Andreas Haefliger

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Hm. But looking for sounds was something that, when I was growing up, was one of the one of the few advices that I actually got from my father. Uh who said, "Look for as many sounds as you can." And I did, and it it did pay off. So, that's something that's been with me for for a very, very long time. And um I think then really the uh the biggest discovery was that, with um at a certain point, I realized that I wanted to move very much from the center with the piano. So that I I tried to have as little as few blocks in between what I think and what comes out of the piano as possible. So that the muscles contract as little as possible and do motions that are fluid. And that helps that actually helps the sound quite a bit because, as the second you you tighten up somewhere in the body, the sound gets tighter as well.

Um for me, the the stillness at the piano um is something that's just quite natural. I I move when I have to. Um and I don't move for show, because it's it it doesn't seem to be something that that does a whole lot for the music. And um I find that uh the audience doesn't need it, but there are some people who move naturally a lot, and then I don't mind at all. I just think it's it's become an issue where uh maybe uh maybe a certain generation is pushing each other forward with with something that they deem to be successful. And then that could change, actually, the the art form.

If it's an affectation, then then I find it's distracting. And um but I I wouldn't want to throw knives, you know, because I think the art form also can change. It um if that's what that generation needs, then that's what it is. You know, cinema has changed so much over the last, let's say, six decades, you know? And the in the number of shots. I remember uh suddenly, about 10 years ago, watching some movies and I could hardly follow because they were so fast. The cuts were so fast. And, of course, the stillness of the old cinema is something we cherish, but that also belongs in that time.

I think about it quite a lot, because um one wants to find the most economized and um it well, easy way of playing, in a way. And um the the differences that you've mentioned are maybe some that um stem from the from the kind of hand it is. Uh you know, Horowitz's hands were quite, quite different from Rubinstein's. And but Rubinstein played with very relaxed, um not bent, but not straight fingers either. And um I find that that is probably the the smartest thing to do, because as the as the muscles move in in opposites, if you bend your fingers, you automatically challenge these muscles here. They have to work to bend the fingers. That's their that's their job. And so to lift the fingers again then, means that these muscles here, who lift, have to work harder because these ones are already engaged. Yeah, so the less you, the less you, the less you are in the way of yourself, the better it is, really. But the hands can also differ.

Well, I um I would say that that now is a moment in my life where I practice more than I ever have. Um probably with the exception of of just around, between 15 and 20 when I when I wanted to start achieving things. But now is a is a moment where I have a lot of time because of of the way my life is situated right now. There are no demands from my from my daughter, there are no demands from my parents at this point. And um so I have a lot of time. And I use that to practice, simply because I enjoy it and I like discovering things. What I do make sure is when I'm in in a situation where I have to practice under pressure, so I have to learn something new in a timeframe, or um or I, uh you know, something is coming up that is that is going to be a big challenge. Um then I work with a practice book. And I work in five-minute increments. And after 15 minutes, I I get up for five minutes. And that works really well because, at the end of the day, I I know exactly how much time I've actually practiced, rather than um rather than spend time in the practice room. So, uh these books are really helpful, I find, um and it's also great to look back at it, um maybe before a performance. You know, when you have your premiere and you say, "Woah, did I practice enough?" And you can look at look at it and you see, you know, that you've practiced 85 hours, and then that should do it, um and I think these things like that can be super helpful, actually, to know about.

I just have a little uh book where I make um I make a line for every five minutes.

No, I make I make my own. I have it either as a as a notebook on the iPad, or I have an actual book with me that um and it's nice to go back and see. Uh for the Ammann Concerto, for example, I had um I had logged hundreds of hours in in a four-week um timeframe, but I could only do it because I would always get up in between.

He is, yes. Um he he's a spectacular composer who uh composes very meticulously and very slowly. So, um that's maybe why his output is not as big as some others, um but he's worth a listen. And um I got this piece five weeks before the Proms premiere. So, that was that was quite that was quite a challenge to to get it ready and to learn a 35-minute uh fiendishly difficult contemporary piece. And um that, I think, was really there the practice books, for example, helped a lot. Cuz if you, you know, if you go to the point where you practice so much that you're hurting, um then you're, in a way, you probably have a wish to be hurt. You you need to find ways not to hurt yourself, so that you can enjoy making music.

Yeah.

Well, vocal aspect is is certainly, I mean, that's just my heritage. So, I I would say I often compare it to to being the son of a shoemaker, you know? Where you'd know it's it's just you've smelled it so much that you know when the leather is ready to make the shoe. You don't have to think about it. And that was really, in a way, my upbringing was that uh I heard the lessons constantly, obviously, going on. I heard my father practice. And then, at a certain time, a certain point, quite early on, um when I was eight or nine, I started accompanying also the students. So, I was cheap labor, so to speak. And um that is a that is a wonderful education to get, and I'm tremendously thankful for it, uh because it was just you're always surrounded with with that repertoire. And then it became natural that I would try to imitate the voice on the piano. And the piano is one of the instruments where you can really um you can create all the sounds there are in the orchestra and in the human voice. Uh you just have to know how. You have to know how to make a note grow. And it's possible. It's it's it seems physically impossible, but it's possible to do. And um I was uh, you know, just very, very lucky to grow up with that, I think.

Oh.

Yeah. Wonderful.

Well, I think that um uh that for me music is music. So, I don't make a difference between between the the different genres. Um the reaction is interesting in chamber music, and it's also very interesting with singers. With singers, you have to uh know, as as you're well aware, um as they're breathing, when the note will probably come, and then you have to wait a little bit longer um for the consonant to sound, and and you have to find just the right moment to play, and all this in sometimes very, very difficult repertoire. So, it's really interesting um to work together in that way. And then, when you're uh playing chamber music with a larger group, you have this, maybe in a quintet with four other people, who are all reacting off you and you are reacting to them. Again, in a very different way. Very different to play a quintet with a with a formed quartet or with uh four other individual players. And uh in in concerto, you have to be well aware that there is a boss on stage, too. And um you have to find the way to create the music that you want to create and be diplomatic about it, and um not force yourself upon them. That, I think, is is extremely important because they have a job of keeping uh a hundred people together, you know, which which is completely inconceivable to me. So, I think I think that um each situation calls for like a different uh side of myself, but in the end, it's all music. And from chamber music, you learn so much for the solo playing because you see a Beethoven sonata, for example, then as a quartet. Um and you you learn to listen for the viola voice, or you learn to see the voices move very very similarly. And um so you can make, if you've had the luck, like me, to play with some extraordinary violists, um you start imitating that sound. Um and and also understand how that line can jump out and become like a three-dimensional line in the middle of everything.

Well, I think for uh it's a it's a tremendous legacy, and for any musician—um and maybe especially pianists with the sonatas, who knows—um I think to spend a lifetime involving yourself in these pieces and taking them up again and again and again and again, finding new things in in them, is just a tremendously rewarding journey. Um so, I would do it also if I didn't record or didn't play them publicly, because I find it's just a great way to spend your day. But um I have, by the way, done them in the in the States as well. Um I just dedicated a lot of time in the past, I would say 10 years, also to my family, and as I say now that I have uh a a larger time window open again, I will come much more to the United States.

Well, yes, it's it's a great thing, you know? And wh- when you have a child, as you know, um it's painful to be away, and um I I did, quite consciously, set the family life on an even importance level, if not more, as the career. And I think that I veered very well with that, so this is is a lot of fun. I feel good, I'm in good shape to play, and um uh it's a great time now to start doing much, much more again.

First of all, thank you for that, that's that's a really nice observation and, obviously, um something that I'm really happy about. Um I I just spend time. And um I think uh I think it was Edwin Fischer who said, "Learning a piece is like walking through a forest day after day after day." And um every day you recognize one more detail, maybe the bird who's always singing at that spot, or the the bush that looks like that, or um the stones that always lie exactly in that formation on the ground. And I try to walk through the piece like that, I don't do anything consciously at first. And with time, you you understand certain things. So, for me, the the third is tremendously important in in Opus 106. And I notice things like in the development in the in the third movement is just a a collection of falling thirds, and it goes on and on and on and on and on. And the third is right in the beginning of the of the piece, um stated so strongly. And then you understand the the little um the importance of moving up the half-step from the B-flat to the B, obviously, a very Beethovenian uh gesture as well. And then you start to understand and listen for these kind of developments. And uh you are right, the in the fugue it can become borderline incomprehensible, but I think if you take um what he was what he was maybe trying to do is write in a formal way, something that he learned very strongly when he came to Vienna. He studied with Albrechtsberger, who was the um the musician at the at the Stephansdom, I don't know what that position is called. And and um he learned to write um polyphonic music extremely well and extremely carefully.

Oh, that's fantastic, yeah. And Albrechtsberger was actually famous for taking a lot of license with fugal writing. So, things that um um octaves, for example, or things that um for us in in counterpoint, we would be chided for, were quite acceptable to him. So, then you take a a theme like the like Opus 106 has, where, you know, if you were to give this to a church musician, ask him to improvise on it, um he would say, "You're crazy. It's not possible." And um you take a theme that is that long, and you build out of out of little elements of it, an entire movement like that. And I find that fascinating.

Well, it's it's um yeah, there's no method uh to the madness. It's just um um I I wait for good programs to come into my head, and that's why sometimes there's a big gap between the Perspective series. I'll do other recordings in between, but that series is very dear to me. It is it's basically explainable as saying, "I want to build an excellent program around Beethoven sonatas." I don't want to play an all-Beethoven um CD, but if that's if it's necessary to do that, I will also do that. It's not, there's not, um as I said, there's no method. I just find it more enlightening to hear programs, sometimes they're intellectually based, uh where you're going after a certain idea, or sometimes they're just, I think, sounds that I would like to hear follow each other. Sometimes I I'm thinking extremely in the harmonies and uh build a build a program around the tritone, or it's just there are things that work for me, and actually, in the end, they end up um coming together so that you can listen to this whole CD and feel like you're walking through a well-curated room of paintings.

Années de pèlerinage, yeah. Um well, Liszt had the had the Opus 106 in his fingers since he was 11. And um but it hadn't been played publicly, and when he was about 24, 25, um he was living with Marie d'Agoult, I guess, in in Geneva, and um was composing the Années de pèlerinage: Suisse at that time. And situation was, I think, tricky for him because Thalberg was having tremendous successes in Paris and news would reach Switzerland of this virtuoso who's who's um, you know, playing these opera paraphrases and could just play anything. And um Liszt's answer to this was that he went to Paris and he gave the premiere of Opus 106. Um Berlioz was the critic for it, and um it must have been a tremendous um occasion, because people had studied the music, but nobody had really thought of it as playable. And um so, that's why why these pieces go on the Perspective disc together, for me, because Liszt had the Hammerklavier in his in his head, in his mind, um at the time of composing these other pieces.

Uh I think, you know, that when the virus first hit and things started shutting down, I said to my wife, "You know, it's fantastic because we're up here in the mountains." We were in in Switzerland at the time, and I only had a digital piano, and we couldn't actually go down, we had to stay up in at 1,700 meters and spend three months there. And I said to her, "Look, it's it's fantastic because if we can't play concerts, we can still practice. And even on the digital, if I can't practice, I can still do music in my head." And um it's just satisfying, you know? To to be involved with music is tremendously satisfying, and it's a gift. I say that to your young student, maybe, whose whose hands are hurting, that um it's the most one of the most divine ways to spend your life, I think. And um so, hopes or fears, I think we all need to to see that actually just playing music or or being interested in music is already a super satisfying um way of spending your time. If you can put it out, and you know, you can make a CD, or if you can go and travel again and play in in concerts, that is, of course, tremendous. And I've played two small concerts now here um for, you know, a hundred people or 200 people, and it's tremendous to feel the adrenaline again, of course. But I think it's also um an occasion to look for new mediums, um maybe why I why I created the movie of 106, um and uh I I think just let your imagination roam and and nothing can stop music.

Thank you.