Apr 16th 2019

New Coppola CD and interview: Celebrating miniatures

by Michael Johnson

Michael Johnson is a music critic with particular interest in piano. 

Johnson worked as a reporter and editor in New York, Moscow, Paris and London over his journalism career. He covered European technology for Business Week for five years, and served nine years as chief editor of International Management magazine and was chief editor of the French technology weekly 01 Informatique. He also spent four years as Moscow correspondent of The Associated Press. He is the author of five books.

Michael Johnson is based in Bordeaux. Besides English and French he is also fluent in Russian.

You can order Michael Johnson's most recent book, a bilingual book, French and English, with drawings by Johnson:

“Portraitures and caricatures:  Conductors, Pianist, Composers”

 here.

 

It’s heresy to say this, I know, but the great masterpieces of the 19th century piano composed by Liszt, Schumann, Schubert and Beethoven sometimes leave me exhausted. The complex structure and concentrated emotion, the moods, the arpeggios and stunning fingerwork demand an effort to reach true appreciation. 

And so when I first heard the new CD “Musiques de Silence”  -- interwoven selections of Frederico Mompou, matched with Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, Henri Dutilleux, Frederic Chopin, Toru Takemitsu, Claude Debussy, Enrique Granados and early Alexander Scriabin – I felt a surge of relief. (Eloquentia EL1857). 

The repertoire is selected and beautifully braided together by the rising young French pianist Guillaume Coppola. 

Coppola
Guillaume Coppola

The genius of the music is Coppola’s dogged research into relatively light repertoire to identify echos or various composers hidden away in many of the works.  He studied the scores of Catalan composer Mompou’s 28 miniatures called “Musica Callada” (“The Voice of silence”) and everything else he felt was related. 

About half the selections in the CD are from these nine Mompou books, including the CD title. The 19 pieces chosen for his CD might legitimately be called homage to Mompou. 

The originality of the CD is twofold. First, Coppola’s delicate touch and beautiful sense of song, and secondly the linking of other composers’ bits from piece to piece. 

Mompou made no secret of his admiration for Satie and Debussy, and Chopin’s genius can be felt in several of the works. The interlacings are connected in exceptionally insightful liner notes by Michel Lanour.

 

Coppola’s creation makes these miniatures greater than the sum of their parts. Out of them emerges a warm feeling of peace. 

He has performed the combinations in recitals in France, without pause between certain groupings and only a few seconds between others. The audience is asked to withhold applause so as not to disturb the quietude of the music. “The public seems to love the combinations,” he says. 

In my interview with Coppola (below) he describes how he studied Urtexts or autograph scores, vetting measure for measure in search of shared influences. The listener will hear these references effortlessly. 

Here is Coppola in conversation, sitting quietly with me for an hour over an espresso at Bordeaux’s splendid Grand Hotel.

 

Q.  You have said you did not intend to become a pianist although there was such a “dream” in your mind. Isn’t it obvious now that you were predestined to go through life together? 

A. I would not exactly say predestined. My father and grandfather were both fans of popular music, so the household was musical. When I started playing, my grandfather in particular showed a personal interest although he had no musical training. When he came to visit, we went straight to the piano. He never judged me, he just listened. 

 

Q. When did you realize the piano was taking over your life? 

At 14 years of age, I was still not entirely committed but then I met France Clidat, the great interpreter of Liszt. She changed everything like a lightning bolt. After that, I felt a need to give the piano more attention. I didn’t even know what it meant to be a professional. I didn’t know it could be a full-time occupation. 

 

Q. You have studied economics and literature. Has this helped you keep contact with the real world? 

A. Yes, those are the options I chose at the lycée and I have not regretted it, although I would have liked to continue further down this path. Today in my music, that background is definitely an enrichment.

 

 

Q. Have you maintained contact with your Paris Conservatory faculty? 

Yes, and it is of great importance, so rich and galvanizing. The conservatory was the first time I could devote myself to music, and discover Paris and be associated with like-minded people. There was an electricity and incredible energy. The conservatory provided such a complete education. It would be great to spend another five years there to learn more about literature, foreign languages. 

 

Q. You must have a list of pianists who continue to inspire you?

 

There are many. I am as fascinated by Martha Argerich, whose superhuman capacity to master the piano approaches perfection. Radu Lupu, whose lack of ego, is remakable. Nelson Freire -- I love his féline style. I love his Chopin… 

 

Q. Are you interested in composition? 

As an adolescent I tried a bit but I stopped right away because I didn’t feel ready. It was too soon. I didn‘t feel I had enough to say. Maybe composition will come later in life. 

 

Q. You like the contrasts and alternations in music from flamboyant to peaceful. Is there a psychological need here for calm ? You also play Liszt and Schumann… 

A. Maybe it’s my Gemini personality ?  I am not bipolar but there are times that passionate romantic music gives way to a calm like Debussy. 

 

Q. Are you a Parisian today?

 

A. Yes and no. I live mostly in Paris but I also have a place about 40km from Lyon, and there I found real silence, interrupted only the sound of birds singing. 

 

Q. How did you discover the Mompou oeuvre? 

A. A colleague steered me to him and I was already familiar with the CDs of Volodos. Listening to his works, I felt he corresponded exactly to my new home. 

 

Q. You studied all the Mompou “Musica Callada” pieces? 

A. I studied all the pieces and I related them to other compositions. I looked at other similar composers, for example Satie’s scores, and saw the connections to Mompou.

 

 

Q. I have heard that Georgy Cziffra wept at the sight of a beautiful flower. You also seem sensitive to nature. Are flowers for you the essence of beauty and fragiillity? 

A. Yes, flowers and all of nature are very important to me. I grew up near Besançon. I love city living like Paris, New York, Bangkok, but I need to return to nature too. In my country home I find that flowers stimulate me every day. I am not a believer but when I see an orchid or a passiflore, there is a mystery of nature evident. I feel the same in the presence of a tree, the sound of the birds. 

 

Q. How do you avoid cliché when playing Liszt, Schubert, Chopin? Haven’t previous pianists already said everything there is to say? What is your secret of freshness? 

A. It’s the written music. If you study the score you can always find new things. Little details will appear. Schnabel said no interpretations can be as perfect as the score itself. Everyone is searching for the holy grail. The actual writing of the composer reveals a valuable dimension of the composer’s personality. 

 

Q. Isn’t it the notes, and the silences between the notes, that make the difference? 

A. Yes, it’s the silences that allow one to breathe. If the flow is too fast, one understands nothing. Silences give a rhythm to the music. 

 

Q. Where do contemporary composers fit into your musical life? 

A. It’s a passion of mine. It’s the direct link to the innovator. 

 

Q. You mean one can ask questions of the creator? 

A. We always want to do this. Past geniuses are out of reach. Beethoven is dead. 

 

Q. So there are no barriers of boundaries in contemporary music. With whom have you been working? 

A. A major collaborator is Marc Monnet, director of Printemps des Arts of Monte Carlo. We created four pieces together with hypercomplicated rhythms. But working closely with him one understands that complexity is natural. Talking with him, one understands. I have been working with Gao Ping,  Steven Stucky, Sylvain Griotto, Florentine Mulsant and Isabel Pires.

 

 

Q.  What is your view of the growing virtuosity of the younger generation of pianists? 

A. Virtuosity is necessity in some music – certain great works demand brio, panache. But the younger generations sometimes miss the musical message. When Schubert wrote a rapid scale, it was not to show off, but to express a passionate message, an anguish, a disturbance. Virtuosity should always be the expression of a message. Playing fast for its own sake misses the intention of the composer. 

 

Q. For ten or twenty years we have been talking of the Chinese piano explosion – 20 million young Chinese trying to master the Western canon. Now we hear that number has jumped to 60 million. Does this worry you?

 

A. This is a vast subject. It is true that many Asians love Western music. Sometimes they are not up to the task. It’s a new language for them. Imagine trying to understand Chinese opera or Korean traditional music. We cannot even play it. 

 

Q. But they are determined to cross the barrier while our young people are turning away from classical music.

 

A. Yes, our own cultural message is being lost. Mainly the older generations attend the concerts in the Western world today.  I don’t know what to think about it. The young Koreans love our culture. They are ready to devote themselves to it. A lot of young people attend concerts in Korea. Here there’s not the same level of passion, even when a teacher plays. 

 

Q. What are our young people doing with their lives? 

A. I am not even sure there is a passion today. They are focused on their phones and computers. Being hooked on video games means there is no need to reflect. It’s entertainment. Like television. It occupies the brain’s available time. It’s worrying.

 

END

 

 


This article is brought to you by the author who owns the copyright to the text.

Should you want to support the author’s creative work you can use the PayPal “Donate” button below.

Your donation is a transaction between you and the author. The proceeds go directly to the author’s PayPal account in full less PayPal’s commission.

Facts & Arts neither receives information about you, nor of your donation, nor does Facts & Arts receive a commission.

Facts & Arts does not pay the author, nor takes paid by the author, for the posting of the author's material on Facts & Arts. Facts & Arts finances its operations by selling advertising space.

 

 

Browse articles by author

More Music Reviews

Jul 9th 2020
EXTRACT: "In our chat by telephone, Paley spoke from his Paris apartment and asserted his belief that Rameau was “the greatest French composer ever. Pure genius and very special colors.” He acknowledges his extensive research into the period of Rameau’s life (1683-1764) in order to recreate the spirit of the time."
Jul 8th 2020
EXTRACT: "In A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and subsequent films, Morricone opted for an unprecedented fusion of archaic-sounding lines in the melody, reminiscent of medieval modal music. He intermixed this sound with contemporary pop touches (the Fender electric guitar), wordless choirs, unusual instruments (Jew’s harp, ocarinas, mariachi trumpets…) and ambient sounds (whip cracks, whistles, gunshot, coyote’s howls). He also infused scores with his trademark humour. This can be heard in the comedy western Il Mio Nome è Nessuno (My Name is Nobody, Tonino Valerii, 1973) where a toy trumpet toots bits of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries."
Jul 1st 2020
EXTRACT: "Question: Are you collaborating with living composers? Answer: Yes, Scott Wollschleger sends me unfinished new works every month. Keeril Makan is working on a piano concerto. Melaine Dalibert has dedicated several recent works to me. There are more names on the horizon. But these are the three where I feel I can have a big impact on their careers, and all three write music that I feel born to play. That combination of things is important to me."
Jun 1st 2020
EXTRACT: "Question: How do you see your musical mission today? Answer: My real passion in music is to resist popularity rankings and market forces. In my view, these currents impoverish our cultural richness........."
May 1st 2020
EXTRACT: Alessandro Deljavan: "I bought a former convent 40 kilometers from Pescara, in Villamagna. It's very important for me to breathe clean air and live as simply as possible. Life in a giant city full of cars and smog is hard for me to imagine. My perspective is always to live fully. My aspirations for the best musical experiences guides my decisions and over the past several years I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with some wonderful musicians—these experiences have brought me a sense of optimism for what might lie ahead.”
Apr 16th 2020
EXTRACT: "Federico Mompou, the reclusive Catalonian composer whose calm, spare piano writing is currently enjoying a rebirth, might well look askance at any effort to pull him forward into modern mode. Such was never his genre but that’s precisely what one of his ardent admirers, pianist Maria Canyigueral, proposed to do. The result is her intriguing new CD, Avant-guarding Mompou."
Mar 22nd 2020
EXTRACT: "In our interview, Prof. Réach says he cautions his students in Barcelona to approach the Variations with care, warning them “the path will be long and will require great patience”. He has personally overcome his fear of this “masterpiece of masterpieces”, having recorded them three times and performed them in about 15 countries a total of about 150 times."
Mar 13th 2020
EXTRACT: "The 88-key piano looks headed for a major transformation in the coming decades. The mechanism under the lid is based on a 130-year-old design and many specialists believe it is time to dispense with those delicate moving parts.  As innovative Australian piano builder Wayne Stuart says, “The piano has been crying out for a rethink for over a hundred years.” "
Mar 8th 2020
EXTRACT: "Question: You have a Paris background. What do you bring to Granados to ensure Spanish flavor? Delicacy? Momentum? Singing and dancing undertones? Rubato?........Answer: First, I am profoundly European........."
Feb 15th 2020
EXTRACT: "Question: You have said that you are plagued by doubts. Is this true?.........Answer: Of course I am plagued by doubts. This is part of the artist’s life. But I continue to work and perform. I have moments of depression but I try to transform these doubts into positives. Many artists have these doubts. Some don’t talk about it. But doubt is always there."
Jan 26th 2020
EXTRACT: "QUESTION: Wouldn’t young composers of today benefit from aligning themselves with a philosophical ethos in order to find their musical voice -- as opposed to trying merely to find their own voice by drawing on imagination or personal experience?.......... ANSWER: It’s an interesting question, but open to interpretation. My impulse is to answer yes. When young I did a tremendous amount of reading in the history of aesthetics, and as a result my sense of artist -- ethos, necessity, whatever -- is not limited to post-WWII influences. One result is that I’ve never had any patience for the late-20th-century idea that art is about “personal expression.” The ancient and more enduring view is that the artist expresses what is out there to be expressed. As T.S. Eliot admirably wrote, art is an escape from personality, not an expression of it. Likewise I’ve never warmed to the idea of “finding one’s voice,” which sounds to me too much like creating an instantly recognizable trademark style that will make your music easier to market commercially."
Jan 19th 2020
EXTRACT: "It has been a long journey I enjoy re-living as I take note this year of the great Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th birthday. As a practicing music critic and journalist from American corn country, I call myself a hick hack but I experience meltdown at almost everything the great man wrote. How can one not love Beethoven?"
Jan 9th 2020
EXTRACT: "Judith Juaregui, based in Madrid but peripatetic in her concertizing around Europe, is gaining an international audience of admirers, boosted by the brilliant pianistic colors of her Debussy, Liszt, Falla, Chopin and Mompou in her fifth CD, “Pour le Tombeau de Claude Debussy”, just out. This album was recorded at a recital in Vienna last year, her first foray into live recording, and she is  rather pleased with the result, which, she says in our interview (below), captured a “moment of honesty”. She left everything in, including the vigorous applause from the audience."
Dec 11th 2019
EXTRACTS: "The young tousle-haired pianist from the distant Minnesota, Reed Tetzloff, is building a performance career in the U.S. and Europe by steering a course through rare repertoire that is both challenging and attractive for the listener........In our email question-and-answer discussion he explains his priorities as a musician and his attraction to a wide range of repertoire."
Dec 9th 2019
Extract: "Then the house lights came up and the rest of us rushed out, relieved that it was all over."
Nov 15th 2019
Extract: "Question: Mompou was modest, yet one of his famous comments is similar to Handel’s remark that he was writing down what God dictated. Mompou said he did not think up music, he simply transmitted it. Answer: The Mompou’s idea about God was interesting. God was a great force that also could destroy his own creation, like a child who in a moment of joy treads on an ant without noticing. Mompou explained that, in his case, the music was not coming from inside to outside, but the opposite way, from outside to the inside, with him being the intermediary of this flow, as a kind of medium. Mompou felt embarrassed to be called on stage after a performance of his music. He was convinced that if the work was really good, it was not entirely created by himself. 
Oct 27th 2019
Composer Kyle Gann’s new book ‘The Arithmetic of Listening’ analyzes microtonality and makes a plea for the music fraternity to open its ears to the new directions possible. After 22 years of teaching at Bard College in the eastern United States, Gann has become a guru or godfather of new music, and continues to produce captivating compositions, as in his new two-CD album ‘Hyperchromatica’. His latest book analyzes and explains tuning theory. In this interview he asserts that new music that gets the attention of publishers and producers today is mostly “derivative crap”. The golden age of “downtown” music from 1960 to 2000 assembled “a bunch of escapees from the twin hells of academia and corporate commercialism”.
Oct 21st 2019
EXTRACT: "A powerful new talent from Italy, Alessandro Deljavan, made his U.S. East Coast debut October 19, with a magnificent reading of the Brahms Piano concerto No. 2 under conductor Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra."
Sep 18th 2019
EXTRACT: "This is some of Ilic’s best work. A California native of Serbian extraction, he is emerging now as a major player in a crowded field."
Sep 8th 2019
Extract: "Chopin’s two piano concertos are among the most frequently recorded of 19th century works, both for their melodic charm, their pulsing rhythms and their historical significance. Young Chopin wrote the piano part with exceptional verve, showing the way for future composers to let the piano burst free from its orchestral surroundings."