in the score, but they also weren't outlawed. They
were different to what other people were doing. If
you listen to say 30 recordings of this piece, starting
with Richter then Horowitz then Gilels, they're all
so drastically different. Richter plays it in this quite
austere Russian way - does that mean its wrong?
Not at all, but it's certainly not the way I wanted to
play it. I still admired it and I'm still very much in
awe of the great master.
more famous than the piano version. So to what
extent do we look at the version that was written
after the piano version was created as some kind of
benchmark, or as some kind of prototype? I was
working with a coach on this whole process, and
she was like oh, an orchestra wouldn't do that - and
I thought of course they wouldn't because it wasn't
written (though I didn't say that). But she made a
very interesting point.
Do you feel there's a progression of different
versions or are they just completely in isolation,
different interpretations of the same piece?
So to what extent does the orchestral version
influence your version?
I think people's personalities are so different, and
back then of course there's the added element that
we're talking about the golden age of pianism. It
was a time when pianists could be different - and
not only could they, but the great pianists were
different by virtue of the fact that they were great
pianists. Whereas now with recording there's more
of a sense of conformity and perfection in a kind of
a saline sense. It's very interesting to speculate on
that. I approached this piece with a sense of
reverence but also creativity, because by writing it
Mussorgsky is also inviting the pianist to be a
painter. Then there's the added element that the
orchestral version has become ubiquitous, even
In the end, not at all. I looked at it as a piece that
was written for piano and that was so revered by
Ravel and others that it was orchestrated. And that's
because even though it was written for the piano it
was written orchestrally, in terms of the voicing, in
terms of the colour and in terms of the structure and
the architecture. I looked at it as a piano piece and I
played it as a piano piece because I didn't want to be
constrained.
As a performer - you started learning piano
when you were 5 years old, and I think you had
your Opera House debut at 9 years old...
Technically I was 8, but who's counting?