The Skeptical Optimist

I had the honour of meeting pianist Emanuel Ax for an interview last week. Ax is best known here for his extensive collaborations with the cellist Yoyo Ma, but really he’s a virtuoso player in his own right, considered to be one of the great pianists of his generation.

The one thing that struck me was how humble he was… one of the things he said was that maybe he stuck to piano because he didn’t have any other options open to him! But really, we’re lucky that he did stick it out with the piano – his playing easily ranks among the top 5 of the classical pianists that I’ve heard live. Listening to his play Chopin in the Esplanade Concert Hall was a magical and sometimes infuriating experience. Magical because of his technical skill, control, expressiveness and vivacity – and infuriating because as a lapsed pianist… I recognise how dastardly difficult Chopin can be and how much practice and innate talent you need to pull it off in a concert setting. “Manny”, as his friends call him, the down to earth New Yorker with a self-professed love of Shanghai dumplings is transformed to pianist extraordinaire Emanuel Ax when he sets his fingers down on the ivories. He made the complex runs in the piano concerto sound sublime, effortless, as if his hands were simply floating above the keys and willing them into beauty with some telekinetic power. Plus, he was generous with the encores too, playing an additional nocturne and waltz.

The feeling you get when you listen to a grand master like this is, oh, this is how Chopin is supposed to sound like – not the tinkling and banging that you suffered through during piano lessons – this almost other worldly lyricism and breathtaking momentum, this is what the composer meant when he was setting these notes down on the manuscript. It’s almost like getting a glimpse of a perfection beyond mere mortality.

Tags: classical music, emanuel ax, pianists