“In Mozart, it is very difficult to feel the exact time” – Kommersant

The world-famous pianist Elizaveta Leonskaya performed at the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society with the Ninth Concerto (“Jeunehomme”) for piano and orchestra by Mozart. On April 28, she will perform it in the Moscow Tchaikovsky Hall. The 77-year-old student of Yakov Milshtein, who lives in Vienna, continues to lead an intense concert life. About her ups and downs Elizabeth of Leon told Vladimir Dudin.

– Today you are one of the few, if not the only pianist who continues to come from Europe to Russia with concerts. How do you find strength in yourself?

Why find them? They just are, and this is not a moment of doubt and reflection, it is so, and that’s it. I am always very happy to come here. This is such a given. If you do not take as a starting point what is negative or, as they like to say today, toxic, fraught and unpleasant, then everything will fall into place. This should be only the good will of the people and nothing else. So that everyone wants it to be good according to the voice of conscience. I think it’s just the social weather that everyone wants to be in relationships with others. When there is no respect for others, then nothing will happen. Respect not only to the composer, or the writer, or to someone who is good there, but to everything and everyone. Then there will be balance.

– This time you are not coming with a solo program, but only with the Ninth Concerto of Mozart’s “Jeunehomme”.

– It was the order of the Philharmonic, her desire. The orchestra members said that they had not played this composition for a long time, which surprised me very much, because everywhere in the world this is one of the most popular concertos, along with D minor, A major, C minor. But the Ninth Concerto is very rich and unusual. In the middle of the finale, a minuet sounds there, creating a special atmosphere, and the Andantino of the second movement is also distinguished by the “non-general expression” of this concerto with its tragic C minor. This concert is dear to me with every note that I have to fight for.

Does it get harder with time?

– I can tell you one episode from the second half of the 1960s, which I witnessed. The conductor Kurt Mazur, Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau were in Leningrad, with whom they performed, perhaps, Brahms’s “Beautiful Magelona”. We were sitting in a room at the Europa Hotel, I don’t remember which one, perhaps at Svyatoslav Teofilovich’s. Fischer-Dieskau turns to Mazur and says: “Mazur, I congratulate you, you just celebrated your 50th birthday.” Then they seemed to me deep old men. To this, Mazur replied that, they say, “and you, too, recently celebrated.” The reaction was the following: “Yes, two years ago, but life has not become easier.” And this was said by the great Fischer-Dieskau, who was then on Olympus, overlaid with all wreaths, flowers, anything, sitting on all thrones. This is my answer – or, to put it in proverbs, “further into the forest – more firewood.” A single note does not exist on its own, and besides, we are connected with acoustics. As soon as you get to another hall, like the Great Hall of the Philharmonic, for example, I feel the need to review the text again, because here you need to build a phrase a little differently due to how the sound develops, and especially in Mozart it is always a great difficulty. And we have to work on this all the time, adjust, think, check, this is a constant process.

Do you know how the ideal Mozart should sound today?

I can also answer this with a quote. Mravinsky said in an interview: “I can only convince the listener with my performance.” There is no one point called Mozart, it is something else, much wider. The audience is 90% just people who come to listen to music that either touches them or is wasted. Mozart is not in the way students or some musicians are now indulging in inventing new ornaments for long notes. This can also be done, but this is not the spirit of Mozart. This is the spirit of the times. So what? You made some decorations. There is something else – what is behind the notes.

– And when can a musician be sure that he has finally connected with this “spirit”?

— You know, Mozart has it the hardest. During work, it suddenly begins to seem that just about, when suddenly it disappears somewhere. In Mozart it is very difficult to feel the exact time or, in modern terms, “timing” with all the intensity. In Mozart, it is almost impossible to take time. These difficulties are not present in either Beethoven or Schubert.

– Maybe you could compare with Bach?

– Bach has a different text, it does not appear there. I can give you another wonderful quote. Once in a house I ran into Yehudi Menuhin and began to complain about how tight it was with Mozart. And he was always a very communicative person and very clear, very involved in any situation. He said: “Bach is a spiritual composer, so we know which way to think and feel, and Mozart is worldly, but he had the sky in his pocket.” Mozart is difficult, but you can try to get closer to him, find a way.

– You continue to record – during the pandemic, you recorded an album of all Mozart’s sonatas. Are you interested in the recording process?

— When you get used to it and microphones cease to seem like enemies, then the process is very interesting. Like in the dressing room, maybe when the actor looks at himself, enters the character and checks what is on his face – this or not. The sound engineer is also very important. Now I am very happy, because I am working with a great professional, musician, cellist, an ideally educated person, strict but kind to musicians, he has good energy. After all, recording is always a tedious process, requiring many hours with compressed time. This is not something that came, played and said “enough for today.” Then proofreading begins, something has to be changed, and everything starts to shift. In a word, process. My attitude to this has become a habit, I already know what awaits me.

Is your concert schedule still busy?

Yes, I play a lot. But I call my schedule “arrhythmia”, because concerts are planned at different times in different cities, so I often have to rush about with my tongue hanging out. Saying “no” is the easiest thing to do. But everything is interesting to me, especially since it suits me. I’m going to Bremen to record on Warner a record of the Second Viennese School – Schoenberg and others. Then in Vienna there was an unexpected concert, but I agreed, because there is a work by Gershkovich, who lived in Moscow, studied in the 1930s with Webern and Berg, who knew Schoenberg – we took private lessons from him in harmony and analysis of form, he had important works on form with Mozart and Beethoven. Now a book by Alexei Lyubimov is being published about him, translated into German. In the same concert there will be Firsova’s Flute Trio and the charming composition “Sphere” by her husband Smirnov (who died in the first wave of covid), the last student of Gershkovich, so this is my internal duty. In May there will be a solo concert in Bucharest with three Brahms sonatas, in Bonn with a program of Mozart and Brahms, then a solo concert in Berlin in the Boulez Hall with music by Brahms, Schoenberg, Webern, and the next day in Vienna I play Mozart and Brahms. In June there will be chamber music – the Shostakovich and Dvorak quintets and the Brahms quartet and quintet in C minor. Pianist Julius Drake invited me to play Schubert four hands with him at his festival and later at Wigmore Hall in London, where Steinway is celebrating an anniversary. A lot of everything.