Discussing With Mehmet Okonsar Tends To Make One Frightened

He's got an important track record of diffidence, shyness and an easy to understand unwillingness to communicate freely regarding his life and also career.

Just like many others before him he feels as though his truest biography lies in his playing; that verbalizing his thoughts and feelings is usually a superfluous activity.

Then you can find that formidable, logical head to think about, a thing that has fueled dispute throughout the years. For a few he could be, simply, "one with the century's very best pianist" although for others he simply comes with a "steel-fingered X-ray image of the score".

Some remarks: "the kind of playing is powerful with no doubt also "heroic", it's all completely accurate and virtuoso, but with a lack of any kind of appeal, outfitted up in the latest trend as if purposely."

Later there are sniping references to "Chopin forged in steel" as well as "Bach along with nicely-developed biceps" which hit an incorrect note along with Okonsar"s fans who move instead to "an style, quality, and lucidity which can be specifically modern"; and to "performances of the most remarkable precision and acute expressive poise, each and every note specifically calculated, shaded, in particular experienced".

Currently, the picture has altered. Okonsar is in a giving vein, genial and comfortable right after his more than successful Royal Opera House recital of April 2010.

"I have a unique fascination with London followers. They are really so receptive, as silent and rapt (I do not think they were asleep) during Stockhausen and Berg as in Chopin and Stravinsky."

"I recognize this type of combination can frighten some individuals however I am motivated to provide the top music of our time, to hold the flame burning."

"The situation is difficult for young artists," Okonsar continues, "who are not really asked to explore as well as feel the age all of us live in, to understand that music of a different if often hard vocabulary may be just as satisfying as great works of history."

Several of them simply perform modern day music from a feeling of obligation rather than love or even understanding and therefore saddens me significantly. They have to dedicate more time to the great post-Bartok and Stravinsky works and there are, in the end, a few relatively simple choices, less arduous than, say, Boulez's Second Sonata.

"It is valid I am awkward with what may well usually end up being called neo-romanticism, however it is not true that I detest Rachmaninoff. In common with all younger pianists I came below the spell of Horowitz mastering the Third Concerto but I continue being content to listen closely to rather than perform such music."

And so just how does he feel with regards to turning fifty - time to reflect on the history? "I am a present-and-future person, solely momentarily given to reflectivity as well as nostalgia. Of course, my success when I was 20 in the 1981 International Antwerp Competition ended up being a flipping point and a red letter occasion."

"Imagine being made a fascination of by De Groote who was on the particular jury and also who was much more than kind. This ended up being a heady practical experience for a youngster."