I have often thought about how to present pieces so that they become more familiar, more alive. The text you have here in your hands is more of a musical diary than a booklet text.

Bach/Brahms Chaccone

When faced with Bach’s Chaconne, I ask myself the question: “What must have happened that he ended up finding the inspiration to write that piece?” Its qualities, composition-wise, are apparent. The balance of drama–introspection, passion–piety, and sentiment–virtuosity is irreproachable. However, what makes this piece special is not its technical achievement but rather its transformative effect. It is one of those works of art after which one feels changed, affected.

The piece is set in three sections, each one culminating in a different climax. The first section gets gradually more tumultuous, more passionate, and ends with a repetition of the theme. The whole piece could have ended there — the first section being by far the longest one.

The transformation happens in the second and the third sections: The second part is solemn and dignified. I wouldn’t describe the music as joyous or hopeful, but there is something uplifting about it. Perhaps an apt description, although not historically appropriate, would be the scene of the sunrise from Goethe’s Faust.

The pulses of life beat, fresh and full of vigor,

gently greeting the ethereal dawn.

You, Earth, have been steadfast through the night

and breathe, newly refreshed, at my feet.

Already you begin, with joy, to enfold me;

you awaken and stir a resolute will

to strive unceasingly toward the highest life.

J. W. von Goethe, Faust II. Teil

Like the scene of the sunrise, the glory doesn’t last long. The third section is the most tender, heartfelt of all. Baroque music, despite its vivid imagery, doesn’t often indulge in sentimentality. Here, for about a minute, that happens. It is a moment, but a lingering one. The remainder of the piece reels from that deep, dark valley of emotions. As is customary with Baroque variations, the theme is presented plainly at the end once more. A Romantic composer would have carved a climax out of the return to the main theme — which Busoni, in fact, did in his arrangement for two hands. I prefer the plain version; it seems to speak out Bach’s Gloria Soli Deo marking at the end of his scores: “Whatever has come to pass, has come to pass, and such is the will of God Almighty.”

Beethoven Sonata in C Major “Waldstein”, Op. 53

Beethoven’s so-called “Waldstein” Sonata is a sort of rite of passage for young pianists. Traditionally, one first tackles the smaller, easier early sonatas; then comes either “Waldstein” or “Appassionata” before moving on to the late sonatas. My background is no different. I respected the “Waldstein” as an important milestone, but I am not sure if I understood what was so special about the sonata. I have taken this sonata up once again after nearly 15 years for the first time this season because I believe there is something else to discover regarding its interpretation.

The inspiration came to me in the form of a question: What if I didn’t treat this sonata like a sort of neurotic, panic race and sought to find the nobility of its harmonies? I was stuck with this idea but hadn’t found a way to express it on the piano.

Inspiration came in the form of a CD: Tom Beghin’s Beethoven and His French Piano, which refers to the Érard piano he was sent from Paris in 1803. Beghin argues in his comprehensive booklet that these three sonatas, where he departs so thoroughly from the Viennese tradition, stem from his desire to utilise his new piano to the fullest. There Beghin quotes a famous professor of the Paris Conservatoire, Louis Adam, praising the ideal of son continu (continuous sound). Czerny likewise praised the “pure and noble sequence of harmonies, when set for choir, would be entirely appropriate for the most serene and serious chorale.”

Now that I had a technical framework for my interpretation, I re-discovered a piece which is emotionally incredibly refined and harmonious, which in fact does full justice to its Italian nickname L’aurora (“The Dawn”). As tormented and human as the “Appassionata” appears to be, the more heavenly and divine the “Waldstein” is.

Schubert Impromptus D 935

Schubert played perhaps the biggest role in my musical life so far. It could be appropriate to say that I was obsessed with his music — to the extent that, as a child, I listened to all his songs chronologically more than once. I remember the moment I heard the Impromptus D 935 for the first time. I knew the Impromptus D 899 well. I liked how direct they were; I loved the dramatic sections especially. However, my expectations from this new, big Schubert piece were not met at first. Instead of Sturm und Drang, romantic sentiments, these works were nearly contemplative for me. They were refined in a classical sense. I didn’t understand them.

Later, when I recorded them, I realised the reason behind my feelings. Schubert is a composer that enjoys quiet dynamics. This piece takes that to an extreme: I think there are only about 16 bars of fortissimo until the ending of the last Impromptu. The first three pieces as a whole, seem to be very private music to me. When I play them, I try to forget about the time, the drama, the stage, and imagine I am alone in a small room, conversing with the piano only; enjoying the never-ending exchange of harmonies — at times melancholic, at times passionate, never truly happy, but always seeking fleeting moments of peace.

The last piece, however, is from a different world. It is an older Spanish dance, most probably the fandango which inspired it. As often with Schubert, the setting is very sinister, perhaps a sort of Danse Macabre. Hushed fear drives this piece forward. In my opinion, this is one of the most difficult pieces in the entire oeuvre of Schubert.

Schubert Wanderer-Fantasie

It is strange that, having played nearly all of Schubert’s piano works, I waited this long with the Wanderer-Fantasy. I had a somewhat complex relationship with this piece: There was a time I wished to disregard virtuosity as vanity. The Wanderer-Fantasy appeared to be a piece that was difficult for the sake of being difficult. At the same time, I recognised the infectious drive of its harmonies and, mostly, the joy of hearing this uplifting, grand music. There is a certain mythology to this piece, especially relating to Liszt seemingly having to simplify it. There is a certain consensus that this piece is an outlier in Schubert’s output, where he tested out how it would be if he were to write for the virtuoso.

The way I came to appreciate the Wanderer-Fantasy is the other way around. Having recorded the sonatas that came after the Fantasy, I realised that the extravagant demands of the Wanderer are actually not that extreme compared to those sonatas. Of course, the characterisation is different, as the Wanderer is a sort of Konzertsolo and the following sonatas are almost symphonies in disguise. However, I have come to appreciate Schubert as a composer of exquisite drama and also ornament and glitter, and the Wanderer found its way into that picture much more easily. It is somewhat under appreciated how Schubert at times manage to write the most gorgeously ornamented, charming salon music.

I like to imagine the Wanderer-Fantasy as Schubert suddenly realising that he didn’t have to feel pinned down by the requirements of popular taste and keyboard writing, and letting himself be guided by his genius alone. In this way, the piece becomes much less of a work that is difficult for the sake of being difficult, and rather a work where difficulty and loud nuances are a necessity. It is essentially a hopeful work, where a young composer spreads his wings and lets inspiration guide him towards a new sort of confidence and expression.

Schubert Sonata in a Minor, D 784

My association with Schubert goes a long way back. It was at first the songs, as sung by Fischer-Dieskau, that held my attention and washed away all interest in any other music. I wanted to dig my fingers into his solo music as well, so I asked permission from my teacher to play a sonata. I was given the A Minor Sonata D 784, which made me so very happy. Czerny writes that a young person’s temperament is more suited to works in minor tonalities for the excess of their emotions and their expressive nature. This was especially true for me. The works that I held in the highest esteem were works where the composer dealt with existential questions, preferably that of their own mortality.

This sonata fits the bill, with its brooding funereal first movement and the macabre final movement. I knew of a Hans Christian Andersen poem – Der Soldat – where he depicts the execution of a soldier at the hands of his lover. That was my association with this sonata: a grave situation where Death is foretold and where the author seeks to find solace overshadowed by feelings of fear and despair.

It is surely a melodramatic way of interpreting the autobiographical reality of this work, which was written mere months after Schubert’s syphilis diagnosis. As often with Schubert, there is also, albeit fragile, a Hellenic sense of aesthetics in the dignified slower sections, something which is surely by design through his association with the poet Johann Mayrhofer.

Schubert Allegretto D 915

This Schubert Allegretto is a small, serious, and earnest piece. It reminds me of the songs that would be sung at student gatherings in dusty tavern in Vienna. The subtitle of the piece is “In memory of Ferdinand Walcher,” which signifies that it was most likely a eulogy in his wake. It is a touching little tribute that I wanted to include as a written-out prelude to Beethoven’s C major Sonata Op. 53.

Chopin Barcarolle

I always found there is something special about Chopin’s Barcarolle. I can’t quite describe what it is that I find so touching in the Barcarolle. Best I can do is to compare it to another piece which puts me in a similar mood: Mozart’s last Piano Concerto. By no stretch of the imagination is either piece happy. They are, however, not dramatic either. Perhaps the word which comes closest to expressing that mood is accepting. The desires and passions of life go by, through us, taking us with them, but we seem simultaneously to observe from afar.

What Chopin managed with the Barcarolle, to me, is why music exists. One could describe vividly Venice, the gondolier’s song, the sunlight and shadows dancing and reflecting over the water, the damp, ancient tunnels; however, nothing, not even Venice itself, can be more Venetian than this piece of music. The music becomes the essence of the subject itself, through which we understand without knowing.

Liszt Sonetto 104 del Petrarca and Les Cloches de Genève

Despite having been associated with Viennese Classics the most, both in terms of repertoire and discography, it is actually Liszt that I enjoy playing most. Liszt with his many façades – the pianist, the educator, the composer, the philanthropist – interests me most among all the great musicians. I struggle to grasp the sheer scale of his creation and how much of the world he has seen. It is one thing to have the vivid imagination to conceive a Macbeth like Shakespeare did without ever having been to Scotland, but it is a different matter to have been in those places where the art takes its inspiration. That’s what fascinates me with Liszt: the multitude of his experiences and how that took form in his art.

The Sonetto 104 takes a poem, reproduced below, as its inspiration. It is remarkable how the conflicting sentiments are expressed which characterise passionate love and heartbreak, ending in an exasperated sigh. I have always imagined this piece as a very forward-looking Italian opera aria.

I find no peace, and all my war is done.

I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice.

I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;

And nought I have, and all the world I season.

That loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison

And holdeth me not--yet can I scape no wise --

Nor letteth me live nor die at my device,

And yet of death it giveth me occasion.

Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain.

I desire to perish, and yet I ask health.

I love another, and thus I hate myself.

I feed me in sorrow and laugh in all my pain;

Likewise displeaseth me both life and death,

And my delight is causer of this strife

-Francesco Petrarca, translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt

—

“I live not in myself, but I become

Portion of that around me.” – Lord Byron

Les Cloches de Genève is a hidden masterpiece. I knew of the piece but gave it a proper listen only when I encountered it at a masterclass recently and was spellbound. This is a piece about the romantic questioning of human existence: Who am I and whither is my life taking me? It soaks up the sound of the bells and transforms into something very intimate, something which leaves the listener transformed by the end of the piece.

Wolfram Wagner Evocation

A couple of years ago, my good friend and trailblazing double bassist Dominik Wagner asked me for a concert in Vienna. In the program was, among other pieces, a world premiere composed by Dominik’s father, Wolfram. There, Wolfram told me about a piano piece he’d written for himself during the lockdown, and he’d be very happy if I’d have a look at it to see if there would be any chance to perform it. The opportunity manifested itself a year later in Ankara. What drew me to Wolfram’s composition was its very contemporary nature. I see the serialist experiments of the 1950s in music as a thing of the past. Despite the quality of much of it, I find most of it doesn’t speak anymore to the 21st-century loneliness of humankind. The age of abstraction (which surely was possible due to the relative economic well-being of the Western world) is but over. I find a tremendous anger and loneliness in Wolfram’s music. There appears to be a fight against a much more powerful being which the individual has no chance of winning. I find the predominant feeling of the modern era is the inability to induce meaningful change and the frustration which is borne out of it. Wolfram’s music captures that beautifully.

Fazıl Say Insan Insan Variations

Fazıl Say is a unique person and artist. I have rarely met anybody with such penetrating insight into society. His work reflects this insight almost autobiographically. In order to understand his music, this fact is crucial.

“Insan Insan” is a set of variations on a tune which is heard only at the end of the piece. The melody is taken from an earlier song of his on the poetry of Muyiddin Abdal, a 16th-century Turkish mystic and poet.

They used to speak of “man, mankind” —

Now I know what man may be.

They used to call it “soul, the soul” —

Now the soul is clear to me.

To Muhyiddin, he says, “The Truth is Power,”

Present in all things we see.

What is manifest, what concealed,

What is the sign — now known to me.

The popularity of this song in Turkey went way beyond that of a classical piece. This, I believe, played a great role in the genesis of these variations. I asked Fazıl about this piece shortly after he premiered it in Istanbul. He answered me in just one sentence: “You’ll understand it.”

I believe that by composing an allusion to this song, which really took on a life of its own, Fazıl commented under veils on his struggle for a better society, on the difficult realities of being an artist in Turkey. I will sum up this work in one sentence, like Fazıl did for me: “Things are not how they used to be.”

Cem Esen Eilenriede

Cem Esen is a childhood friend of mine. Our musical lives were intertwined at every stage, and seeing him up close was nothing less than a privilege. Cem has the most perfect musical hearing I have ever encountered: I have seen him play complex pieces he had never heard before entirely by ear or imitate any composer perfectly in improvisations. I would give him a melody and ask him to turn it into Scriabin, Prokofiev, Chopin, and he’d oblige happily. His is a unique gift, the like of which I have never encountered. Such a mind had to compose, to write down his ideas. At first, it started off as a way of preserving his improvisations. He’d improvise for hours and write down what felt the most appropriate. Naturally, he distilled this process further to create pieces where he works carefully to find the correct continuation to the previous phrase. As such, his music absorbed and assimilated his musical past, mostly the late 19th century. His language — the tools he uses, the dreaminess, and the sarcasm — are uniquely his.

Cem moved to Germany the same year as me, 2015. I went to Weimar, he to Hannover. I believe Hannover was never a truly happy place for Cem — even though it indirectly contributed to him finding his compositional voice. Eilenriede is the city park of Hannover. It is a sort of northern German woodland, encompassing nearly a quarter of the city. In this light, the piece becomes a certain reckoning with this place, although not always happy, nevertheless important and indispensable.

Copyright: Can Çakmur, 2025