BD: Are you trying to seduce your audience every time?

UO: In different ways.

BD: What kinds of ways?

UO: One of them could be with this kind of rhythmic feeling that is not easy, but not remote, either. It’s just sort of inviting, and very different from what one has heard, as opposed to the other ways of seducing with sound effects — which he really doesn’t do so much, but it’s a different type of seduction, really.

From our Historical Interviews:
Bruce Duffie talks with the pianist Ursula Oppens

Bruce Duffie: 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?

Ursula Oppens: 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. 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.