As soon as musicians touch an instrument, the dead object suddenly turns outto be a living being. They whisper to it in their heads and it answers. Thefamous pianist Vladimir Horowitz often called out to his grand piano: “Thensing. Sing!” Long marriages develop between string players and their violins,cellos and double basses. The traveling pianist, on the other hand, has adifferent sweetheart in every city. And Kristian Bezuidenhout (43) will evenhave to divide his attention next Monday between a trio in the Concertgebouw’sGreat Pianists series.
He introduces the audience to three classical beauties: fortepianos from thefirst half of the nineteenth century, forerunners of the modern grand piano.They all have a distinct character. The eldest is the somewhat irritableLagrassa, “an inappropriate uncle or aunt who usually says the wrong thing atparties,” says Bezuidenhout. “Experience your mastery to the limit.”
Opposite her is Graf, ten years her junior, warm, generous, gentle, listeningto what you ask. “No wonder a composer like Schubert saw this grand piano asessential to the expression of his imagination, which is tender and singing.”And finally – another generation later – there is an Erard, proud andexpressive. “Where De Graf opens her arms and invites people into her intimatecircle of warmth, Erard presents herself as a player of a large audience, shescatters her notes into the room.”
Far from the Vienna of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, and the Leipzig ofClara Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn – composers he interprets on Monday –Kristian Bezuidenhout was born in the late 1970s in the South African miningtown of Dundee. His parents were entrepreneurs who loved classical music andbelieved that piano lessons were part of a broad upbringing. “My grandmothermight have been able to become a pianist,” he says, “but she left Germany forAngola to become a governess.”
Around the age of nine, the Bezuidenhouts left Apartheid-torn South Africa andemigrated to Brisbane, Australia. At school he was able to resume his pianolessons. “My parents never gave me the feeling that they had in mind a futureas a concert pianist. I know quite a few colleagues who did. And that leavesits mark.”
And then, a year later, he saw the feature film Amadeus , about the life ofMozart. “Nothing had ever allowed me to experience such a deep love formusic,” he says. “The indescribable beauty of all those shreds of Mozart andits wonderful eloquence. That music anchored itself deep in me.”
The first months it was difficult to get a nice sound out of it at all.
Another two years later, record label Philips commemorated Mozart’s twohundredth anniversary with a complete CD edition of all his work. Collectingthem grew into an obsession. Then, for the first time, he heard a fortepianoplayed by his later teacher Malcolm Bilson.
“The instrument seemed a bit thin and boring to me at first, because my earswere used to the full and powerful singing voice of the Steinway. But I wascaptivated by the orchestral sound, the palette of beautiful colors thatconductor John Eliot Gardiner managed to elicit from his agile musicians. Iwanted this too, and with these people.”
Discouraging
Through a summer course in the US, he ended up at the Eastman School of Music,where he focused on the harpsichord, and then on the fortepiano. “Sometimes Iwanted to give up because it was so daunting. The first months it was alreadyheavy enough to get a nice sound out of it at all. And then I hadn’t eventried Beethoven on it.”
But Bezuidenhout persevered. “There was the rock-solid belief that thefortepiano was the instrument into which I could throw my heart and soul. Andwhere to find the real Mozart. You need to develop a deep understanding ofthese tools. They are so demanding. The 1780 Mozart fortepiano is merciless,it takes no prisoners. It exposes all your weaknesses. For the best soundyou have to be in control and relaxed at the same time.”
As a teenager he was mainly drawn to virtuosity, nowadays it is theandrogynous slow movements that Bezuidenhout loves. “In those places, acomposer gives you a glimpse into his heart. Mozart and Schubert are mastersat it. That longing or sadness that is in each of us, without us knowingexactly what it is. Both composers struggled with feelings of alienation fromsociety. They can let self-consciousness reign on the surface in one piece,while at the same time you hear the undercurrent of doubt.”
Kristian Bezuidenhout plays Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Clara Schumann andMendelssohn on three fortepianos in the series Great Pianists, on 9/1 in theConcertgebouw Amsterdam.