Chapter Two

Jonathan Biss

Jonathan Biss was born on 18 September 1980 to two professional-musician parents, both on the faculty at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where the young pianist came of age in a musical milieu. Biss has stated on several occasions, however, that he was in no way a child prodigy. Later, as music and his life as a pianist took on a more serious role for him, his parents cautioned him about life as a performing musician. While they did not promote his life in music, they did not discourage him either. His early life in out-of-the-musical-spotlight Bloomington could not have been more ideal, he now readily admits, as it allowed him to work and explore unpressured, at his own pace. Today he realizes that he was allowed to choose his own path; it was not thrust on him. As a result, he feels acutely how lucky he is today to be doing what he loves.

By the time of his birth, his mother, Miriam Fried (b. 1946), had already established herself as a highly regarded violinist, most notably by becoming the first woman to win the Queen Elizabeth International Competition in 1971. She came to the United States from Israel under the mentorship of Isaac Stern, studied at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian, and then went to study with Joseph Gingold at Indiana University. She later received high praise for her 1985 New York recitals of Bach’s solo Partitas and Sonatas, and in 1986 she joined the faculty at Indiana University. She has for many years played chamber music, solo recitals, and performed concertos with a number of major orchestras worldwide, and is a highly regarded recording artist. She joined the Mendelssohn String Quartet as its first violinist in 1999, and in the fall of 2006 she joined the faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Fried and her son have long been chamber music partners, and are frequently heard in all 10 Beethoven violin sonatas. He has joined her in working with the Mendelssohn String Quartet.

Paul Biss, the pianist’s father, is a violist and violinist well established in musical circles, having worked with his wife and many others. He is retired from Indiana University but continues to teach. It was Paul Biss’s mother, the noted cellist Raya Garbousova, whose name and place in American music history continues to be noted without fail in the pianist Biss’s biographical notes. She was one of the world’s most eminent cellists when Samuel Barber wrote his cello concerto expressly for her in 1945. She premiered the work with the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitsy in 1946, and 20 years later recorded it for Decca. Garbousova was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1909, and came to this country in 1939. After marrying the cardiologist Kurt Biss in 1948 and settling in DeKalb, Illinois, she taught at Northern Illinois University from 1979 to 1991. She died in 1997 when Biss was 16. He speaks of her with a tinge of regret in this interview.

Bloomington, Indiana, may have been off the high-pressure musical path in some respects, but his parents’ connection to well-known musicians in the world beyond Bloomington made his home environment a singularly musical one. As a youth he did not realize this, but he certainly does now. At that time it was a normal home for him. His mother’s mentor, the violinist Isaac Stern, was often a guest in their home and later he heard Biss, at age 14, play in Israel. Stern became a close personal friend of the young Biss for six short years, until Stern’s death in 2001. Stern was responsible for finding professional management for Biss with ICM Management at the youthful age of 16. This meant that Biss was a full-fledged professional musician for a year before his arrival at the Curtis Institute where he studied with Leon Fleisher. Like dozens who have benefited from Fleisher’s wide musical knowledge and keyboard wisdom, Biss speaks highly of his mentor at every opportunity.1

In speaking with Biss, one is forcibly struck by his utter devotion to performing the music of those composers for whom he feels a strong passion. He is adamant about playing only music for which he feels the greatest connection. He has gone so far as to resist making a career by performing the big audience-pleasing works, famously turning down a performance with a major orchestra because he did not feel committed to playing Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He has performed Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto, a work he admits is beautiful but would not find it lacking in his life if he never performed it again.

There is a large enough body of piano literature that holds a lifetime of challenges for Biss. This is the music that is far greater than he will ever be able to perform to his final satisfaction. It is the music that he never wants to feel completely satisfied with after a performance. And the music that he will never tire of exploring, keeping vital for himself and his listeners.

At the top of his list is the music of Schumann, Beethoven, and Mozart. His love of Schumann’s music extends to his having performed the seldom-heard Introduction and Allegro appassionato, op. 92, and the Introduction and Concert-Allegro, op. 114, both for piano with orchestra under Daniel Barenboim with the Staatskapelle Berlin in Chicago in January of 2004. Biss’s love of Schumann’s later music extends as well to the composer’s Second Violin Sonata in D Minor, op. 121, which he plays frequently with his mother. Schubert and Brahms are in his pantheon as well. He frequently programs JanáČek’s In the Mists and his Sonata, Oct. 1905; Schoenberg’s Sechs kleine Klavierstücke, op. 19; Berg’s Sonata; and Webern’s Variations for Piano, op. 27. Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto likewise holds his interest as Bartók is for him one of the major composers of the twentieth century.

Biss is committed to playing music by contemporary composers, including the American elder statesman Leon Kirchner whose work Biss discovered when they worked together at the Marlboro Music Festival. He has programmed Kirchner’s 2003 Second Sonata a number of times, played his 1989 Interlude I, which was written for Peter Serkin, and finally Kirchner’s Interlude II, of which Biss is the dedicatee. The work was commissioned by the BBC’s New Generation Artist program expressly for Biss. The work began life as a piece for left hand alone for Leon Fleisher, who many years earlier had also championed Kirchner’s music. Among other contemporary composers whose music he plays are Toru Takemitsu, Wolfgang Rhim, John Corigliano, Richard Danielpour, Lewis Spratlan, and David Ludwig.2

Biss is not a showman at the piano. He has nothing to prove. He is all about the music. Unpretentious and secure in his well-thought-out musical ideas, his communicative skills afford him the ability to bring the most inward, introverted music to the listener in an unhomogenized performance. For him, performances should not feel routine, but special, otherwise he does not want to play. His strength lies in revealing the musical architecture of a whole piece in performance. He pays special attention to his programming. A program of several Beethoven sonatas will be presented in an order that takes the listener on a journey. His tall body is lanky, and at the keyboard his breathing can be quite noticeable, as it is also in the recording studio.

Biss’s maturity includes thinking about his future as far as 50 years hence. He takes seriously the idea that how he plays today is not as important as how he will play when he is in his 70s. For him, being a musician is not a static stage at which one has arrived, but a lifelong process with which one grapples daily. A musician’s life is constantly evolving. Part of Biss’s own evolution involves joining the piano-teaching faculty at Curtis in the fall of 2011.

We spoke at length about the Borletti-Buitoni Trust he was granted several years ago. Biss has also been the recipient of other notable awards and honors, including the 2002 Gilmore Young Artist Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Leonard Bernstein Award at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival in 2005. He was the first American to participate in the BBC’s New Generation Artist program, a two-year program that Biss held from 2002 to 2004, and which coproduced his EMI Debut recording in 2004. Having received so many notable honors for his active performing life, it is surprising that Biss did not give his first solo recital at Carnegie Hall until the 21st of January, 2011.3

I spoke with Biss by phone on 1 July 2007 at his New York City apartment as he was nearing the end of his summer break from performing.

Interview

Thanks so much for agreeing to be a part of my project. Several years ago it became very clear that there are many excellent pianists playing today keeping alive the best literature from Bach’s music down to the end of the twentieth century. Now that we’ve entered the 21st century, I considered taking a serious look at who is playing, and exploring the details of what is happening around the globe.

Certainly, I’m so glad you feel that way.

I want to compliment you on your recent recording of Schumann’s music. Your Kreisleriana performance is especially wonderful with regard to your phrasing and pacing that are so inevitable.

Thank you. That’s the nicest thing I could possibly be told.

When we think about what you have right there, in that recorded performance—which you obviously prepared very well—we still want to know how much of that performance is spontaneous on your part in the studio. Or do you have in mind presenting this performance as a recorded artifact?

Right. I don’t think that would even be possible. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t go into a recording with the idea that “I want to play exactly like this.” More importantly, I don’t think one should want to. The only way I find recording to be a gratifying process is to think of it as nothing more than a snapshot of what your thoughts about that piece of music were that day. And obviously you can’t plan for what your thoughts about the piece are going to be that day. It has to do with who you are when you wake up that morning. When you choose to make a recording, it is not just a question of choosing pieces that you can play well and that you feel prepared with, but pieces that you feel that you have an actual relationship with, and finding pieces that your thoughts and ideas about are constantly in evolution. Those are the pieces you’re going to feel a degree of inspiration of feeling in playing when you’re in this somewhat sterile environment of the recording studio and where the audience is not immediately visible. The biggest challenge of recording is creating the feeling that something is being communicated, which is probably the most important element in a successful performance at any time. Above all, my goal for recording is to create the feeling of a performance in which something speaks.

When playing for an audience, most of it is obviously very spontaneous.

Absolutely. It has to be. Again, it has to do with the pieces you choose to play. You have to play pieces that you feel closely enough connected to, so that you are confident enough to be spontaneous and that the decisions you make spontaneously will be true to the music. These decisions will reflect the effect of the music. At least personally, I don’t find I’m free enough to take chances and try some things if I don’t feel a profound connection to the music. If you’re being the vehicle of a piece that you have loved, then you feel that you can have free rein with your personality to take you in whatever direction you’d like that particular evening. A recording really should be the same thing.

Pieces do have different ways that one can look at them. Maybe one year you would want to bring out one thing, and in another year, you may chose to bring out something else.

Absolutely. I think almost by definition great music is music that has numerous aspects and layers so that the more you delve into it, the more you see and the more you’re able to do with it, and the more you realize there is so much more left to be done. With this music that you know well, understand its essence, its basic architecture, and where the essential points are, you know that there are an infinite number of possibilities you can do while holding true to the music. I don’t ever think of it as being limiting, though you do have to respect the intention of the composer. Great music can accommodate many different intentions, as long as at the core you have an understanding of what the piece is about.

This is why when we hear the same Beethoven sonata in the hands of five different pianists, the performances can be totally different.

Yes. Music is a three-way interaction between a composer, an interpreter, and an audience. All three pieces of the triangle are essential ones. The way that the three interact with one another creates the whole. It’s amazing how the notes on the page of a Beethoven sonata have never changed, and they’re not going to change, but when pianists take those pieces up, those pieces do somehow evolve. Which is kind of a miraculous thought.

I want to go back to your earliest studies at the piano. You began at age six and were influenced early on by the playing of your older brother, Daniel.

That was probably the reason I started playing the piano. I think I was four when he started playing the piano at age six. I don’t remember this, but apparently that is the story.

How far did he go in his study?

Pretty far. I think he was 13 when he gave it up, and he was quite advanced. He’s come back to it, and I would say he’s an excellent amateur pianist. I don’t think there was ever any question in his mind about wanting to do it professionally. It was something that he enjoyed and I would certainly describe him as a music lover. I don’t think he ever dreamed of doing it professionally himself.

What did he go on to do?

He’s a mathematician.4

Quite a few medical doctors start out as very keen pianists, and drop it to go into the medical profession. Later, they turn around and spend five years returning to the piano. We know Drew Mays5 who won the amateur Van Cliburn Competition just a few weeks ago.

And a doctor!

Yes, an eye doctor. We knew him when he was a piano student at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He gave up the piano for 15 years but returned to practicing as an example for his four children.

Very, very interesting. My brother has many, many friends who are not only mathematical but in the broader scientific community. Often when I play concerts he brings friends with him. It’s amazing to see how interested they are, and how lively is their interest in music. There is some kind of connection between the two.

Yes. Did you ever play duets with your brother?

Oh, very, very little. I think my parents very wisely thought that we were best separated. I think they really didn’t want either of us to ever see music as competitive.

Are there other siblings?

No, just the two of us.

You soon went to Karen Taylor,6 who was in Bloomington at Indiana University.

Yes, she was my very first teacher. She was the person in Bloomington who taught young children. She was extremely good with younger children especially. She had many students who were at the high school level as well as beginners. It’s such a specific ability to be able to reach a small child on a musical level and to teach basic skills to a child whose attention span is not incredibly highly developed. She was really fantastic at it. She managed to teach those skills, all the while really making it something that a child could love. I remember having a lot of enthusiasm for music, not just for playing the piano. I owe a lot of credit to her.

Those beginning teachers are so important.

Absolutely. Now I’ve come to a point where I sometimes give master classes at places where I am giving concerts and frequently find young pianists who are talented, but I can tell that they’re not being taught. I think there’s a lot of variation, speaking of technique, in terms of what can work on the piano—depending on the size and shape of your arms, and the rest of your body, and also depending on what sort of a sound you’re looking at. But there are also basic principles which I think are universal—to do with relaxation, breathing, use of the arm to support the fingers, etc. And sometimes I see students who have so many problems in these areas, it’s completely interfering with their ability to express themselves. And it’s such a pity, because it’s so much easier to learn those things initially, than to have to unlearn something else and start from scratch after you’ve already been studying for years. Good teaching really is invaluable. I always wonder when I see someone who is already 13 or 14 if their problems are reparable anymore.

It could be, but it would take a tremendous amount of willpower on the part of the person to want to change.

And initiative.

This is a topic for an hour’s discussion! Going back to your studies, you next went to Evelyne Brancart7 during your teen years. How old were you when you went to her?

I think I was 11. I was with her until I went to Curtis when I was 17. So it was six years that I spent with her.

Do you remember what you first studied with her?

I remember the pieces that I played at the end of my first year at her little recital. I played the Haydn E Minor Sonata, the Chopin Bolero, which is a piece I don’t think I’ve even heard since!

Chopin’s Bolero?

Yes! I’m surprised I even remember that. I do remember looking at it once in a volume of miscellaneous pieces and thinking, “I played this.” And I played Liszt’s Au bord d’une source from the Première Années de Pèlerinage and Mozart’s K. 467, the C Major Concerto. It’s hard to imagine that I played those pieces, but it was after a fashion, anyway.

I suppose you have tapes of those.

My parents must.

Maybe when you’re 50, you’ll pull them out and listen to them! Those recordings are very interesting when you go back and listen to them many years later.

Maybe. My father was a very enthusiastic chronicler of my musical education. I’m sure he knows where they are. They’re behind lock and key somewhere. I’m probably even now at the point where I’d find them entertaining. Ten years ago I would have happily lost those tapes.

Was it with Brancart, when you were 12 and 13, that you began to realize that playing the piano was becoming quite serious for yourself?

Yes, it’s difficult to put a number on it, but I do remember when I was 13 I played with an orchestra for the first time. There was something about that experience and the thrill that it was to be on the stage that cemented certain things. I remember thinking, “Yes, this is it for me.” It’s not that earlier I had any ambivalence, I don’t think. Because I certainly remember being passionate about music long before that. I remember, for example, when I was probably seven or eight my parents played a chamber music concert at the university. It was mostly the Brahms Clarinet Quintet, and it really made a huge impression on me. I remember being obsessed with those pieces, and I remember when I went to school there were pieces we would listen to in the car. For example, there was Murray Perahia’s recording of Mozart’s K. 482, the Concerto in E-flat, and there was a recording of Serkin playing Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata. I remember insisting on listening to these pieces so much that the tape wore out! I remember those old cassettes. So my passion for music started very early. It was probably in my early teens when it started to occur to me that music wasn’t something that would just always be in my life, but that it might be a career. I somehow always knew that it was my passion, but for a long time I didn’t translate it into any kind of practical terms until a little bit later.

At about the age of 12 through 14, about how many hours were you devoting seriously to working at the piano?

I think it was probably in the area of three or maybe four, tops. I was never one for hugely long hours of practice, and I still am not. My teacher also didn’t believe in it. She believed in less time and more concentrated work. I still think that is much better. There have been times in my life when I had so much repertoire to play that I was sitting at the piano six or seven hours a day. But I don’t think it’s healthy—mentally, physically, and probably above all, it’s not good for one’s relationship with music. I think eventually your emotional receptivity to the music starts to diminish when you’re too immersed physically. I would say that when I was young, it was probably around three or four hours a day. When I say it, I know it is probably a lot less than some do, but it still sounds like plenty for me.

Would you characterize yourself as a very quick learner?

I think I’m medium. I think I have good ears and am a fairly good sight reader. I like a lot of time with a piece before I feel comfortable with it. Still now, my policy is that I don’t play pieces after first learning them. I always learn them, leave them, and come back. I think that in terms of getting pieces into my fingers I’m fairly quick, but I find that there’s a sense in which there is no substitute for time in terms of developing a comfort level with a piece of music. That’s not new. I felt that way years ago.

Do you find that after you learn a piece and put it away and finally return to it that you change basic things like the fingering?

Practically, I think you hear differently. Things do change. For me, talking about technical issues like fingering, I find that everything is based in the ear. What we hear necessitates the physical, technical aspects. Yes, absolutely, it’s amazing to me that you can spend hours a day with a piece of music you’ve worked with, and then sometimes if you leave it for a few months, you find that the time away has, in a sense, done more. The instrument can sometimes be an obstacle, rather than a tool. Obviously I love the piano. It’s my medium of choice, but it’s a machine in some ways. It’s not an especially natural implement for music making, surely not when compared with winds or strings in terms of their ability to produce a line. And particularly not in comparison with the human voice. Sometimes that’s good to remember. If you sing a phrase, even if you’re like me and you have no ability as a singer, it will reveal itself in more obvious ways rather than by hours of practicing.

You went to Leon Fleisher at Curtis when you were 17. You were with him for how many years?

Four years.

How did that opportunity come about?

For a few years before I went to him people were telling me that my next step should be to study with him. Many thought, including Brancart, that he would be the ideal teacher for me. I also grew up with his recordings, so for me it was kind of a dream scenario to get to go study with him. At one point—I can’t remember if she was the one who set it up—I went to play for him when I was probably 13 or 14. So I developed a little bit of a relationship. Before I became a student of his, I had gone two or three times to play for him, so he was aware of me. He was on the faculty at Curtis, but when I went to audition, he wasn’t actually there. But I knew that all of the faculty had to review the audition tapes. I had requested him as a teacher, and luckily enough, when I was accepted, I was assigned him as my teacher. It worked out exactly as I would have hoped.

Tell me about his teaching.

It’s not easy to describe because it’s very remarkable. What I always find myself saying about him is that he is the only person I know who is equally eloquent as a performer and as a speaker. Really the only one, without reservations, who I find is moving in both areas. And that’s an amazing tool as a teacher. That meant that he was able to sit away from the piano and verbalize his ideas in a way which was incredibly exciting. He was incredibly able to offer a huge amount of information without the danger of his students wanting to imitate him because they were hearing so much. But then by the same token, sometimes you can talk—and I know this from my very limited experience teaching—until you’re blue in the face, and you just need to play something for someone. Then he would sit down at the piano, and what he is able to produce at the piano is so remarkable that I really do feel that I learned equal amounts from when he just sat and from having that sound in my ear all the time with what he was able to do with the instrument. In the few years I’ve had away from him, it doesn’t seem any less remarkable.

This way of teaching—conjuring up images and talking, a prosaic word in this case—worked well with you, but there may be others who would become impatient and feel that they should be making more sound at the piano. You were working with him when he was not able to perform at all, is that correct?

Not exactly. I was working with him at the time his playing was coming back. I came to him in 1997, and if I’m correct it was 1995 when he played that first Mozart K. 414, Concerto in A Major, with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood. Yes, it’s been awhile. It seems like there has been a lot more publicity about it recently, but it’s been on and off for over a decade now.

When he was teaching you during those four years, he was demonstrating with both hands equally well. Before that time, when he was teaching and not playing in public, was he able at all to demonstrate for students in the studio with both hands?

I remember when I first played for him, which would have been before he had started playing again with both hands (I’ll never forget this!), I played Beethoven’s op. 2, no. 3 in C major, and there was this difficult passage in the first movement which he played for me with one hand. I remember it because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. But I guess it does demonstrate that he was, more or less, just not able to play with the right hand. I never asked.

It was his right hand, but which finger?

His problems were, I think, with fingers three, four, and five. He’ll be the first to say he’s not cured. Even when you shake his hand, those three fingers are quite curled up, especially four and five. I think three is in much better shape than those two.

He went through Botox injections.

Amazing, isn’t it? He has them periodically. He’s open about it. It is a way around his dystonia. It is not something that has cured him for life.

When you started with Fleisher, what music were you playing?

I remember the first music I played for him was Mozart’s K. 488, Concerto in A Major, and I remember that in that first semester, in 1997, I learned and played Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze for him.

So the Davidsbündlertänze have been with you a long time. I’m sure you still keep in close contact with him.

I do. I had the remarkable experience of getting to play with him this year. I played the Schumann concerto twice with him conducting in Japan. Wow! What an incredible week that was!

You made a comment in an earlier interview that you had experienced self-doubt while you were at Curtis. Do you remember making that remark?

Yes, that really made the rounds!

Looking back, philosophically, do you think self-doubt is a positive element for a performer?

Absolutely. What’s really interesting about that interview8 is that I really said all of those things. I wasn’t misquoted. The guy who did the interview did a good job with it, actually. When I said those things I wasn’t under the impression that I was saying anything that would be at all surprising, but it’s been a frequent topic of conversation. For me, being a performing musician and playing and working with documents that are far greater than oneself—they’re far greater than any performance of them could be—is intimidating. That is something that remains intimidating. I think that self-doubt is a very natural and healthy part of one’s relationship with music.

I would think that if you don’t have self-doubt something is wrong.

Absolutely. I also feel that if I had a criticism about the way that concert life is now, I think in a sense the existing system tends to reward invulnerability. I think that’s wrong. I think one of the things that we find touching about the great performance is that there is vulnerability. There is doubt and there is something fragile. Don’t misunderstand me. In order to go out there on the stage and play a piece, you have to have an incredibly clear view of what it is you want to say. And you have to have the confidence that an audience is going to sit there and listen to you. At the same time that always has to remain balanced against the feeling that whatever you’re able to do that day, the piece could still be played so much better. That has nothing to do with self-doubt in relation to other performers because I think that is not ultimately what music is about. But that feeling that you’re working toward something which is not really reachable is the most beautiful part, and maybe ultimately the most difficult, but at the same time the most ultimately rewarding aspect of what we do. Thinking about self-doubt, it was compounded by the fact that I had probably never been exposed to good pianists in that number that I was at Curtis. It was remarkable. There were only 20 of us, but everyone played so well. That starts to play into your head a little bit!

But there are so many other factors, besides just being able to play well, that come into performing, wouldn’t you say?

Oh, my God, absolutely! There are so many personality questions and there is so much luck involved.

Your physical health, for one.

Yes, I’m beginning to realize the extent to which one is able to live this life heavily lies on how well you take care of yourself. It seems so obvious but it was not something that occurred to me when I was younger.

Especially when you get to be 40 or 50.

I feel it already! When I’m eating healthy and going running, even if the flight was three hours late and I didn’t have enough sleep, I’m able to find my energy level more easily than if I’m not taking care of myself.

You spoke a moment ago about your colleagues at Curtis in a general way. You’ve worked with Benjamin Hochman.9 Was he at Curtis when you were there?

We came at exactly the same time. We’ve played together occasionally over the years, and most recently this year.

Would you care to mention any other of your contemporaries that might be of interest here?

Lang Lang came the same year that I did. Now that I look at it in retrospect, I think it’s rather interesting that the three of us were there the same year. But there were any number of terrific pianists there.

Those have very likely gone on to become excellent teachers who are working in areas where they simply have not become household names. Changing the subject here, through your mother you got to know Isaac Stern when you were 15 and playing in Jerusalem. Stern is responsible for your earliest engagement with professional management. So you have had quite a different beginning from many pianists. You’ve never entered any competitions.

No, never. Yes, that was very lucky. Going back to Stern, I met him when I was quite young, and he was incredibly nice to me, and very enthusiastic. At that point, I was so far away from thinking about music in career terms, as that had nothing to do with my relationship to music at that point. I was very flattered that he liked my playing, and that was basically all I thought about it. And then three months later, I had management, and I said, “How did this happen?” In a sense, I would wish everyone that kind of beginning to a career, rather than coming to a point when you have to think about how am I going to make a living and how is this going to happen. Instead, you’re gifted your first break. All of a sudden I had management and I hadn’t lifted a finger. I realize now I was so lucky. Oh, and by the way, management is not in any respect a guarantee of a career. But that set the ball rolling in a way that meant something that I never had to do. I can’t tell you how much that pleases me.

You escaped all that stress and strain.

Yes, all that stress and strain focused in the wrong direction. I don’t mind living the stress of performing. That seems very worthwhile. But the stress of going into a situation in front of a panel who is going to decide how you measured up is something that I can’t think has in any way much to do with music.

Would you ever judge a competition yourself, or have you?

I haven’t. I think I would be reluctant to do it. I know myself. I would get too nervous for all the performers and that I’d be a physical wreck. On top of that, there is something about the whole set of circumstances that would probably trouble me too much. I should never say never. When I think of all of the ways that one could potentially help young musicians, that is not the one that comes to mind, or that I’d want to be involved with.

You worked closely with Mitsuko Uchida during a European tour in the fall of 2004, after you were the recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2003. Is that her trust, or is she head of the trust?

No, she’s not the head. She is one of an executive committee of four. But the trust was begun10 very much because of her initiative. She’s good friends with the Buitonis who, I think, single-handedly fund the trust. They are a wonderful Italian couple who run a concert series in Perugia, among other activities. Legend has it that Mitsuko was speaking with Ilaria, telling her that when performing artists are young and just starting out, it’s very difficult for them because they worry a lot about money and about what they’re going to do next year. Security is very far away. To which Ilaria said, “I have money. I should do something.” This tells you a lot about what kind of people they are. They are incredibly generous and open.

Are they a middle-aged couple, or older?

Franco Buitoni is probably close to 70 and Ilaria Borletti is considerably younger. It’s not Mitsuko’s trust. She is the only one of the four who is a musician. In terms of musical values, it very much bears her stamp. It was her sense that there needed to be more advocacy for young musicians that the trust started. It has all of her fingerprints on it, in the absolute best sense.

How are you chosen?

People are asked to nominate young musicians, and when you’re nominated you’re approached and you’re asked to put together a tape and a letter saying what the trust could do for you. Which is very smart. The trust doesn’t give a cash prize. They ask you what you would do with the money, which is so smart.

In your case, what did you say?

I did a number of different things. First of all, I commissioned Lewis Spratlan’s Wonderer,11 which is something I probably would not have done at that point if I had had to pay for it. So this was wonderful. Since I was at the very beginning of my European career, the trust ended up paying a lot of travel expenses. I was at a point where I couldn’t say I wouldn’t do a concert just because it meant going over for just that one performance. So very often the trust would end up paying for me for four days, or whatever, across the Atlantic, which is something I try not to do anymore. It paid quite a lot of publicity expenses, which were very high at that point, and still are. Oh, yes, the biggest expense. I had always loved Curtis, but at the same time I felt sorry that I had never had an academic education. So the trust paid for me to take some classes at Columbia.

What did you study?

Over three semesters, I did a modern British literature class. I took a sociology class, and a political science course. I wish I were still doing it. But I ran into some time problems. There were always problems, but now it seems they are insurmountable. But I’m so happy I did it. And again, it is probably something I would have said to myself, “Yes, I’d love to, but it’s so much money.” I think the trust is such a wonderful organization. One of the trust’s first winners was the Jerusalem Quartet. When they were asked what would you do with the money, they said, “We’ve been playing together full-time basically since we were children (they began when they were 13 or 14) and because playing has kept us so busy we’re afraid we haven’t widened our musical spheres. We want the trust to pay for us to take a sabbatical away from each other so that we can go do other things.” Which I think was incredibly rewarding for them. They refreshed and went and did other things. One person studied, because he had stopped when he was too young, and another played chamber music festivals with other musicians. That’s the kind of organization the trust is. They work with you to see how they can help.

Would that we could find such people more often!

I don’t think that generosity and wealth necessarily go together. This was just the perfect situation where things came together. Someone like Mitsuko, who identified the problem and someone who had the means to do something about it. You never know where it might pop up. There are a few people. Not many of them. I’ve been very lucky to have gotten awards. I’ve received a Gilmore and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, which are both wonderful, but I think that there is something about how the trust works that is so unique.

Richard Goode has also been one of your mentors, and you have a set of recitals coming up soon with him.

We’re playing two concerts in London next May. Four hands, and two pianos.

What music will you be playing?

It’s a wacky program, which I absolutely love. It begins with Schubert’s Lebensstürme in A minor, D. 947, for four hands, which was written during the last year of his life. It’s incredible, and I think not any less extraordinary than his Fantasie. We continue with a special favorite of mine, Schumann’s Six Canonic Études for the Pedal Piano, which Debussy transcribed for two pianos because there are no pedal pianos anymore.12 Then the program continues with Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue, which he himself wrote for four hands. It is not a transcription. That’s the first half! And then we have Stravinsky’s Agon, for which, again, we have his own version for two pianos. It’s not someone else’s transcription.

Did he write that for rehearsal purposes?

I don’t know. Richard has just sent me the score, and I haven’t even looked at it yet. I do see that it involves the castanets. I don’t know what it was prepared for, but it will be very interesting when I look into it. I love the piece. And then we end with Debussy’s En blanc et noir. I love the program. It’s really very interesting. Richard is, in addition to being an impossibly wonderful pianist, one of the most intelligent, inquisitive, and interested people I know. I’m guessing that the rehearsal process is going to be exciting. For me—it seems like the wrong way around perhaps—collaboration is almost the more important part. It’s the mutual exploration.

You have noted elsewhere that if you were not in music you would be doing something language related. Did you study languages?

I have studied languages. I speak French. Badly. And I’m learning German. But it wouldn’t be something in languages. I would be involved in writing somehow. That’s my second passion.

Nonfiction?

Yes, probably. I’m an avid reader of great novels, but I don’t think that I have that kind of imagination. I’m not sure yet because it’s a hypothetical.

I want to go back to your family. Usually interviews start with your family, and I’m always wondering when I’ll read something about your background that doesn’t mention your father’s mother. But I suppose that’s inevitable. And I’m sure you don’t mind!

No, certainly not.

How well did you know your grandmother Raya Garbousova?

On the one hand, very well because I was 16 when she died. She lived a few hours’ drive away from us, so I remember her very well and have affectionate memories of her. She was, in addition to being a great cellist, a very doting grandmother. Grandchildren for her at that point in her life were the most important thing, and she found it very exciting that there was a budding musician in the family. But at the same time, she had carpel tunnel surgery the year I was born. I have no memory of her as a cellist and I don’t think I ever saw her hold the instrument, which is sad. Even though I knew she had been a great cellist and she had had a distinguished past, I think that somehow I wasn’t really aware of the extent of it when I was growing up. I remember that at her memorial service there were some recordings played which I think that my father and my uncle had chosen. I sat up and thought, “She was really unbelievable.” In a sense, now that it is too late, it makes me sad. I really didn’t know her on a musical level.

So you didn’t know her well enough on that level to talk with her about her past?

Well, I think she probably wasn’t that interested in living in the past. And I don’t think I realized that she was such a gold mine. Now, of course, I would be dying to know what it was like to play with Heifetz and Rubinstein and all of those people she played with. Maybe there is a downside to living in the kind of musical household I grew up in. It all seemed very normal to me. Take Isaac Stern, for example. I only seriously met him when I was 16, but he was in the house a couple of times and I didn’t think anything of it. There were so many musicians of that caliber. Basically there was a great lesson, you know. I was very comfortable around those musicians.

Tell me about your mother.

She was born in Romania, but the family moved to Israel when she was two. Her mother is still there and her family. I go back to visit more or less every year.

You’ve played chamber music with your mother, Miriam Fried, from your earliest years. Do you remember your earliest professional performances with her? How old were you and what did you play?

I was 13 when we played the Dvořák Sonatina.

You mentioned playing your first concerto when you were 13. Would that have been under your father’s conducting?

No, it wasn’t. I said that I never entered competitions, and that’s not quite true. I did when I was little. I played with the Bloomington Symphony. It was a civic orchestra that had no connection with the university. I would say that it was a semiprofessional orchestra.

I did wonder how that worked with your father, Paul Biss, being a conductor at the school and how that would work with the son of the orchestra conductor.

That would have been far too embarrassing. I did come back once, and that would have been after I had been away and had a certain reputation that was far removed from being a student. That would have been very bad for my father. When I was 16 I did win the school’s concerto competition, which meant I ended up playing with the orchestra as the winner of the competition, and that was only in my capacity as a student. Even then, I felt a little bit uncomfortable about it. My father was not conducting. If he had been, I wouldn’t have entered. I was always very conscious of the fact that it was a big blessing for me growing up in a household like that and I didn’t want personally to feel that I was taking advantage of it, and I didn’t want anyone else to sense that.

What pianists do you remember hearing play when you were growing up in Bloomington? Surely the university had a good concert series.

Amazingly, not. There is almost no tradition of guest artists in Bloomington. I think it’s because there is such an incredible wealth of musical events at the university that they didn’t need guest artists.

Really? The University of Iowa did when I was there. And I know that the University of Illinois did. Students need a chance to hear great artists who are out in the world playing.

Oh, absolutely. I know that when I went to play at Oberlin they had a series of guest concerts. Of course, there were Menahem Pressler and György Sebok who played from time to time. I don’t remember that a great pianist ever came through Bloomington. Maybe I’m forgetting something. I really doubt it!

I’m sure if they were there, you would have heard them.

Oh, absolutely. I think occasionally we went to Indianapolis to hear the orchestra. And my grandparents lived in Illinois so I also grew up going to the Chicago Symphony concerts.

Who did you hear in Chicago when you were growing up? Who was important for you?

I remember I heard Leon Fleisher in a one-handed recital, and I heard him play the Ravel Left-Hand Concerto. I remember hearing Murray Perahia, and that was a wonderful, memorable concert. I remember hearing András Schiff play a recital in Orchestra Hall. I remember hearing Peter Serkin play. I remember hearing Yefim Bronfman play, and that was actually in Bloomington. He and Stern came and played a recital together, and in fact that was the first time I met Mr. Stern. But that’s the only case I can remember of people of that caliber coming to town. There is a series, but they have maybe one classical concert a year. It’s theater acts and things like that.

What instrument did you play on when you were growing up at home?

I was very lucky. The very first few years there was just an upright in our house, but I think I was about 10 when my parents bought a Steinway Hamburg B, which is actually my piano now. They have since moved to Boston and are living in an apartment, and they decided they didn’t need the piano anymore, especially since my mother has a piano in her studio in the New England Conservatory. So she has access to a piano whenever she wants it. So now, after many years of not having played it, it’s my piano again and I have it here in my apartment in New York.

Are you familiar with the new Italian Fazioli?

I’ve played a couple, which I was not bowled over by, but I will keep trying them.

What about the Australian Stuart instrument?

That I’m not familiar with.

Do you think that you will be a teacher yourself one day?

Oh, yes. I love the very limited amount of teaching that I’ve done. I think it’s an incredible learning experience for the teacher as well. I would just have to have a little more stability in my life for that. With the amount of traveling I’m doing now, it isn’t possible.

You have a lot of time for that yet.

I hope so.

You’ve played at the Risor Chamber Music Festival on the coast of Norway. What are the audiences like there?

The audiences are amazing. I think it has something to do with the fact that Leif Ove Andsnes is the director. He’s widely admired around the world, and especially in Norway. It’s the kind of festival where there are four or five concerts a day and every one of them is completely packed in this smallish church. It’s amazing how many people they fit into that church! It’s a wonderful atmosphere there. Risor is a fishing village which is very, very beautiful. One doesn’t sleep because there are so many concerts and rehearsals, but also because the sun never goes down. I loved being there. It was extremely concentrated, but I enjoyed the work and the performances very much. Everybody who goes there seems to love it. There were a lot of different people there: the press, and people who had organized trips around it. Everybody has a good time. There is a tremendous amount of goodwill in the air at the festival.

Thinking again about particular audiences, do you have any memorable anecdotes about experiences with audiences during a performance?

Yes, I do. There is one that springs to mind, although I’m sure in the next days I’ll think of more of them. I played a chamber music concert which was quite remarkable as there was a problem with the stage lights. They had not functioned during the first piece. So the stage crew found a collection of lamps for us, because it was a really dark room. These lamps were going to give us just enough light to see. But there was a problem with finding a position with the lamps which lit our music but didn’t bring an impossible glare into the audience’s eyes. So I remember there was a lot of back and forth about it, and we ended up in the first half where we were in a position where we couldn’t see. When we walked on stage for the second half for the Brahms Horn Trio, the horn player said he couldn’t see at all. Since I was closest to the light, I was the one who got up to adjust them. And 150 people got up and started screaming at me. It was horrible. The whole audience was screaming that the light was in their eyes. And I don’t remember that we found a particularly good solution. But we were the people in the dark in the end. It was really hard to sit back down and feel motivated to play after that. It was not exactly an easy situation for us either.

Let’s talk about your recording contemporary composers you have played. We’ve mentioned Lewis Spratlan, and you’ve played Leon Kirchner. Do you have any plans to record their music?

Not at the moment. One thing that I’m very happy about is a performance I played—not the world premiere but the American premiere—of the Kirchner piece that was written for me and has now been released on a CD of his music on Albany Records. I’m very happy about this recording. But right now I’m recording with EMI, which is basically a wonderful blessing, but given the state of the classical-music recording industry they do have to be careful about what they record. So I think recording contemporary music is not without its complications. At the same time, I would say that recording is an outgrowth of performance. It’s not the starting point. The important thing is that you play that music. Obviously I’m going to continue to play contemporary music. At some point I’m sure the timing will be right and I’ll chose the pieces which are most important, and find a way to record them.

You will. Eventually. This spring you recorded four Beethoven sonatas and I understand that they are being released in the fall of this year. What do you plan next for EMI?

It’s not 100 percent finalized but it should be a Mozart concerto release. It works really well because if I think about the composers who loom largest in my life I would say Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann. Then they will all be represented in my first three records. So that’s the plan.

And what orchestra?

That’s not 100 percent firm yet.

You’re playing three Mozart concertos13 next Sunday in Chicago with James Conlon and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I caught you today as you are getting those back into your mind.

Yes. I’ve never played three concertos in one day.

It seems to be becoming something of the norm now, you know. Pierre-Laurent Aimard played three concertos in St. Paul with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in early June. Not three Mozart concertos, but he did start out with an early Mozart C major concerto.

Number eight.

Yes, exactly. He conducted it from the keyboard. Then he played the Ligeti concerto, which, of course, is in his blood. After intermission he played the Ravel G Major, which I’m sure he’s played at least a dozen times.

He did not conduct that from the keyboard, did he?

No, he did not conduct the Ligeti and he did not conduct the Ravel.

That would be a little much, I would think!

Douglas Boyd, the Scottish conductor, did the honors. Wonderful programming and very exciting.

You can see so many sides to his personality that way. My God.

I want to change the subject here drastically, and return to thinking about Schumann again, as he is central to your musical passions, especially his Kreisleriana and the Fantasie. Which recordings of his major works did you listen to when you were younger?

With those pieces, Cortot was certainly someone I listened to as I was growing up. I loved those recordings. There is a recording of Murray Perahia which is, I think, the first Davidsbündlertänze I ever heard. That is wonderful. For Schumann’s concerto I remember the recording that Dinu Lipatti made. That’s probably the one that I loved the most. Recently I’ve listened to Schnabel, who is someone you wouldn’t readily associate with that piece, but it’s magnificent. It’s a live performance with the New York Philharmonic. Those were some of the firsts. Cortot certainly in all of the big solo pieces.

Do you play Chopin at all?

Oh, absolutely. I’ve played a lot of him. It’s just a coincidence that I haven’t for the last couple of years, but I will certainly come back to him. I adore Chopin, and he was one of my first musical loves and remains so.

Do you compose at all?

I don’t. It would be wonderful to compose, but it’s something that I don’t have any particular ability for. The extent of my composing is that when I play Mozart concertos I write the cadenzas when I need to. It’s an incredibly useful exercise.

How about the ones you are playing next week?

Actually, no. K. 456 and K. 459 have cadenzas. The one exception is the D Minor, K. 466, for which Beethoven wrote a long cadenza for this rondo. For this movement I wrote my own because I find that even as great as Beethoven’s cadenza is, it is slightly inappropriate. It’s very long and doesn’t fit the piece. This may be impertinent for me to say, but I don’t like it. Beethoven’s first movement cadenza for the D Minor is already not especially idiomatic. It really sounds more like Beethoven than Mozart, but it is so compelling and so wonderful and quite in keeping with the spirit of the piece I couldn’t not play it. On the other hand, the cadenza that Beethoven wrote for the last movement is wonderful as a piece of music, but not appropriate there if you look at the kind of cadenzas that Mozart wrote for his own rondos. But then I ended up writing something that is about 45 seconds. So in this concert there will be very little by me.

What do you do to keep yourself energized for the job of playing?

It’s difficult. I try to do some physical exercise every day. When I can possibly find the time, I go running every day. For me it provides incredible energy. I am very careful about what I eat and when I eat. But still, I’ve just had my annual month off and I’m in much better shape. It’s very, very difficult to maintain when you’re traveling, but you do the best you can just thinking about what your body needs to feel that you’re in charge of it and trying to do as much of that as possible.

Do you have any preconcert rituals?

I try whenever I can to take a nap in the afternoon and to have some quiet time. It’s not always possible. As for eating, I just try to regulate how many hours before the concert I eat. Trying to find the balance between eating enough so that I’m not hungry, and yet not eating too much and feeling full. I don’t have any rituals.

And you’re able to handle nerves fairly well?

Yes. It’s a natural part of performing. If I’m not nervous on stage, I would think the concert doesn’t mean enough to me. But it’s not something I feel uneasy about.

I want to thank you so much for sharing your time. You have shared your thoughts that others will hopefully be interested in hearing.

I hope so.

Select Discography

Franz Schubert. Piano Sonata in C Major, D. 840, Reliquie; Sonata in A Major, D. 959. György Kurtág. “Birthday elegy for Judit—for the second finger of her left hand” (from Játékok); Spoken Introduction; “Hommage à Schubert” (from Játékok). Recorded live at Wigmore Hall. 2009.

W. A. Mozart. Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467; Piano Concerto in E-flat Major, K. 482. Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Recorded in concert. EMI Classics 50999 2 17270 23. 2008.

Ludwig van Beethoven. Sonatas: # 8 in C Minor, op. 13, Pathétique; # 15 in D Major, op. 28, Pastoral; # 27 in E Minor, op. 90; # 30 in E Major, op. 109. EMI Classics 0946 3 944 22 25. 2007.

Leon Kirchner. Works for Solo Piano. Piano Sonata # 1 (1948), Leon Fleisher; Interlude I (1989), Peter Serkin; Five Pieces for Piano (1987), Max Levinson; Interlude II (2002), Jonathan Biss; The Forbidden (2006), Joel Fan; Sonata # 2 (2002), Jeremy Denk. Albany, Troy 906. 2007.

Robert Schumann. Fantasie in C Major, op. 17; Kreisleriana, op. 16; Arabeske in C Major, op. 18. EMI Classics 0946 3 65391 2. 2007.

Ludwig van Beethoven. Fantasy in G Minor, op. 77; Robert Schumann. Davidsbündlertänze, op. 6; Beethoven. Piano Sonata in F Minor, op. 57, Appassionata. EMI Debut Series 5 85894 2. 2004.

Notes

1 . See Introduction for details about Leon Fleisher.

2. Kirchner (b. 1919); Spratlan (b. 1940); Takemitsu (1930–1996); Rhim (b. 1952); Corigliano (b. 1938); Danielpour (b. 1956); Ludwig (b. 1974).

3. Anthony Tommasini, “Pianist at Last Has Carnegie Hall to Himself,” The New York Times, 23 Jan. 2011.

4. Daniel Biss took math degrees at Harvard and MIT, later joining the math faculty at the University of Chicago. He gave up his teaching post, and now represents Chicago’s northern suburbs in the Illinois House of Representatives as a Democrat.

5. Andrew Mays won the Cliburn Foundation’s fifth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in Fort Worth, Texas, in June 2007. As an ophthalmologist he serves as residency program director for the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and is on the staff at the VA Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama.

6. Karen Taylor is director of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music Piano Academy and the Young Pianists Program.

7. Evelyne Brancart is chair of the Department of Piano at Indiana University. Following her earliest studies at the Brussels Conservatory, she studied with Leon Fleisher.

8. Jeremy Eichler, “Young Pianist at the Ready to Believe in His Success,” The New York Times, 8 Mar. 2005.

9. Benjamin Hochman (b. 1980 in Jerusalem) studied with Richard Goode at Mannes and Claude Frank at Curtis. Biss and Hochman played a program of music for four hands, two pianos in November of 2006 at the 92nd St. Y in New York City.

10. The Borletti-Buitoni Trust was established in 2002 and is based in London.

11. Spratlan wrote Wonderer in 2005 for Biss who premiered it in Portland, Maine, in February of 2006.

12. Biss played the Schumann with Hochman in November of 2006 at the 92nd St. Y in New York City.

13. Mozart’s B-flat Major, K. 456; F Major, K. 459; and D Minor, K. 466; at the Ravinia Pavilion, 8 July 2007.