MICHAEL HOUSTOUN THE BEETHOVEN PIANO SONATAS A PORTRAIT OF MICHAEL HOUSTOUN CHARLOTTE WILSON

Transcription

1 MICHAEL HOUSTOUN THE BEETHOVEN PIANO SONATAS A PORTRAIT OF MICHAEL HOUSTOUN CHARLOTTE WILSON 2 3

2 CONTENTS TRACK LISTING 8 THE BEETHOVEN PIANO SONATAS 16 Michael Houstoun A PORTRAIT OF MICHAEL HOUSTOUN Charlotte Wilson I: Beginnings, II: Overseas, III: New Zealand, IV: Focal dystonia, V: The return, CHRONOLOGY 164 DISCOGRAPHY 170 INDEX OF SONATAS

3 MICHAEL HOUSTOUN is widely celebrated as New Zealand s finest pianist. A major prizewinner in the Van Cliburn, Leeds and Tchaikovsky international piano competitions, he spent his twenties based in the UK and USA before making the historic decision to return to New Zealand at the end of He has had a thriving career ever since, as a concerto soloist, recitalist, conductor and chamber musician, and is distinguished by being the only New Zealand pianist to perform the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas in extensive tours around the country, the first in the mid 1990s in celebration of his 40th birthday, and the second now 20 years later. He is also one of very few musicians worldwide to recover from the chronic overuse condition focal dystonia. His many awards and citations include Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, his discography to date includes six Best Classical Album prizes at the NZ Music Awards, and he has a vast repertoire that stretches from J.S. Bach to the present day. He has been playing Beethoven forever. 6 7

4 PROGRAMME ONE PROGRAMME TWO DISC ONE DISC TWO DISC THREE DISC FOUR Sonata No. 7 in D, Op. 10 No. 3 23:50 1 I. Presto 6:52 2 II. Largo e mesto 10:10 3 III. Menuetto: Allegro 2:55 4 IV. Rondo: Allegro 3:53 Sonata No. 13 in E flat, Op. 27 No. 1 16:11 5 I. Andante Allegro Tempo I I4:55 6 II. Allegro molto e vivace 2:13 7 III. Adagio con espressione 3:09 8 IV. Allegro vivace Tempo I Presto 5.53 Sonata No. 9 in E, Op. 14 No. 1 14:02 9 I. Allegro 6:46 10 II. Allegretto 3:52 11 III. Rondo: Allegro commodo 3:24 Sonata No. 12 in A flat, Op :10 1 I. Andante con Variazioni 7:59 2 II. Scherzo: Allegro molto 2:46 3 III. Marcia funebre sulla morte d un Eroe IV. Allegro 3:04 Sonata No. 21 in C, Op. 53 Waldstein 25:26 5 I. Allegro con brio 11:19 6 II. Introduzione: Adagio molto 4:05 7 III. Rondo: Allegretto moderato Prestissimo 10:32 46:10 Sonata No. 20 in G, Op. 49 No. 2 8:32 1 I. Allegro, ma non troppo 4:52 2 II. Tempo di Menuetto 3:40 Sonata No. 3 in C, Op. 2 No. 3 27:14 3 I. Allegro con brio 10:32 4 II. Adagio 7:46 5 III. Scherzo: Allegro 3:22 6 IV. Allegro assai 5.34 Sonata No. 24 in F sharp, Op. 78 Therese 10:48 7 I. Adagio cantabile: Allegro ma non troppo 7:53 8 II. Allegro vivace 2:55 46:45 Sonata No. 16 in G, Op. 31 No. 1 23:35 1 I. Allegro vivace 6:50 2 II. Adagio grazioso 10:21 3 III. Rondo: Allegretto 6:25 Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 Appassionata 26:02 4 I. Allegro assai 10:48 5 II. Andante con moto 6:51 6 III. Allegro ma non troppo Presto 8:23 49:43 53:03 8 9

5 PROGRAMME THREE PROGRAMME FOUR DISC FIVE DISC SIX DISC SEVEN DISC EIGHT Sonata No. 19 in G minor, Op. 49 No. 1 8:23 1 I. Andante 4:49 2 II. Rondo: Allegro 3:34 Sonata No. 6 in F, Op. 10 No. 2 16:23 3 I. Allegro 8:07 4 II. Allegretto 4:17 5 III. Presto 3:59 Sonata No. 11 in B flat, Op :07 6 I. Allegro con brio 7:56 7 II. Adagio con molta espressione 8:39 8 III. Menuetto 3:29 9 IV. Rondo: Allegretto :00 Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2 Tempest 23:48 1 I. Largo Allegro 8:48 2 II. Adagio 7:41 3 III. Allegretto 7:19 Sonata No. 28 in A, Op :07 4 I. Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung: Allegretto ma non troppo 4:26 5 II. Lebhaft. Marschmäßig: Vivace, alla Marcia 6:27 6 III. Langsam und sehnsuchtvoll: Adagio ma non troppo, con affetto 3:33 7 IV. Geschwinde, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit: Allegro ma non troppo 7:41 Sonata No. 5 in C minor, Op. 10 No. 1 18:06 1 I. Allegro molto e con brio 5:34 2 II. Adagio molto 8:08 3 III. Finale: Prestissimo 4:24 Sonata No. 10 in G, Op. 14 No. 2 15:31 4 I. Allegro 6:43 5 II. Andante 6:02 6 III. Scherzo: Allegro assai 2:46 Sonata No. 22 in F, Op :52 7 I. In Tempo d un Menuetto 5:57 8 II. Allegretto 5:55 45:37 Sonata No. 29 in B flat, Op. 106 Hammerklavier 47:23 1 I. Allegro 11:47 2 II. Scherzo: Assai vivace 2:47 3 III. Adagio sostenuto 19:53 4 IV. Largo Fuga: Allegro risoluto :23 46:

6 PROGRAMME FIVE PROGRAMME SIX DISC NINE DISC TEN Sonata No. 18 in E flat, Op. 31 No. 3 La Chasse 24:58 1 I. Allegro 9:17 2 II. Scherzo: Allegretto vivace 5:44 3 III. Menuetto: Moderato e grazioso 5:17 4 IV. Presto con fuoco 4.40 DISC ELEVEN DISC TWELVE Sonata No. 2 in A, Op. 2 No. 2 29:24 1 I. Allegro vivace 11:15 2 II. Largo appassionato 7:13 3 III. Scherzo: Allegretto 3:52 4 IV. Rondo: Grazioso 7:04 Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 Pathétique 19:32 5 I. Grave Allegro di molto e con brio 9:05 6 II. Adagio cantabile 5:48 7 III. Rondo: Allegro 4:37 49:00 Sonata No. 30 in E, Op :03 5 I. Vivace, ma non troppo Adagio espressivo 3:38 6 II. Prestissimo 2:28 7 III. Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung: Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo 13:57 Sonata No. 4 in E flat, Op. 7 30:26 1 I. Allegro molto e con brio 9:14 2 II. Largo, con gran espressione 8:26 3 III. Allegro 5:25 4 IV. Rondo: Poco Allegretto e grazioso 7.21 Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2 Moonlight 16:19 5 I. Adagio sostenuto 6:22 6 II. Allegretto 2:27 7 III. Presto agitato 7:30 46:49 Sonata No. 15 in D, Op. 28 Pastoral 25:41 1 I. Allegro 11:11 2 II. Andante 6:57 3 III. Scherzo: Allegro vivace 2:30 4 IV. Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo 5.03 Sonata No. 31 in A flat, Op :54 5 I. Moderato cantabile molto espressivo 6:55 6 II. Allegro molto 2:13 7 III. Adagio ma non troppo Fuga: Allegro ma non troppo 11:46 46:40 45:

7 PROGRAMME SEVEN DISC THIRTEEN Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2 No. 1 21:15 1 I. Allegro 5:37 2 II. Adagio 5:02 3 III. Menuetto: Allegretto 3:34 4 IV. Prestissimo 7.02 Sonata No. 25 in G, Op. 79 9:42 5 I. Presto alla tedesca 4:33 6 II. Andante 3:05 7 III. Vivace 2:04 Sonata No. 26 in E flat, Op. 81a Les Adieux 17:45 8 I. Das Lebewohl: Adagio Allegro 7:37 9 II. Abwesenheit: Andante espressivo 4:01 10 III. Das Wiedersehen: Vivacissimamente 6:07 DISC FOURTEEN Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op :54 1 I. Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck 6:13 2 II. Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorgetragen 7:41 Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op :50 3 I. Maestoso Allegro con brio ed appassionato 9:17 4 II. Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile 19:33 42:48 48:

8 THE BEETHOVEN PIANO SONATAS MICHAEL HOUSTOUN When I prepared the 32 sonatas of L. van Beethoven for my first complete cycle in the early 1990s, one of the most interesting tasks was working out how to divide them into seven programmes. I resisted this for as long as possible and confined myself to playing them through in the published order over and over again. Then, one day, I bit the bullet and wrote on 32 little cards the opus number, key, number of movements and approximate duration of each sonata. I had already decided several things: the programmes would end with the Waldstein, Appassionata, and the last five sonatas; the other name sonatas would be evenly spread through the cycle; key relationships would be significant; the last programme would begin with the first published sonata; and the first programme would begin with Op. 10 No. 3. I laid the cards out on a table and came up with the following order surprisingly quickly. Inevitably some of the choices were arbitrary the sonatas weren t written neatly arranged with seven programmes in mind. But it proved to be a successful order and I made no changes to it when the ReCycle of 2013 was put together for Chamber Music New Zealand. PROGRAMME ONE Sonata in D, Op. 10 No. 3 Sonata in A flat, Op. 26 Sonata in E flat, Op. 27 No. 1 Sonata in C, Op. 53 Waldstein Sonata in E, Op. 14 No. 1 In the first half of this programme each sonata moves a semitone higher than the previous one. Then there are two mediant shifts (A flat enharmonically G sharp) to get to the Waldstein. I m never sure how strongly such things register on an audience, but for me the rising semitones add brilliance to the overall soundscape allowing a lighter sonata like Op. 14 No. 1 its place before the interval. And mediant relationships are quintessentially Beethovenian. I have also tried to offer nothing in the first four sonatas that would preempt the grandeur of the Waldstein. Sonata in D, Op. 10 No. 3 (1796/98) Presto I Largo e mesto I Menuetto: Allegro I Rondo: Allegro This sonata opens the cycle because of its wonderful Largo. This is Beethoven's first truly great slow movement and the one that points directly towards the incomparable Adagio of the Hammerklavier

9 To get to it a tricky Presto has to be negotiated, not the smartest way to start a concert. But it is a strong, brilliant, extremely good-humoured movement with impish syncopations and a riotous development section. It introduces us to the life-positive Beethoven, the one that will hold sway after the dark Adagios are done. My colleagues in the recording studio suggested that in the Largo e mesto Beethoven was discovering sadness, that it had not yet fully inhabited him. Indeed, but a profound understanding is already expressed in this beautifully shaped movement which is frankly heavenly to play. And to emerge from it into the gentle sunlight of the Menuetto is a stroke of genius, acknowledging music s gift of consolation. The sunlight seems to get brighter as the movement progresses, and especially after the robust Trio. The Rondo steals three notes from the main theme of the first movement and plays with them like a cat with a mouse. Sonata in E flat, Op. 27 No. 1 (1800/01) Andante Allegro Tempo 1 I Allegro molto e vivace I Adagio con espressione I Allegro vivace Tempo 1 Presto This is the first of the two Op. 27 quasi una fantasia sonatas and it has been its unfortunate fate to have been sidelined by its infinitely more famous companion, the so-called Moonlight sonata (such a hopelessly wrong nickname). It is much more daring than this sonata and in my experience its atmospheres have a potent effect on an audience. It always gets comment and so perhaps the virtue of happy surprise can also be credited to its dark neighbour. Beethoven s fantasy mainly takes the form of connecting all the movements, not with transitions but with attacca instructions. He also interrupts what can be called the first and last movements with highly contrasted passages in the first movement with a surprise allegro outburst, and in the Rondo finale with a reprise of material from the preceding adagio con espressione. The opening andante emerges from the silence as if Beethoven hasn t quite made up his mind what to do. But of course he has and he soon elaborates the material into something unique and beautiful, only to explode it with the virtuosic outburst referred to above before returning and completing it. A Scherzo ensues, quite passionate and whirling, with a typically boisterous and amusing Trio. The repeat of the opening section asks the pianist to play with syncopated hands, one legato, the other staccato, a classic exponential increase in virtuosity. The stately and rich adagio leads into the finale, a rondo that has a certain E flat major difficulty for the pianist. A lot of Beethoven s music in this key offers particular 18 19

10 problems of execution. It is somehow awkward and tricky and unwilling to bend to practice! the Emperor concerto, the Op. 81a sonata, the third of the Op. 12 violin sonatas... I could go on. Beethoven famously didn t care about performers problems though, and so we do our practice and take this sonata through to its brilliant conclusion. Sonata in E, Op. 14 No. 1 (1798/99) Allegro I Allegretto I Rondo: Allegro commodo Beethoven composed this rather happy sonata around the same time as the Pathétique sonata, famed for its driven anguish. And so began a pattern he would follow throughout his life, of working on both dark and light material side by side (the three Op. 31 sonatas are perhaps the best example of this). This speaks less to his need to create antidotes to the gloom and despair of the minor key works than to the tremendous range of his spirit. He embraced so much of life in his music that no particular part of it consumed him. Of course joy is seldom unalloyed and so there is a passionate melody driving the development of the mainly cheerful and eloquent first movement. The second subject too is unsettling, an angular chromaticism threatening any easy resolution of the lines. The Allegretto is in the tonic minor. The chordal structure of the first section brings Handel to mind and there is something measured and ceremonial under the more obvious emotional disturbance. A lovely warmth pervades the trio section. The Rondo is technically quite tricky (the first movement has its moments too!) and Beethoven has fun with the triplet/duplet juxtapositions. Commodo, comfortable, is such a performer-friendly instruction that it is a shame this is the only time he employs it. Sonata in A flat, Op. 26 (1800/01) Andante con Variazioni I Scherzo: Allegro molto I Marcia funebre sulla morte d un Eroe I Allegro This wonderful sonata marked a new beginning for Beethoven. With the previous sonata (Op. 22) he had spoken his final word regarding the traditional and conventional uses of sonata form and the outline of the sonata in general. It was time to move on. Although variation form was not unheard of (the first movement of Mozart s A major alla Turca sonata springs to mind) it was nonetheless rare. In the first movement Beethoven creates a theme of great nobility and enriches it with a large number of dynamic and articulation changes. The five variations that follow often 20 21

11 use articulation as their starting point. And although he makes frequent use of sforzando, only once does he ask for a clear forte. Nor do the variations move far from the home tempo. It is a marvellously self-contained set, subtle, perfectly balanced and just the right length. The Scherzo is a virtuoso romp demanding considerably more technique than the other scherzi composed to this point. I also hear a certain ambiguity in the pulsation of the phrasing, especially in the Trio (after the scherzo proper comes up one bar short). Sometimes it s hard not to think Beethoven is playing a joke on the performer, more so than on the audience. The funeral march of the third movement is unprecedented, even though Beethoven has hinted at it in the third variation of the first movement. It would have startled the audience of Beethoven s time and perhaps worried them that boundaries were being pushed a little too far. How easily the drumrolls and musket shots of the Trio could sound meretricious. To cap it all off after this sober and serious movement, Beethoven uses a finger exercise to kick off a carefree finale, booby-trapped of course for the unwary pianist. The rocking semiquaver line and its counterpoint are essentially unbroken until vanishing into the depths. Sonata in C, Op. 53 Waldstein (1803/04) Allegro con brio I Introduzione: Adagio molto I Rondo: Allegretto moderato Prestissimo Count Ferdinand von Waldstein was Beethoven s first significant aristocratic patron. They were already friends before the 21-year-old Beethoven moved from Bonn to Vienna in 1792 to begin his studies with Haydn. And the dedication of the Op. 53 sonata to the Count strongly suggests that financial support came with the friendship, not to mention contacts within the noble families of Vienna. Although there was to be some sort of falling out, Beethoven immortalised his friend with this sonata. It is, now and always, The Waldstein. As a composition it is on the grandest scale. The first movement is mapped out over a harmonic structure that emphasises mediant relationships (based on the interval of a third) and moves at a stately inexorable pace. At the same time the most brilliant virtuosity is demanded as Beethoven elaborates the harmony with an astounding range of pianistic figuration. A timeless vastness is called into being with thousands of notes. The second movement was originally what is now known as the stand-alone Andante favori. One of Beethoven s bolder friends suggested that the sonata was too long and 22 23

12 the master eventually replaced it with the inspired Introduzione which so perfectly prepares the listener for the glorious theme of the Rondo finale. The great span of this movement and the continuing virtuoso demands make it the perfect counterpart of the opening Allegro con brio. Through each episode and return of the theme Beethoven builds tension to an unprecedented pitch before hurling us into a final prestissimo, an ecstasy of headlong passagework, trills, glissandi and hammered chords. But it would be a mistake to think of this great sonata as a showpiece. For all its extroverted brilliance it is a spiritual document, testament to the unbridled positivity at the heart of humanness. PROGRAMME TWO Sonata in G, Op. 49 No. 2 Sonata in G, Op. 31 No. 1 Sonata in C, Op. 2 No. 3 Sonata in F minor, Op. 57 Appassionata Sonata in F sharp, Op. 78 Therese In order to highlight the dramatic darkness of the incomparable Appassionata sonata all the sonatas that precede it (including the five in Programme One) are in major keys. In this programme there are only a few passing forays into the minor mode in the first four sonatas. At the same time they each deal with different aspects of the positive, cheerful and exuberant. I like the effects of a tritone move from C major (Op. 2 No. 3) to F sharp major (Op. 78), and the drop of a tone from G major (Op. 31 No. 1) to F minor (Op. 57). Sonata in G, Op. 49 No. 2 (1795/96) Allegro, ma non troppo I Tempo di Menuetto Putting aside the irritatingly misleading opus number, it is hardly believable that this little sonata could have been written in the same year as the next one in the programme, the brilliant, barnstorming C major sonata from Op. 2. It is worth playing here if just to show the comparison and how Beethoven s genius suddenly 24 25

13 caught fire. At the same time, there is no doubting the charm of the second movement, a charm that Beethoven himself certainly recognised and which prompted him to use the same theme in the third movement of his lovely Septet in E flat, Op. 20. Sonata in C, Op. 2 No. 3 (1795) Allegro con brio I Adagio I Scherzo: Allegro I Allegro assai Compared to Mozart, Beethoven was a late starter. But how shrewd he was to wait until he was in his mid-twenties before offering his works for publication. The trios of Op. 1 and the piano sonatas of Op. 2 declared his genius unequivocally and it only remained for him to continue. All three sonatas of Op. 2 are wonderful, but this third one in C major makes a special impact. The virtuosity of the outer movements was unprecedented and is still staggering. The inclusion of a short cadenza in the first movement suggests Beethoven might well have had the larger public statement of a concerto in his mind. Everywhere the rhythm is driving and exciting, dynamic changes are sudden and powerful, figuration is varied and brilliant, melodies are beguiling. Nowhere is there a hint of self-doubt. The Scherzo is also virtuosic with lots of tricky leaps, only to be trumped by its own Trio with its swirling turbulent arpeggios. The Adagio is a movement of special inspiration. It is in E major and so signals Beethoven s lifelong attraction to mediant relationships. More important is the beautiful juxtapositioning of a narrative and gestural opening theme with mysterious flowing passages and affecting syncopations. Beethoven manages to reconcile these two moods in a supremely imaginative and eloquent coda. Sonata in F sharp, Op. 78 Therese (1809) Adagio cantabile: Allegro ma non troppo I Allegro vivace In a corpus of the greatest ingenuity and originality this sonata stands out as being uniquely beautiful and somehow sui generis. Firstly there is the key, F sharp major to the best of my knowledge the only time Beethoven used it. (The unusual fact of this is one of the reasons I like to place the sonata after one in C major, the tritone displacement perhaps adding to the sense of a special musical world.) Then there is the sublime four-bar Adagio cantabile to begin the opening movement, material not referred to again, as if Beethoven had decided that the beginning was the right place for a benediction. And then he uses such disparate patches to quilt the Allegro ma non troppo cantabile phrases, fleet leggiero semiquavers, flowing triplets, chords and rests. The challenge for the player becomes stitching it together into a coherent whole. All of this provokes thoughts that maybe this movement in particular is a portrait of its dedicatee, Therese von Brunsvik: that these various and charming 26 27

14 elements are contained within her singular personality, a personality for which Beethoven obviously held great esteem and affection. The scampering exuberance of the Allegro vivace fancifully suggests Therese had a small dog, a hyperactive miniature poodle perhaps, that tore about the mansion, up and down the stairs, falling over itself, Beethoven teasing and provoking it at every little pause. Or not. Sonata in G, Op. 31 No. 1 (1801/02) Allegro vivace I Adagio grazioso I Rondo: Allegretto The argument for there being no relationship between the creative work and the personal circumstances of a composer gets traction with this sonata. It was composed when Beethoven was despairing to the point of contemplating suicide on account of his increasing deafness. Yet every movement is informed by the most positive spirit. There is wit, grace, elegance, riotous exuberance, and what shadows may be found are pale and fleeting. The sonata begins with a joke, the pianist can t play with his hands together, and Beethoven gets a lot of mileage out of it. He also throws a lot of difficult passagework at the pianist and there are many ticklish moments in the first movement for both right and left hands. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether Beethoven is daring the performers of his works or mocking them. Difficulties aside, it is a movement full of fun. The second movement is one of Beethoven s most idiosyncratic Adagios. Ornament is everything and the movement registers as a homage to Baroque style, a florid instrumental aria replete with cadenzas. As Beethoven knew, it is the grazioso shading which is indispensable to its success. The Rondo partakes of both the virtuosity of the opening movement and the florid element of the Adagio but its bustling restlessness never overpowers its elegant charm. Towards the end Beethoven seems to question the nature of his theme, but fun has the last word. Sonata in F minor, Op. 57 Appassionata (1804/05) Allegro assai I Andante con moto Allegro ma non troppo Does it say more about Beethoven or the appreciators of his music that the three most famous piano sonatas Pathétique, Moonlight, Appassionata are all in minor keys and characterised by a dramatic turbulence which allows no happy endings? Certainly the language of this F minor sonata is of unprecedented import. With a perfect marriage of material and means Beethoven produces a masterpiece that overwhelms even those of us without apocalyptic yearnings. The Appassionata is 28 29

15 both great music and a great piano work and this double virtuosity has sealed its glorious fate as for me the most successful piano sonata ever composed. The first movement is uneasy. Even the noblest treatment of its themes can gain no ground. The trills, the ominous motifs, the sudden slashing dynamic changes, the mighty piano sonorities, all contribute to a developing sense of dread as Beethoven ratchets the tension to a maximum. The relief that comes with the warm richness of the Andante con moto theme is quietly undermined by the dotted rhythms which bring to mind the opening of the first movement. There is further destabilisation in the first variation where the left hand seeks to drag the right hand both backwards and downwards. Spirits rise as the music ascends the keyboard. But escaping the effects of the first movement was always a forlorn dream. With two diminished chords we are flung into the Allegro ma non troppo, a movement terrifying in its implications. Even when the relentless motion stops it is only to gain strength to hurtle more powerfully towards the abyss. The Appassionata was a culmination. Beethoven waited four years before composing another piano sonata. PROGRAMME THREE Sonata in G minor, Op. 49 No. 1 Sonata in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2 Tempest Sonata in F, Op. 10 No. 2 Sonata in A, Op. 101 Sonata in B flat, Op. 22 In this programme I have kept to flat keys for the first four sonatas so that the sharps of the A major sonata might have extra luminosity. The F major sonata serves as a dominant for the B flat sonata which is the longest in the programme and comes just before the interval. The D minor of the Tempest works less as a subdominant of the A major that follows than as a flattened leading note of E major, the key that sounds most strongly at the opening of Op The rise of a tone D-E enhances the shift from flats to sharps, from the turbulent darkness of the Tempest to the serenity of Op Sonata in G minor, Op. 49 No. 1 (1795/98) Andante I Rondo: Allegro Here we have the anomaly of a work composed early in Beethoven s first period carrying a second period opus number. This results, it would seem, from the sonata 30 31

16 being offered for publication not by Beethoven himself but by his brother Caspar, several years after its composition and against Beethoven s wishes. This might justify its exclusion from the canon, but I think it would be a shame to miss out on the gentle melancholy of the Andante and, especially, the high spirits and clever rhythm of the Rondo. This charming sonata sets a precedent too: the Rondo is in G major and Beethoven was to use the two-movement minor-major design twice more to magnificent effect in Opp. 90 and 111. Already in the youth is the mind of the supreme master. Sonata in F, Op. 10 No. 2 (1796/98) Allegro I Allegretto I Presto In describing so many movements in Beethoven s sonatas the adjective high-spirited is the first to come to mind, as if the bedrock of his character and musical personality was composed of a dauntless and supercharged optimism. The circumstances of his early life were hardly designed to encourage such a state and so it likely comes down to his unshakeable self-belief. Certainly the outer movements of this fabulous sonata justify the description, extremely high-spirited as they are. The opening Allegro is like a dancing game, full of gestures: there is impishness and mischief if not outright wit, there are passionate outbursts, gentle graceful lyrical arcs, sudden stops, shouting and stamping. And over it all is Beethoven s sovereign control. The Presto finale takes off like a fugato-fuelled rocket and Beethoven makes room for only one breath, before the repeat of the second section. What a romp! In between all this boisterousness is a beautiful and unusual Allegretto in F minor. It is not quite a Minuet although it has what feels like a Trio. There is an air of mystery throughout, even when the music is at its warmest or most yearning. Beethoven s ability to identify and explore these subtle moods singles him out as a master of human psychology. He defines the indefinite. Sonata in Bb flat, Op. 22 (1799/1800) Allegro con brio I Adagio con molta espressione I Menuetto I Rondo: Allegretto Beethoven saw B flat major as a key for utterances of great breadth and, one might add, ferocious difficulty. There is the Archduke trio, the Op. 130 string quartet with the Op. 133 Grosse Fuge, and of course among the piano sonatas the massive Hammerklavier Op. 106, the opening of which seems to be anticipated in the first bars of this sonata

17 This is quite a long sonata too, its breadth contained mainly in the measured and very beautiful Adagio second movement. But it is a sonata principally notable for its formal perfection as a whole, a perfection which convinced Beethoven that it was time to change direction and begin to experiment with the received ideas of what constitutes a sonata proper. Historically we can see it as marking the end of his first period of piano sonata composition. As in Op. 106 the interval of a third is paramount in the opening Allegro con brio. Here the sonic effects of the piano figurations seem as important as the musical ideas themselves. The Menuetto offers surprises in its second half and its trio is turbulent and dramatic. But grace informs its theme as it does the theme of the Rondo finale. This beautiful melody has a pre-echo in the opening phrase of the Adagio but the similarity ends there. More telling are the multifarious and thorny technical problems that Beethoven hurls at the pianist, right to the end. Sonata in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2 Tempest (1801/02) Largo Allegro I Adagio I Allegretto This rightly celebrated masterpiece was composed during one of the most extraordinary periods in Beethoven s extraordinary life. His compositional powers were at an unprecedented pitch and works of genius flowed from his pen seemingly without cease. At the same time he composed what is known as The Heiligenstadt Testament, a document of devastation expressing his attempt to come to terms with his rapidly increasing deafness and his exclusion from everyday social life. Of all the great works of that time the Second Symphony, Eroica Variations, C minor violin sonata among them this sonata is the one that most contains his grief and despair, suicidal in its extremity. The first movement has no fewer than sixteen tempo changes and yet in structure is extremely compact. It is by turns disturbingly mysterious, uncanny even, and wildly desperate, as if Beethoven is being harassed by malevolent forces. The drop of a third from D minor to B flat major for the Adagio is enough to reawaken in Beethoven his noble eloquence. However, the finale is bleak, feverish and obsessive, annihilating. The nickname for this sonata, Tempest, is not Beethoven s. It is supposed to relate to the eponymous Shakespeare play. Perhaps it is less wide of the mark than the Moonlight, but I think it is nonetheless a mistake to look for clues in the external world when attempting to divine the meaning of this sonata. It is not concerned with wind, rain and churning seas

18 Sonata in A, Op. 101 (1816) Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung I Lebhaft. Marschmäßig I Langsam und sehnsuchtvoll I Geschwinde, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit While undeniably great, this sonata is packed with difficulties both for the listener and the performer, and finds its place in recital programmes only rarely as a result. The first movement is elusive. Ostensibly in A major it doesn t find an unequivocal tonic harmony in root position until bar 77 in a movement of only 102 bars. It seems to inhabit a space somewhere between heaven and earth where it hovers, buoyed up by subtle syncopations, its beauty luminous. The second movement is a march, a form only used once before in the sonatas, the funeral march of Op. 26. In an unrelenting rhythm, anticipating Schumann, Beethoven uses rapid modulations, handfuls of suspensions, extremes of register and contrapuntal density to create a movement of perfect sense that is nonetheless hard to assimilate. So much is happening it can easily sound confused. The Trio is primarily a two-voice canon, yet even this has an esoteric flavour which almost mocks its simplicity. The third movement is glorious with its melancholy not weighing too heavily. Its use of diminished harmonies is absolute perfection. In the transition to the finale the first movement is briefly revisited. The finale itself is loaded with contrapuntal effects, reaching a grand climax in the fugue of the development section. This builds to such a tremendous conclusion that the recapitulation of the opening theme is always in danger of sounding anticlimactic. Towards the end Beethoven threatens us with another fugue instead of a coda, but it is a false alarm and perhaps even a wry joke. Dear listener, play this sonata twice before making up your mind about it

19 PROGRAMME FOUR Sonata in C minor, Op. 10 No. 1 Sonata in G, Op. 14 No. 2 Sonata in F, Op. 54 Sonata in B flat, Op. 106 Hammerklavier Performance considerations have determined the makeup of this programme. As the Op. 106 sonata is sufficiently demanding, the first half is kept to smaller works, albeit great ones. The F major sonata serves as a dominant to the mighty Hammerklavier. Sonata in C minor, Op. 10 No. 1 (1796/98) Allegro molto e con brio I Adagio molto I Finale: Prestissimo There are so many great works in C minor that it is tempting to see it as Beethoven s favourite key for sombre and dramatic expression. From the third piano trio of Op. 1 through the Pathétique sonata, the Op. 30 violin sonata, the Third Piano Concerto, the Funeral March of the Eroica symphony, the indestructible Fifth Symphony, to the cataclysmic first movement of the final piano sonata Op. 111, Beethoven uses this key to house a series of enduring masterpieces. Perhaps this Op. 10 sonata does not quite measure up to these standards. Its finest movement, the noble and beautiful Adagio molto, is not in C minor but in A flat major. Nonetheless the forthright fist-shaking theme of the first movement is not easily forgotten, and the hectic turbulence of the finale can leave a tremendous impression. Beethoven had barely finished this sonata when he composed the much more famous Pathétique sonata in the same key. The thought nags that he felt he hadn t quite said what he wanted to say, that he had to have another go. Sonata in G, Op. 14 No. 2 (1798/99) Allegro I Andante I Scherzo: Allegro assai This delightful sonata is all charm. The songful grace of the opening movement, the ease of the not-quite-a-march second movement, the puckish wit of the scherzo, altogether make up a winning and brilliant work which is not played nearly as often as it should be. I suppose there is a price to be paid for being part of a canon that contains so many indisputable masterpieces. Sonata in F, Op. 54 (1804) In Tempo d un Menuetto I Allegretto The only mistake this sonata makes is to be tucked in between the mighty Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas! It is rarely discovered, let alone played. This is a shame as not only is it a beautiful and brilliant work, it is also a tremendous success in concert

20 The first movement looks back to the Waldstein sonata, not to the movements as we know them but to the original slow movement which Beethoven was persuaded to remove. The opening rhythm is identical, as is the key of F major and the Minuet feeling. Even the boisterous octave passages have a pre-echo in the discarded movement. The Allegretto on the other hand looks forward to the last movement of the Appassionata sonata with its moto perpetuo figurations. However, it eschews any darkness and instead offers a thrilling and irresistible ride, modulating freely in every direction and ending with a great stamp of approval. Sonata in B flat, Op. 106 Hammerklavier (1817/18) Allegro I Scherzo: Assai vivace I Adagio sostenuto I Largo Fuga: Allegro risoluto In classical tonal harmony it is the interval of a third that has the most to say. Major and minor modes are determined by what happens a third above the tonic or key note. Add another third on top of that and the diminished or augmented atmospheres are established. With the gigantic and magnificent Hammerklavier sonata Beethoven composed an apotheosis of just this interval. Thirds pervade. Thematic material, linking material, modulations, sequences, counterpoint all of it is built on either rising or falling thirds. So ubiquitous are they that the music might be in danger of becoming selfconscious, an extremely clever technical tour de force. But Beethoven never uses the interval for its own sake. Rather he harnesses its power and uses it to rattle the heavens and plumb the depths of the human spirit. The grandeur of his vision is sustained from the first to the last notes of this by far the longest of the sonatas, and the pianist is not spared. Not only is it the most difficult sonata in the canon, it is also one of the most difficult works for keyboard, period. Beethoven wrote beyond the capacities of the pianists (and pianos) of his day and even now it is only the most determined who attempt to master Op But the struggle is important. An easy performance will not illuminate this music. Beethoven s own struggle to wring such a monumental creation from his chosen simple materials must have its echo in the performer s efforts to bring it to life. To get to the heart of the sonata the heroic, declamatory, unsparing opening Allegro and the mischievous, mysterious, startling Scherzo must first be negotiated. Only then can we sink into the pure religiosity of the Adagio sostenuto, holy music which relieves us of the very suffering it limns. The Largo which follows is simply extraordinary. It resembles free improvisation but is actually a beautifully worked out transition which allows us to gently release the 40 41

21 Adagio as preparation for the Fugue, the bass line all the while descending through a wonderful series of thirds. The Fuga itself is often the stumbling block for those who would love to love this sonata but can t quite. Its virtuosity, complexity the clashing of passing notes and elemental power often provoke the comment it could have been written yesterday. Beethoven s aim is so high here that it is a miracle he didn t defeat himself (he certainly defeated a lot of pianists!). But even if the music is not immediately ingratiating it is nonetheless absolutely magisterial, stupefyingly brilliant on every level thrilling to know, thrilling to play. Despite the many difficulties for both performer and listener, it is hard not to pronounce the Hammerklavier to be the greatest of the sonatas. The Adagio sostenuto alone can justify such a judgement. PROGRAMME FIVE Sonata in A, Op. 2 No. 2 Sonata in E flat, Op. 31 No. 3 La Chasse Sonata in C minor, Op. 13 Pathétique Sonata in E, Op. 109 I am very fond of this programme with its juxtaposition/opposition of sharp and flat keys, and the uplift from E flat to E in the second half. Also illuminating is Beethoven s very different use of three and four flats in the two central sonatas. And after three five-sonata programmes and the massive Hammerklavier, there is a welcome alleviation of physical demands (not that any of these sonatas are actually easy to play!) Sonata in A, Op. 2 No. 2 (1795) Allegro vivace I Largo appassionato I Scherzo: Allegretto I Rondo: Grazioso In this, Beethoven s second published sonata, he throws down the gauntlet to all other pretenders to the pianistic crown. The master of the most difficult Mozart or Haydn sonatas would not in any way be prepared for the difficulties to be encountered in the outer movements of this brilliant work. In the first movement, along with the tenths and tricky triplet-semiquaver eruptions, there is a passage that Beethoven fingered for the right hand alone and which is essentially unplayable 42 43

22 certainly at the suggested speed and fortissimo dynamic. Fortunately the left hand is unemployed at the time and can be used to help out. This passage has often provoked speculation about its possible practical joke status, and indeed some joking would not be out of place in such a boisterous, fun-filled movement. The measured and stately Largo suggests that the conditioning appassionato had a special meaning for Beethoven, not to be confused in any way with the turbulence and desperation of the famous Op. 57 sonata. Rather it points to a depth of feeling underlying the more apparent formal restraint. The charming Scherzo is not as easy as it sounds, and its Minore trio section is an object lesson in the telling expressive power of accents. The main Rondo material also sounds easy, gracious and beautiful, but can feel like a series of booby traps to any nervous performer. Beethoven s natural virtuosity as a pianist must have been something to witness! Sonata in C minor, Op. 13 Pathétique (1798/99) Grave Allegro di molto e con brio I Adagio cantabile I Rondo: Allegro With the unique, arresting opening of this Grande Sonate Pathétique Beethoven s immortality as a composer was assured. The power, the rhythm, the emotion all are irresistible. And then to follow this magnificent page with a driving Allegro of unprecedented power, Beethoven establishes completely new limits for both the capabilities of the piano and a sonata s content. The tremolo bass and cross-hand virtuosity of the first movement retain their power to this day, and the two-fold reappearance of the Grave is the very meaning of dramatic. The drop of a third to A flat major and to the warmest register of the keyboard gives a glow and humanity to the heavenly melody of the Adagio cantabile. Such is the power of its beauty it shares the laurel with the first movement in ensuring the enduring fame of this sonata. The Rondo is of an altogether lighter cast than the first movement and does not work as a counterweight. Instead it redefines the notion of Pathétique, still dark, still dramatic, but no longer relentless and terrifying. I find it difficult to play because of the burden of the preceding two movements. Sonata in E flat, Op. 31 No. 3 'La Chasse' (1801/02) Allegro I Scherzo: Allegretto vivace I Menuetto: Moderato e grazioso I Presto con fuoco This great masterpiece has the most beautiful, magical opening in the canon, and that is saying something as Beethoven is a master of openings, many of which are 44 45

23 very difficult to play well. Liszt saw it as a question ( Liebst du mich? Do you love me? ). However, it might also register as a sigh of pleasure, a floating warmth. Except for a few outbursts this mood of gentle animation is maintained throughout the movement. The dynamic never rises above an accented forte. The Scherzo is very interesting with its illusion of great speed. This is generated by the almost constant staccato accompaniment to the restrained themes. Again, except for some wonderfully startling moments, the dynamics hover at the quiet end of the spectrum. This is the only sonata that has both a Scherzo and a Menuetto, the latter serving as something of a slow movement. It has a beautiful theme, but even more beautiful are the graceful, inspired leaps in the Trio. The French nickname comes from the finale with its galloping pace and rocking motifs. Beethoven lets the brakes off and the dynamics open up to bring this third sonata from the magnificent Op. 31 set to its exciting and joyous conclusion. Sonata in E, Op. 109 (1820) Vivace, ma non troppo Adagio espressivo I Prestissimo I Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung (Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo) This, the first of the final three immortal sonatas, seems to have neither a beginning nor an ending. Rather it unobtrusively attaches itself to an indefinable spiritual continuum and serenely detaches itself again when the notes are done. During the period of its attachment its form and content seem to be determined by matters as much psychological as musical, and it might even accommodate an approach from the world of dreams. Whilst perfectly cogent on its own terms, such music as this renders analysis pointless. It can only be played as an unfolding, a Becoming which achieves an exalted Being before it is relinquished. However, Beethoven does not lose his awareness of an audience, no matter how deeply he explores his innigster self. There is great dynamic interest, much is made of sudden changes, there is powerful virtuosity in the Prestissimo, and the songfulness of the third movement variations is hypnotic. Most magically, we feel that the theme of the variations has been transformed when we hear it again, barely changed, after the sixth variation. And yet it is impossible to define what has happened in the meantime. It seems to be to do with the nature of Time itself. All we can do is bow low before Beethoven s sublime understanding

24 PROGRAMME SIX Sonata in E flat, Op. 7 Sonata in D, Op. 28 Pastoral Sonata in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2 Moonlight Sonata in A flat, Op. 110 In this programme most of the driving virtuosic music is in the first half, and its absence gives the second half a peaceful and gently eloquent quality. I like the drop of a tone to set up the darker world of the c sharp minor sonata, and the movement of a tritone from the beautiful Pastoral sonata to the special illuminated world of Op Sonata in E flat, Op. 7 (1796/97) Allegro molto e con brio I Largo, con gran espressione I Allegro I Rondo: Poco Allegretto e grazioso This grand sonata is the second longest in the canon and its inspired nature is clear even though it plays out in a straightforward and unaffected fashion. Whilst hardly biographical, it points clearly to fundamental aspects of Beethoven s character, aspects that reveal themselves over and over again in his compositions. There is the muscular nobility, which finds its apotheosis in the same key in the mighty Emperor concerto the particular warmth that is both entirely human and elevated at the same time, and a certain gracious charm which he often saves for his finales. The first movement generates considerable power, frequently boosted by strong syncopated rhythms and exciting right-hand virtuosity. The second movement with its expansive themes, eloquent silences and quasiorchestral passages is the statement of a soul far in advance of the body which hosts it. Although it is quick, the gestures of the third movement suggest a fast Minuet more than a Scherzo. As so many times, Beethoven sees the Trio section (minore) as an opportunity for surprise. The Rondo is charming, graceful and has its difficulties, with two notable features: a wonderfully stormy central episode, and the most perfectly self-effacing farewell of a coda. Sonata in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2 Moonlight (1801) Adagio sostenuto I Allegretto I Presto agitato Although Moonlight can suggest ghosts, dark mysteries, fearful things, it is more often used to evoke romance, a special glow, a lovers walk, secret dreams and desires

25 It is such romantic imaginings that make it a hopelessly inappropriate nickname for this sonata, filled as it is with death and dread. Not to be forgotten, of course, is the fact that for many listeners (and even pianists) the Moonlight sonata stops at the end of the first movement. Its very playability has done it no favours as a spiritual document. After the profound meditation which is this first movement a meditation on the stillness, the silence, the sting of death the Allegretto appears as an attempt to raise spirits. But the constant delayed suspensions, which remove the natural accents from the melodic line, deny the music any real purchase. It is powerless to prevent the onslaught which is the Presto agitato. Here we have music almost as victim. Beethoven has not created a document of fury or obsession. Much more it seems he has been driven by forces against which his tremendous will cannot prevail, a pitiless annihilation. Sonata in D, Op. 28 Pastoral (1801) Allegro I Andante I Scherzo: Allegro vivace I Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo How wonderful it is to appreciate again the enormous range and resilience of Beethoven s musical temperament. To emerge from the maelstrom of the Moonlight finale into the balm of the opening movement of this beautiful work is like being given a new life. For the main theme of the opening Allegro, Beethoven combines an ostinato bass with spacious harmonies and a lovely melody to glide you down the hill and up the other side creating an open, airy feeling. This in itself justifies the Pastoral nickname, although it is probably the theme of the Rondo which brings the idea of the countryside to mind most readily. The second movement was a favourite of Beethoven, which he played often to friends. It is not the first time in the sonatas that he puts a legato right hand theme against a staccato left hand bass and perhaps he liked to demonstrate his mastery of this tricky technique. Equally it may have been the graceful wit of the central section or the superb and characteristic coda that appealed to him. The Scherzo is classic Beethoven brilliant, clever, surprising, dynamic with marvellous use of the left hand in the terse Trio to reinvent the repeated melody at each hearing. Beethoven in the main eschews virtuosity in this sonata and makes only sparing use of fortissimo dynamics. But in case the pianist should think they have it easy he does at the end of the Rondo throw in a page of exponential increase in difficulty, a brilliant quasi presto, to bring this masterpiece to an exciting close

26 Sonata in A flat, Op. 110 (1821) Moderato cantabile molto espressivo I Allegro molto I Adagio ma non troppo Fuga: Allegro ma non troppo Of all the sonatas this is the one that makes me most wary of words. It calls out to be played, and listened to, again and again. The espressivo is on such an exalted level that it renders instrumental and even vocal analogies virtually impossible. As in Op. 109 virtuosity is avoided, the brilliant exception being the difficult, genius, drunken Trio to the second movement Scherzo. The first movement is sublimely beautiful, but it is the magnificent trajectory from the first bar of the Adagio to the final chord of the sonata that puts this soaring masterpiece on a very special plane of its own. How close, through the various breakdowns the Recitativo, the Klagender Gesang, the incomplete first fugue, the exhausted (ermattet) reprise of the Arioso does Beethoven come to being unable to conclude what he has begun. And yet he rises above it all and gives us the most triumphant last page in the canon (Alfred Brendel refers to a self-immolation ). Such a will is unfathomable and it is right that the piano should seem inadequate to the vision. PROGRAMME SEVEN Sonata in F minor, Op. 2 No. 1 Sonata in E minor, Op. 90 Sonata in G, Op. 79 Sonata in C minor, Op. 111 Sonata in E flat, Op. 81a Les Adieux Here we have the first and last sonatas of the canon separated by a group of late middle period works. Although it looks a little heavy on the minor side, the second half sonatas are in fact mainly in the major. I see Op. 90 as something of an introduction to Op. 111, a way of showing Beethoven s astounding leap upwards into the stratosphere. Sonata in F minor, Op. 2 No. 1 (1795) Allegro I Adagio I Menuetto: Allegretto I Prestissimo The three Op. 2 sonatas are dedicated to Joseph Haydn and perhaps we can suppose this first one shocked him less than the other two, although I think Papa Haydn s jaw might have dropped when he saw the fourth movement. The opening Allegro introduces many features that we think of as Beethovenian : the escalation of tension through the shortening of phrases, the tremendous dynamic contrasts (fortissimo and pianissimo side by side), telling use of accent, instruction to play expressively, all within a formal perfection

27 The Adagio is in the tonic major, as it is in Op It also introduces the perpetual song, a thoroughly Beethovenian trait. Of course there are phrases that breathe, and ornament too, but essentially this movement is a long, unbroken, beautiful and heartfelt melody. A Minuet with fortissimo outbursts and chains of fourths issued a challenge to the foremost virtuosi of the time, but with the Prestissimo finale Beethoven claimed that territory for himself. Suddenly, he insisted stamina was a requirement in piano playing, speed and power together for extended stretches. Nothing so exciting had appeared in the piano literature before, and Beethoven was just getting started. Sonatine in G, Op. 79 Presto alla tedesca I Andante I Vivace This charming little sonata might be played more often if the first movement was not quite so tricksy. It is very fast with a strong dancing pulse and there is a lot of rapid hand-crossing, at times dolce and unaccented: in other words, a minefield. But the robust good humour is infectious. The G minor Andante tells an old, sad story, while, perfectly balancing these two movements, the Vivace finale is light, springy, and with a few booby traps of its own. Sonata in E flat, Op. 81a Les Adieux (1809/10) Das Lebewohl: Adagio Allegro I Abwesenheit: Andante espressivo I Das Wiedersehen: Vivacissimamente Archduke Rudolph, the dedicatee of this sonata, was the brother of the Austrian Emperor and patron, pupil and great friend of Beethoven. When the French armies prepared to attack Vienna in May 1809, the Archduke left the city with the Empress. Beethoven remained and endured the serious bombardment. It was the Archduke s departure that occasioned the composition of the Farewell sonata, and this makes it one of the most personal sonatas in the canon. Liszt ranked it among the most difficult sonatas to play and it is indeed very demanding both emotionally and technically. The first movement seems to be saying Don t go as much as it is saying Farewell : great agitation is juxtaposed with stillnesses that are sometimes frozen, sometimes of ennobling warmth. The second movement, Absence, is mainly introspective, a meditation on the pains and pleasures of friendship, brimful with intense and beautiful feeling. The transition to the finale, Reunion, is inspired and when the Vivacissimamente bursts into life it is the beginning of a sustained, unalloyed joy much of which is expressed in finger-bending passagework. Just before the end there is a marvellous Poco Andante, a tender affirmation, and then with a burst of laughter the sonata is done

28 Sonata in E minor, Op. 90 (1814) Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck I Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorgetragen Here is another great sonata that is not played enough, the fate of almost all the two-movement sonatas except Op They become sonatas for specialists, which is a shame. Op. 54 and Op. 78 particularly can generate very positive reactions from audiences. This sonata is really in E minor/e major, the two modes equally balanced. The first movement in the minor is both dramatic and melancholy, with great tenderness in the sadder parts. And, as is his unceasing custom, Beethoven finds interesting and unique sonic effects in which to wrap his introspection and thematic economy. The emergence into the major mode for the second movement is simply heavenly. This is Beethoven s most ingratiating melody in the sonatas, often described as Schubertian. The opening theme is heard, all thirty-two bars of it, three times in its entirety, a sure indication of Beethoven s own appreciation of its pure beauty. Also beautiful are the interludes separating these iterations, especially the transition to the final version of the theme, in the tenor this time, and the extraordinary last page. Sonata in C minor, Op. 111 (1821/22) Maestoso Allegro con brio ed appassionato I Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile And here we are at the end of the cycle: the last sonata. It is a perfect summation of all that has gone before: the passions, the sufferings, the strivings, the desperations. All these are synthesised into the titanic first movement and, extraordinarily, divinely in the last nine bars, released for all time. The Arietta then begins, unencumbered, pure, free to sing itself to its own ecstatic, timeless perfection. Such a document of the transcendental essence of humanness need never be described, no matter how curious we may be about how Beethoven did it. It is more than enough that it exists and that it challenges pianists, and listeners too, to rise and meet it as best they can. The rewards are unfathomable. Long live Ludwig van Beethoven! Thank you for your magnificent gifts to mankind

29 A PORTRAIT OF MICHAEL HOUSTOUN CHARLOTTE WILSON I: BEGINNINGS, Michael James Houstoun was born 20 October 1952, the third of four children, into a farming family on the outskirts of Timaru. The farm itself, 350 acres with sheep runs and a picturesque creek bordered by trees, was the classic country idyll and theirs was the classic country childhood: horse-riding, tree-climbing, Cowboys and Indians around the hay-bales. Michael has remained attached to the countryside all of his life. The family had long been settled there, ever since great-grandfather Houstoun arrived on the boat from York. Once wealthy bankers in Glasgow, the family fortunes had foundered in the West Indies and William Charles emigrated when he came into his inheritance, some time in the 1870s. Timaru had been a destination 58 59

30 for English settlers for some 20 years: rich in arable land, it was also the capital of the Mackenzie Country, stretching right from the coast to the foothills of the Southern Alps. He bought 22 acres of land and planted turnips. They stayed put Michael and his brother and sisters were the third generation to go to the local primary school, a stone s throw from the original farm and their father, Archibald (Archie) Houstoun became a prominent figure in the establishment. A popular local farmer, he chaired the Strathallan County Council and school committee, among many others, and ended up shortly before he died as Mayor of Timaru ( ). Michael s mother, Ngaire Foden, came from a family equally entrenched in the region. Her grandfather Thomas was a well-known carpenter, Head of the Masonic Lodge in Fairlie, who built many of the country s most beautiful listed buildings The Hermitage at Mount Cook, the Roads Board offices at Burke s Pass, the Fairlie post office and courtrooms, Ashwick Homestead. Archie would later do his war service at Ashwick, working right around the Mackenzie as a shearer and farmhand. Ngaire was just 16 when he proposed. She had to give up her singing lessons she couldn t afford to get her glory box together and continue with the singing and they married after the war. She also played the piano, and in 1957 Archie finally managed to buy her a little upright for 25. The neighbours were having a sale. Ngaire sat down to play the The Houstoun family,

31 children a tune, and the two eldest stumbled through it to a fashion, but Michael, 4½, came up and played it through note perfect. It wasn t his first touch of the keyboard he d been picking at the piano of the lady down the road, Dulcie McConnell, for a year or so by then but it was the first sign, and Ngaire says, I never thought, from that day on, that he d be anything but a pianist. She was delighted. There came more: he seemed instinctively to know where the notes were, he could reproduce a tune that he heard on the radio, and Michael himself remembers that everything he was ever taught about music was so obvious to him it was as if he d always known. Other strong memories are of his mother playing records on the gramophone. There was the Brahms second piano concerto when he was five or six, later the first piece of music that he ever bought, ordering it from Beggs in Timaru with an excitement that was dashed by the discovery that of course it was far too hard he was still only 10. And there was the Appassionata. They had the Rubinstein recording, and he describes hearing it for the first time: I can see myself exactly where I was standing in our house in Claremont. It was the Appassionata sonata. I was still very young. He got to the second subject and my whole stomach just turned over. It was like the light went on. It was a weird situation, absolutely physical. And I just knew something then that I hadn t known ten seconds before about myself, and about my whole life; that I was going to be a musician. I had such a sense of recognition and I knew then that I could do that, that I would, that I wanted to and that it was the right thing. It was Beethoven who woke me up to myself as a musician. Michael was despatched to the McConnells, like his older siblings, for lessons at the age of five: lessons that were rather less suitable for him than for Gavin and Maureen but which, nonetheless, brought him into contact with a man who was to have a huge influence over his early life Ian Dando. Ian was a teacher and keen mountain climber from Auckland. He had arrived at the end of 1958: Claremont Primary wanted a principal and Ian wanted to be near the mountains, and he stayed as principal for the next seven years, teaching the senior of the two classes and doubling up as driver on the bus run. The assistant teacher was Mary Densem, importantly, since they were both of them music graduates and huge musical enthusiasts. Ian immediately launched into musical activities with his class and by the time Michael arrived in the seniors, age seven, he had a recorder group well established and set Michael to accompanying them. The next step was a choir. Out of this tiny country school Ian put together a group comprising the entire senior class (23) and even some of the juniors half of the school and this choir became famous for a work that is a challenge for any professional adult group: Britten s Ceremony of Carols. The catalyst was a school exchange with Thorrington School in Christchurch in Michael was the boy soprano, his sister Maureen the alto, 62 63

32 and they astonished their Christchurch audience not only with the carols but with Michael on the piano, playing Khachaturian and Bartók. Ian introduced him to a large part of his early repertoire, and he says that nothing of his subsequent career could ever equal the thrill of hearing my little kids Britten s Ceremony of Carols unaccompanied in the school bus while I was driving them home, through the wondrous light and shade of the surrounding rural landscape. Those memories are imprinted in my mind forever. It didn t stop there. Ian got a collection of percussion together Michael remembers everyone out on the verandah making a marimba and the next year they repeated the feat in two full-length concerts in Christchurch and Timaru. Rave reviews: Michael s first appearance in the newspaper. In 1965, Radio New Zealand in Timaru (3XM) got them all into the studio for a series of live broadcasts, including Michael s solos, which were then released on Kiwi Pacific LPs in Wellington. His recording debut. Ian left Claremont in 1965, headhunted to be District Music Advisor for Otago, and has gone on to have a distinguished career as an academic and music critic. But they stayed in touch. The following year Michael played at his wedding, and would later visit him on his regular trips to Christchurch for lessons. Ian still reviews all his CDs. Recording for 3XM, 1965 (photograph used in Piano Man, 2006) 64 65

33 Meanwhile, at the age of nine, Michael had begun lessons with Sister Mary Eulalie at the convent. The Convent of Mercy ran music classes for the girls college and local community, and Michael would go along with his sisters for piano on Tuesdays and theory on Saturday mornings the only boy for the next six years. She was a good, thorough teacher: corrected his bad habits, taught him some discipline, led him through the Trinity exams. If he played extra well she gave him a banana. She appears in the documentary Piano Man, aged 96: Michael s got something that I can t explain. It s god-given. He s just got some kind of magic. He had a photographic memory, and you give him a piece of music, and he d just sit down and play it as if he d learnt it all his life. It was quite awesome, really. He had a tremendous gift. He was lovely to teach. He cooperated all the way with me. But I also recognised that as a teacher I never taught him, I only guided him, through life. He was so special. And she entered him in competitions. His first triumph was winning the grand prize (7 shillings and sixpence!) in the 8 and under 10 class in Timaru, and he cleaned up the Timaru competitions for years: also Southland Southland offered serious money and then best in his class at the larger competitions in Christchurch. There were others as well, including talent quests in Ashburton and Timaru, and he remembers winning delights not only the latest Bill & Boyd album for reaching the final, but then the portable record player to play it on. He made his public concert debut soon after, at the age of 11, playing continuo for the Timaru Choral Society s Messiah. He must have been substituting for somebody, for there were no rehearsals, and he remembers playing the piano in concerto position, nervously, right at the front of the stage. The family was involved too. Mum sang, and with Maureen also on piano and younger sister Patricia on violin, they would give little variety concerts in the community: the Home of Compassion, Society for the Blind, Multiple Sclerosis, the TB ward in the hospital, the RSA. This was all Ngaire s initiative, and in fact the children dreaded those phone calls where mum would put her hand over the mouthpiece to tell them that such-and-such was asking, and invariably accept, despite their wails of protest. The Scottish Society was fun, though: proper concerts, at the little Scottish Hall, and at the end the Timaru pipe band would come on playing at the top of their lungs the loudest thing you d ever heard. Then a cup of tea. Occasionally Michael was let off, out of injury: he suffered an impressive array of childhood accidents, ranging from a broken foot and sprained hand to hospital with appendicitis when he was 10. Most seriously, there was a bad accident clay-pigeon shooting when he was about 12. He was placing the target on the trap, the lever was pulled too early, and it 66 67

34 slammed straight into his upper lip blood everywhere, and a scar that has lasted. If it had been inches either way he might have been blinded, or killed. In 1966, Michael began at Timaru Boys High School. Later he would be proclaimed Outstanding Old Boy of the Year, in the wake of his first international competition in But he didn t enjoy it. He was teased. It was no good thing to be a boy playing the piano, or to be attracting the kind of attention beginning in the papers. And because he could play the piano meant he had to play the piano whenever there was school singing. The humiliation of weekly assemblies. Nor did he play rugby, managing to be sidelined with nosebleeds whenever he could, and although he enjoyed basketball and tennis he represented the school on the Basketball A team for two years he was very definitely different at an age when the most important thing to do is fit in. Things were not much better at home. Archie, a man s man, had no interest in classical music and did not understand his piano-playing son. Whether it was concern for Michael s wellbeing and future or something more troubled, it created a gulf between the two of them that they never got over. Even as a child, Michael quickly learnt to stop playing when his father was expected home. Archie never heard him. The only concerts Michael remembers him at were a fundraiser for Claremont School, 1962: Ian Dando and Mary Densem at the door of the school bus. Michael is kneeling front left 68 69

35 the Timaru Theatre Royal, part of his official duties as mayor, and accompanying Ngaire to Australia for a performance with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in 1993, shortly before he died. As far as school went, though, there was an unexpected saving grace. Timaru Boys did not offer music past the 4th form, or German, which meant that Michael was required to travel to Sacred Heart and Timaru Girls in order to pass University Entrance. Nobody ever knew where he was. He spent his last years at high school attending three schools. He whittled his workload down to the bare minimum, four subjects, and with the collusion of Sister Mary Corona, the theory teacher at the convent, he used that time to practise: I haven t seen you here, but that room s free! Unsurprisingly, he was on a continual report card for non-attendance a trend that continued at university but he was top of the Girls College in music and his piano playing improved by leaps and bounds. In 1968 he got the highest mark in New Zealand for his ATCL, and by the following year he was studying with one of the most highly respected teachers in the country: Maurice Till. Maurice was well known in the music scene. He had studied in Christchurch with Ernest Empson ( ), New Zealand s first great pianist, who had studied with Godowsky and got to know Busoni and Schnabel during his days in Berlin. That was the tradition he brought home, and Maurice was one of the inheritors of it. He was active in recital, appearing frequently in programmes for the Music Federation and the NZBC Symphony Orchestra, but it was as a teacher that he made his living. Ian Dando had already made the introduction, four years earlier, arranging for Michael to play for him after a concert that Maurice had given with students in Timaru: so when Sister Eulalie wrote to him, asking for an audition, he readily agreed. Michael played for him at the convent and lessons began at the beginning of Maurice was a big deal. Lessons were inspiring. I remembered everything he told me. He had so much to say. He didn t demonstrate, he just sat at the end of the piano and spoke. So I always felt that by the time I got a piece together on the piano and was presenting it, it was mine. That was a gift of his, the selfless teacher gift. It was hugely confidence building: in the course of the lesson my playing would get better and better; as it got better he would give me more and more challenging instructions, extend me with harder and harder pieces; and I d end up feeling like a real musician. He was cool, a very cool teacher. He didn t waste any time telling you how good or bad you were; he just did the business. We were a good match. Michael caught the bus up to Christchurch once a month for two years. It was a 100-mile trip each way three hours and they were long days with lunch and a 70 71

36 three- or four-hour lesson before catching the bus home again in the late afternoon. He would arrive back with screaming headaches. But it was worth it he had his first big competition wins, he made his concerto debut was a big year. The first coup was in the National Concerto Competition in Christchurch in February. He played Beethoven No. 2. He came third and was disappointed, the conductor s tempos were too slow and he couldn t make it sing. But then, first prize in New Plymouth in May: his first trip to the North Island and the youngest of the competitors, coming out of nowhere to defeat John Powell, his main rival and the local reigning champion. Patricia went with him, always his loyal supporter. They arrived back in Timaru with Michael s 12th splendid prize cup and hair-raising stories of the driving of their hosts. It was an exciting time musically. And yet in other ways teenage life proceeded largely as normal: he had a girlfriend everyone expected them to get married, they won the waltzing cup at school and there was the pride of his first car, and the usual teenage music LPs. All the Houstoun children got their driving licences as soon as they could and Michael bought a 1947 Humber, for $50, that he was delighted with even if the battery was always running out and he had to park it on a hill. That was followed by his first motorbike, a Suzuki 125 that he inherited from Gavin. Then a Ford Consul, then a Kawasaki 250 which in turn was passed on to Patricia. He still loves driving. Michael and motorbike, c

37 There were other successes as well. Later in the year he was offered a place in England on the strength of his ABRSM Grade VIII mark, although he was too young to go; he won third place in the nationwide schools chamber music contest with the Timaru Quintet ; he was top of the country again in his LTCL. And the third place in the concerto competition had an unforeseen effect. Juan Matteucci, who had just completed a five-year term as music director of the NZBC orchestra, was conducting the Christchurch Civic Orchestra in an all-beethoven programme later that year, their first-ever subscription concert, 14 August This became Michael s concerto debut. He remembers it vividly: a professional concert experience, the chance to play the speeds he liked, a standing ovation at the end. Composer and conductor John Ritchie came to congratulate him, reviews called him brilliant. Matteucci became a fixture of those early years. He was, however, still only a talented local boy from Timaru. That changed forever the following year. At the end of August 1970, he travelled up to Auckland to compete in the Auckland Society competitions, the biggest in the country and the most demanding. He entered all three senior piano rounds Chopin, Beethoven sonata, and Auckland Star Piano Concerto with Mozart K466 as set piece and despite being one of the youngest competitors ever and a complete unknown to boot, he won them all. Ngaire and Patricia went with him, and they stayed at the YWCA in Queen St, amusingly, since it didn t allow boys: Michael would climb in and out of the window to the fire escape to get in. He also met Ivan Wirepa, a fellow competitor some six years older, who would become a major friend and mentor over the years both in music and in life. It was his first taste of independence, and Michael says that he grew up hugely in those few days. Ivan s untimely death, in the early 90s, was a sad blow. But that was not all: the finals were broadcast, and Michael s recording of the Mozart ended up on an important desk: Helen Young, of the NZBC. The New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation then controlled the orchestra as well as the airwaves, and was based in Bowen State Building in Wellington. Helen was later the manager of the Concert Programme (now Radio New Zealand Concert), and helped save it from commercialisation during a particularly turbulent period in its political history: at that time, in 1970, she was a music librarian, working directly above the orchestra on the first floor, and part of her job was to audition tapes for broadcast. I remember it so clearly. We used to get countless tapes coming in from all around New Zealand, and suddenly there was Michael s Mozart from Auckland and he was only 17! I rushed to get Peter Nisbet, who was our boss. On the way I collected Alex Lindsay who was in the middle of rehearsal, and I said, you ve got to hear this. They said, we must bring this boy into the studio. And we never looked back, we always wanted to back him after that. That was the beginning

38 It was indeed the beginning, not only of Michael s broadcasting career Radio New Zealand (as it became) would record and broadcast numerous of his recitals and concerts, especially in the radio heyday of the 70s but also of his engagements with the NZBC orchestra. These were powerful champions. First Peter Nisbet, later manager of the orchestra, and concertmaster Alex Lindsay. Michael remembers his first broadcast of the Mozart D minor concerto in the studio, scared stiff, and Alex helping him hugely and being very kind. (He would later perform K467 at the first concert of the new Alex Lindsay String Orchestra, 24 June 1972, and the playwright Bruce Mason wrote to Maurice in admiration of Michael s technique: his hands seem almost to play themselves: a sovereign ease. ) And finally there was the conductor John Hopkins, Music Director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, who had been head of the NZBC orchestra before Matteucci and would reappear on the jury of the Van Cliburn competition. He recorded the Emperor concerto for Michael s second broadcast with the NZBC, and engaged him regularly for the next 25 years began with a bang: four concerts with The Symphonia of Auckland for their Proms season in February, playing the Grieg. Then straight down to the National Concerto Competition in Christchurch, which this time he won, with Liszt No. 2. By the age of 18 he had won every major competition in New Zealand. And finally, on 21 July 1971, he made his NZBC Symphony Orchestra debut at a family concert in Dunedin, playing the Liszt again, with Hein Jordans. He repeated it in September with Jacques Singer, this time in Wellington, in a season that included Alan Loveday, John Lill, Alfred Brendel, Isaac Stern. Singer was conducting Brendel in the Schoenberg concerto the very next day. The most gratifying musical event of the concert was to experience not only the enjoyment, but also the technical and imaginative abilities of the young pianist Michael Houstoun in his performance of the Liszt Piano Concerto No the pianist s control was always admirably taut but never cold. It did not take much imagination to see in this performance young Liszt himself. (J.W.R., NZBC Symphony Orchestra debut, Otago Daily Times, 22 July 1971) By this time, Michael had escaped school with a B Bursary and was in his first year of university, Canterbury, It wasn t a happy time, despite the NZBC dates (and Beethoven s Emperor with Matteucci in Christchurch). Maurice had moved down to Dunedin, so he had hardly any lessons, and he didn t like his classes (French, German, music) and ended up getting disqualified from the exams. He played hardly any recitals, he broke up with his girlfriend. There was a fantastic masterclass with Karl Schnabel on the Appassionata, but otherwise he describes it as a frustrating, shiftless year

39 In 1972, things looked up. Michael moved down to Dunedin to the University of Otago, where Maurice was now part of the faculty, and although he was scarcely more attendant to his studies the authorities turned a blind eye and gave him an exclusive practice room of his own. He played like a fiend. He flatted with Richard Mapp, a fellow student of Maurice s and in many ways a rival, although they got on together well. Richard had come second in the 1971 concerto competition, and would go with him to Leeds. People remember them at parties, Richard very intellectual but gregarious, Michael much more quiet and reserved. Together with Terence Dennis and Diedre Irons, who arrived from Canada in the 70s, they remain the best-known pianists in New Zealand of their generation. They also gave frequent university concerts together. That year was filled with concerts. Lunchtime recitals, duets, chamber music: duo programmes with Maurice at the Auckland Festival (fellow guest artist, Moura Lympany) and Christchurch Town Hall; the season opener with the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra, Grieg with the Auckland Symphonia and Matteucci, Carnival of the Animals in the wildly popular NZBC Stanley Black 1972 Proms. He also performed the Ravel concerto with the National Youth Orchestra, later included in a series of recordings The Best of the NYO. There was the most extensive, the first of his tours for the Music Federation, driving up and down the country playing Mozart and the Rachmaninoff Preludes Op. 23. So Michael Houstoun was well on the road. But surprisingly he still didn t regard himself as a concert pianist. I think of the years until 1972 as years of naïvety. Even though I was playing with the NZSO, and there was the big CMNZ tour and so on, I was still naïve inasmuch as I still didn t know what a concert pianist was or what a pianist did. I only half knew. I wasn t thinking of my own life in terms of that as a career. Maurice and I never talked about it we never discussed my career. We just worked on the music. I did my practice. He would tell me about a concert he d arranged or something would turn up in the mail, and I just showed up and played. Things just happened. So I never hankered after being a pianist, I went through the normal teenage thing of not knowing what I wanted to do, even though I knew I had these gifts and so on. I still didn t know if I wanted to be doing this. That would have to wait for the Van Cliburn, and

40 II: OVERSEAS, It was Maurice s idea to enter Michael into the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Already the most important piano competition in the USA, it was the first of the international competitions in which he won placings the Van Cliburn, the Leeds, the Tchaikovsky that would gain him international recognition and determine his movements for the next ten years. This was the beginning of overseas life. Maurice presented the entry forms as a fait accompli towards the end of Michael was only the second New Zealander ever to enter, and government support followed swiftly for his travel; the University of Otago topped that by paying for Maurice, a welcome thing for them both, especially since this was to be Michael s first trip overseas. He immediately knuckled down to learn the repertoire, a long list, stretching from Bach and Mozart to the virtuoso romantic works and warhorses. There was a chamber work in the semifinals, unique to the Cliburn, as well as a set 80 81

41 piece by Aaron Copland and a requirement for a composer from the contestant s own country. The final concerto round consisted of Prokofiev No. 3 and the contestant s choice of Beethoven. Most of the repertoire choices were straightforward for him Op. 111, Liszt s Mephisto Waltz, Mozart s C minor sonata, the Emperor concerto. Others were more difficult. Children s Corner was rejected by the competition for being too easy and had to be changed at the last moment. Wellington composer Edwin Carr was selected for the New Zealand work, and was one of those quoted heavily in the media in the run-up to their departure. Large feature articles began to appear in July, with in-depth interviews with Michael and commentary from anyone who could be connected to his journey so far. In the event, he never did get to perform his country s work hardly anyone did although he would go on to programme it upon his return. Before the competition Michael had had ample opportunity to try out much of the repertoire. In May he toured for the Music Federation. There were also numerous solo recitals at the university, duo run-throughs of the concertos, trios with the violinist Carl Pini who happened to be touring with his quartet. The NZBC orchestra even gave him a concert: Maurice got hold of Peter Nisbet, and Nisbet arranged an extra performance in Dunedin of the Prokofiev, just ten days before they left. Brian Priestman conducted, and it was televised all over the country. The crowd went wild. And finally, a farewell recital in Timaru. Another standing ovation: a civic reception hosted by the Mayor; the best wishes of the citizens of Timaru and Oamaru, accompanied by a cheque; telegrams and messages from the Governor-General, the Prime Minister, the Timaru Member of Parliament, the American Chargé d Affaires. The mayor came to see him off at the airport the next day, reporters were waiting at their final departure in Auckland. If Michael hadn t felt like a concert pianist before, he certainly did now. They arrived in Texas on 12 September. Fort Worth was already in a fever of excitement: this was the fourth and largest competition so far, with 50 entrants from 17 countries three times the previous number and a star-studded jury that included Vlado Perlemuter, John Hopkins, Lili Kraus and Walter Susskind, who was conducting the finals. Lili Kraus was a nice connection. A refugee in New Zealand after the war, she still listed herself as a New Zealand citizen and toured with the orchestra frequently. Now with a teaching position at Texas Christian University, she was the undisputed queen of Fort Worth and insisted that Michael choose the more difficult but more interesting of the two pianos on offer. He did not refuse. And he had a piece of luck, as well, drawing 49th in the ballot for playing order at 82 83

42 the close of the formal opening banquet, which meant that he had the advantage of always playing last. It gave him more time to prepare, and for Maurice s part it meant that he could form an impression of the other contestants in the long wait before Michael came on. It was gratifying. There were young people from all over the world, and I couldn t help thinking to myself, What are we doing here. Hearing earlier people play, it all just sounded so impressive. But I ll never forget the Saturday morning when you first played and got up and started with Triana, Albéniz, and I know I was prejudiced, but it just sounded so much better than anything else I d heard. It really gave me a tremendous boost. I felt it was making a statement as far as New Zealand music was concerned, that we weren t out of touch with the real world, that we were aware of what to aim for, and what sort of standard was required in an international field. It gave me a great deal more confidence to carry on with teaching. Maurice also remarked on the tremendous interest from the New Zealand press. The newspapers followed Michael s progress blow by blow and even in Texas the local paper devoted both morning and evening editions to the competition s coverage. Interest was intense. Not only were there more contestants than any other year, but the calibre was higher and the jury had tremendous difficulty deciding right from the outset when they deadlocked on 17 players in the preliminairies and brought eight of them back for a play-off of the Chopin étude. Michael was not one of them. He was already easily through. He had probably gained extra points when asked to stop during the Mozart sonata, only for Lili to insist that he continue and he reprised it from the very note from where he had left off. He also sailed through the semifinals, making a positive impression with both the Brahms trio and the Chopin B minor sonata, and duly found himself among the finalists, playing last on the Saturday, with Walter Susskind and the Fort Worth Symphony. Susskind was supportive of Michael, giving him some tempo advice that he was grateful for and took. And the performance went well, as well as he had ever played. He was the clear crowd favourite: there was an audience of more than 3,000 and all of them shouting and stomping leapt to their feet. It was the only standing ovation in the entire competition. He didn t win in the end; he came third, behind Vladimir Viardo and Christian Zacharias. But, as the youngest of the finalists, it was a good result. He won $3,000, a fortune, and more importantly a share of the winner s concert tour which the Soviet Ministry of Culture barred Viardo from taking up. He was allowed out to play only the most important engagements, and Zacharias and Michael shared the rest out between them, over the course of January February He phoned Patricia with the news and congratulations began to sweep in on both sides, with panegyrics in the 84 85

43 papers and dozens of letters, telegrams, and calls to the family at home. Michael was just as swamped in Texas, including (charmingly) a card from the combined Camp Fire Girls of Fort Worth and Tarrant County. He received 26 cables in one day. To whom it may concern It is my pleasure to introduce Michael Houstoun, one of the most talented young pianists I had occasion to listen to in these last ten years or more... his impact on the audience during the recent Van Cliburn competition (at which I am a permanent Judge) was enormous perhaps even more spontaneous than that of the 1st prizewinner s. In any case, my friend Walter Susskind who conducted the Finals for the contestants, told the Jury that it would be Michael Houstoun whom he would engage unhesitatingly and straight away. Lili Kraus, personal reference, 6 Nov 1973 Maurice headed home straight after the finals. For Michael, though, the future was open, and he decided to go and see London instead. And here he had a stroke of luck. Eugene List, the American concert pianist, had been among the audience at the finals and introducing himself to Michael, suggested that he come up to Rochester on the way he taught at the Eastman School of Music and could arrange a recital, generously inviting Michael to stay at his home. Not only that, he knew Rudolf Michael with Lili Kraus, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition,

44 Serkin, and was so impressed that he simply called Serkin up, suggested he take Michael on as a student, and Serkin agreed right there and then on the phone. Lessons would begin the next September. In the meantime, Michael flew to London as he had intended, booked himself into a B&B, and spent a week shopping and seeing the sights. He had his 21st birthday on the plane on the way home. He came back changed, and not just with platform shoes and bellbottoms and a new haircut. The thing about the Cliburn was it gave me the verification I needed. I realised that when I got it. Getting that prize in Texas said this is your career. It also said, you don t need to go back to New Zealand and finish your degree. It got me off the academic hook in that sense. That was a very freeing up thing. And finally, it gave me a lot of confidence, just the fact of that trip. It was the first time I d done anything on my own. I made my own decisions, I went to Rochester, I went to London. I d grown up I d become myself. It was the start of my independent life. Back in New Zealand he was a celebrity. He played in the popular Cushion Concerts with the NZBC orchestra, recorded the Emperor in a Beethoven concerto series for television, and embarked on a triumphant recital tour around the country that included a grand Welcome Home concert in Timaru. Standing ovations everywhere he went. Christmas at home: then straight back to the USA for the concert tour. It was extensive: 17 centres, beginning in January in Santa Cruz and winding its way through California, Alabama, Florida, Massachusetts, Texas, Iowa and Washington, ending up in Texas again on 20 March for a spectacular return to the Fort Worth Symphony. Houstoun Singled out: Symphony Season Ends on High Note. It was a whirlwind, and rather lonely and surreal, bouncing around America by himself. But it was a great success. Many of his dates were sold out, reviews were glowing, more profiles appeared in the papers. He is quite clear about where he wants to go now: Music is the basis of all my drive and ambition. I want to be a concert pianist. The rest of 1974 was spent preparing for tours with the orchestra and the Music Federation, back in New Zealand. Two programmes each, both over September: 22 concerts in just 30 days. Not only that, it was entirely new repertoire, including Beethoven Op. 109, Schumann s Op. 13 and the Schubert A minor sonata D537 on the solo tour, playing to packed houses and getting rave reviews. The Evening Post's Owen Jensen called Michael s debut in the capital the finest solo piano recital debut to be made by a New Zealander. The orchestra tour was similarly celebrated, Beethoven No. 2 and Tchaikovsky No. 1 with Hein Jordans once again, and there are photos of them both receiving the royal handshake: the Christchurch concert was in honour of their Imperial Majesties the Shahanshah Aryamehr and the Shahbanou of Iran

45 But it was the tour immediately following that made history the NZBC orchestra s first tour of Australia, October It had been long in the planning: this was the orchestra s first overseas visit, and as such, their first opportunity to showcase New Zealand music to the world. It was a big deal. It was also demanding nine concerts in total, over just 11 days with an astonishing seven programmes that included the major New Zealand composers (Edwin Carr, Anthony Watson, John Rimmer, Douglas Lilburn). Michael appeared in three of them, televised all over Australia, at the new Sydney Opera House opened just the year before: he played Prokofiev No. 3, Kiri Te Kanawa sang the Four Last Songs. Australia was impressed. The New Zealand soloists are, all of them, discoveries for us. If Miss Kiri Te Kanawa seemed to set an impossibly high standard, the artists who followed her gave a full measure of satisfaction... Michael Houstoun, with power, musicality and fine training, [was] an example of the best trend in young pianists today. (Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Oct 1974) He was still only 21. Upon their return, Michael flew straight to Philadelphia to begin study with Serkin. He found an apartment right in the centre, just two blocks from the Philadelphia orchestra and one block from the Curtis Institute. The first thing he did was buy 90 91

46 himself a Steinway grand, his first piano, watching as the technicians put it on their shoulders and carried it up the narrow stairs to the third floor. It was an exciting start, although the study was not quite as he expected as a special student of Serkin he was not actually enrolled in any other classes, and Serkin himself was so busy concertising that over the course of the year he only saw him some half-dozen times. Diedre Irons remembers this also. Michael s contemporary and later a close friend, she studied and taught at Curtis and reports that Serkin would tornado in for a few days, cram all his students in for lessons sometimes at the Institute, sometimes at his home then tornado off again on another of his tours. As a full-time student, she had Horszowski teaching her as well. But Michael found it disappointing. There was also the manner of Serkin s advice: he would listen to a piece right through in silence, then confine himself to only one comment. But it was always an apposite comment. Sometimes he was impressed, as with Michael s Gaspard de la Nuit, and in those situations he had nothing to say at all. But his recitals were marvellous. Michael says that he learnt just as much from going to hear him play as he ever did from having him teach. I could hear what he was up to. Definitely. He played late Brahms and I thought it was wonderful. I got it. I heard Rubinstein there too and I got what Rubinstein did too, because I hadn t always got what they did from recordings. It was glorious playing. So while Philadelphia was a wasted year, in some ways, it was also a growing-up year in maturity and independence. It established a pattern that would continue for some years: basing himself overseas for the northern concert season, coming home for concerts in New Zealand over the summer. Michael combined tours with the Music Federation and the orchestra shortly to take on their new names, Chamber Music New Zealand and the NZSO every year until Meanwhile, it was time for another competition. The Leeds International was approaching, in September 1975, and Michael returned to New Zealand for lessons with Maurice to prepare. Again there were concerts as practice: notably, a double tour with the NZSO in April, recitals around the major town halls, duets with Richard Mapp. Richard was entering the competition as well, and although he didn t progress past the first round, he had an arts council grant to study and work in the UK and ended up staying there 13 years. The competition began on 3 September, in the Great Hall of Leeds University. It s known as the golden year in Leeds history: 72 entered, and the finalists included András Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida, Dmitri Alexeev and Myung-Whun Chung, battling it out with Michael in the Grand Theatre. A lot was at stake: 750, the Gold Medal, engagements with BBC television and radio, a world-wide tour. Michael played one of the Brahms Intermezzi, Gaspard de la Nuit and Beethoven s Op. 111 in the semis: 92 93

47 and in the finals his stalwart, Prokofiev No. 3 with Sir Charles Groves and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, televised live by the BBC. It was a triumph. He received a tremendous ovation. Yet he came fourth equal, with Myung-Whun Chung, just behind András Schiff. Mitsuko Uchida came second: Dmitri Alexeev won. It was a shock, with even the BBC announcer expressing his surprise that the New Zealander did not do better he is an absolutely splendid pianist, and whatever happens tonight he is certain to make a noise in the world. As for Michael and Maurice, they were bewildered. Was it the assumption that a Russian would win? Was it Michael s visually undemonstrative style? They had felt dismissed from the start. Maurice recounted Gerald Moore s surprise that people are studying the piano at this level in New Zealand. Whatever the case, what was telling indeed was what Rosalyn Tureck said to Michael at the party after it was all over. She had made a special point of seeking him out, fixed him with intensity and said, Don t change the way you play. That was a big deal. It was so powerful. I can see her looking up at me to say this, she was tiny, and it was as if she needed to fix that conviction in me, make sure that I didn t get it all wrong as a result. She didn t want to have any conversation. It was the only thing she wanted to say. I retorted that the way I play is obviously not good enough to win, and she said, You have to understand that in competitions it all depends on the way the wheels 94 95

48 turn, in a real I am telling you something kind of way. So that was great that was absolutely vital. Otherwise it would have just been a crushing disappointment with no real result. Fourth equal was nonetheless impressive, and Michael travelled down to London where he was signed up by Ingpen & Williams, the agents, resulting in an engagement with Groves again and the RLPO early in 1977 and recitals that included his Queen Elizabeth Hall debut. Reviews were excellent No Higher Praise from the Liverpool Daily Post, exceptionally good from the Daily Telegraph, fluent yet thoughtful from The Times. Interestingly, all of them comment on the clarity of his part-playing, always a feature of his style. And it was during this period, also, that he made his first recordings for the NZ branch of EMI: a Bartók album, based around the Out of Doors suite and Suite Op. 14, and a Beethoven LP the following year of the Waldstein and Op. 22 sonatas. Recording was in London in 1977 and He chose which piano he wanted from Steinway and duly presented himself to the Abbey Road Studios to record, tucked in behind three acoustic baffles in one of the gigantic orchestral studios used by the BBC. Ian Dando wrote the review: Houstoun leads the field... A highly impressive debut disc. His sense of idiom for Bartók is right on target. The percussive crispness of his touch and his fine detail are propelled by a tremendous rhythmic thrust which lifts the listener up by the seat of his pants. But that was much later. In the meantime, 1975, he knew nobody in London and was disillusioned with the UK. He decided to go back to Texas. He would later question the wisdom of the move back to the USA and 77 were somewhat fallow performance years. They were social years: Michael reconnected with his friends in Fort Worth and enjoyed a variety of pastimes with them swimming, water-skiing, tennis parties, golf. It was a privileged circle. But they were not particularly musical years, apart from the summer visits to New Zealand and engagements in England in January. There was some performing concerts with a string quartet towards the end of 76, the Emperor concerto in Connecticut the following March. And he did connect with an agent in New York, who eventually arranged a Carnegie Hall performance in the winter of But little else. He was never able to secure good international management, and for some years it remained a frustration. On his visits back to New Zealand people found him prickly and reserved. These concerts in New Zealand, therefore, were all the more welcome: six- to sevenweek tours combining recitals and concertos with the newly energised regional orchestras. The 1970s were a golden age for the arts in New Zealand. Michael played for the season opener of the new Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, June 1976, at the special request of Clyde Roller of the Houston Symphony. There was the 10th 96 97

49 anniversary of the Dunedin Civic Orchestra, a solo recital tour fresh from overseas triumphs, a mammoth tour with the NZSO playing the Emperor, Brahms No. 2 and Rachmaninoff No 3. He used the same Brahms score that he had bought when he was 10. In the meantime, there had occurred a personal sea change. Patricia had received a letter from him in her first year of university, telling her he was gay: she was the test case, and receiving a favourable response, Michael was encouraged to tell the rest of the family a brave thing, given that homosexuality remained illegal in New Zealand until the Homosexual Law Reform Act was passed in And now, he was about to meet Michael (Mike) Nicolaidi, his life s partner. It was at a dinner party in Wellington during the 1977 tour with Uri Segal. Michael was staying with Bob Scott, a talkback radio host and local identity, and as it turned out a mutual friend. Mike was there. It was a coup de foudre for them both: as Michael describes it, kaboom. From that moment Mike became, and remains, the most important influential factor in my life. If not for him I would be a far, far lesser man, and probably a lesser musician too. Programme cover for the NZSO tour with Uri Segal, September 1977 Mike was then the political correspondent and theatre critic for the Evening Post. A celebrated journalist with a background in film-making, he had gone on to become the London correspondent of the NZ Press Association and was offered the first 98 99

50 NZPA post in Washington a position he eventually declined. He was also a key figure in the arts. Director of the national (QEII) Arts Council , he was the founding president of Playmarket and would later be on the board of the NZ Film Commission. And, despite his travels, which were extensive he had lived in Canada for two years, as well as London at the height of the swinging 60s he was a country boy at heart. His parents had settled in central Hawke s Bay and, just like Michael, he had grown up on a farm. Michael started to extend his stays in New Zealand, staying with Mike at his cottage in Thorndon. He began to blossom, in the words of his friends. However, he was still based overseas: his international life had to run its course. Having decided that Texas was finished, it was time to give London a go. London,

51 Songs to Uncle Scrim, London, Michael arrived in London at the beginning of He went to stay with a friend of Richard s, Ian McDonald, who was a celebrated neurologist and had a lovely Georgian row house in Islington. It was a perfectly luxurious situation for Michael: Ian was a keen amateur musician, with two pianos, and having intended to stay only a few weeks while he found a place of his own, Michael moved into the top floor and never moved out. He had company. Jane Waddell was a drama school graduate, a friend of Mike s, who had arrived in London not long before. She had teamed up with a bunch of New Zealand expats calling themselves The Heartache and Sorrow Company, about 15 of them in total, including Cathy Downes, Stuart Devenie, Di Robson and others all names now well known on the theatre scene. They needed a music director and Michael was quickly roped in, beginning with transcribing and arranging scores for them and quickly finding himself actually playing and singing in the shows. Songs to Uncle Scrim was the first (Mervyn Thomson, music by Stephen McCurdy), followed by Break fast Cabaret and a skit show that Devenie devised, Hair of the Dog. The most successful was Sweet Corn, a Country and Western spoof that the three of them (Cathy, Jane, Michael) developed from scratch and that played for a full three weeks at the Fringe Theatre on the Tottenham Court Road. It was such a success,

52 in fact, that they were invited up to the Edinburgh Fringe, driving up there in Michael s 2CV and playing at a great venue on the Royal Mile, staying with friends and having a fantastic time. They ended up with a Prestige award for the Fringe 1978, that led to a tour around Holland the following winter: Amsterdam, Utrecht, 15 centres in total from a splendid town hall to an under-heated tent. Houses were good, audiences were enthusiastic. It was a surreal, mad, enjoyable time. Jane returned to New Zealand the following year and they have all stayed in touch. Michael still plays for the theatre: most recently Rita and Douglas (Dave Armstrong, 2011) about the relationship between New Zealand painter Rita Angus and composer Douglas Lilburn, to sold-out houses around New Zealand. Only the letters from Rita survive: Douglas s voice is replaced by music. Riveting drama with little more than a handful of letters and a piano. At the same time, Michael was attending to his technique. It was three years since he had taken any lessons. He had begun to feel some tension creeping in, and Ian knew the perfect person to help. Her name was Brigitte Wild, Gigi, and her formal position, second instrument teacher at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, belied her considerable status: she had been Claudio Arrau s assistant and his first student, while still a child, and as such was a descendant of Martin Krause and Liszt. She had a fluid, large, whole-body approach with a lot of weight in the arms. Brigitte Wild, Gigi, 1978 Michael with Ivan Wirepa, c

53 She also inherited Arrau s attention to detail, breaking everything down into small units: unbelievably basic stuff, Michael remembers, going back to the beginnings of piano technique. It was helpful. Not only that, it was enlightening. Gigi was lovable, and cultivated, and Michael credits her with introducing him to the wider cultural world: literature, philosophy, the visual arts. Rae de Lisle, fellow New Zealander and Head of Piano at the University of Auckland, studied with Gigi not long before and encountered the same thing: She was a very gentle, very warm human being, interested in absolutely everything. She would take you to the National Gallery to see a painting by Uccello, or she would show you the Elgin marbles at the British Museum, then she would insist you saw such-andsuch a play because John Gielgud was in it... she even took me on a day trip to Oxford to show me all the architecture. It opened my eyes to Art with a big capital A. Rae would later help cure Michael of the apparently incurable condition focal dystonia. The lessons with Gigi would be Michael s last lessons proper: from now on it was important to trust his own musical instincts, and not have to rely upon anybody but himself. Meanwhile, the concerts continued in New Zealand, with solo recitals in Wellington and Auckland, and two big tours with the orchestra towards the end of 1978: the first for the visit of the President of the FDR, Walter Scheel Michael played the Schumann concerto and another blockbuster series of Cushion Concerts in Wellington. The NZ Women s Weekly published a feature on him, and Mike wrote about Kiri Te Kanawa, Donald McIntyre and Michael Houstoun in a feature for NZ Quarterly: New stars in Europe s artistic firmament who add to a distinctive New Zealand tradition. Finally, Michael released his third album, Pictures at an Exhibition and Rachmaninoff preludes, recorded in the Dunedin Town Hall. The cover depicts a bronze of Michael s head by New Zealand s most renowned sculptor, Terry Stringer. It is a measure of his growing renown. There was little happening in London, however, apart from a recital at New Zealand House, and a Chopin broadcast for radio in Hamburg. Ian Fraser visited him in London in 1979 and found him rootless and drifting. Ian was one of New Zealand s best known broadcasters and a friend of Mike s they had coincided at the arts council in 1973, and through the late 70s and 80s he was the presenter of the primetime current affairs and arts shows on television, and ended up as CEO of TVNZ and the NZSO. In 1980 he and Michael performed in the Auckland Festival together in a production of Sondheim s Side by Side, which had enjoyed an unprecedented 100-night run in Wellington the year before. It was a two-piano reduction of the score, one of the pianists was unavailable, and the very next day Michael was in rehearsal: another one of those lovely little accidents that turned into a family road trip, staying in a motel out on the outskirts on the Great South

54 Road with Mike, Ian s wife and infant daughter and the rest of the cast and crew. They became close friends and have remained so ever since. Michael recently played the Goldberg Variations at Ian s 65th. Ian was right though: things weren t really working in London. So on New Year s Day 1980 Michael flew back to the USA. Not to Texas Texas was a done deal, a dead dog but to Washington. He had a friend there, Robert Hardgrove, who worked for one of the Democrat Congressmen and had an apartment right in the centre, so there he stayed, overlooking the dome on Capitol Hill. It was an enjoyable time. Hardgrove was a natural friend-maker and he found Washington DC wonderfully stimulating, friendly, and abuzz with motivated go-getting active people who at 5pm would filter through the front door for vodka-tonics, music, conversation, food. He applied for and obtained a coveted green card, imagining that he might stay for good. It was without doubt his favourite time in the USA. There were also other New Zealanders there. Flautist Marya Martin was one of them. Subsequently on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, she had won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions the year before and was engaged for debuts at the 92nd Street Y in New York and Kennedy Center in Washington DC. She needed a pianist. So Michael accompanied her, for the important debuts as well as concerts at Yale, and they went on to record an album together his fourth and stayed in touch through her tours back to the NZSO. And there was violinist Wilma Smith. Wilma had just finished two years at the New England Conservatory in Boston, and went straight back to found the Lydian String Quartet and, later, the New Zealand String Quartet, before becoming concertmaster of first the NZSO and then the Melbourne Symphony. TVNZ s Kaleidoscope travelled to Washington to make a programme on the three of them, Three Musicians, filming them tooling around the streets of Washington in Hugo Judd s 1963 Mustang convertible Hugo was No. 2 to the ambassador culminating in a concert at the embassy in the summer of Wilma and Michael have played together regularly ever since: Michael is sublime to play with. He s the consummate musician. And you just learn so much playing with him, somehow. It has undoubtedly made me a better musician. He just brings out the best of me. Concerts continued in New Zealand. It was a busy year, beginning with the Sondheim in Auckland, Michael s first Cambridge Summer music school, and a tour to the Hong Kong Festival with the NZSO for which he joined string principals in a performance of Schubert s Trout quintet. He was back in the winter, touring the Ravel with conductor Erich Bergel, followed by solo recitals (Haydn, Beethoven, Liszt) and an NZSO-presented tour with baritone Barry Mora. It would be the first of Michael s highly-acclaimed partnerships with singers, including tenor Keith Lewis, and Jenny Wollerman who speaks of his almost uncanny sense of timing and

55 of the breathing of the music, constantly adjusting and accommodating for the singer... he is so intensely focussed, it is as if he is completely within the music itself, rather than playing it. After the Mora tour it was straight back to the USA to prepare for Carnegie Hall. 12 November, 1980: Beethoven s Opp. 53 and 111 and the Liszt B minor sonata. The audience was small yet another agency disappointment but The New York Times wrote glowingly of his Liszt: This was, in fact, a considerable performance in every respect. Technically, Mr. Houstoun is indeed impressive, and sheer flair in such passages as the rattling octaves in the last movement can make a valid interpretative point here. But Mr. Houstoun did more than merely dazzle: he limned the moods of this sonata most persuasively, and made one want to hear him again... (John Rockwell, New York Sunday Times, 16 November 1980) It would be Michael s last significant engagement in the USA for some time. The following year, 1981, he decided to come home. Michael with Marya Martin and Wilma Smith, Washington DC, 1980 (used in Piano Man, 2006, courtesy of TVNZ)

56 III: NEW ZEALAND, There were several reasons to come back to New Zealand. The first was Mike. The second was that the country was holding its general election, 28 November 1981, and Michael wanted to vote: he timed his arrival to the day before. And the third was that by now it was clear that New Zealand could more than sustain a career. There was increasing demand from the regional orchestras, in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin: independent recital dates that would be all but guaranteed to sell out; and, most importantly, the nationwide tours for both CMNZ and the NZSO. The risks were obvious New Zealand was a long way from the managers and orchestras of the northern hemisphere, and because it is a small country, he was very much aware of the importance of maintaining his standards and integrity as a performer. But he rejects the notion that an international career is not possible here. There is a tremendous colonial mentality, especially in London. People don t believe you can be any good if you choose to be based outside of Europe. They say that you can t possibly keep up with the trends; can t get the inspiration that constant exposure to other reputable musicians brings; that by remaining in New Zealand you put yourself off the musical map. To me that is nonsense. I can be anywhere in the world in 24 hours. I simply choose not to be. I believe I have reached the point where I am entirely self-starting and

57 self-motivating. I don t need to hear someone else s great performance to know how to perform myself. It had been in his thoughts for a while. In August 1980 he told the Timaru Herald that it was his dream to return to his home country, base himself in Wellington and move between there and the northern hemisphere. After all, that was already exactly what he had been doing for some time. He had become increasingly wary of the system over that time: the competitiveness, the politics, the necessity of exploiting what he calls the personality sideshow. All that was a distraction, nothing to do with the music. And there was an artistic freedom to be had here. Audiences having followed his ascent since the Van Cliburn were loyal to him in a way that they would never be overseas. Moreover, there was the chance to pass on some of his experience, to contribute something back to emerging local musicians: and ultimately, I understand New Zealand people. It was home. Mike supported him, of course. By now it had become clear to them both that they had to be together, and that could only be in New Zealand. Michael came back for a visit in the summer of 1981, extending and extending the date of departure, before flying back to Washington to pick up his things. They bought their house together that summer: by now, Mike was Chief Reporter of the Evening Post, and they placed advertisements in newspapers all around the lower North Island before finding what they wanted a cottage on a quarter-acre out of Feilding, two hours from Wellington, among the rolling hills and dairy farms of the Manawatu. Life became settled and happy, for Mike and his writing, just as much as for Michael and his music. Michael makes me whole: I become whole, with him, and that was an instant thing. He is also this totally energising influence and force in my life, and that is incredibly fortunate for me. It s a real bonus about living. The other thing is that he brought me to music. I had very little interest in classical music before I met him, but not long after I did I went to his concert in Wellington, Rachmaninoff third with the NZSO, and I ve never really recovered from that. It was so powerful. And now, I hear him a lot, at home and at concerts, and the wonder for me about Michael s playing is that I find it totally absorbing. It s partly because he s not flamboyant or showy as a performer. It s not about him, it s about the music, and it is the depth that he achieves in bringing the music out, that to me is so important. That s his great gift. Not getting in the way of the composer s music. Michael would later speak at length about emotion in music, in the context of this Beethoven series, and of a piece by Victoria Kelly on the Inland CD. The important thing is to excite those particular individual emotions in the breast of the person listening and present what is there in the music cleanly; rather than overstate his own emotional reading and present it as the only possible interpretation, static

58 and fully-formed. As for Mike, Michael is glad he isn t a musician it means his reactions are absolutely pure. Mike s not worried about the little details and niceties that involve an actual musical knowledge, and he doesn t need to be. What is far more important is that he s just into the essence of the whole thing. He knows when something is working on the level of the musical performance. For me, that s incredibly inspiring, because it provokes my performance instinct, which is more than just the music. It s a certain kind of energy that makes the music communicate better and live a little bit more. Back at the cottage, they began renovations, driving up every weekend from Wellington for the next three years. They started with the garden. A stand of acacias to shelter them from the prevailing westerly wind: a pecan and redwood, native totara, weeping elm, scarlet oak; olives, almonds, and lots of fruit tamarillos, persimmon, feijoas, a couple of apple trees, plums, a massive quince. There are sheep and goats on occasion, chickens that give them fresh eggs, always their cats. They are still hoping that one day the pecan will produce nuts. Meanwhile, the decision to come back to New Zealand was more than vindicated. Life blossomed. The first engagement Michael had was a return to the Cambridge Summer School in the new year four times the usual number of pianists enrolled Mike and Michael, 2005 (photo: Sal Criscillo)

59 on the strength of it. Those first two years home he had a concert on average every two weeks: notably, a 12-centre tour of the Grieg with John Hopkins and the Schola Musica, the training orchestra of the NZSO; a 19-centre recital tour for CMNZ; both Tchaikovsky concertos with the NZSO and Thomas Sanderling; a Mozart festival with the Auckland Regional Orchestra; and in June 1983, a repeat invitation to the Hong Kong Festival, playing Beethoven and the Chopin Ballades. But first, there was one final temptation overseas. In 1982, Michael was approaching 30, the upper age limit for international competitions, and in June it was the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow the biggest of them all. He entered as a last fling and was told at Easter that he had been accepted. One month long, it was televised all over Russia, and this year there was even a documentary film crew, following a few chosen contestants among the 79 that made the first round. Michael was one of them, and they spent the month recording his every move. It was the first time anyone had ever entered from as far as New Zealand. It was also the first time no first prize was awarded. It was an odd year. And it certainly started oddly for Michael, with a nightmare train trip from Vienna to Moscow, on the Chopin Express, that almost had him arrested and lost in an unidentified location in the middle of the steppes. He had been in Vienna to visit Catherine and Hugo Judd, now the ambassador there after Washington DC, and only discovered when they came through to do the border check that there was an anomaly with the dates in his passport. He was hauled off the train, interrogated in Russian, eventually found an interpreter and managed to explain, and was abandoned back on the platform with no money, no luggage, no way of making himself understood and no way of knowing which was his train. One crawled past. But he was saved. On the next there was a familiar figure the friendly train conductor, who had witnessed him being dragged off and was leaning out the window watching out for him. He had even secured his belongings. Michael says that never in his life has he been so fully and immediately grateful to anyone as he was to that man. Moscow was rainy and cold. The hotel was vast: overlooking Red Square and the Kremlin, it was the pride of 60s Soviet architecture and boasted 28 restaurants and over 3,000 rooms. By great good fortune Michael s room-mate had failed to turn up and he had one of them to himself, unlike most. It was a forbidding experience for a westerner. There were women in uniforms sitting behind a desk on every floor, keepers of the room keys, monitoring one s every move. International mail was censored, phone calls cost $20 per minute. He had never felt so cut off. Letters back home spoke of the strangeness of the surroundings and the almost total lack of food. Wisely, the cook at the NZ Consulate in Vienna had packed a gigantic hamper for him. He made it last over two weeks

60 There were highlights, though. The first was his interpreter, Nina, who looked after him. A close second were the film crew, entirely made up of these amazing women. And there was Marina at the New Zealand Consulate, where he had gone to introduce himself upon arrival. He avoided the Cultural Programme laid on by the Soviet state and spent all of his social time there. As for the competition, he was easily selected for the finals, practising every day at the conservatory and perfecting the repertoire most of it Russian, of course, plus a Bach prelude and fugue, the Liszt sonata, Tchaikovsky in every round. For the concerto round he played Beethoven s Emperor and Tchaikovsky No. 2, with Fedoseev conducting the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra. The jury took a long time to decide they had trouble, evidently, not only neglecting to give a first prize, but also making joint placings out of most of the ones that remained. They placed Michael 6th equal. He telegrammed home, 6th prize better than poke in eye will phone. He gave the prize money to Nina in roubles, it was unconvertible currency and immediately set about finding a plane ticket: he had a concert in Auckland to get to within days of returning, although even that was a mission, since although the competition undertook to fly contestants back to their home countries that turned out to be only as far as Aeroflot would take them. Michael got as far as Singapore, and the New Zealand Embassy picked up the reins and flew him home. Rehearsing for the finals of the Tchaikovsky competition, June 1982: 120 Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra. 121

61 I was disappointed in a way, because I had invested a lot in it in the sense of practising a lot and working hard. At the same time, I didn t take it as seriously as the others because I was wise enough by then to know that anything can happen in competitions so there s no point. But it was a good experience, a big experience. I look back at my competition results overall and think it all worked out all right. What if I d won the Leeds? I might have had more of an overseas career. But what has become clear to me instead is that my place in the world is here. It s not only that the strongest part of my performing life is here: it s that my style matches New Zealand, somehow. I ve often wondered whether this isn t absolutely where I m meant to play. Michael would soon be in demand himself as an adjudicator, first with the Kerikeri (now International) Piano Competition in 1987 and subsequently the Gisborne International and the Wallace National Piano Competition. In 1998 he was invited onto the jury of the Gina Bachauer Competition in the USA, and later became closely involved with the Michael Hill International Violin Competition as collaborating artist and advisor, accompanying the winners on their extensive tours. He remains slightly cautious of the large competitions. The effort to impress as many as 21 separate jury members (as at the Tchaikovsky) inevitably leads to an approach that focuses on safety rather than individuality and music is not about safety. However, as a measuring stick, competitions still play an important role. He did make it back to his engagement in Auckland, after the Tchaikovsky, and over the rest of the 80s was inundated with work. Two main-centre tours a year, on average, with the NZSO: six extensive tours for CMNZ; and multiple dates with the regional orchestras, including his reintroduction to the (newly named) Wellington and Dunedin Sinfonias and three separate concerts a year with the Auckland Philharmonia his Mozart concertos, some with his own cadenzas, were often sold out. He performed his first New Zealand piano concerto with them, The Coming of Tane-Mahuta by Christopher Blake, commissioned for him to conduct from the keyboard. There was also his first complete Beethoven concerto cycle with Matteucci and the Dunedin Civic Orchestra in 1984, the first of six to date. This was the Beethoven decade, encompassing festivals with the Auckland Philharmonia and the NZSO, and on 3 July 1983 he gave an all-beethoven recital for the inaugural Sunday afternoon series of the Wellington Chamber Music Society. The manager was Russell Armitage, an accountant and music-lover, who launched himself into promoting Michael s first concert and, later, Michael himself, with characteristic energy over the 80s and 90s. Such was the success of that first recital that a Beethoven sonata programme would follow every year thereafter, and developed into the first complete Beethoven cycle in

62 1984 also marked his conducting debut proper with what was then the Auckland Regional (Philharmonia) Orchestra, followed by an all-mozart concert with them two years later at Wellington s NZ International Festival of the Arts. Conducting became a sideline that proved very popular with orchestras, and audiences, if not entirely with Michael himself. He studied with Sir William Southgate, and from directing Mozart and Bach concertos from the piano he was soon conducting whole programmes, including the National Youth Orchestra, the NZSO and every regional orchestra in New Zealand. In 1996 he conducted the Wellington Sinfonia s entire season, including Beethoven s Symphony No. 7, the Firebird Suite and Richard Mapp in Mozart s K271, and he has amassed a considerable symphonic repertoire that ranges from Haydn to Honegger as a result. The NZSO concert was the most prominent: Fauré s Pelléas and Mélisande, Mozart K595, Dvořák s New World symphony. Reviews were admiring an unqualified triumph. Yet it also marked his decision that conducting wasn t really for him. The NZSO was not only important for giving him dates. It was important for the people he met within it. The publicist was Joy Aberdein, a journalist and freelance pianist who joined the orchestra in 1985 after an early career in television. She went on to lead their communications and marketing, and became a close friend. They went together on the 1991 National Youth Orchestra tour that Michael conducted, Beethoven 4 with conductor Eduardo Mata, for the NZSO Beethoven concerto cycle June (photo: Graeme Browne) 125

63 bonding over long drives through the South Island and restaurant meals. They were stopped for speeding at one point, and, asked his occupation by the police officer, Michael simply replied pianist. As Joy says, I don t think they had ever heard of a pianist. He was let off. She also remembers a cancellation with Franz-Paul Decker in the 90s where Michael was called up in the morning in Feilding, leapt into the truck still in his farm clothes, went straight into rehearsal and performed Shostakovich 2 the same day. She was ready waiting in Wellington with the score. Another important contact was Kenneth Young, the producer of this Rattle Beethoven release. Ken was Principal Tuba of the orchestra, but also a composer and conductor: he remembered Michael from his virtuoso recitals as a student and began writing for him with the Fantasy for Two Pianos, which he toured with Diedre Irons in It was time to look at New Zealand composers. Early commissions come from Ken Young and Christopher Blake and, later, John Psathas, known internationally as the composer for the 2004 Athens Olympics and for his many and varied collaborations ranging from Evelyn Glennie to Michael Brecker. Psathas and Young would become particularly close colleagues and friends. Jenny McLeod was another early composer, and Michael and Diedre premiered her Music for Four on a piano-percussion tour for the 40th anniversary of the NZSO, one of many that they undertook over the 80s and 90s. They both enjoyed these tours immensely, and there is a fund of stories such as the time in Invercargill when Diedre broke a piano string and Michael gallantly leapt to his feet on the instant and reached inside and ripped it out. Such a gentleman! There was another development over the 80s. Overseas began to open up, following his recital at the Hong Kong Festival was a particularly busy year. He made his debut with the Singapore Symphony in Prokofiev No. 3, returning three years later with Tchaikovsky, and was invited on a recital tour of Japan through Yokohama, Tokyo and Osaka the fans came out in force, and he found himself signing someone s shirt with a felt pen like a rock star and in 1986 he finally broke into Australia with an Emperor for the Sydney Symphony and John Hopkins that was called close to the Ashkenazy class a performance of rare grandeur, authority and musicianship (Sydney Morning Herald). This was the first concert of a fivecentre tour, the first of many with the orchestras of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Tasmania, and the West Australia SO in Perth. He was the soloist for the Beethoven concerto cycle for a Beethoven festival in Perth later that year. The following year the ABC booked him for a solo recital tour of eight centres early Beethoven, Scriabin, and Chopin and engagements came regularly over the coming decade, including the celebrations for the Australian bicentenary in Highlights include Peter Sculthorpe s piano concerto in Hobart, Adelaide and Perth, a Mozart season with the Sydney Symphony and Edo de Waart,

64 and a Schumann tour with the Melbourne Symphony in 1995, standing in for Christian Zacharias who had come second in the Van Cliburn all those years before. By the end of the decade, Michael had more than 30 concertos in his repertoire. He released his sixth album, Bouquet, received an extensive profile in the winter edition of Music in New Zealand, and was named one of New Zealand s Living Treasures in the 1990 Collector s Edition of North and South. He gave the first of his recitals at Government House, that year, receiving the Queen s commemoration medal in recognition of services to New Zealand as part of the sesquicentenary celebrations of the Treaty of Waitangi. Most notably, in June 1989 he was awarded the Turnovsky Prize for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts: $30,000, with which he bought a new Steinway and installed it in the music room fronting onto the verandah at home. Originally two rooms of the old cottage knocked together, it is lined with books and art and comfortable places to sit, with the piano facing out to the garden and the scent of wisteria wafting through in the springtime. In 1988 his book was published, PIANO: A technical approach to relaxed control at the keyboard. Inspired by Gigi s approach of eliminating physical tension, he had been working on it ever since his lessons with her and although he no longer entirely agrees with the method, it remains a valuable illustration of the exercises popular at the time. He discusses not merely technique: NZ Herald, 11 Aug

65 The act of concentration can tire a musician more than any of the physical work in this book. Such exhaustion usually comes from the tension involved in furrowing your brow, forcing your mind to a narrow focus on the musical problems. The effort at concentration which produces such tiredness is misdirected... it is difficult to explain, but we should not strain to concentrate, we should simply concentrate. This approach would later be crucial to his recovery from focal dystonia. He became increasingly interested in spirituality over these years, and was beginning to form a personal philosophy that embraces Christian mysticism and the Tarot as well as Chinese astrology and Zen. There is a stained glass window in the music room at the cottage, commissioned from Stephen Hagan, that depicts a tiger and a dragon intertwined. Michael is the dragon. The 90s began with sell-out Rachmaninoff seasons with the NZSO and János Fürst the complete works for piano and orchestra. It was a busy year with the orchestra, with the Rachmaninoffs broadcast on television and an NZSO-presented recital tour in June. He also performed the Hammerklavier for the first time, at the NZ International Festival of the Arts. He was gradually learning all 32 sonatas, playing them for individual societies around the country, following his Beethoven for the Wellington Chamber Music Society seven years before. This was no accident was a blockbuster Beethoven year: he had turned 40, and the NZSO programmed him in all the piano concertos in celebration. Not only that, it was also the year of his first complete Beethoven sonata cycle, making him the first New Zealand pianist ever to do so and also one of a very select number of pianists worldwide. It came about from his concerts for the Wellington Chamber Music Society whether it was Russell s idea or Michael s, neither of them is sure and he decided to perform them all at once, following the Arrau and Barenboim model, structuring the sonatas into seven concerts and performing the complete cycle from memory in one intense period over three weeks in Wellington in November The response was overwhelming. Audiences received him with storms of applause, critics reached for hyperbole. A musical triumph of the first order... playing of stellar quality... among the very finest international Beethoven players before the public today. Michael remembers it as almost hysterical. John Button of the Dominion remarked upon the extraordinary response: This epic series is fast gaining cult status; everybody wants to be there... and each concert has ended with a standing ovation tinged with ecstasy. At the closing concert, on November 24, they hurled carnations and streamers onto the stage. It did not end there. He went on to repeat the cycle over the 90s, around the rest of the country Auckland, Christchurch, Napier, Dunedin, with additional concerts in the smaller centres and in 1994 John Button got together with Ian Fraser,

66 and others, and approached businessman Lloyd Morrison to finance the first set of recordings. Trust Records was the result, and such was the success of Michael s Beethoven, their first releases, that they went on to make a business out of recording and promoting New Zealand music and musicians, making almost as much of a name for their beautiful booklets showcasing NZ fine art. Now allied to the music publisher Promethean Editions, they remain among the most prestigious of the country s independent record labels. I do think there is a very particular affinity I have with Beethoven. There is a power in this music that I feel is not in Mozart or Haydn: some basic physical, emotional, psychological power. And there are moods that you never deal with in any other composer, from the highest highs to the lowest lows and everything in between. He is so complex and so human and is investigating often quite subtle human states. I do think, because of that, that people actually recognise themselves in his music, in a way that you don t automatically recognise yourself in every music that you hear. I feel like I know a lot more about myself just from playing his music than from thinking about myself. As I play, I learn. You just have to open up, and Beethoven will show you what it is you don t know. And the 90s were not only about Beethoven. There were also the concerts in Australia and numerous separate engagements with the orchestras at home, including the conducting. In 1994 there was an invitation to Canada with the Victoria Symphony, Last night of the first Beethoven sonata cycle for the WCMS, 132 Wellington, 26 Nov 1993 (photo: Neil Price) 133

67 with Tchaikovsky No. 1, and, two years later, the 50th anniversary of the NZSO, touring the country with Sir Neville Marriner in Brahms. He was the soloist for all the Brahms festivals the following year the anniversary of Brahms s death. In 1998 it was back to the USA for the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, giving a Liszt recital as one of the distinguished jurors for the Temple Square Concert Series in Salt Lake City. And the chamber music possibilities expanded as well. In 1990 he went on his first tour with the New Zealand String Quartet, going on to perform regularly in their own touring series and Adam Summer Schools in Nelson. There were recitals with tenor Keith Lewis (recorded for Trust), regional festivals and piano benefits, and celebrity season tours for CMNZ, learning new repertoire and consolidating friendships with fellow soloists such as Wilma Smith and Diedre Irons, Martin Riseley and Peter Scholes. It was insanely busy. During the sonata-cycle years he had a concert every week. In 1996 he also travelled to Germany, with Mike, to make what would be his first documentary film: Icon in B minor about Franz Liszt. Directed by Tainui Stephens, and filmed in situ in Weimar and Bayreuth, it traces the major events of Liszt s life around Michael s performance of the B minor sonata and focuses on the spiritual and transformative power of art. He recorded the sonata for CD release with Trust the same year. The other composer of the 90s was Chopin. Following the Brendel philosophy, that one does not truly know a composer s music until one knows it all, Michael made it a project to learn every one of his works and has the complete Chopin oeuvre in his repertoire as a result. He speaks about it to Tim Dodd, senior music producer with Radio NZ Concert, who has worked with Michael on live broadcasts for years. Tim made the first of his interview features with Michael on Chopin and has followed it with a highly-acclaimed series on the Beethoven sonatas, recorded at the cottage and illustrated at the piano. He had been busy recording, as well. The Liszt CD came out in 1996, hot on the heels of the Beethoven, and Trust records devoted themselves to releasing a number of his recitals and concerts over the late 90s, all recorded live. One of these was Elusive Dreams: Michael Houstoun live at the 1996 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts. It is notable for being wholly New Zealand repertoire, from Douglas Lilburn then in his last years to Christopher Blake, Ken Young, John Psathas, and Jack Body and Gareth Farr. Michael also featured on Psathas s first album for Rattle Records, Rhythm Spike, and he won his first Tuis best classical album at the NZ Music Awards for the middle-period Beethoven sonatas (1996) and the Emperor with János Fürst (1997)

68 Other honours were beginning to accumulate also: his first Honorary Doctorate, from Massey University; patronage of the Nelson School of Music, the country s oldest community music school; induction into the Timaru Hall of Fame. By the turn of the century he had just completed two Chopin and Beethoven festivals with the Auckland Philharmonia, and another Russian Showstoppers tour with the NZSO and James Judd. There were two anniversary tours that year: for the 25th birthday of the Wellington Sinfonia and the 50th anniversary of CMNZ with the NZ String Quartet. He had plans for projects with John Psathas, the piano concerto Three Psalms and View From Olympus; Ken Young was writing him Five Pieces for another solo tour for CMNZ; and he was working on his first album for Rattle, a double-disc set of New Zealand music that would eventually become Inland. He was on a roll, when disaster struck. He would not perform at full blast again for another four years. Temple Square Concert Series 1998, Salt Lake City

69 IV: FOCAL DYSTONIA The problems began after Michael s tour with the New Zealand String Quartet, at the end of 2000 the Schumann Piano Quintet, Lyell Cresswell s And Every Sparkle Shivering. There was something wrong with his right hand. The first sign was difficulty getting his fourth finger over his thumb in a descending E flat major scale, and close observation showed that it was his third finger trying to play at the same time. He could still move the third independently; but not the fourth without the third. Soon it was the fifth, and the more he tried to practise it out the worse it got. It wasn t only scales that were compromised he lost his clean octaves, chord playing became problematic, and he was exhausted after only a few minutes. It was clear that he could no longer fulfill his engagements for the following year, and Diedre Irons stepped in. It was time to seek help. Treatment began at the beginning of 2001: nerve conduction tests, an MRI scan, and treatment from a roundtable of health professionals including musculoskeletal specialist Dr Jonathan Kuttner, physiotherapist and acupuncturist Simon Loudon, and osteopath Glenn Williams. Head of the team was Dr Dale (Ben) Speedy, a specialist sports physician who had had a lot of success with athletes and performing Remedial work with Rae de Lisle,

70 artists, going on to become Chief Medical Officer for the New Zealand Olympic Team to Athens in By chance, he was also a close friend of Mike s niece, and a keen amateur pianist, and after speaking about him at dinner Michael got an appointment that very same evening. Kuttner also played the flute and cello, and all together they had a very proactive and holistic approach that suited Michael exactly. A more committed and sympathetic medical team it would have been impossible to find. However, the outlook was bleak. Michael was the first pianist they had treated and it soon became apparent that he was suffering from focal dystonia, an incurable condition that affects a wide range of extreme performance specialists. Golfers get the yips : writers get writer s cramp; in pianists it typically manifests itself in the loss of control of one or two fingers, just as with Michael, and he was in good company, joining a list that stretches from Gary Graffman and Leon Fleisher right back to Robert Schumann. It is of significant international concern. Research is focused in Hanover, at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien, although even they are cautious about what they can offer and the medical literature is extremely pessimistic. Standard treatments anticholinergic drugs to relax the muscle, or botox to freeze it have side-effects and only last for a certain period of time. Rolfing technique only works to an extent; splints, like those used by Schumann, often make the problem worse. One of the specialist neurologists told Michael that he needed to give up playing the piano and get a real job. The reason it is so difficult to treat is that it is not simply a muscular problem of the finger or the arm; it is a wiring problem from the brain. The cause remains mysterious, although it is known to be exacerbated by overuse or anything biomechanically challenging for the particular shape or action of the hand anything less than what might be considered perfect technique. Michael himself puts it down to particularly excessive practising of Chopin s Op. 10 No. 2 étude, although, in truth, it had probably been coming on for a while. Ben Speedy explains: Every muscle is controlled by a discrete area of the brain, and a musician will have developed those areas that correspond to the muscles with which they play their instruments. A flautist will have more brain area devoted to the control of their lips: a pianist, every one of their fingers. The best way to conceive of focal dystonia is to think of these areas in the brain becoming over-developed to the point that they overlap and the signals that travel down from the brain towards the fingers get smudged or confused. This results in the unwanted movements and postures of focal dystonia. The treatment was two-fold: biomechanical correction using physiotherapy and osteopathy to release the tight muscles of Michael s forearm, as well as acupuncture and postural work at the piano. This, as he puts it, gradually began to undo the damage done by 30-plus years of hard piano playing without so much as a single

71 massage. The second approach was neurological, exploring new ways of playing that might bypass the old smudged pathways and create new and different routes for the signals in the brain. This involved changing his sensory experience of playing the piano: altering the height of the piano stool, the position of the music; altering his posture; most interestingly, changing his experience of touching the keys covering them with sandpaper, Elastoplast, playing with rubber gloves. They tried splinting, and taping, and rubber bands on his hands: they put him on an exercise regime, swimming and exercycling, and there was sensory retraining away from the piano as well blind-fingering exercises with dominos, learning the basic elements of Braille. They used mirrors, they played white noise to him through headphones. They even put his right arm and wrist in a cast for a month. All of it helped. Somewhat. But as Dr Speedy puts it, somewhat is not enough for a professional musician: to enable them to play again on a concert platform the recovery needs to be total, 100%. There was, however, nothing wrong with Michael s left hand, and over the next three years he would (with considerable enjoyment) play the left-hand repertoire around the country the Ravel, the Prokofiev, the Britten Diversions. Ken Young began writing him a piano concerto for the left hand. And another sideline opened up as well. The Chancellor of Massey University, Morva Croxson, arranged for him to be given a position at the university s campus in Wellington, and in 2002 Michael was duly appointed part-time teaching fellow at the new Centre of Piano Studies alongside Emma Sayers and Richard Mapp. It was Morva who had nominated him for the Honorary Doctorate in She had been chair of the music panel of the QEII Arts Council and a member of the executive of the Chamber Music Federation, and had been aware of Michael since they first attended a piano masterclass together as youngsters. She speaks of him as our greatest musical advocate as well as our greatest pianist. In the meantime, Michael travelled up and down the country giving masterclasses under the Massey banner. That was followed, in 2004, by a stint at Auckland University. Bryan Sayer, Head of Piano, was another important contact and friend. They had met through the Kerikeri Piano Competition in the 80s and Bryan handed over his position to Michael upon retiring, graciously insisting that it had nothing to do with Michael s needing the work. It was perfect timing. Michael took over his piano class for the year while they found a permanent replacement. Bryan has no higher praise than for Michael, not only because of his piano playing but also for his warmth and intellect and spirit: the universal man. Throughout this time, Michael was patiently working on his treatments, convening with the doctors every few months to determine progress. And progress there was. Not enough to make his confident return, but enough to keep his spirits up. Most

72 important, perhaps, was a trip he made to Sydney for treatment from a Chinese Qigong master, Robert Peng: the tremendous power we contain within our bodies was demonstrated to me unequivocally. He has practised Qigong assiduously ever since and credits it with maintaining himself through each step of his progress. And then, 18 months in, a breakthrough Rae de Lisle. Rae was now back in Auckland, teaching. It was she who had studied in London with Gigi, before Michael, and she had gone on to have a thriving solo career first in Europe, in her 20s, and then upon her return to New Zealand. She also, crucially, had experienced an overuse injury for herself. It was 1993: she was booked at short notice to perform the Shostakovich piano concerto, which she didn t know; and after nine days of furious practice simply felt something go snap in her wrist. Then overnight her whole body strength gave up, like a pack of cards waiting to collapse. She too tried everything. But the damage was too great. It has led to a brilliant career as a teacher instead. Now, Head of Piano at the University of Auckland, some of New Zealand s finest emerging pianists have passed through her hands. At that time, however, Rae was looking for a research project for a PhD. She had had some success with focal dystonia in her students and one of them had contacted Michael suggesting he get in touch. Work started in the winter of They began by addressing his posture, like the doctors, taking it one step further to create perfect alignment at the piano followed by remedial work to change the way he moved his fingers over the keys the way I raise fingers, the way I put fingers down, the way I connect between fingers; it s amazing how much you can modify even though you re talking about tiny little things. Rae's focus was on removing all tension. Importantly, she began with the non-dystonic, left hand, beginning with absolutely perfect posture and then recreating the sound of one single, perfect note. This would then be transferred to the right hand, finger by finger, only moving on to two, three or more notes once a perfectly free movement was achieved. It was learning to play the piano all over again. My instinct is if you re going to change something you need to do it on a daily basis. What we know about dystonia is that the pathways in the brain that one has been using are no longer functional. The only way through is to carve out other pathways. Therefore something in the technique has to change. Other things can help posture awareness regimes, things that realign the body or make the muscles less stressed. All that Michael did with the doctors was beneficial. But I don t think he would have got better without actually diagnosing what he could change on the piano. They were groundbreaking techniques. Michael was not Rae s only subject: there were six in total, and her success was remarkable. Her thesis, Focal Dystonia in Pianists: A Way to Recovery Through Retraining was duly submitted in 2013,

73 with Ben Speedy her supervisor. He notes that it is the first study to bring musical knowledge together with scientific method, and it has important implications for dystonia research worldwide. It was also a long, painstaking process. As Michael freely admits It was not easy for a man of my experience to yield a technique that had paid the bills for 30 years. But he stuck at it patiently, and they were rewarded. They filmed as they went, to record progress, using another Chopin study and the C major scales of Mozart s K545, and by the end of 2003 he was confident enough to think about returning to the concert hall. There was no grand comeback ; he simply announced it in a small way with friends. Ken Young and his wife were invited for lunch it was Ken who had written him the Five Pieces, yet unplayed, in 1999 and who was in the middle of the work for the left-hand and, cheekily, Michael just sat down and played the pieces through, demonstrably perfect. Would Ken consider turning the left-hand work into a two-hand concerto? Of course he would it was just as well I hadn t got very far into it! and it was premiered with the Auckland Philharmonia in August the following year. Michael played a house concert for Ben Speedy as a thank you, as well. He had offered lessons, but the doctor turned ashen-white at the prospect and suggested the concert instead. It was one of the first things that Michael did after his recovery, Chopin and Debussy on the lovely ivory-keyed Steinway that Ben had bought as a student and renovated from scratch. He had the family in tears. As for Michael himself, the experience of those four years can only be imagined. He writes about it on his website, crediting all of the team: the angel Rae: the devout and compassionate spirits of the rest of the team. The team themselves credit him. And it is true that his psychological state his faith in himself, his discipline, above all, not panicking was probably the most important factor behind his eventual recovery. All of his friends comment upon this. Rae, perhaps, puts it best: The fact of his patience was huge. Retraining out of focal dystonia is harder than retraining a stroke victim. It is more detailed, it requires more persistence, and there s a calmness that needs to go into the persistence, otherwise it will never work. So many people become aggravated, or angry, and it just gets in the way of the process. But Michael never did: he just proceeded along this pathway as if it was his journey, and that was hugely humbling to see that great pianist, whose fingers really wouldn t work anymore, go through that journey of learning to play all over again as if he were a child. It s like learning to walk again, but probably harder. He had amazing humility and determination and he s one of very very few pianists internationally, of his class, to recover from such a severe level of dystonia and return to the stage

74 V: THE RETURN, began with a moment of history in New Zealand music-making. It was the NZ premiere of the piano-percussion concerto View from Olympus, by John Psathas, with Michael performing alongside percussionist Lenny Sakofsky and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marc Taddei. Never has there been such a response to a New Zealand work. Inspired by John s Greek heritage, it is a sublime and delirious whirlwind ride that had the Christchurch audience on their feet, cheering, whistling, and stamping a great moment for the pianist, celebrating being out there again with two hands, as much as for the composer. This was a performance exactly as John had imagined it should be. Michael would later record it with Pedro Carneiro and the NZSO, together with the piano concerto, Three Psalms, that he had commissioned from John back in 1999 and not yet got to perform. The concerto was intended to be a celebration of Michael s 50th birthday, in 2002: John drove out to the cottage in Feilding to show him the score, and they listened to the midi demo tape together sitting in the driveway in Michael s car it was the best stereo around

75 That concerto was very much inspired by and written for Michael, and I was very conscious while writing it of raising the bar somehow of constantly pushing myself to create a further dimension of depth or substance. For me it was living up to a standard. Michael s a very special person. He is also rare in that he has a real rhythmic grounding that you don t often find in classical musicians. He understands my music, he understands that the concept of my writing is propulsive, and that it has a grounded internal pulse around which things happen but the pulse itself doesn t fluctuate. It s hard to find players who have that understanding and who can also play in a virtuosic way. He has incredible rhythmic focus and control, he has incredible power, and the thing that he brings to it is this spiritual overview and depth of musical awareness that he pushes into the sound that he makes. He has the ideal persona as a performer and from a composer s point of view it s a gift. A film documentary was made for TVNZ about the View from Olympus premiere. Entitled Pianoman, directed by John Carlaw, it is also the first biographical study of Michael s life and features valuable footage of key figures from childhood on, including a film of that historic first performance. View from Olympus marked Michael s return to the stage. He gradually began to take on more work, choosing his programmes carefully and conscious of initially not pushing himself too hard: he had to learn the repertoire again, in the new way, and there are certain works that he no longer wants to play. However, that also opened up vistas that were hitherto unexplored. Schubert and the unutterably heavenly B flat and G major sonatas: his first foray into jazz; J.S. Bach. In May he was the star attraction at the first Wanaka Festival of Colour, so-called for the glorious display in the autumn, in one of the most beautiful areas of the country nestled among the southern reaches of the Southern Alps. He gave the premiere of Ken Young s Five Pieces, here, and has gone on to perform at every festival since, including a number of notable festival programmes and premieres: the play Rita and Douglas, the song project Between Darkness and Light with soprano Jenny Wollerman, and his first jazz projects: the Jazzing It Up programme of Nikolai Kapustin, and joint performances with the jazz pianist and composer Mike Nock. Michael loves Kapustin, the fully-scored jazz composer complete within the jazz language, you have to use your hands like a virtuoso jazzer, and a godsend to those of us who would like to know what it feels like to really play jazz. He has more jazz projects lined up. As for Mike Nock, they had met in New York City years before but it wasn t until Philip Tremewan, director of the Wanaka and Christchurch arts festivals, put them together that they began what developed into a very fruitful collaboration, that went from Wanaka and Christchurch to the 2009 Wellington International Jazz Festival. Mike also speaks of Michael as a gift to a composer, one that continues to give me fresh musical insights and inspiration

76 A large part of Inland, the major release of 2007, is devoted to Mike Nock s works. This is the double-disc set that had been planned in 1999, when Michael came down with dystonia. It is the most significant compilation of new New Zealand piano music to date and, like View from Olympus, won him another Tui at the NZ Music Awards the following year. As well as Mike Nock there is music by Ken Young, John Psathas, Victoria Kelly and Gao Ping, then Lecturer in Composition at the University of Canterbury. All share a sense of harmony, melody, development and musical integrity, important to Michael, and the whole collection starts with Lilburn s most substantial piano work, Chaconne. Lilburn preferred Michael s performance, of the many NZ pianists who have played this work, and wrote him a charming letter explaining the inspiration shortly before he died. In 2012 Michael recorded a CD of Lilburn s music with this same production team arising from the play, Rita and Douglas. The following year it won him yet another Tui. From initially being wary of new music, like his teacher Maurice Till, Michael is now its powerful (and most discerning) champion. Restricting himself to New Zealand composers, he has furthered the careers of many of his contemporaries, from the established old guard such as McLeod, Psathas and Young to the emerging young generation such as Karlo Margetić, whose piano concerto he premieres in In 2007, the same year as the Inland release, Michael was named an Arts Foundation Laureate, a significant award for artists with careers in full flight. Performances have settled into a regular pattern since. Concertos with the orchestras: solo, independent recitals; special festival programmes; chamber music with friends, and tours for CMNZ and the New Zealand String Quartet. Added to that, he has been increasingly in demand in a mentoring role, judging at the Kerikeri and Wallace competitions, tutoring in masterclasses and schools such as the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne, and (until he scaled back his involvement in 2014) accompanying the enormous tours for the Michael Hill International Violin Competition and CMNZ every second year. Highlights include a tour of the Fauré C minor piano quartet, which he particularly adores, with the New Zealand String Quartet (2008): the Leningrad tour of Rachmaninoff 4th with the NZSO a genuine highlight for Michael because of the conductor, Vasily Petrenko, really wonderful, high quality music making (2011); multiple performances of the Goldberg Variations in 2013, to rapturous receptions around the country; above all, his second Beethoven sonata cycle ReCYCLE for CMNZ. Michael s exploration of Bach is continuing. He has plans to tour the 48 Preludes and Fugues, and is currently learning the complete oeuvre for keyboard. I love counterpoint, I love those harmonies, I love his scale on a spiritual level as much as the magnificence of the notes themselves. Bach s music is the purest act of faith. Even when I m playing Gigues and Gavottes and the worldliest parts of the Goldberg Variations I find my thoughts always turning to the sacred

77 The 2011 Christchurch Arts Festival was an experience, coming soon after the devastating earthquakes. Quite apart from the loss of life, the performing arts venues had suffered irreparable damage: the pianos themselves were damaged, or trapped, and the festival administration had to use all their ingenuity to salvage and reschedule whatever performances they could, all in the middle of the coldest winter on record. Michael played a Schubert recital at what he calls the Crystal Palace, in a tent: Rita and Douglas on Maurice Till s old piano they were shaken by an aftershock and a piano duet programme with Sarah Watkins, who had been a fellow pupil of Maurice s. This last was a tribute to their old teacher, who had died on 26 March, aged 84. Only months later, in August, Sister Eulalie passed away at the tremendous age of 102, and Michael writes movingly about them both on his website Sister Eulalie s faith and sense of honour, and Maurice who so much more than a piano teacher, was a teacher of music in the fullest sense. I can say fairly that it was Maurice who made a musician of me. He showed me myself was also the Liszt bicentenary, and the year that Michael received his second honorary doctorate, a PhD in music from Victoria University of Wellington. He played Liszt at the graduation ceremony and spoke about the moment that one strives for as a musician, when the concentration in the concert hall is such that the music and the silence coalesce into a new, transfigured state. It is described by that Sister Mary Eulalie, Maurice Till

78 Michael receiving his second PhD: Victoria University of Wellington, graduation ceremony 2011 phrase, you could have heard a pin drop. It is his favourite aspect of performing. By now he has stopped thinking in terms of performance highlights: it is one of the effects of the dystonia, along with the jettisoning of tension and over-anxiety that has resulted in a rediscovery for him of the happiness in simply playing the piano. Every performance is a highlight. And every audience is equally important, be they sitting in the Invercargill Civic Theatre or in Carnegie Hall. The following year, 2012, Michael was named Companion of the NZ Order of Merit in the Diamond Jubilee Queen s Birthday Honours, for services as a pianist important, not so much for the personal gratification as for the notice it brings to music itself and in this he turns again to Liszt, who wore his jewels and medals with pride. We re in a materialistic world, and to honour the musician is to acknowledge that there is actually a spiritual life. The rewards are for the music rather than the person, and that can only be good. CMNZ also awarded him life membership, that same year, in recognition of the musical stimulation he has imparted across the country for exactly 40 years. Michael had already been named CMNZ Advocate it is hard to think of an artist and an organisation more faithful to one another and he has tours planned far into the future. June Clifford, twice Chair of the Board and long-time committee chair in Napier, comments:

79 The first thing about having Michael here in New Zealand is that he has given us a high standard to aspire to, and it is a standard that has been not only totally consistent and continuous but that has actually got better with time. He is an inspiration both to other artists, especially young artists, and to their teachers and chamber music coaches like me. Secondly, there is all the repertoire that he has introduced us to and led us through whole sets of Grieg, for instance, as well as the Beethoven and Liszt. It s reopened our eyes to these composers and stimulated our knowledge of and love for the repertoire. And finally, there is his generosity and willingness to engage in and develop New Zealand musical life. He gives us sublime and unforgettable musical experiences and we are so lucky to have him here. This second Beethoven sonata cycle began as in idea in Michael s mind as he was approaching his 60th birthday. He took it to CMNZ, who immediately began to make it happen. This was a chance, 20 years after the first series in Wellington, to bring Michael s Beethoven to a whole new generation. His birthday was celebrated with a performance, on 20 October he was in the middle of a tour of the Diabelli variations, and the entire audience was invited to the party and he launched into the sonatas the following year. The same seven concerts, in the same order: Michael writes about this in the preamble to his booklet notes. But where the first series had been in Wellington alone, over little more than three weeks, this was of an entirely different scale over 40 concerts, in 10 centres, spread right across the course of the year. It was, as he puts it, total immersion. These sonatas are matchless, absolutely matchless, and it is a remarkable thing for me to play them again. This time it s a different experience, because I m older, and music is a whole different palette for me than it was 20 years ago. I think I m a more natural musician than I was before. I still love clarity, people have always said to me that my playing is clear, and I think that s important clarity allows the audience to choose for themselves what they want out of the music. And I m more relaxed, now, and more in tune with the actual sonorities of the piano. I m also even less inclined to impose myself on the music, and to impose my own ideas. What is important is sincerity, and being true to the instrument, and not getting in the way. Michael had also had 20 more years of living with these sonatas, with all of that time reading, thinking, being with Mike and observing the world, and even just going on a walk or watching the starlings in their daily murmuration above the cottage in Feilding it all feeds in. The effect it had on the New Zealand public was tumultuous. Most concerts were booked out far in advance, and every one ended with sustained standing ovations. The critics were almost reduced to speechlessness. Revelatory... superlative... transcendental... a recital beyond words. All comment on his undiminished technique but also an added depth to his playing

80 The special attraction is the rare spiritual dimension in Houstoun s playing of the serene finales... It s as though Beethoven were no longer of this planet when he wrote them (The Listener). Recording began in April, in the Adam Concert Room in Wellington, with the same production team as the Inland and Lilburn releases: producer Ken Young, the composer, and engineer Steve Garden, who had founded Rattle in 1991 with Tim Gummer and Keith Hill and turned it into the pre-eminent contemporary artmusic label in Aotearoa. Michael calls them the dream team. Ken Young: You ve got to be very careful as a producer. You don t want to get in the way, at the same time you might need to intervene from time to time. This is what is amazing about working with Michael, because not only is he a really great artist at the top of his game, but he trusts our judgement and there has been throughout the recording this great sense of collaboration and trust. He is also completely selfless towards the music, he has incredible integrity, and that makes him an absolute joy to work with. It has been inspirational listening to him do this and it has reminded me of just what an extraordinary towering edifice these 32 sonatas are. In 2014, Michael Houstoun has been resting from Beethoven and preparing for Bach. In August he returned to Edinburgh for a solo recital at the Edinburgh International Festival, in the Queen s Hall Series his first performances there since the theatre shows in 1978 and then trio tours of Australia and New Zealand with Wilma Smith and Eliah von Sakakushev includes another subscription tour and celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Secondary Schools Contest with CMNZ, Mozart with the Auckland Philharmonia, and an entire six-concert season of concertos with Orchestra Wellington. He is patron of five organisations including the Kerikeri International Piano Competition and the NZ Institute of Registered Music Teachers. He sits on the artistic advisory panel of CMNZ, and plays a vast repertoire that includes over 50 concertos and a broad array of chamber music. He is New Zealand s finest and best-loved pianist. It is a life of huge richness and creativity and one that has made him glad to have returned, and grateful that the competitions did not lead him down a path of ceaseless touring and competing for performances, away from the country and the audience that he loves. One of the first observations about me that Sr Eulalie made was the, to her, self-evident fact that I had a gift from God. A great deal of my subsequent musical life has been a coming to terms with such an idea. Whether or not I can call myself a religious person, I have never been able to see music as simply entertainment. More and more music has felt like a pathway towards the numinous, the mysterious core of all existence. I have been helped along it and inspired by many wonderful people, friends, teachers, composers, authors. And I have put in the solitary hours. But really I can t see an end to it

81 Especial thanks to Rae de Lisle, Joy Aberdein, John and Patricia Harte, Ngaire Houstoun, Michael Houstoun and Mike Nicolaidi, and Barbara Lyon from the Alexander Turnbull Library. Charlotte Wilson July, 2014 Last night of the second Beethoven sonata cycle (recycle) for CMNZ, Wellington, 11 Nov 2013 (photo: Simon Darby)

82 CHRONOLOGY st prize, National Concerto Competition First year of university at the University of Canterbury 1952 Born in Timaru, New Zealand, 20 October 1957 Family acquires a piano; begins lessons with a neighbour 1958 Starts Claremont Primary School, Timaru 1962 Begins study with Sr Mary Eulalie at the Convent of Mercy 1963 First Ceremony of Carols performance with the Claremont School Choir Debut with the Timaru Choral Society 1965 Broadcasting debut on Radio 3XM Timaru 1966 Starts Timaru Boys High School ( ) 1968 Most Promising Under-18, Christchurch Competitions ATCL, highest mark in NZ for practical exam: 96% 1969 Begins study with Maurice Till ABRSM Grade VIII (Distinction) LTCL, highest mark in NZ: 97% 3rd place, National Concerto Competition 1st Prize, New Plymouth Competitions Society Finalist in the Secondary Schools Chamber Music Contest Concerto debut, Christchurch Civic Orchestra NZBC Symphony Orchestra debut in Dunedin 1972 Second year of university switches to the University of Otago Debut solo recital tour for the Music Federation (CMNZ) rd prize, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Fort Worth, Texas, USA Outstanding old boy of the year, Timaru Boys High School 1974 USA tour, solo and orchestral, NZBC Symphony Orchestra tour of Australia Study with Rudolf Serkin in Philadelphia ( ): moves to USA th prize, Leeds International Piano Competition, Leeds, UK Moves from Philadelphia to Fort Worth, Texas 1977 Meets Mike Nicolaidi in Wellington 1978 Moves to London: study with Brigitte Wild ( ) Theatre performances with The Heartache and Sorrow Company Debut record release: Bartók Piano Music (EMI NZ) 1979 Tour of Sweet Corn in the Netherlands 1980 Moves from London to Washington NZSO tour to the Hong Kong Festival

83 1981 Returns to New Zealand Three Musicians screens on Kaleidoscope, TVNZ th prize, International Tchaikovsky Competition, Moscow, USSR Turnovsky Prize for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts 1984 Conducting debut with the Auckland Regional Orchestra (19 April) Singapore Symphony Orchestra debut cond. Choo Hooey Japan solo recital tour 1985 Moves home from Wellington to the countryside, near Feilding 1986 Australian orchestral debut for the ABC 1987 Australian recital debut for the ABC Patron and juror of the inaugural Kerikeri National Piano Competition 1988 Publication of PIANO: A technical approach to relaxed control at the keyboard Queen s commemoration medal 1993 First Beethoven sonata cycle for CMNZ in Wellington, followed by Auckland 1994, Christchurch and Napier 1995, Dunedin First recording of the complete Beethoven sonatas released on Trust records 1996 Icon in B Minor screens on TVNZ Patron, Friends of the Regent on Broadway theatre in Palmerston North TUI: Best Classical Album, NZ Music Awards for Beethoven Sonatas: Middle Period (Trust) 1997 TUI: Best Classical Album, NZ Music Awards for Michael Houstoun Live: Tower Beethoven Festival with the NZSO (Trust) 1998 Juror for the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition, Salt Lake City, USA Timaru Hall of Fame 1999 Honorary Doctorate in Literature (Massey University) Patron, Piano Tuners & Technicians Guild of NZ ( ) Patron, Nelson School of Music 2000 TUI: Best Classical Album, NZ Music Awards for Rhythm Spike (Rattle) 2001 Runner up, Best Classical Album, NZ Music Awards for Elusive Dreams (Trust) Retires from two-hand performance while suffering from focal dystonia ( ) 2002 Teaching Fellow at the Conservatorium of Massey University Wellington 2004 Teaching at the School of Music, University of Auckland

84 2005 Return to two-hand performance with View From Olympus 2006 Piano Man screens on Artsville, TVNZ Collaborating artist for the Michael Hill International Violin Competition 2007 NZ Arts Foundation Laureate Award Patron, New Zealand Music Examinations Board TUI: Best Classical Album, NZ Music Awards for John Psathas: View from Olympus (Rattle) 2008 TUI: Best Classical Album, NZ Music Awards for Inland (Rattle) 2010 Advocate of CMNZ Patron, NZ Institute of Registered Music Teachers 2011 Honorary Doctorate in Music (Victoria University of Wellington) 2012 Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit Life Membership of CMNZ 2013 Beethoven ReCYCLE series of the complete sonatas for CMNZ Adjudicator of the inaugural Wallace National Piano Competition TUI: Best Classical Album, NZ Music Awards for Lilburn: Music for solo piano (Rattle) 2014 Release of Complete Beethoven Sonatas (Rattle) Japan recital tour, Tokyo, 1984 (photo: MIN-ON Concert Association)

85 DISCOGRAPHY 1978 BARTÓK PIANO MUSIC Out of Doors Suite, Four Dirges, Suite Op. 14, Three Burlesques, Three Rondos on Folk Tunes EMI Records NZ (ASD 9004) 1979 MICHAEL HOUSTOUN Piano Beethoven: Sonata in C Op. 53 Waldstein, Sonata in B flat Op 22 EMI Records NZ (ASD 9007) 1980 MICHAEL HOUSTOUN Piano Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition Rachmaninoff: Four Preludes from Op. 32 EMI Records NZ (ASD 9009) 1982 MARYA MARTIN (Flute) WITH MICHAEL HOUSTOUN (Piano) Reinecke: Sonata in E minor Op. 167 Georges Hüe: Fantaisie for flute and piano Mouquet: La Flûte de Pan Kiwi-Pacific Records (TRL-030) 1984 MICHAEL HOUSTOUN: BOUQUET Liszt, Brahms, Ravel, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky Kiwi-Pacific Records (TRL-040) 1989 MICHAEL HOUSTOUN PLAYS SCRIABIN AND CHOPIN Scriabin: Piano Sonata in F sharp minor Op. 23 Chopin: Nocturne Op. 27 No.2, Ballade Op. 47, 3 Mazurkas Op. 63, Scherzo Op. 39 Kiwi-Pacific Records (TRL-069) 1990 THE COMING OF TANE-MAHUTA by Christopher Blake Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra cond. John Hopkins Ribbonwood (RCD 1003) 1994 NEW ZEALAND COMPOSERS (contributor) Kenneth Young: Fantasy for Two Pianos, with Diedre Irons Manu Records (Manu 1478) 1995 BEETHOVEN: PIANO SONATAS FROM THE MIDDLE PERIOD Discs 1-3 of the complete Beethoven cycle Trust Records (MMT ) TUI: BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM, NZ MUSIC AWARDS

86 1995 SHOSTAKOVICH PIANO CONCERTOS NOS.1 & 2 NZSO cond. Christopher Lyndon-Gee re-released on several compilations, , including The Very Best of Shostakovich (Naxos ) Naxos (Naxos ) 1996 RHYTHM SPIKE: WORKS BY JOHN PSATHAS (contributor) Psathas: Motet for piano four-hands, with Diedre Irons Rattle Records (RAT D008) TUI: BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM, NZ MUSIC AWARDS KEITH LEWIS & MICHAEL HOUSTOUN: IN RECITAL SONGS FOR TENOR AND PIANO Mozart, Schubert, Fauré, de Falla, Prokofiev and Irish Folk Songs Trust Records (MMT2006) 1996 BEETHOVEN: THE LAST FIVE PIANO SONATAS Discs 4 5 of the complete Beethoven cycle Trust Records (MMT ) 1996 BEETHOVEN: FAVOURITE PIANO SONATAS Op. 27 No. 2 Moonlight, Op. 28 Pastoral, Op. 57 Appassionata Trust Records (MMT2015) 1996 MICHAEL HOUSTOUN PLAYS LISZT: Sonata in b-b minor Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, Consolation No. 3, Première valse oubliée, En rêve Trust Records (MMT2008) 1996 MICHAEL HOUSTOUN LIVE: TOWER BEETHOVEN FESTIVAL WITH THE NZSO Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat NZSO cond. János Fürst live recording (re-released on MMT 2035) Trust Records (MMT2009) TUI: BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM, NZ MUSIC AWARDS GARETH FARR: CHAMBER MUSIC (contributor) Farr: Sepuluh Jari Trust MMT

87 2000 PIANO RECITAL 99 Schumann, Prokofiev, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff Trust Records (MMT2028) 2000 SOUNZ FINE, VOLUME 4 (contributor) Kenneth Young: Fantasy for two pianos with Diedre Irons Centre for New Zealand Music 2000 ELUSIVE DREAMS: NEW ZEALAND PIANO MUSIC John Psathas, Christopher Blake, Kenneth Young, Douglas Lilburn, Jack Body, Gareth Farr live recording Trust Records (MMT2010) RUNNER UP, BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM, NZ MUSIC AWARDS BEETHOVEN: THE EARLY SONATAS Discs 6 8 of the complete Beethoven cycle Trust Records (MMT ) 2001 BEETHOVEN: PIANO SONATAS NOS 9 11 & Discs 9 10 of the complete Beethoven cycle Trust Records (MMT ) 2001 AUCKLAND PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA LIVE: RAVEL AND PROKOFIEV Ravel: Concerto in D for the Left Hand Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Miguel Harth-Bedoya live recording Atoll Records (ACD 102) 2001 PROKOFIEV & BEETHOVEN: PIANO CONCERTOS Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3 in C: Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat NZSO cond. James Judd, János Fürst live recordings Trust Records (MMT2035)

88 2006 JOHN PSATHAS: VIEW FROM OLYMPUS Psathas: Three Psalms and View from Olympus with Pedro Carneiro (percussion) NZSO cond. Marc Taddei Rattle Records (RAT DV015, CD and DVD) TUI: BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM, NZ MUSIC AWARDS INLAND Douglas Lilburn, Kenneth Young, Gao Ping, Victoria Kelly, John Psathas, Mike Nock Rattle Records (RAT D016, 2CD and DVD) TUI: BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM, NZ MUSIC AWARDS BEETHOVEN: THE LAST THREE PIANO SONATAS (DVD) live recording Trust Records (MMT4001) 2012 AUCKLAND PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA LIVE: MOZART Piano Concerto K.488, Quintet for Piano and Winds live recording (K488) Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Roy Goodman Atoll Records (ACD883) 2012 LILBURN: MUSIC FOR SOLO PIANO Rattle Records (RAT-D040) TUI: BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM, NZ MUSIC AWARDS LILBURN: DUOS FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO WITH JUSTINE CORMACK Sonata for violin and piano (1950), Allegro Concertante, Sonata in E flat, Sonata in C Atoll Records (ACD 913) 2014 MICHAEL HOUSTOUN: BEETHOVEN COMPLETE PIANO SONATAS Rattle Records (RAT D048) Following Pages: Great Hall, Christchurch Arts Centre, 1997 (photo: Lloyd Park)

89

90 SONATA INDEX Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2 No. 1 Disc 13 Tracks 1 4 Sonata No. 2 in A, Op. 2 No. 2 Disc 9 Tracks 1 4 Sonata No. 3 in C, Op. 2 No. 3 Disc 3 Tracks 3 6 Sonata No. 4 in E flat, Op. 7 Disc 11 Tracks 1 4 Sonata No. 5 in C minor, Op. 10 No. 1 Disc 7 Tracks 1 3 Sonata No. 6 in F, Op. 10 No. 2 Disc 5 Tracks 3 5 Sonata No. 7 in D, Op. 10 No. 3 Disc 1 Tracks 1 4 Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 Pathétique Disc 9 Tracks 5 7 Sonata No. 9 in E, Op. 14 No. 1 Disc 1 Tracks 9 11 Sonata No. 10 in G, Op. 14 No. 2 Disc 7 Tracks 4 6 Sonata No. 11 in B flat, Op. 22 Disc 5 Tracks 6 9 Sonata No. 12 in A flat, Op. 26 Disc 2 Tracks 1 4 Sonata No. 13 in E flat, Op. 27 No. 1 Disc 1 Tracks 5 8 Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2 Moonlight Disc 11 Tracks 5 7 Sonata No. 15 in D, Op. 28 Pastoral Disc 12 Tracks 1 4 Sonata No. 16 in G, Op. 31 No. 1 Disc 4 Tracks 1 3 Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2 Tempest Disc 6 Tracks 1 3 Sonata No. 18 in E flat, Op. 31 No. 3 La Chasse Disc 10 Tracks 1 4 Sonata No. 19 in G minor, Op.4 9 No.1 Disc 5 Tracks 1 2 Sonata No. 20 in G, Op. 49 No. 2 Disc 3 Tracks 1 2 Sonata No. 21 in C, Op. 53 Waldstein Disc 2 Tracks 5 7 Sonata No. 22 in F, Op. 54 Disc 7 Tracks 7 8 Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 Appassionata Disc 4 Tracks 4 6 Sonata No. 24 in F sharp, Op. 78 Therese Disc 3 Tracks 7 8 Sonata No. 25 in G, Op. 79 Disc 13 Tracks 5 7 Sonata No. 26 in E flat, Op. 81a Les Adieux Disc 13 Tracks 8 10 Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90 Disc 14 Tracks 1 2 Sonata No. 28 in A, Op. 101 Disc 6 Tracks 4 7 Sonata No. 29 in B flat, Op. 106 Hammerklavier Disc 8 Tracks 1 4 Sonata No. 30 in E, Op. 109 Disc 10 Tracks 5 7 Sonata No. 31 in A flat, Op. 110 Disc 12 Tracks 5 7 Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 Disc 14 Tracks 3 4 Following Pages: Last night of the second Beethoven sonata cycle (ReCycle) for CMNZ, Wellington, 11 Nov 2013 (photo: Simon Darby)

91

92

93 Lost in Translation Philip Trusttum (2001) 186 From the Wallace Art Trust collection 187

94 Philip Trusttum is one of New Zealand s most recognisable and highly regarded figurative, expressionist painters. A prolific and dynamic artist, his energetic expressionism and masterly use of colour reflect a passion for painting and an ability to create satisfyingly balanced works. In 1980 Gordon H. Brown curated an overview of Trusttum s work at the Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui. In an essay he wrote at the time, he likened Trusttum s paintings to pages from a notebook of personal experiences, work that is grounded in the specificities of life but with a visual vocabulary capable of transcending the intimacy of their origins to enter a realm that edges on timelessness. Philip Trusttum s work is represented in all major public and private collections within New Zealand. In 2001 Trusttum began a series of works, each starting with an individual letter of the alphabet. Lost in Translation was initiated on the basis of the letter h. For this work Trusttum leaved in motifs that he referenced from an atlas surveying weaponry throughout the ages, from primitive clubs and stones through to sophisticated industrial killing machines. Trusttum notes that the letter h was used as an excuse to enable 18th century cannon parts to completely transform the letter... the h almost disappears, hence the title Lost in Translation. The vision of the Wallace Arts Trust is to support, promote and expose New Zealand contemporary artists while providing the wider public with an inimitable cultural and historical resource of contemporary New Zealand art. These objectives are achieved in part by the acquisition of new artworks by contemporary New Zealand artists, as well as holding the annual Wallace Art Awards. In addition to operating the TSB Bank Wallace Art Centre at the Pah Homestead, 72 Hillsborough Road, Auckland, the Wallace Arts Trust loans out artworks to institutions ranging from schools to universities and hospitals. Beyond this the Trust financially supports many other arts organisations in New Zealand