Comments on: Playing for Presidents

By: George

George — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:40:22 +0000

Alban, I remain a huge fan..and so amazed at your on-going work. I saw and had the pleasure of meeting you in person when you were in Portland about 5 years ago. I continue to follow your work as the best cellist in the world today (in my humble opinion.) You are a very modest and that is one of the things I appreciate most about you..is your ability to present “Alban” to the world…I just heard your premier of the Unsuk Chin Concerto on YouTube. I consider myself to be a cellist that is not afraid to go to unusual places with the cello…but this concerto puts one in far away places that require only the greatest to journey to for only they can be there and represent what the composer has written. I am purchasing the Casals CD immediately..I enjoyed watching the video on the recording sessions…Recording is very challenging…and your statements about how movie actors will do take after take to get something right was very familiar. It is arduous work.

All The Best to you…George

By: Alban

Alban — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:59:52 +0000

Hi Justin,
it wasn’t a last minute call, and I knew that we were not supposed to play in the background. I received by now a letter of apology of the president (the German president has only representative duties, so he is not so well known in other countries – the big job in Germany is the chancellor) because they had never experienced something like it. But thanks for your advice anyway. My career doesn’t take place out of Germany, but I am German and live in Berlin, so I travel out of Germany. Most of my concerts I am playing in Europe, the US and recently also in Australia in Asia. It is a rather well-balanced career, but I am not as famous as other people because I have a bit different priorities (or maybe because I just stink :)).

By: justin

justin — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:24:50 +0000

Sorry to hear about your bad experience in Bellevue. But first this president seems to be a mistake in german history (is he still alive – he rarely takes places in the public) and second a last minute call should show you that it can’t be as important while playing in backround. And my advice: You should better inform about the circumstances.
It seems to me that your career mostly takes place out of Germany. What is the reason for it
(competitors or management)?

By: Mogulmeister

Mogulmeister — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 11:10:01 +0000

Hi Alban,

A little late looking at this blog entry (I’ve been busy). I’m VERY sorry that this event worked out in this way. Sad to say, the music you were providing was simply background noise, or sonic “drapes” of a sort, to these people. Had you spontaneously shifted gears and played some famous Armenian music for the Turkish President, to remind him of the beautiful culture that his country destroyed nearly 100 years ago, I think they would have actually paid more attention to what you were doing. 🙂

Going back to one of your posts, about performers “emoting” during their play, something interesting happened this past week here in Boston. At the last minute, the pianist Nicholas Angelich was a late substitute for the injured Yefim Bronfman in Brahms’ 2nd piano concerto, conducted by Kurt Masur. I had never heard Angelich before live, just in recordings from Martha Argerich’s Lugano festival highlights. He was FANTASTIC. It was by far the best live performance of Brahms’ masterpiece I’ve ever heard (outperforming live performances I’ve heard of Peter Serkin, Emmanual Ax, Nelson Freire, Alfred Brendel, and a number of others). There was such sensitivity, modesty (while not being immodest), humanity, and beauty in his playing. It was extraordinary–totally not routine, by an artist who was thinking about nothing more than serving the music. Very rare indeed. I was transfixed throughout the performance, and at the end, I was only one of two people in the audience to leap up and applaud loudly. The rest of them sat in their seats and applauded, although SLOWLY, eventually many in the crowd did rise and applaud. Yet so many times in Boston, the audience is quick to jump to its feet and give standing ovations to very substandard concerto performances. The difference? The visual “performance” by the pianist. Nicholas Angelich instead just played the music. No weird, “pained” facial expressions, no visual flourishes, no swaying body movements, no emoting, he just sat there and played MAGNIFICENTLY. I had always thought that Boston audiences were more musically-alert than the average audience, but I guess not. It was very sad in a way that he was denied the thunderous ovation that Boston audiences are known to give to performers who “visually” perform (even if the musical performance is indistinguished).

And Alisa Weilerstein recently won the MacArthur “genius” prize. {sigh}

By: Stephen

Stephen — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:01:25 +0000

Sad to hear Alban,
but at least you can consider yourself in great company…persons such as Haydn were often also treated with the same “respect and attention” ; )

Auf jedenfall freut mich zu hÃ¶ren dass es dir gut geht und offensichtlich bist wieder verlobt?
Also, alles gute und mach weiter mit Bach ! : )
Stephen

By: Alban

Alban — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:20:12 +0000

Hi Michael,
there was no manager involved, it was just the people from the president who had contacted and hired me directly. They were surprised themselves in the lack of attention, I even received an apologetic e-mail the next day – but when I expressed my own surprise and disappointment I didn’t hear back from them… 🙂 Never mind, power corrupts most people, as does money, but there are always exceptions, and at least I know some of them…

By: Michael Chen

Michael Chen — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:42:17 +0000

Hi Alban:
The Bellevue part of the story made me so sad and so mad. It is doubly shocking to have this happened in Berlin…in Germany. What were the managers thinking when they contacted you for the performance? Still audiences in Berlin are special. I still remember about 10 years ago when Abbado returned from his sick leave to conduct Parsifal at the Philharmonie. I attended every single concert of that series and I was astonished by the concentration of the audiences. No audible cough or sonic disruption of any kind!

All best,
Michael