Interview

MOL: Tell us about your background.

I was born and raised in Linz, Upper Austria, the home town of Anton Bruckner. I studied piano at the Bruckner Conservatory under Prof. Horst Matthaeus, in Linz. I continued my studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. At there, my teachers include Prof. Hans Kann and Prof. Peter Efler. I have also worked with Tatiana Nikolaeva and Jacob Lateiner at the "Summer Academy Mozarteum" in Salzburg.

MOL: Are you the first one in your family to become a pianist?

I wouldn’t say that I come from an unmusical family. Music and art have always been important piece of object at home and our lives. However, in terms of professional musician, yes, I am the first one.

MOL: Tell us about the selection of music in your recording (Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Berg, and Ravel). It is obvious that a performer selects the compositions that represents artist’s best, however, how did you come to selecting the type of music in the recording that you felt it was representing you as an artist?

Well, in general, I think that the characteristic of a good musician should be to be able to play any kind of music - no matter if she or he likes it or not. But when I have the choice to select a certain repertoire for a CD, or for a concert, I certainly select pieces, to which I feel a certain kind of affinity; pieces, which were composed in a very "familiar" musical language. Fortunately we pianist are lucky to have a sheer endless list of compositions in various styles for our instrument. It is difficult to describe why one thinks such piece suits him or her better. It may be the music which one likes to hear and to play, or maybe sometimes it is the characteristic of pianistic texture, which it may attract the performer. To certain extend, selecting of music does represents you best as an artist.

MOL: How long did it take you to record the CD - 3 days? 3 months? 2 years?

The actual recording time was two and a half days. MOL: that’s very impressive time frame.

MOL: Tell us about your understanding of performing Berg’s composition. What is your perception of the composer and his work and how did you approach interpreting his music?

Alban Berg’s Sonata is one of the unique pieces, which stand on certain "focal points" in music history: for me it is the harmonic grandchild of Wagner’s "Tristan and Isolde". This sonata is the end of a musical tradition, which combines romantic aesthetics with extremely extended - but still tonal - harmony. When we look on the pieces composed after the Berg Sonata (like Schönberg’s op. 19, Bartók’s Allegro barbaro or Prokovjev’s Sarcasms op. 17), the radical changes are most evident. Like in most of Berg’s compositions his Sonata op. 1 is full of details, subtlety, and a certain kind of "undigested passion". In concert this piece is a never-ending challenge, and it is always a pleasure for me to put it on a Recital program.

MOL: Please tell us about Ravel and your approach to interpreting his music… 

One characteristic in Ravel’s compositions has always extremely fascinated me: his ability to integrate different musical styles, and folkloristic elements of non-French music into his works (I am thinking of the Spanish elements in his music, or the "jazzy" sounds in his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, etc.). And as an Austrian it is especially interesting to see how the tradition of the Viennese music inspired Ravel (like in "La Valse"). Regarding to his "Valses nobles et sentimentales": I see them as spirited, and - on the other hand - very melancholy Waltz-miniatures, in which the influence of Schubert’s Waltzes is more spiritual, and less stylistic.

MOL: Among selected work, if you had to record again, what improvements can you make and why? Furthermore, what works do you want to record in the future? And why?

That’s a difficult question: it depends on the personality. I personally see a CD recording, even though after a long period of preparation, as a "picture of the moment". If I recorded the pieces again, I would definitely make things differently. Concerning future plans of recording, it all depends on various factors, of course the program would consist of the current repertoire. For example I am thinking of producing a CD with compositions of Emigrated Austrians.

MOL: What are some of your upcoming concerts in 2004?

Besides my teaching and concert obligations here in Austria, there are some concert-projects in interesting countries in the first half of 2004 in Moldova, Lebanon, Macedonia, or in Russia.

MOL: Thank you for the interview and all the best wishes for your career.

To contact the artist, please contact: The Web Concert Hall and write Albert Sassmann in Subject

Interviewed in January, 2004