17 / 52
MENAHEM PRESSLER 17
Why make a complete recording of the Mozart sonatas at this stage in
your career and your life?
I’ve always had a great love for Mozart. But the truth is that I was forced into it by
Emmanuel Hondré, the director of the Concert and Production Department of the
Philharmonie de Paris! He was the one who insisted on leadingme along this path,
after a concert I gave in Paris for my ninetieth birthday.At first I thought it would be
a huge amount of work. Then I allowed myself to be seduced by the idea.
I’ve often played the piano sonatas, but I had never really taken them into my
repertory: I had to learn everything again. When you relearn something, you
mustn’t think it’s the same thing as when you learnt it before. You have to reinvent
yourself. I realise that, as I get older, I become more adventurous, I take more risks.
It’s quite natural and logical: with experience, you assimilate an enormous body
of knowledge and ideas that influences the way you play music. In many respects,
I can see farther and more deeply. What is fascinating about Mozart is that he
expresses himself in a universal language that touches perfection, and at the same
time he is rooted in life: he speaks to us of his everyday existence, his happiness, his
misfortunes. Pure aesthetic abstraction cohabits with human feeling.