Jonathan Biss is the kind of guy who takes time to think things over. He is recording a handful of Beethoven piano sonatas each year until the set will be complete in 2020. The second instalment was released this week, and CBC Radio 2’s Tempo caught up with the thinking musician to talk Beethoven.
"Maybe it’s the music I love the most,” confesses Biss, who admits that it’s difficult to make room for himself with so much Beethoven in his life. "It begs for attention, constantly. Like a needy child with a fully developed personality."
That personality is irresistible for Biss, and generations of pianists before him. Tempo asked why.
"There’s no composer, either before or since, who was able to create fully imagined worlds," answers Biss. "You have the feeling when you listen to his music, that the world he inhabited was entirely unsatisfactory as far as he was concerned. In sound he was going to create another one."
"We have these moments of fantasizing about another reality, but most of us don’t know how to convey it," he continues. "He was able to paint his dreams."
That, he says, is what makes Beethoven so irresistible to the listener and so difficult for the musician.
The challenge of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, according to Biss, is that Beethoven reinvents himself with each one, forcing the pianist to start from scratch 32 times. Lucky for Biss, he has nine years to think this one over.
"It’s an enormous mountain to climb, and those are the ones with the best views."
Biss performs at the University of Calgary on March 19, then at Toronto’s Koerner Hall on March 24. His latest Beethoven recording was released this week and you can hear it on today’s Tempo.
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