A Sudden Chat with Paul Lewis about Beethoven & Schubert
Substituting for the suddenly indisposed Janine Jensen, pianist Paul Lewis shares his ideas on his global Schubert project, classical repertoire focus and views on titans Beethoven vs. Schubert.
Renowned British pianist Paul Lewis, stepped in to perform Beethoven’s G-major Concerto with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding in Stockholm on February 23. This unexpected turn of events proved fortunate for Piano Street, as we were granted the opportunity to talk with the celebrated pianist.
Photo: Swedish Radio, Berwaldhallen
Piano Street: Even though we heard you play Beethoven here in Stockholm, you are primarily on an international tour with Schubert and various programs by the composer. What can you tell us about your “Schubert Series” project?
Paul Lewis: Well, it’s basically all of the completed piano sonatas from D. 537 on the little a minor, as it’s sometimes called. With the addition of the Reliqui D. 840, the two movement piece. There are two unfinished other movements, the third and fourth movement, which, it’s quite easy to see why he abandoned them. But for me, this piece is perfect as it stands with its two movements. It’s the unfinished symphony of the piano sonatas, really. So that’s why I included it.
And it’s a series that I did when I was, well, around 30. So, 20 years ago, and I really just wanted to come back to revisit all these incredible pieces 20 years on, having played and worked at a lot more Schubert in the meantime. So, it’s a real joy. I’m very, very happy to be doing it again.
PS: You are British with an Irish passport, and were trained at the Guildhall School of Music and under the legendary Alfred Brendel. You have a documented interest in the romantic repertoire and have recorded works by Schumann, Mussorgsky, Brahms, and Liszt, but you are mostly associated with Beethoven and Schubert. How did your artistic focus shift towards the titans of the first Viennese school?
PL: Yes, I’m British with an Irish passport. Thankfully, I’m one of the lucky Brits. I have a passport that works. I’ve always tried to keep the door open to all areas of repertoire. I mean, that’s one of the great things about the piano, is, of course, the repertoire. You have the greatest range of the greatest pieces, and a lifetime is not really enough to get through a fraction of it.
I suppose you’ve got to identify where your affinities lie and focus on that to some extent. When I was growing up in Liverpool, the record library, well, the local library was well stocked with LP’s. And I got to know a lot of music back then from about the age of eight. The librarian must have had particular taste. I mean, there was a wide range of stuff, but there was a lot of classical repertoire and I guess that of, you know, Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Haydn. That was my first point of contact with all of this.
And then in my teens, I became interested in other things. When you start to be able to play pieces like Balakirev’s Islamey and Prokofiev’s Toccata, even if you play them badly, you can sort of get your fingers around them, and that feels quite exciting for the first time when you’re a kid still. And I went more in that direction, but by my early 20s, I was back to the repertoire that I first got to know. So I think it goes back to my very early days. And, the music I was exposed to really had an influence on my later direction.
PS: To compare Beethoven and Schubert may seem like comparing apples and pears. At the same time, they are often found in the same basket. The essential differences are apparent, with Beethoven’s drama, emotion, and architecture appearing different from Schubert, where the lyrical and melodic elegance form the core. How does one work as an interpreter with these differences in practice?
PL: I’ve always said that the main difference between Beethoven and Schubert is a very direct comparison because they were contemporaries and they lived in the same city at the same time, but their music really is very different. And I see the differences more and more as time goes on. I’ve always thought of Beethoven as someone who has all the answers, in his music, there’s always a sense of resolution.
There are questions, there are struggles, there are tensions and dramas, but there’s almost always a resolution in the end. Beethoven is, in a way, a superhuman composer, whereas I feel Schubert is merely a human composer. For me, he’s the most human of all, because there are vulnerabilities in his music. There are fragile elements that you simply don’t find in Beethoven. And with all the drama and the tension that you can find in Schubert, the most dramatic pieces of Schubert, I think when he’s in his most dramatic mood, he doesn’t shout at you, he rather draws you in. And it’s the pianissimo moments of drama with Schubert that, for me, are the most affecting and long lasting.
But Schubert, unlike Beethoven, doesn’t have the answers to these questions, and that’s reflected very much in his music. You can get to the end of a huge piece of Schubert, a huge sonata, and you end up with more questions than you started with. And that’s really what makes him fascinating or rather one of the many things that makes him fascinating. For me, it’s that open-endedness, the reflection of what it is to be human, and that we don’t have the answers to everything. Beethoven is somehow more reassuring than Schubert, but Schubert keeps us in touch with something that we know to be true, as, you know, the people we are.
PS: The question of the actual number of Schubert sonatas is a significant one. In addition, can the 3 Klavierstücke, D.946 be considered a potential final sonata by Schubert?
PL: There are so many unfinished pieces, fragments. Like I said, I started D. 537 just for clarity’s sake, really. When you go back further than that, it’s not always clear whether he intended some of these pieces to be sonatas, though there are other individual pieces which have become movements of earlier sonatas. So, I tend to avoid that. And just for the clarity of the series, to start at 537. Can 946 be considered a potential finest? I don’t know, really. Probably not.
I think the second set of impromptu D. 935 has more of a sense of unity than D. 946. And with 946, there is something a bit unfinished about it. Transition passages, for instance, tend to be rather, rather bare. You feel that he may have filled some things out, he may have embellished other things. I think D. 946 is a great set of three pieces, especially the second one, which I think is miraculous. But at the same time, I feel there’s a work in progress there, and I’m not sure that it was really meant as a sonata. Perhaps just another set of impromptu’s. Maybe…
PS: Many pianists play smaller pieces by Schubert but may hesitate when starting to think about sonatas, not least considering the length, scope, and technical requirements. Which sonatas do you recommend as a good start if one wants to dive into this repertoire form?
PL: Well, my first Schubert sonata was D. 784, which is a devastating piece of music written exactly at the time he got his syphilis diagnosis, and it’s the point at which everything changed in his music. It became sparse and desperate and distressed. And the bare brutality of it is so clear, certainly compared to his earlier stuff.
So, you would think, maybe that’s not a good place to start. You want to ease your way into Schubert and maybe don’t play the last sonatas, the big sonatas, start with a smaller. I honestly, I don’t really sign up to that. I think the earlier you start to get these great pieces under your skin, the better. It doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to play them in concerts, but just to become acquainted with them and to start figuring out what they are and what they’re about.
I would recommend any young pianist, even a teenage pianist, to explore any of the Schubert sonatas. And if they love the music and they’re attracted to what it is and its message and its spirit, just go ahead, start exploring. I think it is always important to identify where those affinities are and always to be true to that and to go in that direction.
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