Marc-André Hamelin moves fluidly between worlds. You might find him at the piano before a symphony orchestra, performing a classic concerto by Liszt or Rachmaninov – or premiering a new work written especially for him. An ardent solo recitalist and chamber musician too, his upcoming calendar includes Mozart and Chopin alongside Enescu and Medtner, with some Gershwin thrown in for good measure.
And what does the Montreal-born, Boston-based musician do when he’s not onstage? Lately, he fills his free time with an active career as a composer, as well as a faculty appointment at the New England Conservatory. Resting on his laurels is simply not part of his DNA.
When Hamelin returns to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in August, he will once again balance these twin loves of orchestral and chamber music. First, he performs Brahms’ daunting Piano Concerto no. 2 under the baton of Sebastian Weigle. Later, he joins members of the orchestra in a chamber concert that includes the same composer’s Horn Trio in E flat major and Schubert’s beloved Piano Quintet in A major “Trout”.
The Brahms Second Piano Concerto has been in Hamelin’s repertoire since the beginning of his professional career. “I learned it quite early, and I actually just played it a few days ago,” he tells me when we speak in late May, referring to a performance with the Festival Academy Orchestra in Chipping Campden, England. “I hadn’t played it for some time, maybe a couple of years. Because I learned it so early, it came back quickly. You’ve simply had more time with them, and your ideas and perception of the music has had a lot of time to change. So that’s very natural.”
At the same time, Hamelin acknowledges that the thrill of live performance, and of classical music in general, comes from the frisson of new discovery possible with even the most familiar of works. “There are always little things that can happen during performances that will give you ideas of how to firm up certain things musically, to give you more understanding within the form,” he says. “These can be very obvious or very subtle. But anything you can come up with will really enrich the musical discourse. I think it can be really delightful when accidents happen – when you do something that you don’t intend to do, but somehow it makes everything sound better. That’s the really exciting aspect of the evolving perception of a piece.”
Yet even with his technical mastery and years of experience, Hamelin manages to slip in a bit of self-deprecation. Describing what he calls a “refreshment period” that’s necessary before any concert, he notes his age: “I’ll be almost 65 by the time the concert in Singapore comes around, and things tend to take a little longer these days!” he says with a chuckle. “The things I’ve learned recently are what I have a bit more trouble recalling. But you have to be sure that you leave a sufficient amount of time to really, really refresh anything.”
Hamelin sounds eager to return to Singapore. “I’ve been there four times,” he says. “It’s a wonderful experience. I’ve only had the best memories of being there, and I always love being there. The weather can be a little oppressive – we don’t really get that kind of humidity in North America – but once you get used to it, it’s wonderful. And there’s a very vibrant musical life there. I’ve also played in recitals, during the Beethoven Festival. It’s very obvious that they love classical music.”
The opportunity to join a chamber program is also enticing. Hamelin describes himself as a devoted chamber musician, with a particular affinity for the quintet repertoire. When we spoke, he had just returned from Leipzig, where he had recorded quintets by Schnittke, Shostakovich and Weinberg with the Danel Quartet. He was also on his way to Bremen, where he paired a performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with the Bremen Philharmoniker with a solo recital.
“There are quite a few orchestras that have a chamber music program as well, and it’s always delightful to be invited to do both,” Hamelin says. “It involves more work, more preparation, but I really love chamber music – especially the piano quintet repertoire.”
He’s especially excited about the Brahms Horn Trio, though when I note its relative rarity, he’s quick to point out that it’s heard more often than the one written by Ligeti. “I’ve played it on occasion, but it’s been many years,” he says. “I have the highest regard for it, and it will be a great way to reconnect with it. When you have wonderful colleagues, it’s a great, great experience. And that solo – my goodness.”
In recent years, Hamelin has gained a highly regarded reputation as a composer, in addition to his performance career. This blooming part of his career fulfils an interest that stretches back to his earliest days at the piano.
“It started in an extremely primitive way when I started lessons at five years old,” he says. “My father was a very good amateur pianist, and he had some music paper lying around. I was singing his scores, which looked formidable to me, but what do you want to do as a kid? You want to do the same thing. I started scribbling things that probably made no sense, but at least the impulse was there. It took many, many years before I produced something that anyone would even want to listen to.
“I’ve never given up,” he continues. “I’ve had less active periods, perhaps, but in the last few years I’ve been getting commissions. That’s really kept me going, I’m happy to say.”
When I note that Hamelin has had the opportunity to work with many living composers, he wisely intercedes that all music is living, even if the person who wrote it can no longer be in the room.
“It is very important to remember that a composer’s final published text doesn’t necessarily reflect their final thoughts, or their only thoughts,” he says. “The famous D-sharp minor étude of Scriabin – Op. 8, no. 12 – he actually wrote two versions of it. He couldn’t decide which one to publish, so he just let Rimsky-Korsakov make the decision of which one to publish, and the other one remained unpublished for some time. I think it is just as good.”
Hamelin says that pursuing composition has deepened his experience as a musician, and he would encourage his colleagues to dabble in the art form as well. “I personally think it should be indispensable for an interpreter to at least try their hand at composition,” he says. “Not to become a composer necessarily, but to become acquainted – at least once – with the process of translating a thought, a musical thought, to notation. It makes you appreciate the composer’s task so much more, and it helps you not take so much of what the composer is trying to communicate for granted.
“It’s very, very easy to be casual about the musical notation, but it’s a very complex process to turn your thoughts into that notation,” he continues. “As composers, we often struggle over how to make ourselves best understood. Even then, our notation is going to be interpreted in all kinds of ways, and even disregarded. There’s no police in that department, no laws, and people can do what they want – at least in theory. But if they really want to delve into what we are trying to say, they have to study scores very carefully. And if you’ve tried to write music yourself, you automatically have more respect for that process.”
Marc-André Hamelin performs with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra on Thursday 6th & Saturday 8th August.
See upcoming performances by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Marc-André Hamelin.
This article was sponsored by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
