Simone Dinnerstein

Hi Michael.

Uh, it was, um, it's hard to describe it very quickly actually, but basically, I um, I had uh, been working on um, I had been working as a freelance pianist in New York since I graduated Juilliard in, in I guess '96. And uh, had really, you know, I had a very typical life teaching children, neighborhood teaching, doing some collaborative playing. Um, I was trying for competitions, but I wasn't really cut out for competitions and uh, and then um, in uh, 2001, I guess, I um, had two exciting things happen. First of all, I won my first competition, it was also my last competition, um, the Astral, Astral Auditions, which was—is in Philadelphia. And that gave me a debut recital. And so I was very excited about that. And then shortly after that, my husband and I found out that we were expecting um, our son. And uh, everything was kind of happening all at once. And so uh, for mysterious reasons, I guess I felt that I was now ready to play my favorite piece of music, which was the Goldberg Variations. And I decided to learn them while I was pregnant and to play them for my debut recital for Astral. And I wound up doing that and it, and then I performed them for several years in, in lots of different like local, um, like community centers. I traveled a lot for the Piatigorsky Foundation around the country and played them there. And then I decided to uh, record them, because I wanted to document where they were at that point. And um, I raised the money to record them from three people who had been very supportive of me over the years. And found an amazing producer, Adam Abeshouse, who's been my record producer ever since then.

Yes. (Laughs) And um, so I recorded them and and then the ball just got rolling and I recorded them in 2005 and in 2007 Telarc commercially released that recording and it, it did extremely well and my life changed.

Yeah.

Absolutely. I mean Gould was my idol and actually for I I discovered the Goldberg Variations through his recording. Uh, actually it was the '81 recording that I remember hearing first um, when I was about 13 and I just completely, it was, it was really a a moment of epiphany. I mean it was just, I just remember even where I was and the light in the room, (laughs) um, and uh, I went out and bought the, the music as soon as I heard it, which I knew I wasn't ready to play. I, I was, it, it was too hard for me to, to, to learn it at that point, but I just wanted to own the music, which I, is something I never really did with any music. Um, and for many, many years, I think I, I didn't even consider playing the piece because of Gould, because I just loved his recording so much. Um, and then I also was really um, excited by one of Rosalyn Tureck's recordings, too, which was,

that he, that she made in um, uh, she made that recording in the home of um, uh, Will—uh, of William Buckley.

So that was um, that's an interesting recording. But the, the recording that kind of let me realize that, in fact, there were so many different directions that this piece could take was the recording of Jacques Loussier that he did with his jazz trio. And when I heard that recording, it was so different than any other recording I'd ever heard. I mean I've heard it performed live, I'd, I'd gone to see, I studied with Peter Serkin and I've, I'd heard him perform it, and I've heard Barenboim perform it, and I've heard wonderful performances of it. But when I heard Loussier, it was so radically different than anything I'd heard before, and it made me realize that actually I should, I should look at the music myself, and um, see what was there that, that spoke to me.

I think that, um, you see, I think that it's absolutely impossible to emulate Gould. You know, I think that he is a horse of a different color. And, um, and the passion that, that Gould fans feel for him has to do with precisely that, that it's, it's just from a different planet. Um, and his sense of rhythm, I often think is very misunderstood, because people think that his playing is kind of mechanical or, or rigid. There's absolutely nothing rigid about it. It's, you can't put a metronome to it. I mean it's, it's all over the,

you know. Um, but he had a very particular type of drive to the way that he thought about phrasing and, and, and, and counterpoint. And, um, I didn't feel it that way, but I didn't recognize that maybe that was okay. Like I felt like it wasn't all right for me to feel something differently while being an adoring fan of Gould. Um, and so when I heard Loussier, and I realized that articulation and freedom could go in a different direction, then I thought, "Well, I should, I should try that." And so it's really about breathing for me in a very different kind of a way, and and I've really developed um, a sort of range of, of articulations that felt more like singing to me. Um,

Yes, well, uh, one of my really important teachers was Maria Curcio and she, she she had been a pupil of Schnabel. And she had me when I was studying Bach with her, she would have me play, say play two lines and sing the third, you know if it was a three-voice uh, fugue or something like that.

And um, after studying with her, I started to really try singing a lot of things. I mean, in general, I, I tend to think about singing anything I'm playing. And um, I try, I actually do sing. I have a terrible voice, but I just sing it and and that shows me where to breathe, and it shows me um, what feels natural. Because playing the piano, the piano is an instrument that requires absolutely no breathing. And um, it's, it's a machine, you know, and so,

(Laughs) Right? Exactly, yeah. Um, but you have to kind of, you have to get away from the fact that it's hammers hitting strings, and think about all of the other things that it could sound like, um, yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah. Well, uh, I think that um, when, when I'm practicing, a lot of, a lot of work is being done, so there's very little playing. It's more about um, trying to understand what's in, in the score. And, uh, I do a lot of separate voice practicing because every voice has a different direction or a different character, and I process things pretty slowly. So it takes me a while to be able to know what each voice is doing, and then when I really know that, then I can start putting them together, and to maintain their integrity while I put them together. So all of that kind of very critical work happens in my room when I'm practicing, and then, but my feeling about a performance is that it's, um, ephemeral, and that it's, it's about um, you've already done the work, and ideally you should let go of your critical ear, and um, just be playing. Now, I don't like getting lost in the music because I don't, I don't think that that's good either. Sometimes that can be almost a little bit sort of like navel-gazing. So, I think that it's, what I, my favorite performances are when I have this feeling like I'm some kind of eagle in the sky looking down and seeing the layout of the land. The, the piece of music is like a map that I'm looking at, and uh, a road, and and I'm traveling in the road, but I'm also looking at it from above the road, and uh, and that to me is a perfect kind of balance.

Yes, that was my first instrument. Um, uh, it was because uh, um, we were living in Rome, in Italy, because my dad is a, is an artist, painter.

Yes, this, this is a stolen painting here. (Laughs) Um, and uh, um, we were, he was at the American Academy in Rome, and so we were living in Rome. And uh, I was taking ballet classes, and there was a pianist who played during class, and she played Chopin, and I was about five, and I just fell in love with the music. I mean I loved dancing, but I loved the music. And I really wanted to take piano lessons, and

(Laughs) Thanks. And my, my parents were like, they didn't, they didn't know a lot about music, classical music, and they didn't know that kids actually started that young, and also we didn't have a piano. So, um, my dad asked one of the composers that was at the Academy what should he do. And, and the composer said, "She should start with the recorder." And so, my father found a professional recorder player, she was, uh, a Renaissance music specialist, she played all the wind instruments, and um, and so I started taking recorder lessons with her and so, my training started with Renaissance music. Um, which was just great, and it just so happened also that the two people that my parents were friends with who, who are musicians, um, at that time that, they've been, I'm not wording this correctly, they met them before I was born, and they still are musicians, but um, Ben Harms and Lucie Bardo, who are both, uh, founding members of Calliope, which is just amazing, amazing.

Um, so I grew up going to their concerts with my parents and knowing them, and uh, so Renaissance music was very important from, from a young age.

Uh-huh, yeah.

Oh, you heard me play Couperin.

Yes, uh-huh.

Yes.

(Laughs) Um, I, I first heard this connection when I was listening in the car, a few years ago, to some music, and I, I was listening to, um, Glass's Metamorphosis for piano, I think it was the Metamorphosis Two. And, uh, and suddenly I thought, "Oh, this sounds so much like Schubert. That's so interesting." Um, and I, I wondered how much of his music sounds like Schubert. So I set out to listen to all of his piano music. And sure enough, quite a lot of it does sound like Schubert. Um, I think what, what draws me, what, what, what I hear, in terms of the connection, has to do on, with several elements. Uh, one is that Schubert, his writing is, is so subtle, and, um, and oftentimes, he'll just stay in a harmony for a very long time.

But he'll just change something about the voicing of it, which transforms everything. Like either the voicing or the articulation, but the harmony remains constant. And then when he does change harmony, he tends to do it through these very subtle shifts where one note in a chord will change, or there's an enharmonic shift,

and um, all of these things are techniques that Glass uses as well, in his writing.

Um, and then also the sense of, of something repeating. I mean, Schubert's writing is full of repetition. Um, and there, there're these huge structures that he's not afraid to repeat like, you know, like think of the Trout Quintet, there's just like epic repeat that nobody really usually takes because it's so long,

(Laughs) Um, but, but there's, there's a reason for those repeats, like he, he wanted it structurally. And, uh, and Glass, the same thing, the repeats are like a part of a, of a, of an architecture. And what happens in the repeat is very interesting, because things change, you know, they're always changing. Uh, so it's, it's music that on the one hand is about repetition, but, but actually is about change. Everything is about change.

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Uh, well, I mean, I, I think that that's a vital part of the music. So um, I, I guess how do you show um, a transformation that takes place when there are three chords or four chords, uh, and, and, and one of the, the best ways of doing that is through color. So, it's about um, really feeling um, you have to really feel what's happening in the moment as you're playing it, and let your fingers and your ear respond. Your ear has to guide your fingers. Uh, and I think that studying Glass's music has really, really, um, heightened my awareness of this, in a way that no other composer has.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, the title comes from a, a beautiful and very, uh, inspiring poem called The Prelude by William Wordsworth. It's a, it's a huge poem. It's an autobiographical poem and, and um, and he's, in this part of the poem, he's talking about um, the need to get away from society, to ge—to be distanced from urban life. And, uh, and when I was, I happened to be reading this, I, it was just, you know, as this period has been for many people, um, it's been a time when I've done things that I don't normally do. And, um, I'm not normally one to read poetry. Uh, but I did read poetry during, uh, May and June, and I happened to come across this poem. And um, when I read that line, "a character of quiet," which is just part of a line, it's actually saying something bigger, but that, those words just were, they just jumped out at me and they thought, I felt like that's what, that's what I've been experiencing here because I've been living in Brooklyn and it was eerie how how the streets, you know, there were no cars and we heard all these birds that we never heard before. And I was, um, spending a lot of time walking around Green-Wood Cemetery, which is right near me, which is this beautiful, beautiful cemetery, and

It's, yeah, it's amazing. And, um, and I was a, you know, alone with my thoughts a lot. I mean I was with my family, but I was, there's a strong interior life going on. And, um, and the quiet was not always a comforting quiet, really. I mean the quiet of, um, that period was frightening, and, um, and upsetting, and lonely, as well as being reflective and and also, now that it's getting noisier, part of me misses that quiet, you know. Like I,

(Laughs) Um, so yeah, so that's how I came up with the title. And, and the music that I chose to record, being the Schubert and Glass, is definitely on the quieter side. I mean it's very introspective music and, so I thought that that that was a perfect title.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

(外语) That's nice. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. It was wonderful to talk with you.