![]() ![]() Since I know most of the important works of the standard piano repertoire, I have become hypercritical.ĮI: You have many works for your own instrument, but at the same time, you obviously were born to compose for the orchestra. Other aspects are somewhat more subtle: phrasing, color and pedaling. Some are basic, like tempos and dynamics. Yet, there are so many aspects of a performance that can be evaluated and scrutinized. For me, the most important aspect of performance is the music, not the performer. ![]() GW: I have heard Rubinstein, Richter, Michelangeli, Arrau, Stravinsky, Curzon, Gieseking and many other pianists in concert. ![]() Who did you like and why, who didn’t you like and why? ![]() What about some of the other celebrated pianists? Do you remember hearing Rubinstien, Gould, Richter, Michelangeli, Arrau (or whoever else you care to mention). I work as hard in preparing my own music as I would playing Chopin or Liszt.ĮI: You have interesting stories of hearing Serkin and Horowitz play. GW: Practice for me is determining how I want to play each measure of a work. Was there a lot of preparation for those recordings or were they “in the fingers,” so to speak? They are an extremely rare example of high-modernism being played by the composer: as you know, most modernist composers cannot play their own music. Many Walker MMB editions have colorful coversĮI: I’m pretty amazed that you knocked off note-perfect renditions of your extremely difficult piano pieces Spatials and Spektra in your mid-70s for an Albany record. When I am not composing, I concentrate on practicing works that I plan to record. I have an obsession with exploring the relation between sound, touch, fingering and articulation in passages chosen from a few works of Haydn, Beethoven and Chopin. GW: I never allow a day to pass without touching the piano. GW: The repertoire covered works from the 18th century to the 20th century- Scarlatti to Debussy and Prokovieff.ĮI: When composing, do you still practice the piano? Or are there times when you never touched the keyboard for weeks on end? However, when I taught at Smith College, I played works by composers on the faculty, the piano part in Schonberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and the first piano part in Poulenc’s Two Piano Concerto.ĮI: What would a Rutgers recital Walker program in, say, 1970, 1975 or 1980 consist of? GW: I played programs of standard repertoire at Rutgers. GW: The cello soloist in the slow movement plays a wrong rhythm that is unacceptable and the orchestra is not tightly controlled.ĮI: In the book you mention that you gave a recital at Rutgers every year for - what, over twenty years? 1969 – 1992, I believe? What kind of programs did you play? In particular, have you ever played contemporary music besides your own? The Baltimore Symphony had played the work earlier in their season and their conductor, Reginald Stewart, a Canadian pianist, was better in this work than Hanson.ĮI: Even if it is flawed, is there any chance that Brahms with Hanson might be available some day? This was the better of the two performances. My first performance of the Brahms with the Baltimore Symphony was not recorded. But my performance of the 2nd Brahms Piano Concerto with Howard Hanson conducting the Eastman Philharmonia Orchestra at Eastman was recorded. George Walker: Unfortunately my performance of the 3rd Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto was not recorded. Are there any recordings of you playing in the 40s, 50s, or 60s, perhaps especially of concerti like Brahms 2 or Rachmaninoff 3? For this interview I’d like to address questions that came to mind in response to these texts: in other words, since your background and the shape of your career is already pretty well documented, I’d like to fill in some extras.įirst of all, I really enjoy your recordings of standard repertoire. The pieces I chose to discuss include Trombone Concerto, the second Piano Sonata, both Violin Sonatas, Piano Concerto, Lilacs, and Orpheus - a collection that only scratches the surface of George Walker‘s immense output.Įthan Iverson: I’ve read both the long interview with David Baker in The Black Composer Speaks and your own full-length book, Reminiscences of an American Composer and Pianist. ![]()
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