Leon Fleisher and Katherine Jacobson the Waltz of One Piano, Four Hands

2017 Pedagogy Conference Saturday Artist Leon Fleisher And KAtherine JAcobson The Waltz Of One Piano, Four Hands eon Fleisher and Katherine Jacobson will pres- James Litzelman (JL): We’re delighted that the two of ent an evening concert at the 2017 MTNA you will be performing a four-hand recital at our confer- National Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. ence this March! How often do you perform together? In addition, Fleisher will serve as clinician for Leon Fleisher (LF): We perform together rather fre- the advanced piano master class during the con- quently, actually—at least a dozen times each year. ference. (See pages 30 and 31 for information.) Katherine Jacobson (KJ): Leon and I are very much James Litzelman, MTNA member and the AMT looking forward to playing a recital for MTNA in March. Editorial Committee chair, recently had the opportunity to For the past several years, we have performed hundreds of Lask them about their careers and future music plans. duo-piano concerts around the world including Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, the Library of Congress, Tokyo, Beijing and Brussels—on the very same stage that Leon won the James Litzelman, NCTM, teach- Queen Elizabeth Competition! es piano and piano pedagogy at the Catholic University of America in JL: Do you focus mostly on 4-hand repertoire, or Washington, D.C., and is an inde- two-piano or concerto? pendent piano teacher in Arlington, LF: Four-hand repertoire, mostly. There’s some really Virginia. He currently chairs the AMT beautiful music there. Editorial Committee, and is past pres- KJ: Yes, our recitals have focused on the four-hand piano ident of the Northern Virginia Music repertoire. We have enjoyed performing and recording the Teachers Association. Mozart Concerto for Two Pianos, K. 242 for Sony, and we have also played it several times in its original version for 10 DECEMBER/JANUARY 2016/2017 Photo © Jennifer Bishop three pianos, most recently with the Chicago Symphony LF: Schnabel was presented with the possibility of Orchestra at Ravinia with Alon Goldstein. teaching me by two conductors—the then conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, Pierre Monteux and Alfred JL: Ms. Jacobson, one of the first questions that our Hertz, who was Monteux’s predecessor. At the behest of readers might want to know is “What is it like to collab- President Roosevelt, Hertz started a WPA (Works Progress orate with Leon Fleisher?” Administration) orchestra because so many musicians were KJ: It is invariably an intense experience due to the mag- out of work at the time. Hertz and his orchestra played a netic force of Leon’s musical vision. He has a powerful way number of school concerts, and he had heard of me and of drawing his collaborators inside that world. I have been invited me to play with him. affected by that. Leon is a big proponent of the idea that the Whenever Schnabel came out to the west coast, he always performer is there solely for the music and the performer’s had dinner at the Hertz’s. The Hertz’s recommended me ego should not be part of the equation. He often likens the to Schnabel, but he very politely turned me down—just performer to being a vessel through which the music pours. on principle, simply because of my age. Up to that point, the youngest student he had ever accepted was 16. Another JL: Mr. Fleisher, I wonder how Artur Schnabel may reason he declined was because of language. Schnabel have impacted you in this regard. You began your stud- spoke very often in abstraction, and he wasn’t sure that a ies with him at age 9, studying with him for almost 10 9-year-old could understand all of the imagery he used in years. Could you speak about what it was like to study his teaching. That winter, when I was 9, Schnabel came with a man such as Schnabel? Although you were a prod- out to play a concert, and as usual, he had dinner with the igy, you were only 9, so I wonder how much you were Hertz’s. While they were dining, Mrs. Hertz snuck me into able to absorb from him at that young age. the house through the basement and had me sitting at the AMERICAN MUSIC TEACHER 11 Leon Fleisher And Katherine Jacobson JL: It must have been extremely difficult to present one’s artistic vision of the work by having to record in this manner. LF: Precisely, but he did it. JL: That reminds me of the Schnabel edition of the Beethoven Sonatas—I believe I’ve read that Schnabel came to regret the fact that he had his edition of the Beethoven Sonatas published. Is that true? LF: Yes, but not for the reasons you might imagine. He was very unhappy because he felt that the edition was misunderstood. For example, he tried to indicate the very small fluctuations of tempi that occur when interpreting the sonatas. Some tempi kind of moved forward and others were more relaxed, or Photo © Steve Riskind kind of suspended in time, and he developed this method of trying to piano when the dining room doors opened after dinner indicate these things by marking a metronome change of one and well…there I was. Poor Schnabel was trapped! But or two notches. He felt eventually that this was so misunder- being the gentleman he was, he proceeded to listen to me, stood—that people actually thought it was different tempi— and I remember very clearly I played some Liszt for him— and that was not his intention at all, so in certain ways he the Sonetto 123 and the Beethoven Cadenza to the B-flat regretted the edition. Concerto. It was after this that Schnabel agreed to accept me One of the great things he did, of course, was to intro- as a student. duce this idea of a different print for everything that he JL: And you started your studies with him in Italy, thought should be done as an interpretation of the music, correct? as opposed to Beethoven’s indications, which are volumi- LF: We started in Italy in 1938, but then war clouds nous. He wanted large print for Beethoven and small print started gathering, and he recommended I return to New for Schnabel. We are to be very grateful for that, because York. He eventually followed, coming in 1939, and I there are terrible editions where the editors don’t distin- worked with him for the following 9 years. guish between what they think should be done and what JL: At the time, did you know what a colossal figure Beethoven obviously indicated in the score. Schnabel was? LF: Yes, yes I did. Because my teachers in San Francisco JL: You are probably the most famous living pianist prior to Schnabel all knew of him, and he was a giant. with focal dystonia. This is a topic that is of particular Having been the first actually to record all of the Beethoven interest to me, as I, too, have focal dystonia. Some years Sonatas, and doing so in the old format of the 78 LPs. ago, you were asked in an interview on The Diane Rehm JL: Only two or three minutes a side, right? Show if, given the opportunity to relive your life without LF: Exactly! They had to stop to change the mother focal dystonia, would you choose to do so. Your answer record, and he had to pick up exactly where he had left surprised me, because you said you might not choose a off. It’s truly inconceivable to imagine going through the different path than the life you’ve had. Could you speak Beethoven Sonatas in this manner—can you imagine! about that a bit for us? 12 DECEMBER/JANUARY 2016/2017 Leon Fleisher And Katherine Jacobson LF: Once I got over my period of—oh, what would for a tour with each player then traveling separately to con- you call it?—my deep funk, and my period of self-pity, I cert venues. Thankfully, Leon and I haven’t come to that guess—and started to function again as a musician, what I yet! realized is that my connection to music was not exclusively as a two-handed piano player, but as a musician. I became JL: Are the two of you still learning new pieces to add quite active as a teacher, and there is a considerable litera- to your repertoire and, if so, how do you go about choos- ture for left hand alone, and I began to conduct. Some of ing repertoire that you both want to play? my greatest joys have been as a teacher, to share some of KJ: A concerto for two pianos by composer, Nicholas these insights with gifted young people who are searching Jacobson-Larson, has been commissioned for us. We look for answers; this has brought me a level of satisfaction that forward to premiering it and adding it to our repertoire. I’m not sure I would have given up just to continue con- LF: The digits are perhaps losing a little bit of their flu- certizing as a two-handed pianist. ency, so I’m more interested in conducting than in playing at this point, but yes, indeed we do look at new repertoire. JL: Ms. Jacobson, you studied with Vronsky and Babin, one of the truly great duo-piano teams. That JL: Ms. Jacobson, what’s been the most rewarding must have been enormously helpful in your later collabo- aspect of being able to collaborate with your husband? ration with your husband, I would guess.

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