Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My face is my passport.
Perfection itself is imperfection.
The piano is an orchestra with 88...... things, you know
Imitation is a caricature. Any imitation. Find out for yourself.
I loved singing. But can you imagine my voice in an opera house?
I was a terrible student. For me, to take a book home was a trial.
I am a general. My soldiers are the keys and I have to command them.
Your mind must control, but you must have heart . . . . Give your feeling free.
The score is not a bible, and I am never afraid to dare. The music is behind those dots.
My future is in my past and my past is my present. I must now make the present my future.
There are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists.
Without false modesty, I feel that, when I'm on the stage, I'm the king, the boss of the situation.
If you want me to play only the notes without any specific dynamics, I will never make one mistake.
Everyone goes to the forest; some go for a walk to be inspired, and others go to cut down the trees.
I have no style, because I change each time . . . each day I play differently. Today I play differently than yesterday.
False notes [on the piano] are human. Why does everything have to be perfect? You know, perfection itself is imperfection.
I may play the same program from one recital to the next, but I will play it differently, and because it is always different, it is always new.
You have to open the music, so to speak, and see what's behind the notes because the notes are the same whether it is the music of Bach or someone else.
As far as practicing is concerned, I usually try to do one to two hours a day. It isn't good to practice too much, or your playing becomes too mechanical.
I tried playing for the public, and I selected music that I thought would be pleasing to them. Times are different now. Today, I play the music I want, and I just try to do my best.
Scriabin slept with Chopin under his pillow, and I slept with Wagner under mine. I could not concentrate on memorizing Bach fugues, but I had all of 'Gotterdammerung' in my fingers.
Played percussively, the piano is a bore. If I go to a concert and someone plays like that I have two choices: go home or go to sleep. The goal is to make the piano sing, sing, sing.
The most important thing is to make a percussive instrument a singing instrument. Teachers should stress this aspect in their instruction, but it seems that very few of them actually do.
Always there should be a little mistake here and there - I am for it. The people who don't do mistakes are cold like ice. It takes risk to make a mistake. If you don't take risk, you are boring.
It is important for the musician to learn as much about the composer as possible and to study the music he has written. Then, even a short piece by Brahms or Chopin can be played with much more understanding.
Scriabin, as you know, is a mystic composer. His music is supersensuous, superromantic, and supermysterious. Everything is super; it is all a little overboard. Anyway, my parents were pleased that I played for him.
I studied with Felix Blumenfeld, who had studied piano with Anton Rubinstein and composition with Tchaikovsky. Felix, my professor, was the right hand of Anton Rubinstein. Blumenfeld knew his playing by heart, from every angle.
Life is very busy now. I find that in today's cities, the public is very tired after working the whole day. When concerts start at eight o'clock, the wife pushes the husband to go to the concert, where some promptly fall asleep!
I must tell you I take terrible risks. Because my playing is very clear, when I make a mistake you hear it. If you want me to play only the notes without any specific dynamics, I will never make one mistake. Never be afraid to dare.
Piano playing consists of common sense, heart and technical resources. All three should be equally developed. Without common sense you are a fiasco, without technique an amateur, without heart a machine. The profession does have its hazards.
To be able to produce many varieties of sound, now that is what I call technique, and that is what I try to do. I don't adhere to any methods, because I simply don't believe in them. I think each pianist must ultimately carve his own way, technically and stylistically.
Behind the notes, something different is told, and that's what the interpreter must find out. He may sit down and play one passage one way and then perhaps exaggerate the next, but, in any event, he must do something with the music. The worst thing is not to do anything.
For me, the intellect is always the guide but not the goal of the performance. Three things have to be coordinated, and not one must stick out. Not too much intellect because it can become scholastic. Not too much heart because it can become schmaltz. Not too much technique because you become a mechanic.