"I am just about to go on tour
with the Goldberg Variations to Singapore and Australia. It takes 80 minutes to play the full
version. I was at Dartington Summer
School in 1982 to take part in Andras Schiff's masterclass at his concert at the
beginning of the week and it totally changed my world, it was one of those
experiences that had a profound effect on me. And after the concert I came out
and looked at the trees and the lawn outside the concert hall and they all
looked different, everything was different, and it was as though I was hearing
the sirens singing to me that I had
to learn this piece. It took me some
years to learn it because I was doing other things as well, it’s a feat of
memory because it’s one of those pieces that you have to be completely obsessed
with it; you have to devote countless hours to it. There’s a single mindedness, it’s a question
of the amount of practice time you have to devote to it. It’s not a question of memory, that’s just
like a computer file that you open up!
It’s a question of focus, of not being distracted too much. I have a full teaching load but I’m really
trying to give as much as possible, it would certainly be four or five hours a
day seven days a week at the moment.
When I’m on tour, on concert days it’s very gentle. I don’t do anything else except a little
practice in the morning, then I go for a walk in the afternoon then I rest
until the evening. If the music isn’t
ready by the day, there’s nothing much you can do on the day to make a
difference. The best pianos I’ve ever played have inspired me...brought out the best in me. If I’ve got a
particularly wonderful piano it brings out an almost like a
magical quality that you can’t account for.
I don’t play an encore after the Goldberg Variations, even though people
ask for one. I think this music really
doesn’t need anything else with it." (Graham Fitch)
Connect with Graham at his blog http://practisingthepiano.com/
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