5 May 2010
Imogen Cooper discusses her journey with Schubert. The final disc of the 'Schubert Live' series is now on release.
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This is the third and last CD in your Schubert Live series: what has it been like being immersed in Schubert’s world for all this time?
It was absolutely wonderful – it was two seasons, four very long recitals of works I’ve loved and played and thought about for many years. I recorded the same music over 20 years ago but I didn’t have the wherewithal to go as deep. Coming back to it has been a novel experience. It’s been somewhere in my cells, in my genes, in my fingers, but it just had a new lease of life this time round. It’s been wonderful.
Was it a solitary journey – just you and Schubert?
Being a solo pianist is a solitary journey anyhow, but no, I would say it was less solitary because Schubert has become such a friend over all these years. You don’t play somebody’s music if you don’t empathise with something in their character, their psyche, their joys, their sufferings. In fact playing this great music is extraordinarily nurturing. It is a sort of therapy in itself, really.
Your performances of Mozart concertos with the Northern Sinfonia were also recorded live and the third disc in the series is out in the autumn; was that a very different experience?
In a way that was slightly easier because the music was being shared – with the Schubert it’s just me and that black piano for two and a quarter hours. The extra element of danger here was that not only was it live, there was no conductor. Everybody’s got to be listening precisely to what’s going on and taking responsibility for every single sound that they make. That’s what a great chamber orchestra does and the Northern Sinfonia certainly did.
The Britten Sinfonia is another ensemble you direct from the keyboard. You’ve reached the ‘Emperor’ concerto in your Beethoven concerto cycle with them. Tell me about it…
Well the ‘Emperor’ is physically for everybody the biggest of the five. Originally I wasn’t convinced that this could be done without a conductor. I was speaking to Simon Rattle the other day and he was saying, ‘The problem with this work is for the orchestra to make enough sound’. And he was talking about the Berliner Philharmoniker! So playing it with the Britten Sinfonia will definitely bring out the chamber music sides of the work. They have a fantastic amount of energy and I have absolutely no doubt that they’ll make up in energy for sheer decibels – although I wouldn’t be surprised if they had the sheer decibels too.
And after your tour with the Britten Sinfonia?
After that I’m getting into Schumann – John Gilhooly at the Wigmore Hall asked me to do a little residency in the autumn: a solo recital, a recital with Wolfgang Holzmair, who’s a very longstanding partner, and another with Christianne Stotijn, who is a new partner and a new friend… I think she’s absolutely wonderful. And a masterclass with two or three young pianists on Schumann. Schumann is tremendously demanding. He’s a real successor to Schubert – he has also these dark and light, outward and inward moments – but of course he extends the pianism far beyond what Schubert did. So I’ll be working pretty hard because there’s quite a lot to learn.
Good luck!
Oh no, I’m looking forward to it. I don’t like recycling too much. One of the wonderful things about being a pianist is the choice of repertoire is enormous, particularly if you also do chamber music and directing and Lieder. So I can’t wait to plunge into all these!
© Amanda Holloway