My nineteenth Classical Conversation is with British concert pianist Valerie Tryon. Valerie now resides in Ancaster in Ontario, Canada, but was visiting the UK to record a disc with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra when I caught up with her in London.
Find out more about Valerie, here.
Here’s the transcript for those who prefer to read interviews:
MELANIE SPANSWICK: British concert pianist Valerie Tryon has given recitals and concerto performances all around the world. She was one of the youngest students ever to be accepted to study at the Royal Academy of Music and has won many prizes and accolades for her playing including Harriet Cohen Medal. So, I’m delighted she’s taken the time today to join me for one of my Classical Conversations here in London, where she’s been recording Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Welcome.
VALERIE TRYON: Hello Melanie.
MS: Lovely to chat with you. Thank you for joining me. I am going to start by talking all about your musical education. What age were you when you started, what was the catalyst, and did you come from a musical family?
VT: Well, the first teacher I had was across the road. My mother thought I think that it would be better for me to have lessons from someone other than the family. And so, she sent me across the road to Mr. Lawrence, who said hello to me and let me in, sat me at the piano and then went upstairs and did his ablutions. And I heard him shaving and then he would come down after I finished the piece and say “Very nice Valerie . Next week I want you to play this.” That was my first…
MS: Your introduction.
VT: Yes. But my mother has taught me as well. And then, I went to a Mr. Whittaker at Leeds College of Music. And he was a teacher of the Matthay method.
MS: Yes.
VT: And that I think was my blessing because I’ve never ever had a single problem with my hands and fingers. Some pianist usually get something. Tendonitis. But I think the Matthay method saved me because it was all natural from the beginning. I didn’t have to learn it.
MS: Right. Yes.
VT: I had the relaxation given to me.
MS: That was my next question because I have had the good fortune to hear you so many times and you have what seems to me to be an effortless technique. I was going to ask how you developed that?
VT: Well, it isn’t effortless actually.
MS: It looks effortless. It really does.
VT: I do work hard.
MS: I know. I’m sure but it’s .. it’s amazing.
VT: But I have… I have learned how to … how to do stuff without making too much effort and without getting stiff.
MS: Perhaps you would like to explain about that? The technique?
VT: The technique?
MS: Yes.
VT: Well, there is a book I think about Matthey. And I think Myra Hess was a Matthay student and Moura Lympany I believe. They all had this basic technique taught them when they were little. I only remember this kind of things from practising. And the weight falling (Valerie does an arm movement). Falling on the keys and your fingertips taking the weight. And in my recent years, I found that the most important thing which I never realised was just common sense really to see where the problem is and to figure out the best way to dealing with that. It may be fingering, or the way your arm is going, or it might be all kinds of things. But if you can work it out, then you can deal with the problem.
MS: Sort it out. But it’s to do with making, you make a beautiful sound it’s obviously to do with the arm weight..
VT: Yes.
MS: And you made your debut when you were very young.
VT: Yes.
MS: So do you encourage young pianists to get a lot of performance practice when they’re young? Do you think it’s a good idea to be exposed to performing at a young age?
VT: I don’t know. I used to play for all kinds of small things. I used to play things like the Minute Waltz and I played with a little orchestra called Henry Crowdson String Orchestra but I didn’t play actually with them. I had solos in between. But the things that worried me then were whether I go on the stage in the right way, whether I bowed properly or whether I would fall over the wires on the way out. I never actually worried about playing.
MS: You didn’t worry about playing at all.
VT: No. But now, of course it’s the opposite way. Sometimes I wish I could trip over something.
MS: Oh dear. You were a major prize winner of the Liszt International Competition.
VT: No, no I wasn’t.
MS: You weren’t?
VT: No, I wasn’t a major prize winner. I don’t know how this ever came about. I feel embarrassed about it.
MS: It’s… it’s on your biography isn’t it?
VT: It does it say there?
MS: Yes.
VT: Oh, I never put that.
MS: But you played in the competition?
VT: Oh, yeah. I got a prize .. but it wasn’t one of the main ones. They actually. Annie Fischer was one of the jury and I believe Moura Lympany, too. It was a very distinguished jury. And there were four of us in the competition that they felt deserved the prize although it wasn’t on the menu as it were. So, the main prizes were Lazar Berman, who was third in this competition and they added the four. There was Annie Petit, who was a French girl, me, and I think somebody who’s called Ashanski who’s a Hungarian, and I can’t remember the other one. But we were all given this one, added on…
MS: A special prize.
VT: Yes, which was called Concours or out of the competition. And there was money too. I was able to spend lots of money and take stuff home so it was something.
MS: Did you find that it kind a shaped and changed your career, winning this prize? Or did you….
VT: No.
MS: It didn’t?
VT: No. Nothing has changed my career. Nothing. I’ve had rave reviews, it hasn’t made any difference. I’ve had bad reviews, that hasn’t made any difference. Nothing. I just plod along the same way.
MS: You just played wonderful concerts. You’ve got huge, major repertoire. You play so many different composers. Which composers are you drawn to?
VT: The ones I think I play best are probably the Romantics. I feel more at home with the Romantics. I love Bach, but it frightens me to death. I love Mozart, I love Haydn, I love Beethoven, Schubert. I love them all. I’m totally promiscuous. I love all of them. And the ones I’m playing at the time are my favourites.
MS: Sure.
VT: But I feel, should I say, so comfortable with Chopin, Liszt and Brahms even, and also the Impressionists. I feel very comfortable with them partly I suppose because I had lessons with Jaques Février and he gave me, he gave me the lowdown on style.
MS: You studied with him in Paris?
VT: Yes.
MS: And also, you’ve recorded and performed the complete Debussy piano music.
VT: Yes. And Ravel.
MS: And Ravel. Why? What attracted you to this style? Is it the sound?
VT: I just. I feel very thrilled with the colours for one thing. I love the mystery and the resonance and the differences of the colours you can make, and the vagueness and the rhythm because I think that’s important…very important. Février told me Ravel didn’t like his music sentimentalised at all. He liked it to be heartfelt and very expressive but not overdone so the phrases would flow on to the next without stopping. That kind of thing.
MS: I understand.
VT: Yes.
MS: You were the Ferenc Liszt Medal of Honour in 1986 by the Hungarian Minister of Culture.
VT: Yes, that was nice.
MS: Yes, for your interpretation of Liszt. I know you love Liszt, so what attracts you to his style?
VT: I think it just ah, he appeals to my soul in some way. Well, they all do. I think he has some special harmonic chime somehow. I love his poetry. I don’t have any particular love for the histrionics and flamboyant Liszt but I do love the poetic side.
MS: Yes. Tell us about your love for Scarlatti because I know you play a lot of the Sonatas.
VT: I love Scalartti.
MS: Very difficult repertoire actually.
VT: You have to be very on the ball, don’t you with that?
MS: Incredibly.
VT: You can’t.. you can’t make a mistake.
MS: No.
VT: And you can’t flubb anything. It has to be right there. Well, I just love the rhythm and the whole thing. I wouldn’t really like to play it on the harpsichord.
MS: That was my next question. Have you tried it on harpsichord?
VT: I wouldn’t like that because the piano is so perfect.
MS: Yes.
VT: And for Bach too.
MS: Yes. Yes.
VT: I don’t think we can compare it. I’m sure Bach would have loved the piano and the pedal.
MS: So which venues have you really enjoyed performing in around the world?
VT: Mostly, my own home. I don’t…
MS: You’re living in Canada now.
VT: Yes.
MS: Lived there for quite a few years…
VT: Yes. I’ve always felt more at home in the recording studio than a hall.
MS: That’s interesting.
VT: I like the privacy in a recording studio. And although you are giving to an audience and they’re giving back, it’s more stressful for me.
MS: Performing in concerts..
VT: Yes.
MS: Well, you always look so incredibly relaxed.
VT: It’s all an act.
MS: What exciting plans have you got for the future?
VT: Future.. well, I have this recording that I am just doing now. That will come out nice and….
MS: I’m sure it will. Have you recorded the other concertos as well?
VT: No. I’ve never recorded the last concerto. I did play two Mozart’s and a Rondo which I liked so much and I like playing Mozart. I really enjoyed it. But I haven’t. I haven’t done any of the Beethoven and that is partly because I leave that to other people I think. I always feel. I know it sounds funny, but I feel that I’m a woman when I play Beethoven. It doesn’t affect any other composer. But it’s like my adverse feeling towards women pilots. It’s something very weird inside men. I’d rather have a man pilot and ..
MS: And rather a man playing Beethoven.
VT: Yes.
MS: That’s interesting. So, have you never recorded the concertos?
VT: No.
MS: Really? You must have played them.
VT: I played them a lot yes.
MS: But not recorded them…
VT: No.
MS: What does playing piano mean to you?
VT: Well, I really can’t imagine not playing the piano. All these years I have played the piano. If some people say “Are you going to retire?” and I have all my faculties. I mean, I still have my brain I think and my fingers still work. And I feel that unless something happens to cripple me, I shall just go on playing because it would feel very strange if I didn’t. And I don’t know how I would feel. I think I would feel as if my raison d’etre had gone.
MS: Yes. I could understand that. But that’s good for us because you are one of my favourite pianists. Thank you so much for joining me today.
VT: Thank you for having me, Melanie.
