So, it’s taken me somewhat longer than planned to post this follow-up, but I needed some time to process the extraordinary experience I had two weeks ago.

I was excited at the prospect of making this recording, but it’s fair to say there was some trepidation as well. In addition to being my first ever live recording, it was my first orchestra recording. And since Orpheus plays without a conductor, that was another element of unfamiliarity inserted into the process. (I had played conductorless before, but not with anything approaching the frequency with which I’ve played concerti with conductors.)

There were also logistical differences between this and my previous recordings: until now, I’d always recorded in London, which meant sticking - obsessively, some might say - to a routine. I stayed in the same hotel, ate the same things for breakfast, ran in the same park, left at the same time every morning. This time I was in New York, which meant that I was at home: nice, but psychologically different. (In my life, being at home usually means not working - or at least not performing.)

All of which is to say that the element of the unknown was very, very present. The details of the recording had been more-or-less in place since the summer, so I had a long time to think about the implications of all this. I’ve written in the past that a recording, to me, simply represents a snapshot of my thoughts about the piece on the day, but the truth is somewhat more complicated: however impossible it might be, the permanence of recording has always caused to me to fantasize about an idealized performance of a piece. And because I always record a piece after I’ve played a series of performances of it, there’s an urge to see the recording as a kind of summation of the process - a chance to meld all of the prior performances, and hope for a “the-whole-is-more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts” kind of result.

There’s a big downside to this attitude: not only does it discourage spontaneity, it is anti-spontaneity, as it carries the implication that everything that will happen in the recording studio has been experienced already. It also, I believe, leads to the making of a recording whose value is more theoretical than real - a recording that can be admired, but not loved. The snapshot analogy still holds, but the question becomes: is a photograph a document of a moment, or a highly posed creation?

Needless to say, I’ve given this issue a lot of thought, and in previous sessions I’ve felt that these two concepts of recording were doing battle with one another. I would have liked to have let go entirely of any expectation of perfection, or idealization, but the foreverness of the CD was often in the back of my mind. (Schnabel used to talk about the process of “verplattung” - which in German means both “disc-making” and “flattening out.”)

One of the advantages - or challenges, depending on your point of view - of recording live was that the decision as to which attitude I would take towards the recording was made for me. While the dress rehearsal was also recorded, and we had a brief patch session after the concert, the number of hours devoted to recording this album was a tiny fraction of what I spent making the Schumann and Beethoven CDs. The opportunity to play things over and over until I had found - or at least approached - what I had in my ear at the beginning of the day was simply not there. In its place was a very different opportunity: the chance to make a recording in which spontaneity was not only not shied away from, but actually the primary element involved. It’s not that my preparation for this recording was any less thorough: if anything, the mental and physical preparation for this disc was more intense than ever. It’s that the goal of the preparation was not to eliminate the element of uncertainty, of chance, but to free me to take chances. As cliched as it may be, my goal for this recording was to meet the moment.

As luck would have it, several elements combined to ensure that the odds were stacked in my favor. First of all, the music itself asked for this approach. Whereas in a Beethoven movement, creating a sense of the architecture of the whole is perhaps the biggest key to making the performance work, with Mozart, a sense of the mercurial - the sensation that the character of a phrase is being determined as it is played, as a reaction to the provocation that was the previous phrase - is of utmost importance. And that cannot be faked - you can only give the impression of being in the moment by actually being in the moment.

Second, I had the huge fortune of playing with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. In addition to their fantastic playing, their energy and enthusiasm were incredibly contagious, and the level of involvement each of them had in the music-making is something I will not soon forget. And any fear I may have had about playing without a conductor in a recording session proved unjustified: the lack of conductor - and the security one brings - forced everyone to listen that much more intently, which changed everything. It made the ensemble tighter, facilitated greater flexibility, and most importantly, it meant that whenever I tried something on the spur of the moment - a different dynamic shape, a slight leaning on a note - the orchestra not only accommodated it, but responded in kind. Never, playing this repertoire, have I had such a strong sense of a conversation being written on the spot.

Suffice it to say, the experience on the whole was memorable, and the concert itself had a joyousness - a pleasure in music-making - which I wouldn’t have imagined possible beforehand, given the pressure created by the circumstances. I’ve yet to listen to the tapes, but the making of the recording was so gratifying, the end result somehow doesn’t seem so important. (Another sharp contrast with my previous recordings, when the arrival of the first edit was a momentious - and nerve-wracking - moment.) What is important is the way the week confirmed my deepest-held feelings about music-making, so often compromised, and occasionally even obscured, by the pressure of recording and performing to the standard that great music demands: that it is all about communication. That if you strive to play in the most open, egoless way possible, you can reach people in a way that only music can. That it is, at its best, a more wonderful means of communication than speech.

I am very, very lucky to do what I do. Making this recording, I felt that as strongly as I ever have in my life.

Back in August, I wrote about the experience of making my Beethoven recording. As I said then, one of the aspects of recording which I always find challenging - and interesting - is the lack of an audience. Or, at least, the lack of an audience that is palpable while the playing occurs. So, as I’ve often said, my greatest goal for a recording is creating the feeling of a live performance. This has often led to the question, “how do you feel about live recording?”

Well, I’m about to find out. This weekend, I’ll be recording two Mozart Concerti live, with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, at Queens College. The process of preparing for the recording has been extremely fascinating - it has challenged, and in some cases altered, my beliefs on what recordings are for, and how they differ from live performances.  It has also forced me to examine, to a greater extent than I ever had before, how I listen to music, and what qualities I consider essential to great music-making.

Big questions, those. I’m going into recording hibernation now - I’ll be back with a full report on the experience next week.

As usual, I’m posting this at the very last minute, but WCLV will be broadcasting a performance I gave back in December of the Beethoven 4th Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra and James Conlon today at 4 PM, Eastern Time. (Actually, the concert broadcast begins then, which means that the Beethoven should be closer to 5 PM.)  WCLV’s broadcasts are streamed through their website, so it can be heard live online at that time. Starting the following day, it will also be available on-demand through the website until February 11th.

I try to keep the self-aggrandizement to a minimum on this site,  but the performance is at any rate worth hearing for the improbably beautiful playing of the Cleveland Orchestra.

After three consecutive weeks of playing with orchestras, I’m now beginning a week of recitals. While the give-and-take of playing concerti can be a tremendous pleasure, in some way, I find recitals even more satisfying. I think this has something to with the fact that when I play with an orchestra, I am a guest - one piece of a programming puzzle that has been put together primarily by others. When I play recitals, however, it’s not just that the amount of playing makes it possible for me to show more facets of myself - it’s that I have put the program together, which means that I am responsible for the emotional arc of the experience.

Inspired by an extremely thoughtful and inquisitive comment on a previous post, I thought I would try to explain the thought process that went into the planning of this particular program. It’s difficult, because “thought process” is an inexact term in this case - sometimes planning programs is more about an instinct for the alchemy through which certain pieces mesh well together than it is about any sort of formula which dictates how successful the program will be.

Perhaps this goes without saying, but my first selection criterion for any piece of music I play is that I must love it. I feel absolutely sure that if a performer lacks conviction in what he is doing, the audience will know it. And frankly, since I already see that life won’t be long enough to play all the pieces I do love, why on earth would I spend time playing those that I don’t?

This is the second time this fall that I play a program devoted to two composers: in September it was Brahms and Bartok, and now it’s Beethoven and Janacek. I love these kinds of programs: single-composer evenings can be wonderful - I’ve done all-Mozart, all-Beethoven, and will do all-Schubert later this year - but there is always the danger of a stylistic sameness, or rather a lack of confrontation between the pieces. Concerts of works of two composers are great because they still offer enough music of each to create a sense of immersion in the composers’ sonic worlds, and yet the concert becomes a dialogue between the two, which often moves in surprising directions.

The question of which composers work well together (and which don’t) is particularly alchemical, and I think it is one of both similarity and difference. The success of Beethoven and Janacek as a pairing relies in part on the terrific intensity that characterizes both, which is why Ravel, for example, is a much less natural partner for Beethoven. But what I think makes the combination really interesting is that the intensity may be similar, but the language is utterly different. One facet of this, as an example: Beethoven’s sonatas are incredibly tightly - one might say relentlessly - argued, giving the listener the feeling that from the first note, he is being inexorably led towards the last. Janacek, by contrast, is perhaps the greatest master of the musical non-sequitur. (These seeming non-sequiturs are, of course, actually connected to the material they surround on a deep level; on the surface however, they seem to come out of the blue.) This is just one example of many - really, the building blocks in Beethoven and Janacek could not be more different, which makes the similarities in temperament between the two all the more fascinating.

The great composer Leon Kirchner once wrote, “Poetry responds to poetry, no matter its time or chronology,” and much the same could be said of music: what is wonderful in juxtaposing Beethoven and Janacek is that Beethoven becomes not just the foundation - as he nearly always is, when juxtaposed with a composer who came after him - but the respondent. The deep nostalgia in Janacek’s In the Mists is, I feel sure, a longing for a lost musical world — the very world that Beethoven inhabited. (And, interestingly, played a large role in dismantling - but that is a subject for another essay…) But equally, when I play Beethoven’s Opus 109 after the Janacek Sonata - a gut-wrenching lament for a murdered Czech worker - it carries the feeling of consolation to a far greater extent than it might otherwise. This is one of the most wonderful things about great music: while its affects are in a sense unchanging, it is never impervious to its surroundings. Beethoven could not have predicted the events which inspired Janacek to compose his Sonata - and given his own political predilections, he may not have been interested anyway - but his music addresses every aspect of the human experience, and therefore is moving - differently moving - in any context.

So in a sense, I feel that in playing this program, I become the conduit through which a conversation between two great masters takes place: a very exciting notion.

in which I am back, with a vengeance. Partially by design, and partially by chance, my busiest-ever season was followed by one of my un-busiest summers: as of August 30th, I had gone a full five weeks without playing a concert - my longest hiatus, if I’m counting correctly, since I was 16 years old. It’s not that I stopped playing - the vast majority of my time was spent learning new pieces and getting reacquainted with old ones. But being off the stage - and in my apartment with some regularity! - allowed me to temporarily live a life quite different from my normal one. Since my return, the pace has been quick - 11 pieces in 4 countries over the last 10 days - allowing me to make a kind of direct comparison between these parallel existences. Some early conclusions:

* Time off is good. Anyone who’s delved this deep into my site probably already realizes that I am, ahem, enthusiastic about what I do; passion is a quality that I tend to value more highly than balance. That said, the benefits of being away from concert-giving life for a while turn out to have been enormous. Most importantly, I’m finding that coming back after a long break, my emotional receptivity is greater - to music, in general, and to the rather extraordinary dynamics of the concert hall. The first thing I performed after my time off was Schoenberg’s Six Little Pieces, and the meaning of each interval - the way in which each note conversed with its predecessor and its follower - seemed not just stronger but more specific than it ever had to me before. (This is, quite apart from the vicissitudes of my schedule, a quite extraordinary aspect of Schoenberg’s music - but that’s a topic for another post.) And my awareness of the electricity in the room - the silence which follows the initial applause, and the way the first notes of the concert rise out of that silence - was sharper than ever.

* Traveling on a regular basis involves internalizing a great deal of stress. However great the value of having a break may have been, I did miss performing. I also missed visiting familiar and unfamiliar cities, going to museums, seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Things I did not miss: packing my suitcase; unpacking my suitcase; discovering, upon unpacking of said suitcase, that I have forgotten to pack hangers/cufflinks/toiletries; being asked to remove my shoes and belt, in the manner of a patient in a mental institution, in the security line at the airport; phoning everyone I know in the United States when it’s 4:30 a.m. in Europe and I’m up, jet-lagged; asking airline employees why, 45 minutes after the scheduled departure of a flight, no announcement of a delay has been made; airport food; the price of airport food; the gnawing feeling that an airplane has not been cleaned during the last few presidential administrations. I’m ending the list here only because I can feel my blood pressure rising…

* This is not strictly related to my time off and its effects, but it’s been much on my mind the last week: one huge fringe benefit of making a recording is what it does to the experience of playing the piece subsequently. Recording forces you to be remorselessly clear about your musical intentions - any hint of uncertainty about the shape of a piece is magnified by the microphone. In the studio, this can feel a bit constricting, but in the concert hall, it has almost the opposite effect: knowing precisely how a phrase fits into your larger conception of a piece gives you the confidence that no matter what direction you choose to take with it on the spur of the moment, it will retain its inner logic, which in turn gives the feeling of immense freedom. Playing Beethoven sonatas last week, for the first time since recording them, I felt them moving in unexpected and exciting directions, which I’m sure is at least partially the result of the experience of playing them in the studio, and which makes the prospect of playing them - living with them - throughout the coming year all the more thrilling. Which brings me to my last point:

* One of the pieces I played for the first time last week was Beethoven’s strange and wonderful song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved). The opening of the cycle’s final song is quite faithfully and extremely movingly quoted in the first movement of Schumann’s Fantasy. (The words are: “Nimm sie hin denn, diese Lieder/Die ich dir, Geliebte, sang.” Roughly translated: “Take these songs, then, which I sang to you, beloved.”) The first movement of the Schumann begins with a nearly shapeless version of the Beethoven theme - more a searching for it than a rendering of it - and gradually, as the movement progresses, we move increasingly close to it, until the near-quotation comes at the end. Having lived with the Schumann for so long, it was, then, very touching to finally play the Beethoven itself - a sort of reunion with the distant beloved, which I had previously seen only through a dense fog. And given that the last year of my life was heavily tied up with Schumann, and that the one I’m just embarking on is equally centered around Beethoven, the song represented a very apt and very beautiful transition.

All of which is to say: music is wonderful, and it’s very good to be back.

While giving an interview recently, I was asked the following question: “Which kind of musician do you consider yourself - an emotional one or a cerebral one?”

I’ve heard this question - in varying iterations - many times, and so I had an answer ready: my first response, to any piece of music, has to be an emotional one - I’d never play it otherwise. Understanding is useful - necessary, even - to any successful performance, but the urge - the need - to play comes straight from the heart.

The answer may have been pre-prepared, but it was honest. Nevertheless, the question troubled me, as it always does. I’m generally uneasy with dichotomies: I never did well on multiple choice tests in school, and I still find it difficult to comply when asked to check the box that best answers the question. Codifying things (or people) may have its uses, but it does not - cannot - bring you any closer to the thing’s essence.

But beyond that, the question always bothers me for a more specific reason: the implicit suggestion that heart and mind must always be at odds with one another. Either you follow your deepest impulses, the question seems to suggest, and keep your music-making unfettered by context, an understanding of the music’s structure, or any other such issues, or you play as the score dictates you must, and thereby ignore any personal connection you feel to the music.

It’s probably pretty clear that I don’t subscribe to this line of thinking. What’s more, I don’t even understand where it comes from. Is life supposed to be like this? Do our emotional reactions lose their potency as we begin to understand them? Does learning to think mean forgetting how to feel?

My impression is that it is exactly the opposite. The more our feelings are given context, the more powerful and complex they become. And as is so often the case, the analogy between life and music fits perfectly. One may not need to know anything to have an honest response to a piece of music. But the more you understand - about the way it is built, where its main structural events occur, how it conforms to other pieces to which it is related, how it diverges from other pieces to which it is related, the expectations of its audience, the composition of its audience, the way the world looked when it was being written, the way the world sounded when it was being written - the deeper that response becomes.

Last night, I played Beethoven’s c minor concerto. I first heard the piece at least fifteen years ago, and I first performed it in 1999. Since then, it has been a fairly regular presence in my life, which means that I’ve gone through many cycles of playing the piece, and then leaving it for a time. And just as it would be with any great piece, each revisiting has revealed aspects I had never seen - in some cases, never even imagined - the previous time. There is probably an infinite amount left for me to know about the c minor Beethoven concerto, but I daresay I know more about it now than I did when I was eleven.

And last night, when my favorite moment of the piece - the hushed entry of the timpani after the cadenza - came, it hit me so hard, I stopped breathing. Now, as you might imagine, this is not the wisest course of action when playing a concerto, but I can honestly say it was involuntary. This music, which has been with me for more than half my life, seemed at that moment more potent, more confrontational, more vital than ever.

Was it what I know that moved me, or what is unknowable?

To the extent that the question can be answered, I would say that it was both. More precisely, it was the intersection between the two: the way in which music can be simultaneously so mentally stimulating, and so utterly ineffable.

And that is the way I should have answered the question that was posed to me. Not the emotional, and not the cerebral, but rather the space in which the two become indistinguishable from one another; that is what makes music-making so challenging, and so magnificent.