"liszt-modern", Arnold Schoenberg And Others With Okonsar

Okonsar is quite possibly the most complicated man in the musical world to interview (at least of those that accept to be interviewed).

Not necessarily, I must include, because he is actually "difficult" in the other sense-the contrary is true-but simply because he is a man of few words and lots of notes.

Timid nearly to some fault, hard-smoking cigars, introverted, he doesn't seem to be the actual likeliest artist to-set a recital audience alight, but there's scarcely another pianist nowadays who does not gaze at his incredible technique with the exceptional capabilities of communication, specifically in the Romantic repertory however stretching absolutely toward the music associated with his own period.

His brand new recording "Liszt-Modern" is arriving soon. Indeed he takes equally as much interest in the ultra-modern music of our lives as he does within the quasi-revolutionary political movements.

The particular well mannered, aristocratic, composed manner conceal a devoted ecologist, ready to court personalized unpopularity for the cause in which he believes that.

While we started emailing, he explained that he is establishing two new websites, he is active working on different pieces by Stockhausen and Berio and has recently taken the second Boulez sonata into his repertory for a different recording venture of Boulez-Xenakis.

"And also", he added cryptically, "generally there are other projects". He wants to blend modern-day as well as hard repertory along with classical works because he is convinced that produces a program much more inspiring.

"In doing this, you could be capable to connect, and locate a number of connection in between, the music of today and that of yesterday". -

And additionally the Schoenberg? "For me personally this is basically the most important piano music on this century. I just like the actual Suite and Op. 33a and b, which usually have a tendency to get neglected, or at best regarded as significantly less critical. It can also be vital that you consider the growth and development of piano music from Schoenberg, via Webern to Stockhausen."

In addition to the Liszt-Modern recording task, Okonsar has recently commenced recording the Boulez's Second Piano sonata as well as Xenakis' Herma and Evryali, and this year he hopes to record the Prokofieff's "war" sonatas; the list of his discs is growing as well as discriminating.

"I nonetheless favor actively playing at concerts, but I have learned to terms now with creating records. We will have to live with the fact that a performance is offered a synthetic permanence and that our ideas are always modifying with regards to a piece of music. A record has to be approved as being a document of a specific moment in time. I hardly ever listen to my personal previous records."

Is he apprehensive when the red light proceeds ? "No, it does not cause me to feel specially nervous. Could possibly be because I own my particular recording studio room. The instant I start off playing, I are inclined to overlook that I am getting recorded, and I make an effort to execute a movement at any given time."

Almost everything Okonsar does is actually profoundly planned. He performs far less often compared to most visiting virtuosos of the day, about thirty appearances. "They are mainly recitals. And I anticipate to produce not more than four records each year. That way, I desire, one does not expand dull, and it enables me personally to spend most of he year at my residence in Ankara."

Istanbul is the place he was born but started out studies in Ankara but soon settled in Belgium and acquired everything in the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. He studied silently all the way through his formative years, composition, conducting in addition to piano.

Then he jumped arrestingly in to the spotlight when he earned the Antwerp International Piano Competition in 1982 but also his sixth prize at the 1991 Gina Bachauer in Salt Lake City.

He had taken a few lessons with Weissenberg with whom his playing is often compared by other pianists, then again, studied practically completely by himself in order to build up a good repertory.

From 1991, Okonsar's status burgeoned, and his awesome reputation is actually enviable-as recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber music player.

Liszt, in addition to Schumann, remain between his favored composers. "In Liszt, the actual musical construction can be so poetic yet precise and robust; Schumann is more tricky. His music suggests a whole lot, and it's typically ambivalent. It's hard to categorize him, that is certainly that which you uncover difficult in his music. You can't correct a great interpretation so quickly on him. Consider the Fantasy, the shape of the starting movement seems totally free. In reality, it can be rather free-everything comes from a couple of ideas-yet this feeling of improvisation is definitely there."

As much as Brahms is concerned, he, not unexpectedly, loves the later works. "I prefer all of them in the manner I prefer the Fourth Symphony to the others. I also like them, interestingly enough, simply because I see the same kind of structure in these pieces as I find in Schoenberg or Webern. I would have to demonstrate with the music precisely what I really mean; it's in part related to changing instrumentation."

Talk about of the Second Viennese school brought him back to dealing with the present day repertory. "I feel today that we should all do a lot more pertaining to contemporary music. This represents our times, our own issues, and it should matter all of us far more compared to works of the past. However all of us tend to be confronted with a vicious circle. Impresarios will not put on contemporary works due to the fact believe that the public won't arrive at listen to them and, because the public almost never gets the possibility to hear them, people tend not to become familiar with the newest idioms. We have to break that circle. That's why I prefer to include a newish piece in many of my personal programs-but I nevertheless think I do not do enough to assist this crucial cause."

Okonsar does not probably discuss the piano so much along with other artists as a number of his contemporaries, although he has sensed the overall effect connected with many of the "greats" from the previous generation. "When I was a kid I listened to Brendel, Pollini, Fisher, Weissenberg, Affanassiev."

So how exactly does he feel he's got himself developed? "Well, it's been, and it is, time consuming process. It originates from your own experience with listening to people, and after that from your own. It have to be continuous and complete."

That could clarify why he has yet to take on about half of the Beethoven sonatas. "Aside from if you do play every one of them, you should not to have time for much else as they're so demanding. I should have time to master more and more Schubert- and that modern-day music. At some point I hope I shall play a whole cycle."

Where French music can be involved, he likes to play Debussy as opposed to Ravel; in Russian music, Prokofiev, however just one or two of him, rather than Rachmaninoff. "Above just about all, I don't like too much specialization."

Outside music, Okonsar has many pursuits. He is a techie. He loves to read extensively, look at paintings. He is a good voyager, and he is concerned in the reaction of different audiences in a different locations.