Paul Berkowitz, pianist

Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music and who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?

I began piano at a very early age, like most musicians – six years old in my case. My parents were encouraging, and later my second piano teacher, Dorothy Morton, of Montreal where I lived (she was also a Professor at McGill University where I later studied) encouraged me and arranged many opportunities (and some competitions) for me to perform. But when it came to pursuing a career in music, that is another matter. The life of a musician is so difficult and tenuous that the decision can only come from inside. I suppose I had many other opportunities, all of which would have been a “safer” path in life, so my father was very much against it. As I felt that to do anything else would feel like a sort of death, I stuck to my guns and changed my course of studies. My teacher accepted that. When a few years later, I was accepted by Rudolf Serkin to study with him at the Curtis Institute, that was a powerful validation.

Who or what were the most important influences on your musical life and career?

Directly, these would be my teachers: Dorothy Morton, whom I mentioned, and Rudolf Serkin. Dorothy had a marvelous gift of being able to draw music out of anyone, and was particularly gifted at eliciting expressive, meaningful musical phrasing. Mr. Serkin was a very powerful presence who stressed utmost respect for the composer’s intentions and enforced great discipline, while mastering his own explosive responses to music: a sort of tightrope walker which he manifested in his own playing. He had the highest possible standards, of which one nearly always fell short. I think he became my musical conscience, in a sense, for which I owe him greatly. At the same time, he claimed not to believe in teaching and did not want to dictate an interpretation or solution to difficulties, leaving it to his students to figure things out. This was a very powerful example and a formative experience. I also had some lessons while at Curtis with Mieczyslaw Horszowski, who had an angelic temperament and was very illuminating. In my first year at Curtis, I also met Richard Goode, who had graduated recently and came back at Mr. Serkin’s invitation to hear and counsel his current students. Richard became a close friend, and has been a wonderful example. Finally, when I first arrived in London at the age of 23, Jeremy Siepmann, who later became also a writer on music, became a friend and helped me greatly with his thoughtful, analytic approach to music.

Indirectly, in my youth discovering the Beethoven and Schubert recordings of Artur Schnabel were a revelation, and an influence in his devoted approach to the masterworks of the piano repertoire. And when I had the opportunity to “sit in” at a season of the Marlboro Festival in Vermont run by Mr. Serkin, hearing Pablo Casals in one of his last years there made a searing impression, both in his exciting conducting of most of the Beethoven symphonies, and in his Bach masterclasses: I will never forget the way he picked up his cello and demonstrated the opening of the Bach C-major Suite with incredible energy and musical fullness.

Tell us about your new Poulenc recording

This recording represents a new direction for me. I am mostly known for, and have spent most of my career on, performances of the Viennese masters – Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms – with all my previous CD recordings being of the last three: nine volumes of

Schubert, one of Schumann (with more planned), and three of Brahms. When at last, after 30 years, I finished learning and recording the final two Schubert CDs, including the Impromptus, Moments Musicaux and other pieces, and then more or less summed up my Schubert cycle by returning to the works that started it all off, the last three Schubert sonatas, and performed them all together in one recital, several times including at St. Johns Smith Square in London in 2017, I felt it time to explore other directions. I learned new (for me) works of Bach, Chopin, and Bartok, played the last three Beethoven sonatas opp. 109, 110 and 111 – and an entirely new composer for me, Poulenc. I had played his great Sextet for Piano and Winds back in 1989, which I had really loved, and heard a few glimpses of his music, mostly songs, some of the woodwind sonatas, and once, many years ago, the concerto for two pianos. I tried to persuade my students to learn a few of the short Poulenc piano pieces, but was only moderately successful. I thought I’d better look at them myself. I first learned the wonderful Mélancolie, the 3rd Intermezzo, the Presto in B flat, and the 15th Improvisation, all on the CD. That was in 2019. When the Covid shutdown arrived, I decided to make my major project the full collection of 15 Improvisations, which I performed as soon as concert halls were re-opened. When asked what I did over Covid, the answer was “I learned the Poulenc Improvisations!” From there, I was drawn to learn the 3 Novelettes, all 3 Intermezzi, and finally the very challenging Thème varié of 1951, in preference to an earlier work such as the better-known Trois Pièces. These are all on the CD.

Poulenc (1899-1963) was a pianist himself, and composed solo piano pieces the whole of his artistic life, from the early Trois mouvements perpétuels of 1918, when he was 19 years old, to the third Novelette and last Improvisation of 1959, both included on the CD, not long before his death. When he was 15, his mother had found for him the ideal and congenial piano teacher in the Catalan pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became his mentor and encouraged the young Poulenc in every way. Viñes was a virtuoso pianist who was a major figure in the musical world of the time, performing many of the works of Debussy, Ravel and other contemporary French composers, and who introduced many of the works of Albéniz and other Spanish composers to French audiences. Poulenc would attest that, in particular, Viñes taught him the art of using the pedal, so prominent and so strongly demanded by Poulenc. (Poulenc felt that pianists never used enough pedal in his music, which asks to be ‘bathed in pedals’ on more than one occasion.) He also introduced Poulenc to Satie and to Stravinsky. Satie took Poulenc into his fold to be a member of the group of young French composers Les Six, while Stravinsky found Poulenc his first publisher, the English firm of Chester Music, who published, among other works, the three Novelettes on the CD. All this time, Poulenc had not had any formal training in composition, in fact had been turned away by Paul Vidal, professor at the Conservatoire, who was offended by the work that Poulenc brought to him and by the dedication to Satie, ‘yelling “your work is disgusting, inept, a load of tasteless garbage…”’. Eventually, in 1921, when he was already a published composer with many public performances to his credit, Poulenc met and began four years of private lessons with Charles Koechlin, French composer and pedagogue, who worked with him on counterpoint, harmony, and compositional techniques.

Through the 1920s, Poulenc was finding his voice. His piano works of this decade can appear as rather odd juxtapositions of contrasting styles, almost as if the different pieces within each set were written by different composers. The 1930s were when Poulenc really came into his own as a composer for piano solo, and when the bulk of his piano works were written. These are the works I mostly focus on – the first book of 10 Improvisations, the first two Intermezzi and the Presto – plus the later, more romantic works of the 1940s and ‘50s – Mélancolie, the 3rd Intermezzo, the last three Improvisations – and the unique Thème varié. The first impression of many of Poulenc’s piano works, especially the works of the 1930s, might be of something a bit quirky, insouciant and inventive, but soon there emerges, as always with Poulenc, a beautiful lyrical melody. This is what attracts me to Poulenc.

Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?

Oh, that’s too hard! Among the Schubert sonatas recordings for Meridian, I still feel close to and pleased with the G major D894 and the big A minor D845, both sets of Impromptus and the little-known Grazer Fantasie from the last two Schubert CDs (vols. 8 & 9), Schumann’s Kreisleriana, several of the Brahms piano pieces, maybe especially Op. 76, Op. 116 and 117, and the Brahms Variations record. But I suppose I will always have a soft spot for the first recordings I made, of the last three sonatas of Schubert.

Which particular works/composers do you think you perform best?

When I was younger, I performed quite a wide repertoire, including a large proportion of the works of Chopin, most of the solo Bartok works, both Ravel concerti, etc. But in recent years I’ve focused more exclusively on the German/Austrian classical and romantic composers towards whom I’ve always been most drawn: Mozart, Beethoven. Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. A few years ago, I decided on a major project: to learn the Beethoven ‘Diabelli’ Variations. This is an immense and very difficult work, just about an hour in length, and not often played, probably for those reasons: I think I had heard it performed live just twice in my life. I had also hardly ever sight-read it, for similar reasons. It really was like a brand new work for me, which I may not have experienced to the same degree in a solo piano work since my teens or early twenties. It was very exciting to get to know and learn what was virtually a whole new world like this. This was the rare occasion when I devoted the whole of my recital to this one work, as I did not want to make an outsize program. It worked well.

I think that my feeling for Schubert, which I hope makes my performances among my better ones, is especially close paradoxically because I didn’t hear the sonatas performed much, or at all, while I was growing up. Back in those days, outside probably of London and New York, you didn’t see Schubert sonatas in concert programs much. Schnabel and Serkin must have been among the very few who included them, sometimes, in their programs, and I never heard them in Montreal. Schubert’s songs, the Impromptus and Moments Musicaux, were about the extent of it. I remember one day when I was maybe 14 or so, coming upon a volume of Schubert sonatas on a friend’s piano, and being overcome by this wonderful music. I excitedly told my teacher about this and asked if I could learn one. She couldn’t imagine where I might have come upon them! Later that same year, at a music summer camp, I similarly came upon the B flat sonata for the first time on the piano of one of the teachers. Since that day I always wanted to learn it, but was always told I had to start with other, less ambitious works. Finally in my third year of study with Mr. Serkin, I began my long journey with the work.

For most of my life, I have been drawn to “late” period works. For example, I learned Beethoven opp. 110 and 109, the last Schubert B flat sonata, Brahms opp. 116 and 117, all when I was very young, a student. I thought then that it would help me play them better when I was older, and that may be true. But, at the moment, I have this urge to learn more works of Schumann, which I suppose is really young man’s music. I am just about to record the Humoreske, Arabeske and Fantasie. I played the Fantasie about 40 years ago, at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, but not since until this past year, and the other two works are entirely new for me. And there may be more to come, although I would like to include a few later works of Schumann as well. I recorded, quite early, back in 1986, just after my first Schubert recordings, Schumann’s Kreisleriana and Davidsbündlertänze. It’s exciting to be returning to Schumann’s world after all this time: I’m looking forward to it immensely.

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

Usually, I take what was almost the last advice I received from my teacher Rudolf Serkin: when devising a new recital program for a season, make it about half old (previously performed), half new. That way you are always learning new works while deepening your knowledge and understanding of works you have played before, and can rely on being familiar with about half the program already.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

That would be Wigmore Hall, where I played numerous times during my London years. Its intimacy and warm acoustics make it my favorite hall in which both to play and hear recitals.

What do you do off stage that provides inspiration on stage?

Nothing that I am aware of. Inspiration cannot be manufactured.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Again, there are far too many memorable events to choose from! I recall a performance by the Vienna Philharmonic at Royal Festival Hall, of Beethoven Symphonies nos. 5 and 8, conducted by Carlos Kleiber, back in the 1980s, and equally memorable performances by the Vienna Phil in Santa Barbara, California, where I live now, in, I think 2011 and 2014. Better acoustics here too! For piano recitals, there are too many to count. The very first piano recital I was ever taken to, when I was about 12 years old in Montreal, was Sviatoslav Richter playing Bach. I remember a stupendous performance by my teacher Rudolf Serkin of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier sonata in Brooklyn in about 1971, and a moving recital featuring Mozart and Chopin, by my other teacher at the Curtis Institute, but years later, at the Aldeburgh Festival. I remember a performance of Brahms op. 10 Ballades in the Festival Hall by Gilels, with an immensely warm cantabile, and the one and only recital played in London during my 21 years there by Clifford Curzon, featuring the Brahms F minor sonata, and if I remember correctly, a sort of encore at the end of the first half, of the Intermezzo op. 119 no. 3. I also recall Curzon’s magical performance of Mozart B flat concerto K595 with the LPO, and more recently Richard Goode’s majestic Mozart C major concerto K503 with the Los Angeles Phiharmonic at Disney Hall in LA. I could go on…

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

Being able to communicate great music that moves people.

What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences?

I don’t know. Children need to be exposed to classical music at a young age, and, with luck, some of them will like it and will want to hear, and maybe, play more. It will never be an overwhelming majority of people. Let it be an overwhelming passion for whatever minority takes to it. Just make music available and present.

What advice would you give to young or aspiring musicians?

Well, I don’t like to preach. There are so many ways to learn. Sometimes the most talented young musicians are the most creative, to the extent that they will impose their own ideas too strongly on the works they play, to the extent of obscuring the composer’s. Occasionally they will even do this consciously in an effort to make a personal statement, what one might call the Glenn Gould fallacy. The creativity is very precious and should never be stamped out, as it is what makes music live and not dead. Perhaps our era is too concerned with correctness, leading to uniform, anodyne versions. Yet it is the responsibility of every musician to try their best to discover and to be true to the composer’s own intentions. There are always inflections so fine that that cannot be written in the score and that remain to be discovered and made actual in the moment by the performer. What I tell my students is that if they remain as true as they can be to what they believe the composer has intended, by that very dedication their interpretation and performance will be individual to them, but without artificial distortions – since everyone will have different conceptions of the composer’s intentions even if they correspond more roughly to an informed common understanding.

What’s next? Where would you like to be in ten years’ time?

Still here

Paul Berkowitz’s latest album, ‘Piano Works of Francis Poulenc’, a personal selection of some of Poulenc’s most engaging works for piano, featuring some less usual repertoire, is released on Meridian Records on 28 July. Find out more