A Lion Tamer’s Labour of Love. Conversation with Garrick Ohlsson

ALEKSANDER LASKOWSKI: What does it take to win the Chopin Competition? How would you describe the future winner? How should he or she play?

GARRICK OHLSSON: That’s a great question and I don’t have the answer for it, but I can try. Number one, in music some things are objective and some things are subjective. In fact, most of it is subjective. Clearly, you know, if Chopin writes B flat, it’s B flat, it’s not D sharp or F natural. We all agree on that. And then if he writes allegro con brio or andante con moto, we try to understand what that means, not only as literal Italian words, but what does it mean in relationship to speed and character of the music. And that is where we get into subjective territory. How do you relate two notes of Chopin, the B flat to the A below it? Did expressive marks help you? That is very difficult, and that is the subject of scholarship and artistic effort and tradition. How should this person play? It would be the same recipe for any really marvellous pianist and musician. You have to have a particularly beautiful control of sound. But of course, there’s not only one sound. There can’t be. But you have to have a beautiful palette of sound that you can control and put in an appropriate musical and emotional manner with all music, whether it’s Schubert or Bartók. And yet with Chopin, there’s a sort of specific voice and a specific personality. But of course, there’s great variety within Chopin. So tonal control and technical means. By technical means, I mean the athletic. Can you play fast? Can you play loud? Can you play soft? Can you control this? Can you control those beautiful sounds? Can you play with virtuosity, which is absolutely necessary in Chopin? This person has to be able to play this very difficult music in such a way that it makes the music come to life in an appropriate way. The most complicated thing in Chopin is that you have to have a personal emotional connection that you can project to people in the audience and still not have it be such a personal emotional connection that it becomes a display of ‘look at how I feel’. I think the artist’s job is to make the public feel, but all these words are just words, really. My personal feeling and my prejudice is that I want to be moved or excited or maybe fall in love a little bit with the person playing something special at that moment. It’s about falling in love literally in a personal way, but falling in love with this moment. It’s going to be a difficult job being on the jury.

A.L.: Is it a labour of love?

G.O.: Ideally, it’s a labour of love, but it’s also a very, very difficult job. At least the one time I did it, I found it very difficult. I have not been on many juries but I always find it very difficult because you have to try to do your best. Really, when you hear a good pianist – and all of our participants will be good enough to listen to for half an hour. When you listen to a pianist for the first time, my goodness, there are so many feelings and impressions you take, and we all have our own expectations. We also have our own feelings of how things should be, and it’s difficult to find what this person is really doing, not just what I like or not like, especially what I don’t like. It’s easy to sit there and say, ‘Oh well I don’t like that, one point less for this piece’. Try to find out what their message is. And then you get very tired in certain ways doing this job. Your ears get tired – literally, as we know from science. And in the morning they’re ready to hear everything again. There is ear fatigue. And also aesthetic fatigue, because we’re trying to compare apples and oranges. And then you have brain fatigue, because you’re thinking very hard about it. You have sometimes emotional fatigue, because even music as great as Chopin can be taxing, when you listen to it 10 hours a day. You must try to maintain some emotional openness and freshness. And that is difficult. And then the part you sit on gets tired also.

A.L.: How does it feel to be the first non-Polish jury chairman in the history of the competition?

G.O.: I was very surprised and very flattered when I was asked to chair the jury. It’s an honour, especially that is has not happened before. And it’s a special honour for me, not only because I won the Chopin Competition, but also because I’ve become such a friend over these 55 years. You know me well, and I’ve been back a lot, and I’ve always loved coming back.

A.L.: What does the chairman do?

G.O.: It’s an extraordinary position. I think that any qualified jury member could do it. I don’t have influence over the jury, of course. I don’t have special weight or privilege in my voting. Thank God. I wouldn’t want that. Sometimes in jury meetings, we get quite passionate. And maybe I’ll have to sometimes be the policeman a little bit. Not of the opinions, but just of the conversation level, conflict and noise, which does happen.

A.L.: The popular image of a jury chairman is that you’re really a lion tamer.

G.O.: That’s what I was saying more gently.