Interview With a Virtuoso: Pratt Discusses Life, Music, Glenn Gould

In an era rife with up-and-coming virtuoso pianists, Awadagin Pratt stands out. Frequently pegged as the Glenn Gould of our age, he just may be...a Gould, that is, with dreadlocks and a flamboyantly jazzy stage presence.

Pratt began playing the piano at the age of six, the violin three years later and at 16 entered the University of Illinois, where he studied piano, violin and conducting, before moving to the Peabody Conservatory and earning diplomas in all three areas. It was as a pianist, however, that he seized the attention of the musical world. His kinetic style and distinctive personality stirred up a storm of critical raves and public interest.

Pratt performed in solo at Jordan Hall Sunday as part of the BankBoston Celebrity Series. The Crimson spoke over the phone with the pianist just before his departure from Albuquerque for Boston:

Crimson: How valuable was the conservatory atmosphere and experience for you? How hard do you think it is for the concertgoing public, even the college concertgoing public, to relate to performers coming from the conservatory experience?

Pratt: I imagine it's not easy to relate to. I spent a few years at the University of Illinois before going to the [Peabody] conservatory. I'd say that in terms of intensity, a conservatory program is closer to graduate work. Even a music major at a four-year program has a very different experience. "Competitive" is possibly a word to explain this, but let's just say the level is higher. People are really aspiring, and the focus of the people around you is different.

C: Which is easier, to perform a concerto or to give a solo recital?

P: They're completely different things. A concerto is something that you have to put together with a conductor and orchestra, and so the success depends on the nature of the compromises made--how willing the conductor is to let you do your thing. In a recital you perform for longer, have an expanded sense of the repertoire, and express a greater variety of musical ideas. The difference between playing for 25 and 75 minutes is immense. So, doing a concerto is an experience that is sometimes great, but can also be decidedly not. In a recital there are no compromises. I know exactly what I want to do and I present that.

C: Is practice ever unnecessary?

P: If I've played a recital a lot, five or six times consecutively, chances are I won't want to sit down with it. I might practice a future concerto. Practice is never unnecessary; there's always more to do with everything. But I don't play for myself so much anymore. I'm usually playing through pieces seeing what I want to program in the future.

C: Given how often you're compared with Glenn Gould, have you ever wanted to play the Goldberg Variations?

P: There was a time I was interested in learning the Goldbergs but I felt I was listening to either of Gould's recordings too much to consider it clearly. Now I feel I could approach it without so much of a "Gouldian conscience" weighing down on me.

C: How do you feel about ultravirtuosic literature? Judging from the pieces on your first album [A Long Way from Normal] you seem to tend toward that end of the spectrum of repertoire.

P: I wouldn't say that, actually. For the past three years I've been giving less [virtuosic] stuff; in many ways, this program is an anomaly. My second disc was four Beethoven sonatas. I don't play any meaninglessly difficult things. No, no Godowsky. Alkan has an interesting tonal language...I try to do sets that illustrate relationships that interest me. I was doing a set [in concert] that would alternate Beethoven sonatas with Rachmaninoff preludes and Bach preludes and fugues, and there was a Chopin nocturne in there.

C: What sorts of relationships?

P: Relationships of mood, relation- ships among harmonies, among registers, things with tone--others involved the Bach, Chopin, and Shostakovich preludes. It [this kind of approach brings] up Brahms, because of course Beethoven, in a way parallel to Bach, influenced Brahms--Brahms was always copying out chorales.

C: Is the piano your favorite musical instrument?

P: My original interest in music came from an orchestral point of view. I guess it's a sound that's been in my ear the longest. There have been periods of listening more to piano music, but they were always brief.

C: How do you aspire to develop artistically?

P: I would like to have a parallel career as pianist and conductor, and I love to teach.

C: What do you think classical music means to my generation? Do you try to speak to younger listeners?

P: I don't have a target audience per se, but I do appreciate seeing a lot of young people at my concert--there seems to be a lot more of them at my stuff than elsewhere. [About his non-observance of certain concert hall traditions] I don't intend to ruffle any feathers, but I'm not adverse to doing so. The people that believe certain things about dress and such, they're pretty much a captive audience. They've got nowhere else to go. For younger people, the way I am is probably more consonant with how they are. They are NOT a captive audience, so if that's what interests them, that's fine. If they weren't interested already, it's not for not having heard the music, although many profess to hate classical music without ever really having heard it. But I see a lot of kids jazzed up about going to see Mozart operas, and I think that's amazing.

C: Do you think a Golden Age of piano playing ever existed, or does everyone simply mythicize the past?

P: There are some old recordings I like a lot, and there are some I don't. Audiences know more than they think they do, but what they think they know, they don't. There may be a dimension [to the so-called Golden Age] in terms of the pure communication of character which may be a little lacking now. People today may be succumbing to the value of the note as opposed to the value of the music. But there's something to be said for being able to put on a record and know instantly who's playing... Horowitz, Gilels, Serkin.... There are certainly pianists who can race down the keyboard at least as fast, and with more accuracy, but Horowitz had style. Who's the Horowitz today? Kissin maybe, but I can't really go there. Maybe Brendel, the more intellectual, is our Serkin. But I like to think I'm doing something different than what's been going on in concert halls for, say, the past 20 years

C: Is the piano your favorite musical instrument?

P: My original interest in music came from an orchestral point of view. I guess it's a sound that's been in my ear the longest. There have been periods of listening more to piano music, but they were always brief.

C: How do you aspire to develop artistically?

P: I would like to have a parallel career as pianist and conductor, and I love to teach.

C: What do you think classical music means to my generation? Do you try to speak to younger listeners?

P: I don't have a target audience per se, but I do appreciate seeing a lot of young people at my concert--there seems to be a lot more of them at my stuff than elsewhere. [About his non-observance of certain concert hall traditions] I don't intend to ruffle any feathers, but I'm not adverse to doing so. The people that believe certain things about dress and such, they're pretty much a captive audience. They've got nowhere else to go. For younger people, the way I am is probably more consonant with how they are. They are NOT a captive audience, so if that's what interests them, that's fine. If they weren't interested already, it's not for not having heard the music, although many profess to hate classical music without ever really having heard it. But I see a lot of kids jazzed up about going to see Mozart operas, and I think that's amazing.

C: Do you think a Golden Age of piano playing ever existed, or does everyone simply mythicize the past?

P: There are some old recordings I like a lot, and there are some I don't. Audiences know more than they think they do, but what they think they know, they don't. There may be a dimension [to the so-called Golden Age] in terms of the pure communication of character which may be a little lacking now. People today may be succumbing to the value of the note as opposed to the value of the music. But there's something to be said for being able to put on a record and know instantly who's playing... Horowitz, Gilels, Serkin.... There are certainly pianists who can race down the keyboard at least as fast, and with more accuracy, but Horowitz had style. Who's the Horowitz today? Kissin maybe, but I can't really go there. Maybe Brendel, the more intellectual, is our Serkin. But I like to think I'm doing something different than what's been going on in concert halls for, say, the past 20 years