PIANIST VIKINGUR OLAFSSON ON WHY PHILIP GLASS MATTERS TO MUSIC
Icelandic musician pays tribute to a great composer who understands the needs of performers and helps them reach their peak
Vikingur Olafsson, who is widely considered Iceland’s pre-eminent pianist, hasn’t had music lessons since he graduated from the Juilliard School in 2008. He has taken part in a master class here and there, but these days, he says, he learns more by simply listening to his own recordings.
“The way we hear music inside our heads is quite different from when you’re listening to the playback,” Olafsson, 33, said during a recent interview at Lincoln Center, where he is making his New York recital debut this weekend at the Mostly Mozart Festival. “The way you perceive time, and the way it actually is.”
The technique seems to have paid off. In recent years, Olafsson has given the premieres of six piano concertos, including one conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Reykjavik Festival in April. And Philip Glass invited Olafsson to share the billing with him in a performance of his Etudes.
This year, Olafsson released an album of Glass’s piano works on Deutsche Grammophon. The record makes a strong impression in how much it contrasts with Glass’s own performances.
Olafsson’s version is often more atmospheric. Although the Etudes comprises a series of repeated phrases, he doesn’t settle into any patterns. He treats Glass’s music like a sculpture, worth studying from all angles in search of new interpretations and surprises.
“I came to the conclusion that it’s not a repetition,” Olafsson said of Glass’s music. “It’s a rebirth. It’s not treading the same path but travelling in a spiral. That’s the image I have.”
Over coffee, Olafsson talked more about the merits of Glass and the state of composing in Iceland, where he developed his own classical music TV show. He also shared his trick for getting into the Metropolitan Opera without paying. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: What drew you to Philip Glass’s music?
A: He changed the course of music history. It’s easy to forget that before Philip Glass there was no Philip Glass. So many composers are writing in a language that he invented. There are so many diluted versions of his music, and I think he’s misunderstood. To me, he’s like the Mondrian of music. He’s taking primary colours and really exploring what that means. At his best, he’s getting to the essence of music.
Q: Some composers are very exacting about how their music is played — was he?
A: He understands the needs of a performer. From the beginning, though, he would tell me if something bothered him. For instance, with Etude No.6, he told me: “It sounds wonderful. Someone should really give you a speeding ticket. But that’s not going to be me.” I love that. He was saying: I might choose something else, but if it’s convincing, keep it because it’s yours.
There’s one time he told me I needed to change something, and it was Etude No.5. He was right; I was playing it too nicely, too fast. But slowed down, it’s incessant nostalgia: tragic, through the filter of time.
Q: You’ve worked with other living composers, including ones in Iceland. What’s the identity of classical music there?
A: Like most cultures we have a beautiful folk heritage. But unlike most of Europe, we have almost no Western classical music, as such. We have no classical composers, no romantic composers. The first art music of the 20th century replicated Schumann and Grieg, which is nice but not authentic or original. Now I think it’s a very interesting and fertile scene. We don’t have a past like in Germany, where you have Beethoven and Bach staring over your shoulder.
Q: I feel like I hear a lot of pop influence in Iceland’s classical music.
A: Yes. That’s out of necessity. In the last part of the 20th century we had this wave of nice pop music — with, of course, Bjork leading the way. There are quite few of us, and we are sort of forced to break down boundaries. People may play in a symphony orchestra on Thursday, then a pop concert on Friday. Or even heavy metal.
Q: With a music scene so young, what was growing up like?
A: If I were 13 now, it would be very different, because Iceland after the internet as opposed to Iceland before the internet is a very different place. I count myself lucky to be part of the last generation before the internet, because it gives you a sense of independence.
Q: Are you saying that the internet has flattened culture a bit?
A: In a way. I would have been going on YouTube constantly, comparing myself to people my age playing piano in Moscow, Beijing, New York, wherever. But I couldn’t. So all I had was recordings of the old masters. Then I came to New York and was able to go to the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall — but of course I didn’t have any money, so I’d find my way into the opera for free.
Q: How?
A: I would always figure out when the first act was over. Many of the people with the best seats would leave after the first act, and they would give me these $300 tickets. I know the second act of opera literature better than I know the first.
Q: So what were your operatic blind spots?
A: I didn’t see the first act of Die Walkure by Wagner. And if you don’t see the opening storm, and the things that happen in the first act, it’s actually a very strange opera.
Q: Have you since treated yourself to entire operas?
A: I went to Bayreuth, and I saw four Wagner operas in five days!