Studio 30 Medici TV and I have to
00:05 say we have a very special guest with us today,
00:07 Evgeny Kisin. You've been coming to Verbier many, many years, almost right
00:13 from the beginning. Yes, not almost right from the beginning, from the very first
00:19 year, since 1994 and I have missed I think only three festivals since then.
00:28 What brings you back every year? I love it here. And you come here with your
00:33 family and you spend the whole festival? Not the whole festival, but ten days to a
00:42 couple of weeks usually. And what are your favorite memories of playing here,
00:49 of the different combinations that you've played with, the different pieces?
00:53 I have many wonderful memories, musical memories. Verbier was the only
01:02 place where I collaborated with the legendary Kurt Sanderling. That was in
01:10 the second year of the festival in 1995. We played Beethoven's fifth concerto,
01:20 "The Emperor Together". Was that the same year that you played with Isaac Stern here?
01:28 Was it? Yes, exactly. You are right to remember that was the only time I
01:35 collaborated with Isaac Stern as well. You played a trio with Natalia Gutmann.
01:41 Exactly, three trios. Beethoven's Geister trio, Brahms's third and Mendelssohn's first.
01:50 What did you think of Isaac Stern? Because at that time he was a true
01:54 legend and you were kind of an up-and-coming pianist, if we can
01:57 imagine you ever being an up-and-coming pianist. Yes, I met him for the first time
02:06 five years before that, right after my debut at Carnegie Hall. You played the
02:14 two Chopin concertos, didn't you? That was not at Carnegie Hall, that was at what
02:21 was then Every Fisher Hall, because I played them with the New York Philharmonic
02:26 and they were not performing at Carnegie Hall. But then a week or two later I
02:32 played my first solo recital at Carnegie Hall and on the day after that
02:39 Mstislav Rostropovich gave a solo recital there, after which I was invited
02:48 to dinner with him and his wife, with Isaac Stern and his wife. There were some
02:57 other people present and Isaac Stern even made a toast to me then. Wow.
03:06 So I had known him personally before our collaboration in Verbier.
03:16 Yes, he was a living legend and it was he who was leading our ensemble, our group
03:26 during the rehearsals. Do you think his was a style of violin playing that
03:32 we've lost a little? Do you think violin playing has changed in general from this
03:36 kind of... I'm not a violinist so I'm not the right person to judge.
03:42 When we talk about all the time in Verbier, how much has Martin been an
03:47 inspiration or a mentor or someone that you've trusted over all these years?
03:52 I have never perceived Martin as a mentor, but he is the person who created
03:58 the festival and he continues to organize everything that's going on here.
04:07 But you trust him? I mean sometimes he asks you to do things. In which way do you mean?
04:12 For example you came out and you played one Rachmaninoff Prelude
04:16 last week which must have been a rather strange experience to come on stage and
04:21 play one and then leave again. It was okay. Yes, I trust him. I agree to some of his
04:32 suggestions and don't agree to others. For example in addition to Rachmaninoff's Prelude
04:41 he asked me to take part in performing Saint-Saëns' Carnival of Animals.
04:50 And I said no, sorry, I don't like this music too much.
04:58 I imagine you're always very honest with him. Oh yes.
05:03 Let's talk a moment about Rachmaninoff. Not only with him, I'm an honest person by nature.
05:08 I don't doubt it. Let's talk about Rachmaninoff because you're playing quite a lot of
05:12 Rachmaninoff and this festival now is celebrating the 150th birthday of
05:16 Rachmaninoff. I saw a video that you'd made where you talk about Rachmaninoff
05:20 as a musician but also how he represents his country.
05:26 You're also playing a lot of Rachmaninoff over the course of this year.
05:30 Yes, I'm honoring his anniversary this year by playing lots of his music.
05:39 Clearly it's a composer that you respect and that you love very much.
05:43 Yes, indeed. His music became a part of my repertoire since I was nine years old.
05:56 I remember when I was nine I played his A Major Waltz from his Morceau de Salon.
06:05 That I don't know. It's an early opus. Not his greatest music but still very good music.
06:16 Are there other pieces of his that you play? Have you played all the concertos?
06:21 No, I have not and I never shall.
06:24 Are there pieces of his that you won't play or that you wish you would play but they're not priorities for you?
06:30 I have played a lot of his second and third concertos but not the others.
06:37 I have no intention to play the others. I'm not that fond of them.
06:43 So, Zhenya played a recital here a few days ago which is available on replay.
06:49 There was a lot of music by Rachmaninoff in the second half of the programme.
06:54 You also played last night one of my absolute favourite pieces "Lilacs" which you played with René Fleming.
07:01 It's so touching and you played it so beautifully.
07:04 Thank you. It also became a part of my repertoire very long ago since I was 14.
07:13 The piece "Lilacs".
07:16 Just before we came on air you were talking about your old recordings.
07:20 You've made a lot of recordings.
07:23 Are you proud of all your recordings? Do you go back and listen to them?
07:27 You were talking for a moment about the recording of Rachmaninoff 3.
07:30 I wasn't clear if that was at the moment before it was released or whether you came back to it afterwards to listen to it.
07:36 No, before it was released I was working on the recording.
07:45 Are you very involved in the process of working on it?
07:49 Yes, I am. But as far as listening to my own recordings, I do it very seldom.
07:56 I much prefer listening to other people's recordings.
08:00 Whose people's recordings do you listen to?
08:04 All great musicians.
08:05 Do you listen to living musicians or do you listen more to...
08:08 Living ones as well. And of course dead ones.
08:15 Do you like the recording process?
08:19 I prefer live recordings.
08:22 That's why many, if not most of my recordings have been made live.
08:31 Again, since I was a child.
08:35 Because it's more organic if you play a recital for a public.
08:41 I feel much more inspired when I have an audience sitting there and listening to me.
08:49 Much more than when I'm surrounded just by the four walls of a recording studio and the microphones.
09:01 I mean, I've known you coming here for...
09:03 I'm proud of all of my recordings.
09:07 I'm happy with some of them. I'm not happy with some of them.
09:13 I think they are good, but I could do better now.
09:20 But surely a recording is a kind of snapshot in time.
09:23 It's that moment.
09:26 And if you didn't think that it could be better or different now, that would be surprising, I think.
09:33 So a recording that you made 20 years ago, your opinion on the piece and your interpretation and your ideas have changed since then?
09:43 Maybe a year or so ago I listened to my own recording of Chopin's Barcarolle and thought that I could not do it better now.
09:54 Wow.
09:56 But I also listened to some of my other recordings, for example of Chopin's 2nd Sonata, of Chopin's 24 Preludes.
10:06 I thought that I could do better now.
10:11 That's surprising. I mean for the Barcarolle for example.
10:14 Did you listen to it with the thought of playing it again or you were just curious?
10:19 Yes, exactly.
10:21 I was listening to all those recordings in order to check what they are like and whether or not I could play better now
10:38 and therefore whether or not I should come back to those pieces.
10:44 Interesting.
10:45 So I realised that the Barcarolle I could not do better but some of the Preludes and some fragments of the 2nd Sonata I could do better now
11:01 and therefore should come back to those pieces at some point in the future.
11:08 That surprises me quite a lot but I think you're very honest. As you said before, honesty is a trait.
11:16 But over all the time that I've known you here over the last 20 years, I think you go to more concerts of your colleagues than most other people.
11:24 Do you go to learn, to listen, to hear music? Why are you such a regular follower of your colleagues here?
11:33 Simply because I love their playing and respect them and want to listen to it.
11:44 Unfortunately since I have to prepare for my own performances here, I'm not going to as many concerts here as I would love to.
12:01 Maybe we could just talk a moment about your recital programme here.
12:06 The programme is available on Medici and it starts with this amazing programme all around chromaticism.
12:15 Maybe you could talk a little bit about how you constructed it which perhaps could help our viewers to understand a bit more your thinking behind it.
12:26 I construct all my programmes in the same way.
12:32 I simply go, I mean in my head, through the various works I would like to play and think which ones would sound well together and make a good programme. That's all.
12:47 The only thing I can say apart from the fact that the second half of my programme was devoted entirely to Rachmaninoff's music in order to pay tribute to Rachmaninoff's anniversary,
13:06 is that I made a change in my original programme.
13:16 Originally I was going to play not Chopin's F-sharp minor polonaise at the end of the first half but Debussy's Estompe.
13:28 But when I started working on them I felt, as you can imagine, since the 24th of February last year, my mind and my soul have been totally preoccupied with the war in Ukraine.
13:57 So when I started working on the Estompe I felt that it was not the right time to play that kind of music, to enjoy the beauty of the pagodas, the sensuality of the evening in Granade.
14:23 I felt that I should play something which was relevant to the horrible events in Ukraine and I decided to come back to Chopin's F-sharp minor polonaise,
14:41 which I had not played for many years but which I had had in my repertoire since I was 14 years old.
14:57 Already as a teenager I knew Chopin's biography, I read Chopin's letters, including his so-called Stuttgart's diary,
15:08 and although Chopin himself did not write down any verbal programme, so to speak, for that polonaise,
15:16 it became clear to me at the time, almost immediately, that that piece was about the sufferings of Chopin's country and people enslaved and butchered by the Russian imperialists.
15:39 So the parallels with the current events were obvious, totally clear and startling.
15:54 That's why I decided to replace the Estompe with the polonaise.
16:01 And can you believe it? Many people in different countries, on different continents, who listened to me play it, understood what it was about,
16:18 even though I had not told them about it beforehand. They felt it while listening to my playing. People in London, in Tel Aviv, in Boston, people who didn't know each other.
16:35 So at no point did you make a statement to say that you wanted to put that piece in, you just put the piece in and you let people make up their own images or ideas of why you did it?
16:46 I explained to my agents why I had decided to replace the Estompe with the polonaise.
16:59 My statement was published somewhere but not everywhere and not in those cities.
17:09 There are some songs that you prefer not talking about music or using words for music because music was beyond words.
17:17 I would even say above words.
17:21 But then that's a totally consistent position when you play a piece which is beyond words but it makes a statement nevertheless.
17:30 There are no rules without exceptions, especially at a time like this. We are living in an exceptional time since the 24th of February last year.
17:48 One of your very illustrious colleagues here, a Georgian violinist, you know who I'm talking about, we were talking about you this morning
17:57 and she said to me he's one of the very few artists from the old Soviet Union who is extremely clear about his position on what's going on in the world at the moment.
18:06 What's going on is so horrible that I simply feel that I cannot keep silent.
18:15 In fact, virtually everything depends on the West and that's why although all my life I had hated giving interviews, to tell you honestly,
18:29 since the 24th of February last year I started giving as many interviews as I possibly could appealing to both Western politicians and citizens of Western countries.
18:54 Appealing to them, explaining what was going on, how horrible it was and this and that.
19:07 It was a duty of every decent human being to do everything he or she possibly can to help Ukraine and its people.
19:24 In your opinion, what does that mean practically?
19:29 I mean I know for example...
19:33 Send weapons and give money for that.
19:40 That's what Ukraine needs most and people of course.
19:49 People from different countries are serving in the Ukrainian army as volunteers.
19:59 Unfortunately I'm too old and not qualified to do that.
20:04 Those people who can do it, I believe should absolutely do it.
20:12 Because Ukraine is a much smaller country than Russia.
20:19 That's why its population is much smaller.
20:24 That's why it has much less weapons and that's why it is in such a weak position.
20:30 That's why Russia invaded it.
20:33 But they would never have believed it would have taken this long not to have succeeded.
20:41 That's true but unfortunately the Western politicians also didn't believe it in the beginning.
20:48 And that's why on the first day of the Russian full-scale invasion,
20:53 President Biden offered asylum to President Zelensky.
21:00 To which the latter replied that he needed not transportation but weapons.
21:07 You're extremely aware politically.
21:11 I wanted to talk in general about your curiosity.
21:14 You're extremely curious in all areas.
21:17 I'm not at all curious about all sorts of political intrigues and scandals.
21:24 I am concerned about real problems.
21:30 Which for me are not simply political but also humanitarian.
21:39 One does not have to be interested in politics.
21:43 Nobody is obliged to be interested in anything.
21:48 I for instance have never been interested in mathematics.
21:52 But I believe that every single decent human being is obliged not to be indifferent to the sufferings of other human beings.
22:05 And to help victims of injustice, violence, etc.
22:14 And you stood up. There was a moment you stood up against this country that we're in now, Switzerland.
22:20 And they then changed their mind about a soldier that needed to be treated here.
22:25 Not a soldier but soldiers in general.
22:29 And then they...
22:32 Yes.
22:34 Maybe this is a stupid question. Forgive me if it is.
22:37 I'm full of... I can be ignorant.
22:42 Can you separate Rachmaninoff the composer from Rachmaninoff the country he represents?
22:49 Because you talked in the film that you made.
22:53 You said I'm celebrating Rachmaninoff as a composer but I'm not condoning the country that he hails from.
22:59 Well, first of all...
23:07 It would be more precise to use the word state, not country.
23:14 Obviously Rachmaninoff had nothing to do with the Russian state as it is now.
23:24 Rachmaninoff died in the United States by the way.
23:29 Years before Putin was born.
23:33 But there are some artists that are not playing Russian music as a kind of statement.
23:39 Now each artist has a different view of their...
23:42 I know that some, maybe even many Ukrainians...
23:48 I know some such people personally who simply cannot listen to Russian music.
23:56 Nor read Russian literature now.
23:59 And of course I understand them very well.
24:03 Yes.
24:05 By the way, I say that...
24:10 When after the beginning of the war I started working on Rachmaninoff's music...
24:17 I myself had a kind of dubious feeling.
24:24 Which I did not have when I was working for example on Shostakovich's music.
24:32 Because in Rachmaninoff's music the Russian national element is very present.
24:45 And in the beginning it did make me feel somewhat uneasy.
24:54 And you hadn't expected it?
24:56 You hadn't expected to have this reaction?
24:59 I don't remember honestly what I had been expecting before that.
25:07 But I do remember that somehow I managed to get over it.
25:17 Do you change the way that you think about this music since February last year?
25:24 Do you have a feeling that it should be presented if possible in a less nationalistic way?
25:30 No, no.
25:35 It's not nationalistic.
25:39 Rachmaninoff was not a nationalist.
25:42 True, he had some wrong views about Ukraine and other countries.
25:53 Which were part of the Russian empire in which he lived.
25:58 But he was not a nationalist.
26:01 He was a person of generally progressive views for his time.
26:11 No, I believe that music should always be played the way it was written.
26:22 The way the composer meant it to be played.
26:27 As I said you're extremely curious.
26:36 You read a lot and now you compose and you write.
26:41 Poetry is a big part of your interest.
26:46 "Interest" is the wrong word.
26:48 You're passionate about poetry in general.
26:50 There's a lot of talk about poetry in Russian and Yiddish.
26:54 Do you read poetry in English also?
26:56 Of course.
26:57 What I do since my young years.
27:01 I remember when I came to England for the very first time.
27:06 That was a school trip.
27:09 Wow.
27:10 Yes, in 1987.
27:13 Wow, and you were 16.
27:15 Even 15.
27:17 Before I turned 16.
27:19 When things already started changing in the former Soviet Union.
27:25 We were invited by some left-wing activists in England.
27:29 So one of the people, he was a very nice young man named Robin.
27:40 I don't remember his family name.
27:42 Gave me as a present a book of William Blake's poetry.
27:49 Wow.
27:50 Which I immediately started reading.
27:52 Tiger, tiger.
27:54 Did you speak English?
27:56 I mean you could understand English.
27:58 Some, a little bit.
28:00 But of course I had dictionaries at home.
28:04 And then there was a great Russian poet, Vasily Zhukovsky.
28:15 A contemporary of Pushkin.
28:17 Who translated lots of poetry from other languages.
28:26 And either someone gave me for present.
28:30 Or my parents bought, that was at the end of the 1980s.
28:35 Two volumes of Zhukovsky's translations of great poetry from different languages.
28:44 Starting from fragments of Homer's Odyssey.
28:49 They included some German poetry.
28:53 Lots of different things.
28:55 And some English poetry as well.
28:57 Including among other things, The Prisoner of Trillium.
29:03 Which I immediately started not only reading but learning by heart.
29:10 That were the original texts on the left pages.
29:16 And Zhukovsky's translations in Russian on the right pages.
29:21 I was able to read the original English texts as well.
29:28 How amazing.
29:30 So yes, I always loved reading poetry.
29:34 Do you still remember it?
29:36 I remember the beginning.
29:38 My hair is grey, but not with years.
29:41 Nor grew it white in a single night.
29:44 As men have grown from sudden fears.
29:48 My limbs are bowed, though not with toil.
29:52 But rusted with a vile repose.
29:55 For they have been a dungeon's spoil.
29:58 And mine have been the fate of those to whom the goodly earth and air.
30:02 Are bent and bowed.
30:05 Forbidden fare.
30:07 But that was for my father's faith.
30:11 I suffered chains and quartered death.
30:13 And when I read that, of course, I immediately thought of my Jewish people.
30:20 Who had also been suffering a lot for their father's faith.
30:26 Or more their mother's faith, but perhaps, yes.
30:29 Oh.
30:31 That's also been a...
30:36 And then, many years later.
30:39 I found a Yiddish translation of the Prisoner of Silience.
30:44 But I have not learned it by heart.
30:47 Okay, so we'll come back next year and we'll do chapter two.
30:51 As well as many other masterpieces of the English poetry.
30:57 Some of Shakespeare's songs.
31:01 By the way, I myself translated Hamlet's monologue into Yiddish.
31:05 During one of my sleepless nights.
31:07 How many sleepless nights do you have?
31:10 Unfortunately, many more than I would like to have.
31:14 I'm sorry.
31:17 Do you do that for fun?
31:19 Because you said also that you want this language to exist and to continue and to develop and flourish.
31:24 Even the Yiddish language.
31:26 I simply love it.
31:29 It is one of my childhood memories.
31:33 Would you give me some Hamlet in Yiddish?
31:38 I'll try.
31:40 The thing is that I almost never remember my own writings.
31:47 Just as I very seldom listen to my own recordings.
31:52 I prefer learning other people's poetry by heart.
31:56 I can try to remember at least the beginning.
32:04 To be is not to be.
32:08 That is the cash.
32:11 To be noble is to live in the spirit of the evil gaur, stone-thrower and phial.
32:21 To arm themselves and make a decision as soon as the yam and the corn die.
32:27 To die is not to sleep.
32:33 And with sleep we make a decision.
32:37 To be noble and to live in the spirit of the evil gaur, stone-thrower and phial.
32:42 To arm ourselves and make a decision as soon as the yam and the corn die.
32:48 To die is to sleep.
32:51 And to arm ourselves and make a decision as soon as the yam and the corn die.
32:56 To be noble and to live in the spirit of the evil gaur, stone-thrower and phial.
33:01 To arm ourselves and make a decision as soon as the yam and the corn die.
33:06 To arm ourselves and make a decision as soon as the yam and the corn die.
33:11 To arm ourselves and make a decision as soon as the yam and the corn die.
33:16 To arm ourselves and make a decision as soon as the yam and the corn die.
33:21 I've been brought up...
33:26 I've been told by...
33:31 I don't even remember who, but somehow...
33:36 I have been told since childhood that to be a good musician...
33:42 one should know other arts as well.
33:48 I think it's one of the saddest things that happens.
33:52 Musicians don't really know.
33:54 If you play Bach, you never listen to a cantata.
33:59 Oh, that!
34:02 That's even the minorest amount of curiosity.
34:07 I remember Horowitz said...
34:12 in order to play even one small piece of a great composer...
34:18 you have to know all his other works.
34:24 Including his symphonic and chamber music, etc.
34:32 I think it would shock you how few do.
34:35 Or that there are some that don't.
34:37 I have one more question.
34:39 I think that if you play well, from the intellectual point of view...
34:47 we know that, for example, Van Cliburn did not.
34:54 And we know what happened to him.
34:57 How his talent, his immense gift deteriorated.
35:03 And one was the consequence of the other.
35:09 I know that from Kirill Kondrashin's book of memoirs.
35:14 Kondrashin was a famous Soviet conductor...
35:17 who defected to the Netherlands a few years before his death.
35:23 He was one of the most prominent conductors in the former Soviet Union.
35:29 He conducted the final round of the first Tchaikovsky competition...
35:36 which Van Cliburn won.
35:39 So he and Cliburn got to know each other and became good friends.
35:45 And worked together a lot afterwards in the Soviet Union...
35:51 as well as in the United States.
35:53 And Kondrashin said in his book of memoirs that Cliburn was a very nice man...
35:59 but not developed enough.
36:06 That he had a poor knowledge of symphonic music and opera.
36:16 That even his knowledge of the piano literature was limited.
36:22 And that he did not want to improve himself, to change anything.
36:28 That's from Russian evidence.
36:31 Let me ask you one more question.
36:33 You said ten minutes ago that you felt more at ease with Shostakovich's music now...
36:39 than you did with other Russian composers.
36:41 With Rachmaninoff.
36:42 Than, for example, on Rachmaninoff.
36:44 Do you think Shostakovich's music has a relevance in today's times?
36:48 Absolutely. And also it virtually has no Russian national element.
36:57 That was my point.
36:58 This is what Herbert Blomstedt calls fake news in a way.
37:01 That he used moments in his pieces to protest.
37:06 And there's hidden meaning. Is that what you're talking about?
37:09 No.
37:11 You mean when we talk about the relevance of his music now?
37:18 Exactly.
37:19 Yes.
37:20 But also simply the fact that lots of his music is very tragic.
37:30 The piece of music I meant was his second trio...
37:37 which I played with other wonderful musicians...
37:45 at two of the gala concerts for Ukraine...
37:51 in which I took part soon after the war began.
37:56 I felt that piece was very relevant simply because it was very tragic.
38:04 I do not think that there was any message of protest in that piece of music.
38:18 Even though one could make such an assumption...
38:24 because it was written during World War II and the Holocaust...
38:28 and there are Jewish themes in that music.
38:33 But there is no evidence of that.
38:39 The piece, as we know, was dedicated to the memory of one of Shostakovich's best friends...
38:48 Ivan Solotinsky, who was an extraordinary man...
38:55 a man of encyclopedic knowledge.
39:02 A man who influenced Shostakovich a lot, Shostakovich's tastes in particular.
39:11 So what I meant was simply because Shostakovich's music is full of drama and tragedy.
39:20 And that's what's happening in Ukraine now.
39:23 That's why it's relevant.
39:24 On the other hand, it has no Russian national element in it.
39:33 And that's why I didn't have that strange feeling and still don't when I play it.
39:41 Of course, the same thing applies to Prokofiev's and Stravinsky's music.
39:47 Arguably Prokofiev was Ukrainian. Arguably.
39:51 He was born in what is now Ukraine...
39:57 but I don't think he was of Ukrainian origin.
40:07 Listen, you're somebody who says what you think and believes in what you think...
40:12 and I think the stand that you're making and the statements you're making...
40:15 are incredibly inspirational for everybody.