Interview with "Contemporanul" Magazine

Sorana Minăilescu in dialogue with Cristian Sandrin

Maestro Cristian Sandrin, wouldn’t it seem strange to you that I don't start by asking you to talk about your numerous awards, studies of excellence or prestigious concert halls that you walked into, but let us begin discussing your presence on the Bach Cantatas Website, which seems to me equivalent to a “apotheosis” in the world of music. How does it feel to be associated in the collective memory with the work of the world's greatest composer? How did you earn this status?

I am bemused, as only recently I have discovered that I had been listed as a performer of Johann Sebastian Bach's music on the Bach-Cantatas website. This online directory presents the public with essential, highly detailed and deeply researched information about the work of J. S. Bach. It includes lists of exhaustive discographies and their respective performers. It is a real privilege, that my name is associated with the work of this great composer at this point in my career, while still considered "a young pianist". Most probably I have earned this mention because I have performed the Goldberg Variations several times, a masterpiece of the piano repertoire, considered an extremely difficult "mountain" for any pianist to conquer. During the pandemic I focused my creative energies on this large-scale work - I felt that this piece could only be tackled under 'lockdown' conditions: when all musical commitments disappeared from the agenda and when I was confined, similarly to a hermit, in my London flat. Akin to being shipwrecked on a deserted Pacific island, with only a musical score in my suitcase: The Goldberg Variations. In 2021 I had performed them in the semi-finals of the Montreal Competition to critical acclaim.

Returning now to the history of your spectacular breakthrough at such a young age, I invite you to think back to your debut on the Athenaeum stage at thirteen. There is talk of the Romanian violin school, and yet two promises that have become certainties over the years, you and Mihaela Ursuleasa, have mastered the art of another instrument [the piano]. Do you really consider yourself "an heir of Romanian music"? What is the meaning of the phrase under which you performed at the Sala Radio on 9th June [2022] on the occasion of this institution's [Radio Romania Muzical] anniversary?

I was born into a family from Bucharest, where my father, a concert pianist and piano teacher at the Conservatory, would have certainly been a role model for any musician. My father dedicated his whole life to music, and my mother, a librarian and former French teacher, who loved music equally, connected the family to the extra-musical world - she put us on our feet, so to speak. My father had been a colleague of Radu Lupu, and was one of the piano pupils of 'Ms Muzicescu', Dinu Lipatti's teacher. I have therefore witnessed a certain 'heritage' that links my family with some of the greatest pianists in the world.

In the West there is a real fascination for the Romanian piano school. Dinu Lipatti, Clara Haskil and Radu Lupu are considered legendary pianists - they are valued not only as virtuoso pianists, but as musicians who instilled new visions in the interpretation of piano masterpieces. These pianists, through a serious approach to life and music, left audiences deeply moved with their memorable performances.

The Romanian piano school is still going strong. Many young Romanian pianists play around European stages and astonish the public with their talent. Nowadays, however, we avoid talking about 'schools', such as the 'French school', the 'Russian school', etc. Due to globalisation, these current 'schools' have turned into an amalgamation - Russian teachers teach in England, French in Germany; teachers from all over the world teach in the USA.

I remember with great pleasure the first times I played on the stage of the Romanian Athenaeum. Both concerts were reaching out events aimed for young people, organised by Maestro Iosif Prunner. Once I played a Mozart Rondo in D major and the other time I played a Schubert Impromptu. (…) It seems to me, somehow, that my debut with Mozart's Rondo was a kind of premonition, because in 2021 I had my debut as a soloist with the 'George Enescu' Philharmonic performing Mozart's Concerto in C Major No. 25 KV 503

A distinguished musician recently expressed in the pages of our magazine his fear that there is a rift between classical and contemporary music that will make the performers of the former appear outdated. You opened your 35th season at South Holland Concerts in Spalding in 2018 by performing a work by György Kurtág alongside classical composers. Did you find it hard to get into the atmosphere created by such distinct musical aesthetics? How did the audience react?

I would like to consider myself a bridge between these two worlds - the world of classical music and the world of contemporary music. I appreciate contemporary art enormously, and I am fascinated by the aesthetics of new music. There is a phenomenon happening here that can be found in other fields outside music: the complexity to which contemporary music has evolved requires a certain level of specialisation, a level that can only be achieved by musicians who dedicate entirely their career to exploring and performing contemporary repertoire. As always, only a certain fraction of the public would relish the taste of the avant-garde soundscapes- we are talking about open-minded people who are ready to accept, to embrace, at least for the duration of the concert, new aesthetic and musical norms. We must agree that this particular type of audience is in minority.

Contemporaneity is of course a mobile concept. We often talk about the reaction of contemporaries to the premiere of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps. As happened with Stravinsky, the music world eventually recovers from their initial shock and accepts the norm-breaking features as canonical. What remains is the contemporaneity of a piece, almost fossilised in the public's memory. Only time would consecrate the true creative value of an artwork - solely the posterity is able to rightfully appreciate true contemporary works of art.

(…)

I believe that when we perform a piece of music, we think about the piece's long-standing contemporaneity as well as our own actuality. Performers breathe life into sounds and musical notations laid down on paper by composers who left this world decades or centuries ago: these were people themselves, with their own emotions, their own concerns and preoccupations; naturally the contemporary man has a lot in common with these long deceased souls.

The piano keyboard is another feature of the virtuosity you have attained. How important is it for an instrumentalist to have the universe of the whole score in mind?

I would say that pianists should essentially internalise a work similar to conductors. This process starts from small to large: from establishing the structure of a tiny phrase or motif, to analysing large-scale frameworks. There is an intimate connection between the process of composing orchestral works and the piano: composers use the piano to write the short-score, since the piano has wide ranging register compared to other instruments. The only composer who wrote (almost) exclusively for the piano was Chopin: much has been written about his body of art, what is certain is that he explores the piano’s inherent sound producing mechanisms, creating thus sounds that would be “diminished” if reproduced on other instruments.

(…)

You have been a soloist with four of our of the most important Romanian State Orchestras. When will we hear you again in Romania?

I shall return soon to Romania to play with the Oltenia Philharmonic in Craiova and the 'Mihail Jora' Philharmonic in Bacau. It's always a great delight to return to Romania and collaborate with Romanian orchestras and conductors.