Do you have a musical hero?
Deprinted score.
From WQXR and Carnegie Hall, this is classical music happy-hour hosted by me, pianist Maniacs.
Each episode will speak with a special guest about their lives. Listen to some of their favorite musical gems, play music inspired games and answer questions from you our listeners. The New York Times has called today's guest a performer of near-superhuman technical prowess.
He's one of the world's premier pianists performing regularly with top orchestras around the world, as well as an avid and accomplished composer. And if that wasn't enough, his discography includes over 70 albums. I am one of his many, many adoring fans and it's a privilege for me to also call him a friend.
Mark Andre Hamel and welcome to the show.
It is so good to be here and thank you for inviting me here.
“When we met, we met backstage after one of your recitals in Philadelphia and what I remember”
about that recital is that you played a fabulous encore of Foray and you preceded playing it by saying, "I just don't know why people don't play this piece more because it's so lovely." And then you preceded to play one of the most complicated things I've ever seen in my life. And I came backstage and I said, "I can tell you exactly why not that many people play
it." But it wasn't hyper-trosity, it was just... no, it was just implored and complex. Incredibly complex. Yeah. And you are, of course, one of the absolutely miraculous minds in piano playing.
When I first encountered your play, it was hearing an incredible collection of high
virtuoso pieces, list opera transcriptions.
“I think some of the show penatoes of Godovsky, I believe, but the kind of stuff that basically”
I always dreamt about playing and never actually would dare to attempt. So, what got you interested in that particular area? I owe it to my dad, actually, because my dad was a little bit like me, although I really took it to extremes. And he was really looking sort of left and right, I mean, he had an interest in not so standard
repertoire. I mean, he was kind of limited, but it was there. And he was really inspired reading in the 1960s sometime, Harold Schoenberg spoke the great pianist. It talked extensively about people like Alka and especially Goodoski, and he was very
intrigued by Goodoski, unfortunately, most of the music was out of print by then. So he got what he could, and he got to amass over time a very invaluable collection. But you had music in the house, and this is what you practiced, well, no, I didn't practice at the time. I remember, though, that he would sit down with the piano on site, read some of it.
He must have been a formidable pianist. Well, he was at a good level, actually.
“I remember sometime in the '60s, I think it was 1968, the publishers who had issued the”
Goodoski Schoenberg studies, reprinted them. They hadn't been available for, I think, quite a few decades. And just for our listeners, the Goodoski versions of the Schoenberg studies are, you have the original Schoenbe Nadejuts, and he made those look like child's play. Because a lot of the stuff that would be in the right hand, then went to the left hand,
he added strands of extra music to everything. It became sort of fantasy on the Schoenbe Nadejuts in a way. Anyway, I really regard them as variations on the originals. And unbelievably difficult. Many of them are, yeah, some of them are more reasonable.
But others, especially some of the left hand ones, I mean, you really scratch your head. And if you have kind of-- And curse at them, you have to eat. Well, yeah, yeah, you scratch it with one hand. And so they came out again in five volumes.
And my father heard about this, and of course he was extremely excited and ordered a set. The day that the volumes arrived, I remember sinning with him and looking at those, I was
Already familiar in a visual sense, but also hearing them with the scores.
And we would just stare at, we'd just kept turning pages in. We were both absolutely bug-eyed at that these things. And I have a correspondence from my dad as to when these arrived in the house. I was seven years old. Oh, my God.
Really? So that's where this kind of pattern started for you to learn this.
Especially, but I was always very naturally curious.
I remember also, around the same time, my dad subscribed to the piano quarterly, which then became piano and keyboard. It's no longer published, but it was old and very venerable magazine. And they had the front of the issue always, not only reviews of new sheet music, but they also reproduced in miniature the first pages.
Yeah, and it was everything from beginners, music, to very advanced contemporary stuff. And the advanced contemporary stuff really caught my eye because I've never seen anything like it. And it was wonderful strange and weird. So I just went for it, not in performance, of course, because I was maybe a ten at that
point. But a little later, when I had some pocket money, I started buying records of same things. Just like I was in Wulaire's cage. Wow. I see, and it was all wonderful to me.
You are the most impeccable and brilliant and overwhelmingly commanding pianists that I can imagine, do you feel that there's an innate talent for the physicality of piano playing?
“Well, I think the thing is the physicality is nothing without the mind.”
It's really the capacity of your brain to do the things you're doing. I know that the fingers are not the issue. It was discovered early on that I had perfect pitch and I, without wanting to boast, because I had to do that, but I had good predispositions as having a mind for music. Yeah.
I think that's really where it all started. It's just that I'm so dazzled by the amount of complex things that go on in the music you playing and how you're in total command of all that. You know, my desire to share these things with the public entails clarifying everything and you polyphonic structure and you complexities in order to render them digestible and
palatable and as plain as sunshine. Now, you listen to a lot of music. You've looked at a lot of music. What do you look for in a piece of music that makes you want to focus on that, learn it, work on it over a period of time?
“Well, it has to strike a chord, of course, but more importantly, it has to have what I think”
will strike a chord with the audience. So you're aware of people listening. I really try to be. Yeah.
To me, I always say a recital, it's an offering and it's in occasion to share and you can't
really share authentically what you don't believe in or what you're sort of unsure about. But you love a lot of stuff. Yeah, well, I'm kind of a compulsive collector and I have about maybe a hundred great words of she'd music at home, you know, I know where to put it anymore. I'm hoping you can help me answer some questions about classical music from our WQX our listeners.
We've invited them to submit their questions and we're going to do our best to answer them and if I don't know the answer, I'll just make something up. This is Abraham from New York. How does it work when you have a big orchestral piece and then someone can just play it on the piano?
How do they figure out what to play? Well, transcriptions for the piano of orchestral pieces are legion.
“Some of them are very successful, some of them not so I think the mistake that you can”
make is just to try to transfer as many of the notes as possible, you know, on the keyboard and expect to answer play it. I think it's much better to just do it by ear purely by ear. Yes, I think if we try to play something from a symphony, we'd probably do it more from what we know, from what we heard than what we saw in the music.
Yeah, exactly. Right. I think that's sort of how you decide, you know, you hear pop-up-up and you try to approximate that on the piano and whatever best way you can.
It's very interesting always because some well-known orchestral pieces have been transcribed
By different people and it's always very interesting to compare.
And sometimes by the composer himself, Lavals of Ravela is a good example.
Yeah. Picture that an exhibition by Musorgsky, when in the other direction, that's right, from piano to orchestra. And there are several orchestral versions of that. That's right.
“So it's a time-honored tradition and I think it's coming back a little bit.”
I think young people are much, much more attracted to them, but yes, there was a time when I was studying. The things like that were absolutely taboo, it just wasn't considered a serious pursuit. Exactly. But I think now it's much more serious.
Oh, yeah. Yes, yes. I mean, so many of those young people play Lavals, as you mentioned. Yes, thank you for the great question. Do you practice away from the keyboard?
Oh, that's where I get some of my best ideas. It's very hard, isn't it? What do you mean? Well, if you're practicing at the piano, the mechanism takes over. If you're, let's say, sitting on an airplane.
“And you have to practice through a piece in your mind.”
You have to concentrate all the time. Yes, it's very hard. Yes, but that's when my best ideas are from. Because then everything becomes clear. The tempies sort of get stabilized.
I noticed all kinds of details that had never really been apparent or not so apparent to
me when I was at the piano, because when you're the piano, half of the task is just producing the sound, physically. Yeah. But when you're just thinking, of course, you're free of that in-comprehence. So all kinds of wonderful things happen.
And then I go to the piano and try to apply these things that they don't always necessarily work. But there will have been an evolution without my even touching on one single key. You are a prolific composer, very accomplished composer. Does that influence the way you approach playing music of other people?
Entirely. There's many reasons why I think performers should at least try to write a little bit. To feel a little closer to the composer of the works they perform. Because it's easy to take these pieces of standard repertoire for granted and not realize what the composer went through to actually bring them to reality.
And also, composing helps me make better interpretive decisions. It helps me distinguish foreground from background. It clarifies the structure for me and where it's going. It helps me interpret notation better. It really helps me read a score much, much better. And it also helps you spot typos and mistakes.
I see. On a sort of microscopic level, you know. Hi, Maniacs, and this is classical music, Happy Hour. We'll return in just a moment. From W.E.T.A. Classical One Washington, classical breakdown is your guide to classical music.
Join us as we explore entire symphonies, concertos, opera and more to show you what to listen for. We also dive into the personal lives of composers to gain a better understanding of their music. And we learn all about the instruments of the orchestra with the pros themselves. Plus, bonus episodes featuring full-length works. I'm John Banner, listen to classical breakdown in your podcast app or online at classicalbreakdown.org.
This is classical music, Happy Hour. I'm Maniacs. Let's hear some more of our conversation with Mark Andre Amelin. What's your go-to beverage after a long day? I think plain water is really one of the wonders of the world and what's better than that.
Do you have a musical hero? The printed score.
“Anything that's communicated to us by composers, that's what I go with.”
And that's what I place my faith in. Is there an instrument you wish you had played? Probably the piano. Yes, I wish I played the piano. I'm guessing.
Well, you know, the piano offers me everything. I mean, it's my mouthpiece, it's my way of living. I mean, it's full of juice that can do anything, you know, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. What is your favorite musical memory?
I have very great memories from my childhood.
My dad was a big list fan and whenever Christmas rolled around and we always bought a real
tree, not a fake one.
The smell was in the air and he loved to play the list Christmas tree suite f...
So I can not hear this music without smelling the pine needles. How lovely. Yep.
“We have another question from one of our listeners.”
Shall we go to Baton Rouge, Louisiana? Hello. My name is Dick Spire, I'm retired and living Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I always wondered why music was written in different keys. I understand major and minor keys.
They convey a mood.
I was always taught that the standard octave has half tones between the third and fourth
and seventh and eighth notes. If that's so, why would something be written in G or A instead of just leaving it in C without the need to rearrange my head to accommodate the sharks or flats of the various keys? I'd made it sound more serious than it is, but it's a question that's been on my mind.
Thanks for the opportunity to learn more about music. Each key I firmly believe has a very distinct personality and many composers have understood that. If you've ever heard Gerald Moore's discussion, he was one of the most famous collaborative pianists in the century and accompanied legions of singers.
If you hear him discuss about the issue of transposition, yes.
You can't always play one song in the same key because of the voice, because the
singer can only go as solo or so high, so you often have to change the actual key of the song, but sometimes depending on the mood of the song, if you go too low or too
“high, it's going to alter the message of the song drastically, so you have to be careful”
about that. There is a definite character for each of the keys, but I think that maybe the actual key of pieces meant more in the 19th century than it does now. You do? I think so.
I think for a composer, there are specific requirements because a lot of music that used horns natural horns would be an e-flat. Yes.
So, that's a kind of you have a hunting motive, very often because they're horns, so that
dictates that key. But, I think something like C minor, meant something very specific to Beethoven and Mozart, and maybe less so to Chopin and even less so to Foray, you know, just in terms of the translation of the key, there's no question that they all made it their own. But still, sometimes pieces feel like they've been written in the role key.
I'm happy to be wrong and to be corrected. I mean, there are individual perceptions, both Messia and Screab and obviously thought very highly of the key of a sharp major, because they used it both extensively.
“Was it partly because of the way the hand lies on the piano, do you think?”
No, I think it was simply a question of character. They're both in its seats, and I think they both saw something in F sharp major. Although, I think they saw different colors. I don't think this is all the same color, but I could be wrong. But Beethoven was such a fabulous pianist, obviously.
Yes. I wonder if some of the keys that he chose were dictated by how it felt under the hand. Digital considerations, yeah, it could be, it could be. Yeah. Digital considerations, like we do now with the iPhone, or something, yeah, exactly.
Thank you for the question. We asked about a piece that you wanted to talk about, and you thought about talking about the Rachmaninov H-tublo in E-flat minor, Opus 39 #5. That's right. One of, Rachmaninov's greatest creations among his miniatures.
Would you be willing to play a few notes? Sure. That would be fact. At least this one, it's in my fingers. That would be wonderful.
(music)
(music)
(music) (music) (music) (music) (music)
(music) (music) (music) (music) (music)
(music) (music) (music) (music) (music)
(music) (music) (music) (music) (music)
(music) (music) (music) (music) (music)
(music) (music) (music) (music) (music)
(music) (music) (music) (music) (music)
(music) (music) (music) (music) (music)
(music)
(music)
and the buildup of tension, the rationing of tension, little by little. Yeah, you know, the harmonic progression makes not that much sense if you view it traditionally.
But it's a master lesson in building up tension, and I've always really admired that in this piece.
The contrast between the depth of despair and this ethereal note, the B-flat, the first high. Yes, and the E-flat, the second time, and how in the middle it changes from this the left hand's going with the incredibly depressed sort of moment. And then as it turns to the major, it's like a consolation or something. You sound like you've played it. Never, never, never. I don't, I'm ashamed to say I've played no Rahman enough whatsoever.
You seem to know it, and ultimately. Well, it's a piece that deserves to be played the way you played it, and there are in fact many, many great performances over the years, of course. I was very lucky I heard Richter play this live in the sixties in New York at Carnegie Hall. But I just wondered because there's so much beautiful Rahman enough music, but you feel this piece is special in it.
“Well, I think it stands out among these eight truths.”
I can tell you that in that middle section there is one passage which was never clear to me until I actually...
Can you show us? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Let me get to the piano. Yeah.
It's there. Of course you have... But there's a whole bunch of whole-tone scales. Oh, wow. And it goes on.
I see. Wow. He's channeling Debussy. Yes.
“I spent a lot of time trying to clarify.”
Amazing.
So that you wouldn't lose.
So you need the top melody and what's happening underneath. So in a sneaky way what you can do is... So if you don't play them absolutely together, you can hear them both. I see, I see. But if you play them...
They're not as clear. And there's a way to do that without making it completely mannered. Yeah. Yeah. Fabulous.
Fabulous. And you do something very...
“To me, kind of unusual in that when the theme returns...”
You do not overwhelm with sound. Yeah. Because usually it's done much, much louder. Yeah. And I find this so touching.
Well, at that point, there is no dynamic marking. Except for "multomarkato" for the theme in the left hand. Yes. I see. So I have a feeling that Rachmaninoff might not have written "Fortissimo" there.
I mean a few bars later maybe. He had the big climax. Yeah. He writes "Triple Forti". But this makes this this makes an incredibly wonderful sense.
What would... Thank you. What would you do with the arch of the piece? Great. Thank you so much.
Sure. I didn't expect to play all of it. But I got that anyway. That's okay. I don't mind.
It's for.
Mark Andre Hamilton.
“Thank you so much for being with us today.”
And for the wonderful performance of the Rachmaninoff.
Thank you. Let's do this every day, shall we? With pleasure. With pleasure. I wouldn't mind.
With pleasure. Anytime.
“I'm Maniacs and this is classical music.”
Happy Hour.
Classical Music Happy Hour is supported in part by the Robert and Mercedes I call its foundation.
And by Lyndon Elson. Our production team includes Lauren Persell joiner. Ileen Delahante. Laura Boyman. Elizabeth Nunnermaker.
David Norville. Christine Herzkovitz. And Ediem.
“Our engineering team includes George Wellington.”
Irene Trudell. And Chase Coolpong.
Classical Music Happy Hour is produced by W.K.X.R.
in partnership with Carnegie Hull.
