Emanuel Ax: Playing the Field on 88 Keys

Emanuel Ax is not just one of the finest classical music pianists of our (or any) time, he’s also a mensch — as gracious to talk to as he is inspiring to hear. The Polish-born, Canadian-raised virtuoso, whose most recent Sony recording, Mendelssohn Piano Trios, was a collaboration with his close friends and frequent collaborators Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, comes to the Bay Area Jan. 12 for a solo all-Schubert performance at Stanford’s Dinkelspiel Hall. Although our talk from his Manhattan home was delayed slightly by his bad pre-Christmas bug, Ax could not have been more friendly, or helpful, belying the myth of the musician as temperamental diva, a stereotype he says does not really exist. (Of course, he may just be talking about himself.)

How did the Mendelssohn CD and the Schubert projects come about?

I’ve been looking forward to learning some of that music, and playing it for a few years now. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and I guess the time was right. Obviously, they’re both great. We did Mendelssohn because 2009 was the 200th year of his birth, and Yo-Yo and I are both great Mendelssohn fans. Schubert is something I’ve always wanted to do — and there comes a time when you try to do it before you’re too old!

Your Stanford performance will be solo, although you’ve recorded and performed Schubert works, including the Trout Quintet, with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Pamela Frank, and others. What is the difference for you between performing with a group and on your own?

I think, generally, a solo recital is a different state of mind. Musically, you’re still doing the same thing. You’re still playing chamber music ... left hand, right hand. But being on stage with friends is a very wonderful way of communicating, and being alone on stage can be very difficult. You want to communicate to the people who are listening. And you hope that you and the audience will be listening together.  

Even at your stage of your career, do you feel like there’s more at risk or that you’re more exposed in that setting?

That’s very natural. That’s not just a musical thing. That’s normal for people, generally.   

In his glowing review of your Schubert recital last November, Philadelphia Inquirer music critic Daniel Webster wrote: “When Mme. Mao banned Schubert’s music from Chinese concert halls a generation ago, she called it ‘bourgeois.’” What on earth do you think she meant by that?

I don’t have the slightest idea. I don’t know much about Chairman Mao.

He went on to say: “What she meant, rather, was that an outpouring of melodies so fresh, honest, and beguiling would certainly erode the most revolutionary spirit ...”

[Laughs] I don’t know about that. It’s certainly enchanting music; there’s nothing more wonderful.

The review concludes: “Mme. Mao is dead and Schubert isn’t. That was clear Wednesday when pianist Emanuel Ax played two sonatas and four impromptus (D. 935). ... His playing made honesty and clarity virtues of the highest order, for he seemed to have simply tapped the source and allowed it to flow.”

[More laughter] I guess that’s good!

At this point in your career, are you in the habit of reading reviews of your performances?

I try to find them; absolutely. It’s always nice to know what’s being written, and you don’t always have to agree. It’s always pleasant to read something nice, and unpleasant to read something not so nice. But, I don’t know — I would find it very hard not to read them, I think.

Do you ever find something that someone says in a review helpful?

Not really. I’m working on certain things, trying to do certain things, and very often they don’t connect with what the person writing in the newspaper is writing about. It doesn’t help me that much. I have to keep working and doing my stuff, and I guess he should keep doing his job.

Frank Zappa once said that “Rock criticism was written by people who can’t write for people who can’t read.” Even accounting for the different demographics in the world of classical music, do you think he had a point?

[Laughs again] Look, it’s a little bit of a difficult subject to talk about because I don’t know the reviewers, most of the time. I don’t know them personally, I don’t know what they’re like, or what their opinions are. So always, whenever you hear an opinion, you have to consider the source. If my close friend the wonderful pianist Joseph Kalichstein would say to me, “This didn’t work,” I know exactly what kind of mind he has and what kind of musician he is, so it’s very valuable to me to know his opinion.

If I don’t know anything about the person, I guess it’s like getting a medical opinion from someone when you don’t know if he’s a doctor. If he’s a good doctor, you’d probably say, “This is great to know,” but if it happens to be someone who doesn’t have a medical degree, it would not be of any value. It’s the same kind of thing ...

Can you talk a little about your relationship with John Adams? Will he be coming to the Stanford recital?

If he’s around, I’m sure he’ll come down. We see each other pretty regularly, and of course I’m always begging him for another piece.

How did [Adams’] Century Rolls come about?

It was commissioned for me by the Cleveland Orchestra. So they were actually the commissioning body, but I was the first guy to play it.

How did you feel when you found out he’d titled one section “Manny’s Gym,” in a play off your nickname and Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies?

I was very touched and moved. It’s a beautiful piece, and I think that it’s fantastic that, for everyone who’s going to play that movement, my name will be on it. It’s a great honor.

Have you been influenced by Satie?

I know a little about his work, but I think John is the one who was very fascinated by it.

Did you have input on the composition?

Not really; I knew a lot of the music from before, and we were friends from before. But no, I had no input. He just wrote the piece and I played it.

Your most recent release is of the Mendelssohn Piano Trios, and you’ve also recently performed and recorded works honoring the 200th anniversaries of the births of Chopin and Schumann. But you’ve also collaborated with Adams, and the inimitable Mark Morris on Mozart Dances, and Edgar Meyer and others. What do you get out of such crossover partnerships?

Mark is not at all a crossover artist. He’s an incredibly great choreographer who I actually think is one of the best musicians I know. He choreographs from the score, and knows more music certainly than I do, and probably more music than anyone I know. If he had played piano or conducted, he would have been incredible at that, too. I gather he might be doing something for the Ojai Festival; he’s very special. Collaborating with someone like that is a totally eye-opening educational experience in every way. I learn from all of these people.

Edgar is a great musician, and also a great mathematician. I think he majored in math in college, so all of his stuff, while there are sounds with a pinch of bluegrass, jazz, and different elements, is also fiercely complicated, and incredibly hard to play. So I’m learning from that, too.

He’s worked with Garth Brooks and the Turtle Island String Quartet. Do you think you would ever do something that’s more in a pop vein?

Edgar is going to be writing some music for the two of us, but I don’t think it will be that kind of music. He knows me and he probably knows what I’m better (and worse) at. I don’t think I’d be good at that stuff. I just like to hear it.

Will that be in the next year or so? I’m hoping so. I’m pretty sure he’s working on the pieces now, so we hope to get to do it together.

You’ve even performed Strauss’ Arden with Patrick Stewart. How did that go? I guess Glenn Gould tried a similar experiment with Claude Rains, and they didn’t get along as well.

It’s a wonderful piece. He was great to work with — he’s a fantastic man, and of course a great actor.

Is there one period or composer whom you feel most compatible with? Does moving from period to period, genre to genre, replenish you as an artist?

I like to play the field. Definitely.   

Mark Morris has said that musicians like you and Yo-Yo Ma are great to work with because you’re not “defensive.” Yet obviously you need a healthy ego and sense of yourself to perform at your level, and to have the kind of career you’ve carved out. How do you balance the competing needs of stability and creative “temperament”?

Most of the people that I work with are incredibly straightforward and simple; I don’t see that side of it at all. I just don’t. There must be people who do behave that way, but I don’t really know them or work with them.

What about Glenn Gould?

He wasn’t a diva at all. He had all kinds of foibles, but to him I’m sure they seemed perfectly normal. I think there are people who act out and become drama queens or whatever, but I’ve been very fortunate and haven’t encountered that in my working relationships. A couple of times, with a couple of directors, but even then not so often.

Musicians, you will find, are just normal people who try their best to do a difficult job. In a funny way, we may be the last group of people that is directly responsible for something. Sports people and us! If a tennis player loses his match, it’s his fault. ... There’s nobody else. If I play a bad performance, it’s my fault. It’s not my boss, just me. It’s not someone who forgot to send me a piece of paper; it’s just me. I think there’s a lot of responsibility involved. So we try very hard.

You’ve said that you were trying to cut back. Are you still doing about 80 to 85 performances a year?

I am still doing about that. But soon ...

Is that your New Year’s resolution?

I’m trying.   

You’ve said that you go to “concerts of pianists I love, and buy certain recordings, but I don’t buy nine recordings of the same work.” Is this a way to make it your own piece, rather than be overly influenced by other people’s interpretations?

I don’t look out for recordings, but I don’t shun them, either. You can always learn from other people — and probably steal stuff from other people! — but it becomes your own, eventually. No matter what I might steal from Horowitz, I won’t sound like him because I’m not him. If I were him, I’d probably choose to stay that way. But I’m not [laughs], and there’s nothing I can do about it. You learn from everybody. The good thing is to be able to hear performances, take them in, see what you admire about them, and make it your own. ...

Involving the audience is really the most important job for the performer. However you do it. Some people do it by being aloof. Some people are warm and welcoming ... and I have a feeling I’m probably more on that side. ...

If you were to have a conversation or dinner party with musical friends across the centuries, who would you invite?

The two that would be the most fun, in terms of the past, would definitely be Mozart and Berlioz. Those are the two I’d like to have for dinner.