Saturday, March 8, 2025
8:00 PM
South Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim makes her BSO debut conducting a trio of pieces exploring innovation within tradition. Inon Barnatan is the soloist in Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto, a love letter to his wife and his home country. The program opens with Anatoly Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake and concludes with Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3.
Eun Sun Kim, conductor
Inon Barnatan, piano
Anatoly LIADOV The Enchanted Lake
Béla BARTÓK Piano Concerto No. 3
Sergei RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 3
This broadcast is no longer available on demand.
In an interview with BSO broadcast host Brian McCreath, Inon Barnatan describes the vitality and variety of Bartók's music, what fascinates him about the Third Piano Concerto, and his approach to his artistic leadership of the La Jolla Music Society's Summerfest. To listen, use the player above, and read the transcript below.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Inon Barnatan, back with the Boston Symphony to perform Bartók's Third Piano Concerto. Inon, thank you for a little of your time today, I appreciate it.
Inon Barnatan Always great to talk to you.
Brian McCreath Well, tell me about you and Bartók, just in general, because I'm not a pianist. But my observation, maybe from a distance, is that Bartók is a composer that, if you're a pianist, you could choose not to engage because there's plenty of other music by Bach, Schubert, Schumann, anybody. But also, there's such amazing piano music by Bartók. It's so distinctive in his own language. So, tell me about you and Bartók over the years.
Inon Barnatan Well, what's interesting, I think about Bartók, one of the things interesting about Bartók is that he has such a distinctive voice, as you said, but also such a wide variety of styles. For example, the Third Concerto is so fundamentally different from No. 2 that preceded it. The pieces that he wrote when he was in America, the Concerto for Orchestra, they're so different from other pieces that he wrote. The string quartets are so different from one another. So, it's hard to pinpoint Bartók in some way and could have put a finger on it. And yet it's so unmistakably him and so distinctive. That's, I think, the mark of a great composer.
In terms of my relationship with Bartók, I have not played a tremendous amount of Bartók, I have to say. This concerto and a couple of pieces and some chamber music. But I've always admired Bartók tremendously, and certainly the chamber music and the string quartets. And whenever I have the chance to play this concerto, especially, I absolutely grab at it.
Brian McCreath Well, tell me about, then, your history with this particular concerto. Sounds like you've done it before. Is it something that comes up in your repertoire fairly often, and what sort of drove the choice of it for this particular concert?
Inon Barnatan I've been meaning to come back to it for a while. I've done it quite a bit, and then I left it alone for a long time. And then I've been meaning to get back to it for a long time because, you know, I've now been with the Boston Symphony a few times, and I love coming back with something different, with something unexpected. So, when I spoke to Tony Fogg, the artistic administrator here, about what the next project is, I thought, what about Bartók? Because to me, this concerto brings together a lot of the lyricism and classicism of something like a Beethoven, with the romanticism of something like a Rachmaninoff, but with a 20th century point of view, this rhythmic quality that he had, this very distinctive Bartókian flair. It's very unusual concerto for Bartók himself, because it's the last piece he wrote. He actually didn't even finish it. He didn't finish orchestrating the last 17 bars. And it does feel like the most lyrical, reflective, joyful piece he wrote.
Brian McCreath And as I was listening to you rehearse, there is this moment that I thought, he must have ripped that out of a Rachmaninoff notebook. It's a fleeting sound, but it's so Rachmaninoff, right? And definitely not something you think of when you think of Bartók. So, tell me, when you're kind of adding all that up and when you're sitting at the piano, what are the biggest challenges with this piece? I see you kind of turning around to the orchestra a lot, and you have this relationship with the orchestra, you have things in mind for the way the sounds blend or interact. And so what is it about this concerto that makes it especially challenging compared to other works?
Inon Barnatan One of the reasons that this is a little bit more challenging is because Bartók finished the concerto, apart from the last 17 bars, but there is a lot that he didn't go back and add, which is a lot of dynamics, a lot of expression marks, a lot of things that normally would fill the score. But I think he died before he had a chance to put them all in. So, most of them were in his head. And you can extrapolate that from the score. But there are a lot of different ways of doing it, and we're all detectives and we're all trying to figure out from the texts what he meant. So, I have my own vision of how I like it, but also it's such an open question. So, I do feel like it's a dynamic process of working with the orchestra to figure out what we want to do it together.
Brian McCreath That's really amazing, because you sound like when I talk to cellists about the Bach Cello Suites. There's nothing, there's no markings. You have to just sort of go with your instincts, your gut, your knowledge, your scholarship, for sure. We don't think of that with 20th century pieces because, you know, publishing and everything got more precise. But yeah, it sounds like there's so much room in this just because of what Bartók himself left or didn't leave for you.
Inon Barnatan Exactly. It's a little bit like being an actor and getting a text without stage directions. It doesn't say shout here, it doesn't say, you know, angry. You just have to figure out from what the character is saying what they mean and what the emotion is and how they want to say the line. And that's actually a really interesting process.
Brian McCreath Does anything about Bartók's particular circumstances enter into your mind as you practice the piece or even perform it? You know, the fact that he's there basically in the hospital as this thing is not even quite done, and he's written it for his wife, and he's thinking that maybe this is just a little something he can leave so she can make some money. That's kind of like what we're boiled down to here. Does any of that factor into your thinking about the piece?
Inon Barnatan I think it's very useful, but also very dangerous to know sometimes what was going on. I don't detect the kind of angst that I would imagine from somebody who is about to die, who's in the hospital, has health problems. What I detect is a lot of love and a lot of joy. And I think that maybe the fact that he meant it for his wife really factors more than anything else, the fact that he let himself communicate with that type of generosity of spirit. I do wonder sometimes - you mentioned Rachmaninoff - I do wonder if some of the concertos that she would have played or something that she loved would have factored into this, because there are moments that really remind me of Rachmaninoff. There are moments that remind me of Brahms. There are different composers and pieces that are echoed in this piece, not very directly, but I wonder if part of it was that he was doing something for her. He was writing this concerto for her with all of the things that she loved.
Brian McCreath Yeah, yeah, that makes it sound even more enticing to listen to, right? The last time we talked was a few years ago. And you had just recently, at that point, begun your work with the La Jolla festival, the Summerfest in California. And I just want to, you know, check in with you, see how that's going, because, you know, that's a really... When you look at the programing that you do there, there aren't many festivals that work that way, where you're not booking artists to do full recitals. You're bringing a bunch of people together, and it's like this mix and match, kind of salad spinner approach to programing, and I think it looks really exciting. So just tell me what you have learned over these last whatever it is, maybe five years or so, maybe six years that you've been doing it, and kind of where you feel like you're - you probably can't give me any details right now for this summer. That's still a way to be announced. But tell me where you're headed with a La Jolla Summerfest.
Inon Barnatan It's a one of the most interesting things that I do. I never really imagined that I would love it as much as I do. The programing aspect of it, bringing people that I love together and telling them what to do [laughs], but putting them together and also crafting these programs where you really are thinking about music in the purest of forms. You know, what would the perfect concert be? What would make me want to come out of my house and go to a concert? For me, getting this intimate meeting of minds is so intoxicating, you know, these great, great players coming together. And for me, that's the future as well, is to think about, more and more, what is the kind of programing that I imagine for the 21st century? What would make me want to come out of my house and then to hear a concert? So, I think a lot of us, a lot of soloists, don't get to do enough chamber music, and we love doing that. So, this it gives us such a creative outlet. You mentioned how I play with the orchestra here. I think playing chamber music is one of the most beneficial things for a soloist, because when I play with the Boston Symphony, I'm playing chamber music, just with more people. And the more you think about it like that, the more rewarding the experience is.
Brian McCreath Fantastic. Well, I'll look forward to the programming. I don't know if I can make it all the way out to California, but the programming is just so cool and so varied. And it's like every concert is just a completely different thing. It's not a prepackaged recital program that you've sort of bought from a manager. It is a totally unique, bespoke kind of program.
Inon Barnatan Yeah, most people actually come for about a week and they play three out of the four concerts in the week, and they play only one piece per program. So it's basically just completely breaking up what they're used to doing in the season, which is one of the reasons they love coming. I try to think intellectually about the program and themes and things like that, but mostly it's just, you know, that electricity that comes from these people getting together.
Brian McCreath Sounds fun.
Inon Barnatan It will be. I hope you can make it.
Brian McCreath Well, thanks a lot, Inon Barnatan. It's great to have you back in Symphony Hall. And again, thanks for your time today.
Inon Barnatan Thank you so much.