Hi Everyone,

Hope you enjoyed the interview with Ingolf Wunder. Up next is one of the great virtuosos alive today, Cyprien Katsaris.

As always, thank you for reading, and have a wonderful week!

http://www.examiner.com/piano-in-san-francisco/interview-with-pianist-cyprien-katsaris-part-i

Katsaris was kind of a weird guy when I met him once. I had written a newspaper review of a Toronto recital of his, and then found myself at some social event a couple days later where he was.

My recollection is that he had played a "concept recital," all based on the influence of JS Bach, and I had written that it was one of those ideas that was far less interesting in reality than on paper. His playing, in fact, tended to be dull, as were most of the selections. Not an angry pan review, but a ho-hum-at-best review.

Well, Mr. Katsaris kept following me around throughout the whole stand-up social affair and lecturing me about the relationship of critic to performer. I didn't know what he was talking about, and that seemed to get him more agitated.
So I just kept trying to avoid him, but he kept trying to converse: he said it was important that we have this interesting and vital discussion.

Except he wasn't interesting, and clearly he had no interest in discussion. Maybe his feelings were just hurt, but he couldn't bring himself to say so. OTH, he also seemed excited to be actually meeting a real N. American music critic.

Thank you so much for this interview...

Katsaris was at one time a huge fascination of mine, and I've had the honor of talking with him and playing for him on several occasions.

Most of all I remember being blown away by his Chopin recordings. They all had such gall, such individuality of vision...I would remember listening to them with a friend and every few bars he would do something completely out of this word (usually bringing out an inner voice that was never obvious, or create some luminous color change), and my friend and I would suddenly grin at each other, hit the rewind button, and give it another 10 listens. His rhythmic freedom also seemed to be genuinely felt and was particularly expressive and beautiful. Not to mention he recorded probably THE most exciting Rach 3 ever recorded, at age 19, live from the Queen Eliszbeth competition. (Why this recording is so unknown and inaccessible, I have no idea).

That being said, I do think his taste in programing is sometimes questionable. This is perhaps his only folly. (Peter, I think I heard Katsaris play the exact same program that you reviewed in New York, and my impressions were similar). I also remembering hearing him play a concert of all mozart-related pieces, and Mozart transcriptions..and it was quite boring...and with some of the pieces one was left with the impression that he threw them together the night before, or didn't bother to practice them...

In any case, the man is a fascinating, fascinating human being...not of this world. From his piano playing to his practice habits, to his vehement dedication to Scientology, to his self-professed sexual appetite, to his unwavering ways of breaking molds in the contemporary performance structure, I've always seen him as a more interesting figure than 90% of pianists playing today.