Volume 25 Issue 6 - March 2020

What was the first piece of Bach’s that changed your life?
The Chaconne in D Minor from his Violin Partita No.2. A musical
cathedral that he built to the memory of his dead wife. I love the fact
that it keeps trying to end. But he always has one more thing to add.
Like saying goodbye to the woman you love. Leaving the hospital
room. And then returning to say that ‘one more thing.’ For me it was
a kind of key to my mini, seven-year-old fucked-up soul that just fit
right and made everything seem shinier.
When did you begin to play the piano?
Play, in the loosest sense of the word, when I was a kid. But I didn’t
get my first proper teacher until I was 14. and then I stopped for ten
years, aged 18, and restarted at 28. I wouldn’t recommend that.
According to your website you had no formal academic musical
education or dedicated mentoring until age 14 when you studied for
four years under Colin Stone. Then, in your early 30s, you had a brief
tutelage with Edoardo Strabbioli in Verona. Was that the extent of
your training?
Yep. But I like to think that dreaming, breathing, thinking about,
listening, talking and inhaling music for all of my life was training too.
That’s the magic trick with music. You can be
at your most desperate and abandoned and
suddenly there is a hand reaching out from
300 years ago giving you a hug and telling you
it’s all going to be ok.
Who were your musical heroes in your youth?
Sokolov, Gilels, Bernstein, Ashkenazy.
Tuesday March 10 at 8 pm
André Laplante,
pianist
Thursday March 19 at 8 pm
Pavel Haas Quartet
I love the story you told Tom Power on CBC’s q about the time a
dozen years ago when you were in a locked psychiatric ward and not
allowed anything, but a friend smuggled in an iPod filled with Gould
and Bach and you heard Bach’s transcription of the slow movement
of Marcello’s oboe concerto. “Something this profoundly beautiful –
the fact that this exists in the world – means that it’s not necessarily
a completely hostile place,” you said. It’s an example of the extraordinary
power of music. There’s nothing like it. Please expand.
Nah. Listen to the piece and it’s easy to get. That’s the magic trick
with music. You can be at your most desperate and abandoned and
suddenly there is a hand reaching out from 300 years ago giving
you a hug and telling you it’s all going to be ok. And that piece is a
perfect example.
When did you first fall in love with Beethoven?
As a very young boy, listening to the Emperor Concerto. Holy shit
what a piece to fall in love with! It’s everything my tiny, geeky little
mind adored – virtuosity, thrills, beauty and lots of big fucking drums.
How did you choose the pieces for your Toronto recital?
I wanted to find three sonatas that told a bit of a story and covered
the basic arc of his life.
You recorded all three sonatas [No.15 in D Minor, Op.28 “Pastoral”;
No.27 in E Minor, Op.90; No.21 in C Major, Op.53 “Waldstein”] seven
to ten years ago. Please describe your relationship with each of the
sonatas and how your approach to them has evolved over the years.
You know I think it was Arrau (or maybe Bolet) who said something
really brave – along the lines of ‘LVB wrote the sonata and
moved onto the next one. I’ve been studying these sonatas for 30,
40, 50 years. I know them inside out. Have performed, memorized,
Tuesday March 31 at 8 pm
Benjamin Grosvenor,
pianist
Tickets: 416-366-7723
option 2
27 Front Street East, Toronto
| music-toronto.com
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