My Concert Program for the Marugame City Recital (July 10, 2025)
The same piece in different hands. Víkingur Ólafsson; Glenn Gould; Khatia Buniatishvili; Eleni Tsoni, all performing the Marcello/Bach Adagio in D-minor, BWV974. The same notes, yet something new and different to learn from each performance.
Sunday I performed the same program that I did at Faust Harrison Pianos in New York in May.
There is something satisfying about performing repertoire you have already put before an audience, but it does not mean one can relax or let her guard down in any way. One has to examine very carefully the new insights that can perhaps be brought to the pieces, but also how one’s thoughts may have changed about the works in presenting them a second time.
In order to do this I think each measure and passage has to be reconsidered as if one is reading a work for the first time, just to see if there might be new ideas or ways of making the interpretation new and fresh. Some things may remain the same, while others may suggest the need for an entirely new approach.
Another method I recommend for growing into a work is listening to performances of it by other pianists. This is a major advantage of technology, as we now have YouTube as a resource. The goal is to examine each different approach in order to get a sense of what each performer chooses to highlight about the work, and what is happening as the music makes its way from head to hands. It also helps one to then know what he might want to adopt, as well as what he prefers not to include.
There may be times when you notice, for example, a slightly different fingering that makes more sense, or a tempo that feels right in ways you might not have previously considered.
At other times there may be nothing at all you want to change, but you are given a fresh perspective on the work, as when you re-read a book you like after a few years have passed. You perhaps appreciate it more, not because the words have changed, but because you have changed, and look at life somewhat differently.
In any event, the experience of performing works again is exciting because of a new perspective. Like the song says, when you are performing the same repertoire for a different audience, “Everything old is new again.”
