BD: You mentioned that it’s different playing a concerto and playing solo. How do you divide your career between solo appearances and chamber appearances and concerto appearances?
UO: This year it’s more concertos than anything.
BD: Is that just happenstance?
UO: A little bit happenstance. Usually in the summer I do a fair amount of chamber music. I go to Santa Fe, which I absolutely love, and in the winter I do very little, because it’s very hard for me to balance solo playing, whether concerto or recital, and chamber music because I always think that the chamber music is going to take up less time than it actually does! [Both laugh] And the more I play concertos, the more I find that they really are practically the same as playing chamber music. The fun of it is really trying to learn to work with an orchestra. I’m getting a little older and a little tiny bit wiser, so I’m trying to think much more about the total results; not just to leave it up to the conductor to worry about, but to really participate. I’ve found that makes it a much more rewarding experience than it used to be. It used to be I’d sort of think, “How does this work?” You work with a conductor who you may have met before or not, but you haven’t discussed this piece and you might have completely different ideas. The official role of the conductor is to accept your ideas...
BD: Do most of them abide by that rule?
UO: They do, but it’s more interesting if there’s give and take, so when a concerto is a chamber music performance, that’s really exciting! Solo is wonderful, because it’s the repertoire you choose to do and it’s the ideas you choose to do. It’s very hard just because quantitative you are playing more. That’s all. But then again, you get a chance to try to do what you can do. I can’t imagine giving up any of them. For me, playing really has these three components and they are absolutely tied together. If you stop being able to play with other people, then eventually I think I would just run into dead ends, musically. Sometimes the simplest rules of listening are ones you forget when you play by yourself all the time.
BD: I get the feeling that if every day was thirty hours and every week was eight days, it still wouldn’t be enough time for you to play!
UO: [Laughs] Boy, are you right! Have you gotten that one right!
BD: You’ve made some recordings. Do you play the same in the recording studio as you do in the concert hall?
UO: Recording is more fun and less fun. It should be more fun because you know you can do it over again, so you can take chances. In fact it is really hard work because you let no blemishes go through in a recording, and of course a concert has many. On the other hand, you can walk away from a concert and say, “Next time!” On a recording you have to stay there ‘til it’s done! And in America, it isn’t like they say, “You can have the studio, so go in every day for three weeks whenever you feel like it ‘til it’s completely done.” You usually go in for three hours, or something...
BD: ...and hope that it’s finished?
UO: Yeah. But I feel that in the end the result is the same, and I have been happy with my recordings. You have to have a wonderful engineer or producer, someone who’s really empathetic. I’ve worked some with Judy Sherman, and she’s really great because she can both hear every detail and every wrong note, and also know whether you’re inspired or not and cheer you on. She has the small and the big picture, so working with her is very easy!
BD: That draws the best out of you?
UO: It draws the best out of me. I feel that has a lot to do with it. When I first started, I was making the record of Beethoven, and the producer criticized my first phrase! I didn’t know enough to say, “I’ve thought about this a long time,” so I tried to change it in the session, and that turned out to be disastrous. Now I sort of feel like I do know the sound I want before I go in to record. So in that sense, it’s the same as a concert.
BD: The producer should have at least let you establish your tone and your ideas.
UO: Well, that can happen. It was an accident, and had I been more confident, it wouldn’t have bothered me, either!
BD: Once the record is released and you’re pleased with it, do you then find that you’re competing against that recording when you play that work in public?
UO: I haven’t been playing my recorded repertoire specifically. It isn’t like a rock group that might make a record and tour with it. I’m sure if I did that more, I would change my interpretations more because they do change over time. And it depends on what kind of piece it is. A piece like the Carter Night Fantasies is very much a performer’s piece about expression. [See Bruce Duffie's Interview with Elliott Carter.] So that one changes every time you play it! I couldn’t play three performances the same. In fact, I’ve done it ten days in a row and it was different every time because it was that kind of a piece.
BD: Is one better than the other, or are they all just different?
UO: They’re just different. There are different elements in the piece that somehow become more focused. It could be a different piano. If a piano has a particular register that’s very interesting or very beautiful, the music in that register sounds better than it usually does and becomes somehow a more important part of the piece. So if that music is more exciting, then you adjust the others so it will be in some sensible proportion! So it just happens.
* * * * *