Diving into the music

An encounter with accompanist

Wolfram Rieger,
by TESS CREBBIN

The profession of accompanist is a lot more involved than playing

the piano while someone else is singing Lieder. It is probably one of
the most difficult musical arts because it requires so many skills,
beyond being a good pianist, united in the same musician: the ability
to be a team player, to plan a concert program, a profound
understanding of singing preferably through professional voice
training, and so the list goes on. It is little surprise that at top level
this very specialised field is dominated by just a handful of
outstanding musicians, one of which is German-born Wolfram
Rieger. His full schedule leads him around the world, partnering
some of the most famous singers of our time: Thomas Hampson,
Barbara Bonney, Thomas Quasthoff, to name but a few. We managed
to catch up with him for a rare interview, in an Italian coffee shop in
Munich, where he impresses by radiating intelligence, charm, and a
spirit of child-like wonder about his music. The waiter is happy, too,
since Rieger has no qualms about conversing with him in pretty
good Italian ...

Wolfram Rieger talks to Tess Crebbin. Photo: Philip Crebbin

Tess Crebbin: You seem to speak a lot of languages: Italian, English,

Spanish, French ... one presumes there are a few more.
Wolfram Rieger: Travelling around the world as I do, you learn to
get around in different languages. It's a necessity when you have to
find your hotel in a new city. My Italian, incidentally, I initially
learned from the singers I worked with. In the early days I also
accompanied opera arias and then I took the Italian I remembered,
from Mozart, and made my way to Italy. When I got there, I was so
proud of trying out my Italian and I addressed the waiter as voi and
so on. It turned out that I spoke really antiquated Italian. They all
looked at me like: where is this guy from? It's like someone coming
to London and speaking sixteenth century English. They thought I
was kidding. But better to be learning from opera than not at all.
Knowing their language opens up an entirely new path into a
people's soul. If you go to a foreign country and you speak language,
you get taken more seriously. Especially in music, this is important.
The only thing you have to keep in mind is that, if you learn your
language from opera, or Lied texts, or whatever, it is best not to
apply it one-on-one.

TC: Well, it took me a while to realize that grasen does not mean
mow but graze these days. That was from Mahler's
Rheinlegendchen. But we learn from our mistakes. Speaking of
Mahler, as a team performing the Wunderhorn Songs, you and
Thomas Hampson are unbeatable. Do you have a favorite song?

WR: I am so fascinated by the Wunderhorn cycle per se that I like all

of them. They all touch on some essential part of our souls, involve
us, being filled with the heart and the spirit of the composer. Some of
Mahler's composing is rather challenging, however, and some songs
take more work than others. Revelge, for instance, has some
technically nasty bits -- as though you didn't have enough to do, just
working yourself through the already challenging score, every once
in a while Mahler throws in these really difficult trills that are not
exactly in the most fortunate position for the pianist but, from the
composer's viewpoint, could not have been put elsewhere. The
Irdische Leben is also difficult to play because you have to give the
piece a certain character, the unrelenting aspect of the threshing
machine that you want to keep up throughout the song, this pitiless
daradaradara ...

TC: When watching you at the piano, it seems as though you are
very much in tune with your singers and actually breathe along with
them. Is that true?

WR: You have to do that if you want to be a good accompanist. I

was fortunate in that I came into contact with singing early on.
While still at music school, I took voice lessons. I also had my own
choir for a while, which I conducted. I loved doing that. So, aside
from studying piano and violin for a double major, I did conducting
and singing as minors. What is so good about taking singing lessons
for an accompanist is that you learn how singing works, what
happens with the air, and you also learn the terminology. So when
someone speaks of singing on the breath you know what it feels like.
It's good if you can express yourself in the same terminology as the
singers do.

TC: That is obviously something the singers appreciate also. You

were in high demand as an accompanist even during your student
days.

WR: Immediately after I finished studying, I accompanied in the

voice classes at music school. I was fortunate to work in the classes
of Brigitte Fassbnder, starting about one year before I finished my
studies. Once I graduated I became her official accompanist for the
students. Actually, I'd have been hired sooner but you cannot become
a teacher before you complete your studies, although I'd have
thought this quite amusing. Brigitte Fassbnder helped me
enormously along my career path. When I initially came into her
classes with some of her own students, she heard me and liked what
I did. She had a profound musical wisdom and immediately sensed
that 'accompanist' was in my blood. Since she was without
permanent accompanist in her class at the time -- someone had just
moved to another city -- she asked whether I'd be interested. What I
learned from her, more than anything, was to keep up the energy
level. She was a very energetic singer and this is what she expected
from the man on the piano also. Very soon, we got on so well,
musically and personally, that she wanted to take this energy before
a wider public. So we started giving concerts together. From 1990
until she quit singing in 1995, we did a lot of them.

TC: So it is a great thing for a singer to have an accompanist who

knows singing from his own experience. What about the other way
round? Wouldn't it be good for you to work with a singer who also
happens to be trained as a pianist?

WR: Yes and no. Most singers know a little about piano -- it is
usually part of the training at school. But a singer who has
substantial training as a pianist is, perhaps, not the best thing to
happen to an accompanist because then he tends to be easier on you.
I have learned best from singers who knew very little about piano
playing. They would say: hey, can't you do this a bit smoother,
better, fresher ... whatever. Whereas a singer who also happens to be
a pianist would say: considering that it is such a difficult passage,
well done. People like Brigitte Fassbnder, for instance, who is
certainly a major influence in my musical life, would say: I want it
to sound like this or that, can't you play it a bit differently? They
would say this in the most difficult parts, just expecting it, you see.
That challenges you because, from the non-pianist's points of view,
can't be done does not exist even for the difficult passages. If you
want to be a good accompanist, you need to be technically perfect
but you also have to work out what precisely you want to bring
across, with this piece or that. It is up to you what you make of the
work.

TC: You were fortunate to have someone of Fassbnder's caliber to

learn from, so early on in your career.

WR: Yes, I suppose that is very true. Looking back, one's own career
path always seems very smooth and logical. But while it is all
happening, when you are at the start or in the midst of it all, it
sometimes appears not at all logical. You think: I hope this will all
work out, or: where will this love for music lead me in life? But now
I can see that music was very much in my life from an early age. It is
only logical that I should end up making a living at it. I have two
sisters and we all grew up with music and singing. My parents were
lay musicians, but Dad was more of a semi-professional. He was a
teacher and began to study organ on the side. He soon became our
church organist and also helped with the church choir. The
choirmaster and my Dad even did concerts together. I always went
along when Dad played the organ and one day I started helping to
pull the registers, something that maybe had an early influence on
the choice of tonal colors that now play an important role in my job.
Through Dad, I also came in contact with singing very early on. His
close working relationship with the choirmaster meant that, before
too long, I was singing in the choir also.

TC: Were you any good?

WR: I have a run-of-the-mill baritone voice, not too high or too low,
just right for a choir.

So I was singing there for a while and then, because the choirmaster
knew that I also enjoyed playing the piano, one thing led to another.
I started doing some bits as accompanist for that church choir I sang
in. I also did some detours through the organ world, but piano
remained the most important instrument for me. Initially, Dad was
teaching me, but then I got into my teenage years and began to rebel.
Like most teenagers, I arrived at a point where I did not want to
listen to my father anymore. Eventually, my Dad saw that we were
not going to make any headway. He found another very good teacher
for me, about 100km from Waldsassen where I grew up, in
Regensburg. His name was Konrad Pfeiffer. He was very strict and
his first requirement was that I quit messing around with the choir. I
was playing with a lot of enthusiasm and was producing sounds, but
he felt that there was very little real technique and order behind what
I was doing. So he had me start again from scratch, doing my scales.

TC: Ouch!

WR: Yeah, that's pretty brutal if you already fancied yourself as a

pianist. But it was very good for me. I owe that man a lot because he
gave me a wonderfully strong base. Order is important, in music as
in life. I think any technique in music is like a little machine: if it
works well then it is very good, but if something isn't quite right you
soon lose your track. Today I know how very important it is for any
musician to have a rounded and smooth technique. I stayed with
Pfeiffer until my A-levels, going there once a week. At home, I
additionally practiced for about two hours a day.
TC: Being German, you then had to spend some fifteen months in
the military after finishing school. Your country still has
conscription.

Rieger in conversation with a student at the Juventudes Musicales de

Espaa.

WR: There was no getting past that. Thankfully, they have a music
section in the military ... I was lucky because I had always taken
violin lessons parallel to my piano lessons. That was my way out. As
pianist, you were useless in the military orchestra but as a violinist
you could audition because they also had a small symphony
orchestra. We were in charge of chamber music. Looking back, it
was a good year because I got to practice piano a lot and violin of
course, plus I met some very interesting people I did chamber music
with. For a while I toyed with the idea of becoming a violinist
because I was very attracted to the chamber music options.

TC: Were you good at violin?

WR: Perhaps not more than average. I don't think I'd have landed a
great position as first violinist, but my violin teacher said I would
have a good chance in a smaller orchestra. That is why I continued to
do both. I only decided on the piano as a career half way through my
studies but that was not because of the available solo literature for
piano. In fact, I am a team player at heart and the thought of having
to be alone with the piano put me off a bit. I had initially considered
violin for its options of orchestral or chamber music. Violin as a
soloist wouldn't have interested me as much. So you see, in
hindsight it all goes in a certain direction.

TC: You were studying, there were all these auditions, plenty of
work, one supposes. And yet, you still decided to take voice lessons
also. Why did you do that?

WR: It was on offer at the school. To this day, I consider it very

important for any instrumentalist. Now as then, there are still options
to study voice as a sideline. In fact, singing lessons led to my first
official encounter with being an accompanist. There was a time
when everyone who came in to sing had to accompany his
predecessor because there was no official pianist for that. So when I
accompanied the chap who came before me, the teacher noticed that
this came easy to me and recommended me to her own singing
teacher who happened to be looking for someone to help out during
singing lessons. She was Charlotte Kaminsky, an old lady,
unfortunately not alive anymore who had studied voice in Berlin.
She still looked after a few singers as an expert and she was the first
one to treat me as an accompanist from the start. I didn't want to hurt
the old lady so I never contradicted her. Very soon, I realised that
accompanying is a lot of fun. As it happened Charlotte Kaminsky
had a small foundation, too. Her late husband had left her a little
money, which she had put into a foundation for singers, not pianists
necessarily, but that ran alongside. Two times a year she did master
courses. One of these was with Eric Werba. Werba met me and
invited me to audition for him at the music school, to join his class
for the following semester. That was how it all came together ... once
I went to Werba and played for him, and he took me into his class,
things happened very quickly. Very soon I accompanied a lot of
singers in Munich, at his classes.
TC: Could you put a timeframe on that for us?

WR: It would have been from 1984 onwards. In 1982, I started

studying and in 1983 was my first contact with Mrs Kaminsky. From
1984 onwards, I was in Werba's class. At some stage, I was
accompanying some ten singers and I still don't know how I
managed to do that. In 1987 I did my exams in piano and violin but I
have laid violin aside completely ever since. Werba retired in 1986
or 87 and Helmut Deutsch was his successor. They were very
different. Werba was very generous, a bit laissez-faire, laid-back, and
he brought that out in you. Deutsch, one the other hand, was a very
precise man with great attention to detail, so he brought out that total
discipline in you. It was good for me to have both of them as
teachers, in succession. From Werba I learned to love music in a
very embracing, laid-back kind of way and Deutsch always made me
look for the bottom of things, to be stricter with myself. Those years
I was with Deutsch were very important and parallel to that was the
contact with Fassbnder.

TC: How old were you when you did your first concert with Frau
Fassbnder?

WR: I was twenty eight. We had a sort of try-out concert here in

Munich, before some three hundred people. The next one, funnily
enough, was in Regensburg. Coming from Waldsassen, we all orient
ourselves toward Regensburg as our nearest big city and so it was
almost like playing a home concert. That was in front of eight
hundred people and it went well enough that she said: let's do things
together in future.
Wolfram Rieger talking to a student during his summer course in
Spain.

TC: Were you freelance, or on her payroll?

WR: Freelance. We are always freelance in my job. The singer never

employs the pianist on a salary. The way it works is that either the
promoter hires you and the singer as a package or each of you is
being hired separately. So, when they hired Mrs Fassbnder, her
management would say: please call Mr Rieger and book him as her
accompanist.

TC: In your case, talent and luck seem to have come together at just
the right time.

WR: Yes, luck played a big part in it. It is difficult to make it to the
top and I do not wish to evoke the impression that it is a piece of
cake. When I started out, I had my doubts just like everyone else.
My friends never did, they said, as did Deutsch, that they have no
worries over my future career. But when you are in the midst of it,
living this career-ascent path, it's a different ballgame. You ask
yourself what you will do if it doesn't pan out. I still recall how
proud I was when I had some money left over from the first
concerts. I ended up putting some aside. Eventually I had saved up
enough to enable me to survive for one full year without any
booking coming in. That was the most wonderful feeling you can
imagine. Then I bought my first high-quality instrument. I had my
own piano all through my studies, but a grand is something different,
as any pianist will know. I think we all dream of our own Steinway
grand. Around 1990, when I had my first concerts with Mrs
Fassbnder, I made that dream come true for myself and bought a
brand new Steinway grand piano.

TC: And now you are one of the most successful accompanists in the
world. Teaching young people is an important part of your own life
now. You have just returned from Barcelona, Spain, where you did a
course in Lied for young students there.

WR: I do this every year. It is such a delight to work with these

young people. They are so talented, attentive, and eager to learn.
Spain is one of my favorite countries and I go there a lot. In Spain,
as in Berlin at the music academy, I teach the team. The singer learns
how to work with the accompanist and vice versa. I do not teach
singing per se, although I may make the odd remark to the singer but
not in the context that a voice teacher would. I might tell him that he
needs to get himself a bit of advice from his voice teacher on this or
that point. The pianist is someone I will talk to in technical terms
also, however.

Rieger demonstrates the secrets of accompanying.

TC: You do your course in Spanish?

WR: Naturally. As one teaches people of different nationalities, one

learns to speak the language. It was a one week course filled with
different classes, discussions and performances.
TC: You are also a professor for Lied at the Hans Eisler Music
Academy in Berlin. This is known as one of the best music schools
in the world, which tends to succeed in getting the top musicians in
their field as teachers. Thomas Quasthoff is there, Julia Varady ... so,
admission requirements must be quite tough.

WR: They have to be. Music is a very competitive business. There

are so many hopeful young musicians. Few actually succeed in
making a living at it at all and fewer still make it to the top. It is a
matter of having to be cruel to be kind. When I see that someone
doesn't have what it takes, I either don't admit them in the first place
or, if it only becomes clear during the course, I take them aside and
tell them that it is better to call it quits. It is a postgraduate course I
teach, but the students are still young people. What sense would it
make to teach someone, take years out of their life, only for them to
end up unemployed and maybe too old then to start over with a new
profession? So when there are really fundamental problems, I prefer
to keep matters short and as painless as possible.

TC: Let's say someone comes to you and wants to enter your class.
He or she is a great pianist, could easily hold his own on stage as a
concert pianist. But now he comes with a singer in tow, they do a
Lied together, and you realise that he has no sensitivity whatsoever
for the singer. They are not in tune. The prospective student is not a
team player. Is this something you can teach?

WR: That would be one of the typical problems that instantly

disqualify from admission. If the team player mentality is not there, I
tell the person to go home.

TC: Are there any role models you have oriented yourself on, other
accompanists you specifically admire, perhaps?
WR: Someone who was and still is a role model for me is Gerald
Moore. He has set standards that continue to be valid to this day. The
way he manages to get to the core of a piece through his
interpretation of it! He does so in a very modest, self-deprecating,
British way. He enriches the singer and the piece to an incredible
extent, always coupled with this wonderful sense of British humor
that I like about him very much. I have tried to learn from his way of
approaching music: with a combination of depth and humor.

TC: So many great singers have established long-lasting partnerships

with you. Thomas Hampson, Barbara Bonney, Thomas Quasthoff ...
the list goes on and on. Who do you feel you have learned from the
most?

WR: You learn something from each singer you work with. It would
be impossible for me to highlight just one or two of them. As far as
other influences in my musical life, aside from my teachers, I feel
that I have learned a lot from Hans Hotter when I assisted him in his
courses although I never accompanied him. I have also learned a lot
from Brigitte Fassbnder, especially since she was the first of these
great singers I worked with. And now, for the past eleven years,
there is this very enriching team with Thomas Hampson. From all
the singers I have worked with, there is always some aspect I learned
about the following quest: how do I get into the depth of the music,
how can I get really close to that? And then: never giving up in the
quest to really understand music at its profoundest level.

TC: You also worked with Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, the predecessor
of Thomas Hampson as a star-baritone. He is such a legend. What
was he like? Arrogant? Standoffish?
WR: Quite the opposite. I met him for the first time when he was
doing one of his courses at the music academy in Berlin. I travelled
there with some fellow students from Munich. He is very kind and
when working with him, he can be very warm as a person. In his
private life he maintains a healthy distance, but in a friendly way. He
has such an amazing air about him that it rubs off on you, just being
around him. He influences, merely by being there and by being the
man he is. From him I learned a lot about ordering my thoughts, both
musically and personally. It was all about never giving up. He taught
me a very handy approach to dealing with problems: if you think
you have found a solution that seems to fit, don't make it so easy on
yourself. Think again. Maybe there is a better solution out there,
somewhere. It was a wonderful time with him that I do not want to
miss in my life. We worked together over a period of two years, off
and on. Later, our contact became more sporadic but we still had
occasion to work together every once in a while. Even when we
were no longer working with each other, he still remembered me and
helped me when I needed anything. We stay in contact with each
other, mainly through his wife who teaches at the same school as I
do.

TC: After Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Hampson has taken over as the

world's star baritone: voice, performance skills, looks and acting
quality ... he has it all, just like Fischer-Dieskau did. Once again, you
are part of the package. But with Hampson there is a genuine
friendship in private life also?

WR: Yes, we really are friends. When we are on tour we do things

together in our spare time. We might go to the museum or on an
excursion. That is very nice when you share a lot of things with each
other outside the concert hall. It was the same with Brigitte
Fassbnder. We also went to museums and exhibitions together when
we were on tour.

TC: As an accompanist, do you feel it makes a difference to the

quality of the performance when there is a personal friendship with
the singer?

Rieger discusses a student's interpretation.

WR: I don't think so. It just makes it nicer when you are on the road
and have to fill in your spare time. But there is no need for singer
and accompanist to be close friends. You have to like each other,
true, or it doesn't work. You'd soon part company if there were not at
least a basic sense of liking each other. This is different with Lied
than with opera. With Lied, you are very much dependent on one
another. There are only the two of you. It is a bit like two people
climbing a mountain together. You depend on each other. With Lied,
you can envision that singer and accompanist are connected through
an invisible rope. If you don't like the other, you don't let go of the
rope and let him fall down, but you may not be sufficiently in tune
with him to help him, as if by reflex, when something goes wrong. I
cannot imagine making music with someone whom I do not like.
Luckily, this has never happened to me. It is also impossible to work
with someone who is on a musical path that you do not agree with.
TC: This really is teamwork, isn't it? An accompanist does not
merely follow the singer. You are a team and within that team you
are equals, both having your own say.
WR: That goes on all the way through, including on stage during the
performance. I don't know how much of this the audience notices but
imagine two people connected by a string. It's not a one-way street.
Each of us pulls this way or that way. The string is elastic like a
rubber band. Sometimes he gives and I take, and then it goes vice
versa. It can happen, though rarely, that someone doesn't give at all.
Then, eventually, the string will tear. But if it is good teamwork then
everyone can pull and it is nice to feel that they are following me
also. Everyone shows the direction he wants to go in and the other
follows, or not. If I notice that he doesn't follow I can increase my
energy, should I insist on going a particular direction. But he could
also increase his resistance and make me realize: this is not
something we are going to do today. It is all a matter of being
spontaneous but on the base that everyone has to know basically
what they want. That is what rehearsals are for. It's not just a random
process.

TC: What does your rehearsal schedule look like before a concert?

WR: We have this standard plan where we meet with the singer on
the previous evening. I rehearse, there and then, for about two hours.
The day of the concert, in the morning, I try to be there about two
hours before the singer. Once the singer arrives, we play through the
entire program and, in the evening, I am usually there about ninety
minutes before the start of the concert to warm up. Sometimes, I will
also play a little during the break.

TC: When there are no concerts, how much time do you spend
practicing a day? Do you sometimes leave it out altogether?

WR: Heavens, no. You always pay for that. No way. The very least is
half an hour of technical exercises a day. If I do that, I feel fit but it
is the absolute minimum I can get away with. Usually, it is more like
two to four hours, depending on what is coming up. Right now, for
instance, there are several big concerts in August, as part of the
Salzburg festival and so a bit more practice is in order.

TC: So there's not a lot of spare time right now. When there is, what
kind of music do you listen to when not working?

WR: Very little, I must say. I am dealing with music all the time in
my professional life and so, when it is time to relax, I tend to leave it
aside a bit at home. But my hobbies are all connected with the arts. I
may do the occasional hiking trip into the lovely Bavarian Alps, and
even go sailing with friends at times, but my big love is theatre and
that is something I really try to fit in when there is spare time. Other
than that, I enjoy going to museums and, of course, I do love fine
eating. I am married to a Chinese violinist and so I have a taste for
Asian cuisine: not just Chinese but also Vietnamese, Thai, and
Japanese. Being from Bavaria, however, I also like the local cuisine.
Another one of the musical gourmets is Zubin Mehta, who also
spends a lot of his time in Munich. We went out together one
evening to eat, and we had a blast.

TC: Back to things work-related: you also do concerts with your

wife, Yamei Yu, a master violinist who plays as first concertmaster at
the Bavarian State Opera here in Munich.

WR: Since we are both music professionals we try to fit in some ten
concerts a year together, for violin and piano. It is always nice when
we can work with each other and it is great being on tour together
because we can explore the new cities where we are. It is a lot of fun
working out our concert program together, which we do along the
same lines I use when working with the singers: it needs a theme,
make a circle. Next year, for instance, we will have a pure Schubert
program. This year our focus was on French composers. Sometimes
my parents also come to our concerts. They are very happy for me
that it worked out for me to make a living at music. My Dad was
also very interested in my work with the singers, since he was my
first piano teacher and, I suppose, saw it all coming long before I did

TC: How exactly can an accompanist work with the singer to help
him, here or there?

WR: There are some obvious ways, and some not so obvious. If
someone is hoarse, for instance, there is not much you can do. On
the other hand, if a singer struggles with the high notes, you play the
piece a semitone or tone lower, which makes a lot of difference. If
you notice that someone is running out of breath you can tighten up
the long phrase a little. I think this is comparable to what happens in
any other sports team. There is no such thing as a catalogue of
reactions that you pull out of your sleeve, like: when this happens, I
do that. Rather, if you are a good team then you intuitively feel what
the other needs right now to make things easier on him.

TC: How do you work with tempi? Rule of thumb: light voices,
faster tempi?

WR: There are no rules of thumb in the manner you suggest. First of
all, it depends on the piece you are playing. That out of the way,
experience has taught me that it depends a lot more on the
personality of the singer than on his voice, although the two
naturally go hand in hand.
Teaching by demonstration

TC: Do you still always rehearse, even with singers you regularly
work with? Let's say with someone like Thomas Hampson? You
guys are always together.

WR: I do. You have to keep in mind that each concert is different.
Also, in between our performances, we do other things. So we have
different experiences that influence us, may change us and enrich us,
or whatever. Sometimes these experiences lead to new ideas that you
want to try out with the other.

TC: You discuss that during rehearsals?

WR: Discuss is not quite the right word. We make music together
and I think the most effective work is done without words, stemming
from being connected with each other. You are automatically in tune
with the other if you know him well, like him, and understand him.

TC: The longer you work together, the better it gets? So, even
someone like you, at the top of their own field, would have problems
if I put a singer in front of your piano whom you do not know?

WR: That remains to be seen. It depends on the individual case. That

is why we have safety rehearsals for when understanding is not that
easy. But in most cases contact is established very quickly between
singer and accompanist, close contact leading to a deep intuitive
understanding of each other. You see, it is music that binds us
together and music is a very powerful connecting force that can truly
unite people
TC: Speaking of being united: you watch your singers' breathing and
breathe along. Does this mean you can't be a world-class
accompanist if you do not have professional training as a classical
singer?

WR: I think at the very least you have to be able to imagine what it
is like, and to understand what is involved in singing. I would
caution against underestimating intuition. Many of my colleagues,
truly brilliant accompanists, have a great sense for the singer and I
have no idea whether any of them took formal singing lessons. Yet
they still know where the strengths and weaknesses of each singer
lie, how long someone can hold a tone and so on. That is different
for each singer, naturally. With Hampson, for instance, I know that at
a point where I may need to start worrying with another singer, I am
still very far from even having to think of worrying with him.

TC: Now I understand why you said this is not a job for people who
cannot be team players.

WR: A big part of this job is about intuitively knowing what the
singer is going to do, so you need a certain amount of sensitivity, to
pick up on even the most minute of problems. You have to have
good hearing, also. This is not about the theory-related, analytical
sense of hearing that you need in music theory classes. Our kind of
hearing goes on at a human-to-human level. You notice: oops, this is
going in a direction it shouldn't be going, and then you jump in and
do your bit. It becomes a problem if you simply don't notice things
like that going on.

TC: You always do ...

WR: I hope.

TC: Personally, have you got perfect pitch?

WR: No. In my profession it may even be disadvantageous because

it happens that we play a piece in a different key. If the given key is
not so advantageous to the singer we may end up playing the work a
semitone lower, which makes a great improvement.

TC: Who transposes it?

Wolfram Rieger. Photo: Philip Crebbin

WR: That is something I do inside my head. For instance, this is

another one of the aptitudes you need as a good accompanist. You
really have to be on your toes. When I transpose in my head, rather
than on paper, I am forced to remember it. Next time round, I'll be
even faster when playing the transposed version of the piece. As an
accompanist working at the level I work at, you come across the
need to transpose always. In the recent Munich concert with Thomas
Hampson, for instance, there were two Lieder that we did in
different keys: one by Liszt and one by Strauss.

TC: Who worked out the Munich program?

WR: Thomas Hampson and I did that together. We always do things

together, at least in most cases. We email about it or we talk on the
phone. We are in constant communication when it comes to working
out a new program. Then, in rehearsal, we work on it again. He is
very strict about choosing pieces that he has a personal connection
with. If he does not like a certain work, he leaves it aside. Other than
that, one of the criteria we use when putting together a program is
that we hope it leads on a certain path that can be walked on together
with the audience. A concert program without concept is not for us.
For the Munich concert, for instance, we took Liszt and Mahler and
Strauss. We offered our public the themes of love, war and death.
Why? Love is a very nice subject to make music about, isn't it? Then
there is the stark contrast, death, which is the ultimate threat even to
the purest of loves. So, these are the two basic things we are
confronted with in life: love and death, and everything that happens
in between. Mahler fits very well into that concept because his war-
songs from the Wunderhorn are not actually war-songs but anti-war
songs. All the seemingly glorification of war collapses into an anti-
war theme. For instance this in-your-face commentary that he gives
us in Revelge ...

TC: With these ever increasing tralali tralalai passages, the tambour
beating his drum all the way into death, and beyond ...

WR: Exactly. So when Mahler describes war, it becomes an anti-war

song because what he does is to show the futility of war. At the same
time, even in Revelge, there are the themes of love and farewell.

TC: Thomas Hampson, in an interview, described the image of this

song's final scene. Do you also imagine the plot as you play?

WR: Of course, it makes it easier if you enter deeply into the song.
But there is a fine line between entering into the story and entering
into the story too much. You don't want to grimace too much as the
pianist but at the same time you need to feel what you are playing,
not only the music but also the action behind the music. There's a
nice little story about this, dating back to my time with Fassbnder.
A friend of a friend, who had not been to many recitals, came to a
concert of ours. Afterwards, he came backstage and asked me: how
long did you have to practice until you managed to synchronize your
facial expressions? He found that fascinating, but it is not a matter of
practice, of course. It is just the expression of both of you feeling the
same, which is only natural since you are working yourselves
through the same song. You have to feel the song. There is no way
around it. Maybe you don't see it on everyone's face, but when it
comes to the crunch, it is something we all do, this diving into the
story and music.

TC: Now we get to the bottom of it: so, to be a great accompanist,

you not only need to be an exceptional team player, sensitive to your
singer, able to think quickly, have singing training if at all possible,
but you also need to have an affinity for literature or you won't be
doing much diving into anything.

WR: That is one point that is still missing, true. You need a deep
love for the written word. That was one of my main attractions for
choosing this profession: the joining of music and poetry, music and
literature, which become equally important in interpreting a certain
piece. The love for singing is also important, because then you
understand a lot of things automatically that can only happen
through the process of singing. It is not just the pianist who brings
about the joining of literature and music with his art, so does the
singer. Much is revealed from the text, there are tensions, there is
hope -- there is love. Schumann makes this process especially
attractive because he has his own way of commenting on what is
happening in the text.
Smiling students in Rieger's class

TC: He is your favorite, then?

WR: I don't have a favorite. I like them all. Another composer who
is always at the centre of the Lied genre is Schubert because it was
such a focal point of this work. But composers like Mahler are also
enormously important. Each composer is significant in his own way.
As the years go by, you become increasingly more familiar with
them until you think you know part of their personality also. You get
to know their habits, might smile at this or that typical trait, and
become somewhat personal about the composer. You can bring your
own understanding of the composer across to the audience but, as
musicians, we must always keep in mind that first and foremost you
have to be familiar with the work, which counts for much more than
being familiar with the person. There are some wonderful musical
works written by composers who were perhaps not so great as
people. Likewise, there were wonderful people who wrote mediocre
music. Then there are works so great that they seem to come from
somewhere else. I still recall how disappointed I was as a child, once
I discovered that Bach had really lived. It did not seem credible to
me that this wonderful music had done anything else but fallen to
earth straight from heaven ... plop ... and there it was. It was such a
drawback to discover that Bach was a human being like the rest of
us, with normal day-to-day problems.
The Accompanist: the Unsung
Hero?
by HYPERLINK "http://www.scena.org/authordesc.asp?id=1" \n
_blankLucie Renaud / November 1, 1999
HYPERLINK "http://Accompagnateur-fr.htm/".

"Later I happened to appear next to her on the stage dozens of

times, but I was not sure of how to bow, where to look, nor how
many steps to walk behind her. I glided, like a shadow, without
looking at the audience. I would take my seat keeping my eyes to the
ground and then put my hands on the keyboard."
Nina Berberova wrote these sentences in her 1934 novel The
Accompanist. Is it still an accurate picture of the accompanist's life,
or have attitudes changed towards a better understanding of the
pianist's role? An accompanist shares many traits with an
anaesthetist. He generally has studied longer than the surgeon and
must constantly stay alert to prevent an unpredictable disaster, but
when all is said and done, the surgeon (like the soloist) gets all of the
credit.
One must first realize that the pianist-accompanist is almost the
classical music world's "new kid on the block". Originally,
accompaniments were played on the lute. Then, during the baroque
period, the harpsichordist became an essential partner, playing the
basso continuo. He had to improvise elaborate accompaniments
anchored in the composer's harmonic canvas.
The recitatives of 18th-century Italian opera were still sustained by
the basso continuo but the accompaniment became more important
in the arias. The greater composers of the era created thicker
accompaniments, transforming their arias into duets between the
voice and a particular instrument. At the end of the 18th century, the
piano pushed the harpsichord aside as the instrument for
accompaniment and chamber music. The Alberti bass, with its
pattern of broken chords, became the most popular accompaniment
figure. Slowly, the texture evolved and reached its first pinnacle in
Schubert's lieder, where the piano became an equal partner in
depicting the scenery or evoking the underlying emotions of the
poems. Just think of the spinning-wheel effect achieved by the
pianist in "Gretchen am Spinnrade" or the joyous leaping patterns of
"Die Forelle".
Schubert and Brahms maintained the importance of the piano in their
lieder while staying true to Schubert's model. In the lieder by Liszt,
Wolf and Mahler, the accompaniment plays a psychological role: it
completes the words' meaning and translates the emotions. In the
20th century, the pianist has become the soloist's essential partner by
initiating rhythmic momentum, surrounding the text with subtle
harmonies, or creating atmosphere.
At the end of the 19th century, the accompanist's role was subject to
disparagement. The audience barely tolerated him, and the soloists,
especially singers, regarded him with much disdain. A slow change
took place in later years, when some superior accompanists were
able to change the audience's prejudices. Among those, one should
mention Gerald Moore, who became quite famous accompanying
stars such as Dietrich Fischer-Diskau, Victoria de Los Angeles,
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Pablo Casals and Yehudi Menuhin, and who
shed light on the accompanist's role in his memoirs.
To become a good accompanist, it is not enough to possess decent
technique or competency at sight-reading. The piano's sound must
blend with the soloist's, whether singer or instrumentalist. The
dynamics must be carefully calibrated, the breathing controlled but
not strained, and the shape of each musical phrase approached with
great care. The accompanist must strive to achieve a legato sound
that will resemble as much as possible the human voice or a string
instrument, while recognizing that, since the piano is a percussion
instrument, the result will never be totally satisfactory.
One of the great challenges that awaits the accompanist is that of
maintaining balance between the voice or instrument and the piano.
The accompanist cannot apply his own standards of dynamics. For
example, when the pianist sees piano in a Brahms lied, he shouldn't
play it with the same intensity as in a Debussy melody. He must also
consider the tessitura of the voice or instrument, the soloist's strong
and weak points, the hall's acoustics and the quality of the piano he
will be using. Experience here is handy since the sounds an artist
perceives on stage are not the same as those heard in the hall.
There is an essential difference between accompanying a singer and
an instrumentalist. When working with a singer, the pianist holds
most of the responsibility in achieving just the right balance between
voice and piano. On the other hand, when performing sonatas, the
instruments do not always have to mesh. When the soloist has the
melody, the pianist must become discreet, but the converse is true
when the pianist has the leading part. (The first edition of
Beethoven's Violin sonatas was significantly titled Sonatas for piano
and violin and not vice-versa!)
The vocal accompanist's worst nightmare definitely remains
transposition. Many singers are famous for suddenly asking the
pianist a few hours before the recital to take the whole piece down a
step or up a step! For a singer, the difference between singing in one
key or another is minimal. For the pianist, though, it is another story.
The modulations and the accidentals have to be adapted from one
key to another and often a motif that falls especially well under the
fingers in the original key (let's not forget that most composers were
pianists) becomes unpractical and daring to play in a different key.
Those technical difficulties merely skim the surface of the qualities a
skilled accompanist must possess. More than anything else, the
accompanist must exhibit a sense of self-sacrifice, strong character,
and the flexibility of a master diplomat. Degrees in psychology and
pedagogy might also come in handy when making "suggestions" to
the soloist. The pianist must learn when to speak and when to take
the blame. Soloists' egos are generally very fragile and one needs to
use kid gloves to get the message across. Regardless of what
happens in rehearsals, the soloist is always right at the concert - the
accompanist must then rely on composure and the ability to skip
three bars without a blink!
One becomes an accompanist by choice - it is a vocation.
The job should never be taken as a last resort - that is, while
waiting to be discovered as a soloist. Tremendous rewards
await such a pianist on his journey: working with generous
artists who recognise his achievements, learning new
repertoire all of the time, and, most of all, sharing the
energy of performing music. HYPERLINK
"http://WarrenJones-en.htm/"Warren Jones went so far as to
call the work between soloist and accompanist a "mystical
communion". This non-verbal process of discovering a
fellow musician's personality will definitely remain the
greatest satisfaction of such a career.