PART ONE: THE FAZIOLI GRAND PIANO
My favorite instrument is the Bösendorfer 280 VC. Unfortunately, there is not a single one in Berlin. Then I learned about a Fazioli 308, was allowed to play it … and got goose bumps! So he became my instrument for the studio recordings.
Studiosessions March 2019/1
Photo by Tino Pohlmann
It is always a dialogue between the player and the instrument. Both listen to each other, inspire each other, become one with each other in the most beautiful and best moments.
Sometimes I really heard the Fazioli, that he enjoys going on a trip with me …
When he feels challenged in a beautiful way (quasi dropping his noble silk scarf and rolling up the sleeves of his cashmere pullover) and exploring and transcending sonic limits that his classical self-image has not previously befit him.
World-class grand pianos (Steinway, Bechstein, Bösendorfer) are the finest masterpieces of craftsmanship and sound art. Also the Fazioli belongs to this select club in the piano Olympus.
The Fazioli is an infinitely elegant instrument.
If he was a car, he might be a Lamborghini, an Aston Martin or a Maserati.
I was looking for an instrument that could react extremely sensitively and complexly to my playing. Minimalist solo compositions do not make it over the (over) abundance of sound information, but in the most expressive articulation of the as little as possible, which is on the sheet music and should be played or heard.
I wanted a very soft, subdued and yet clear basic sound. The instrument should be able to sing that tears come to one, so can give to the most minimal changes of the attack sound differentiated answers.
I was looking for an instrument that can be highly modulated from the slightest fragility to the most extreme borderline areas on the threshold of sounding sound, while maintaining coherence in the overall picture.
I did not want a “Model D – clinical-objective / linear – reference resonance” of a Steinway, but a partner who is committed, who lives permanently sound, surprised me, can take me, if I take him.
Grooving elegance and lively grandeur,
beguiling gentleness in the treble and murderous energy in the bass,
radiantly sovereign transparency and dark sparkling thickets,
Reality on a sensitive scale of one to a thousand.
The Fazioli can do a lot of it. Also because in Martin Ruch I had a gifted sound engineer by my side and in Marco Maria a gifted piano tuner.
I was always surprised, in some moments overwhelmed by his sonic offerings: then it seemed to me that I did not have enough computing power to process and implement all that was flowing into me in the present time.
Studiosessions March 2019/2
Photo by Tino Pohlmann
Imagine a chess player who plays thirty games simultaneously blindfolded. Because you can come to the border area to sweet madness,
where the parallel realities gently begin to collapse and lose their material strength and uniqueness …
With this piano you should live day by day. That does not work, but it’s not that bad, because:
- a) I can do my part by practicing on my instrument at home around him
- b) The next time we meet again for a recording session, we’ll be a bit closer to ear level.
No problem at all: in the concert as in the studio the way goes on and on and on; that’s wonderful and it applies here as in all other aspects of life:
The more to find out, the more there is to know!
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Photo by Tino Pohlmann
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PART II:
IN THE STUDIO
or:
THE DIFFICULTY TO FIND THE BALANCE FROM CLAIMS TO STUDIO RECEPTION AND LIVING REPRESENTATION
A studio recording is a permanent REFERENCE. It is the documentation of a
reached now-state. It compresses a certain epoch of life. It is a reflected, valid statement. It is an inventory.
Of course, it should reach an optimum of coherence, but without solidifying in over-stylized, over-controlled or over-ambitious perfection. It is very important to keep an eye on all wishes and demands, what you can do and above all, what you just CAN NOT do when it comes to assessing your own abilities as an interpreter.
Incredible but true: Nowadays, in classic hi-end recordings, EVERY BAR is cut and edited to create a TOTALLY flawless and perfect end product.
My concern must be to create a combination and compatibility of these demands and playful lightness, joy, inspiration, experiment, favor of the moment, openness and inner freedom during the sessions.
Pure perfection is machine inviolability, liveliness means human vulnerability. And to be vulnerable, I think you can live that way.
On the one hand, you have sonic ideas in your mind – concepts on how the individual pieces should sound. On the other hand an instrument like the Fazioli offers something that you immediately registered at every second, with what you resonate and what you react.
Sometimes it hits exactly what you want, sometimes something completely different. Then, while you’re playing, you’ll be surprised and in real-time (or later listening) you’ll have to decide whether to let yourself be taken into the unknown new territory, or if you’re trying to come back to your original idea.
Every note, every played sound creates images, colors, memories, mental states, feelings on different meta-levels – all at the same time as well to the motoric processes as the cognitive-conceptual processes.
Studiosessions March 2019/3
Photo by Tino Pohlmann
There can be no absolute ideal recording, but almost endless possibilities of what could be ideal.
In the studio, you go through the entire scale of emotional states:
You experience the moments of absolute calm, intimacy and absorption in the sound.
You experience moments of absolute frustration, despair and helplessness about not getting a piece or passage of a piece the way you want it to.
You experience moments of absolute happiness in the moments in which you meet the “absolutely right” (expression, mood, precision) during playing. Or in the moments where you get the certainty that it fits in the critical listening to a particular take or a cut between different takes in the control room in accordance with the sound engineer!
The studio time in March was an exciting, educational, happy and hard time – all in one. Now I breathe deeply until the final mixes that we will create in early May.
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Photo by Tino Pohlmann
Good times in the very Now – Exciting times ahead – I`ll keep you informed!