Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Japanese pianist renowned for her interpretations of Mozart and other German masters.
On the island
Eight records
Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007: GigueFavourite
Well, the first choice, under any circumstance, if I were given only one choice, I will take this one and cry my eyes out that I'm leaving everything else behind.
Winterreise, D. 911: Frühlingstraum
Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten
Well, it is My Great Love, which is Franz Schubert. Now, he is the composer whose music I would like to be playing... When I die.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83: I. Allegro non troppo
Edwin Fischer with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler
Edwin Fischer, whom I have adored over the years. He has got some purity in his playing that touches me whatever he plays. And the conductor is Wilhelm Votwengler. So this is the two great loves of mine put together for one great, great piece of music.
Così fan tutte, K. 588: Act I Quintet (Di scrivermi ogni giorno)
I think when I heard some of the Kleinborn performances conducted by Fritz Busch, I discovered that is really closer to the way I would wish to hear Mozart. So if I were to choose one opera, then it is actually Cosie Van Tutte.
I still end up, after having listened to lots of wonderful performances, when it comes to slow movements of Beethoven's string quartets, nobody actually surpasses Busch and his quartet.
Violin Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005: I. Adagio
Siggeti's approach of absolute honesty and clarity and himself in service of music, that is as I wish I could be, as a... performer.
String Quintet in C major, D. 956: II. Adagio
Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, Milton Katims, Pablo Casals, and Paul Tortelier
Instead of the tiddly pump, I'm afraid I have chosen the most obvious. That is Schubert String Quintet in C major... If death were this, it would be so wonderful.
St John Passion, BWV 245: Mein teurer Heiland, lass dich fragen
So we are returning to the central issue... which is again Johann Sebastian Bach. I wanted to take something that was some choral music, so I shall certainly take the St. John's passion.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:49You were playing the piano at three years old, weren't you?
Yes... I had a piano lesson at the age of three and a half, and that came because I am the youngest of three children. And my older brother was having a piano lesson. And my mother claims that I started as answering his questions. And the piano teacher said, Well, if the little one is more interested than than this boy, why don't you give her let her play the piano? And so it starts.
Presenter asks
2:00Did your parents then ask you to perform to friends and relations?
[They] particularly wanted me to play for friends and relations, which I loathed. There was a streak of professionalism in me. I wanted to play when I felt I was ready and not when they wanted me to. And that was such a struggle. And I nearly thought seriously about it, that I would stop... playing the piano, because then I would not face this ghastly dilemma of having to play in front of people when a piece is that I think I'm not ready.
Presenter asks
3:13Was it in some way perhaps your Japanese upbringing that [made you feel not free]?
[Being] taught the piano in Japan would have been... a method which was very sort of technical, mechanical... and it was deeply discouraged to love it. It was a kind of an duty and obligation... So I remember as a child practising the absolute minimum. Because people sort of objected the moment you were enjoying yourself so much and you ought to be practicing.
The keepsakes
The book
Leo Tolstoy
So one compromise solution I found was that I would take one piece, Tolstoy, but in that double version, that ideal version that on the one side there is Russian, the other side is the perfect English translation, and by the end of several years on a desert island I shall have learnt Russian.
The luxury
because I was told firmly that pianos don't grow on those desert islands. So mine is always my piano.
Presenter asks
10:42At what point did you feel you were in the right place [in Vienna]?
Well when I was sixteen and my father went elsewhere, that was the moment of truth in my life. And I thought to myself, if I followed my father, I out of me would be probably a nice, friendly... quite good nice... piano player, who is the nice daughter and I don't know what. But... I shall never be a professional. And so I decided I shall give it a go.
Presenter asks
21:15How physical a business is it playing the piano?
[It] is very physical as well as very mental. and emotional, spiritual, but the physical aspect is enormous... But the people like Brahms, you really virtual, I have to sit on the keyboard, otherwise the sound is wrong. It sounds too too light. A bit of and lots of shoulders and... energy and womph, you see. Attack, attack.
Presenter asks
33:34What are your big musical ambitions?
Well, everything and everybody, if possible. And I am struggling with Beethoven a lot at the moment. And I am dwelling in Schubert. But I have been dwelling in Schoenberg recently... One of the great ambitions of my life is when should I be allowed to turn seventy?... I am aiming at celebrating my seventieth birthday or the seventieth year with the forty-eight preludes and fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach... in public.
“playing badly on stage is excruciating. So playing badly at home, that is the true moment of bliss.”
“To me it was clear that I could not say I want to be a musician because I did not know what it took to be a musician. I love music. That is not yet a justification to be a musician, I thought.”
“I always disliked. The way I play And I tried to play more beautifully or more or to understand what I was doing and to get closer to the music. And most of the time I disliked it. So that is why I have kept on playing the piano ever since, to play a notch better every day.”
“I need time, I need time to even well, of course listen to music certainly, which takes time, but also just dreaming. I need time to dream, doing nothing, listening to nothing, just even looking out of the window or sitting in the dark and just dreaming. Without it, somehow I get stuck.”
“Living out of a suitcase is ve it's very lonely, but then when we come down to it, every f human being is ultimately lonely. So it is slightly exaggerated, but that's life.”