French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has performed with the great orchestras and conductors around the world, but that doesn't automatically give him the sense of artistic freedom you might imagine. For one thing, there is the issue of time.
When you're a young pianist, Lortie says, you imagine you have all the time in the world to conquer all of the great masterworks for the instrument. Not true. "It is an illusion to think you have time," Lortie says. There is still so much music to play that Lortie realizes he might not get to reach.
Then, there is the issue of the instrument. Whether you hit a piano key hard or softly, sharply or tenderly, the sound is created in the same way: a hammer hits a string. To create the illusion of a singing line that gets louder and then softer, colored with nuance, the musician must be a master illusionist.
Rather than focus on the limits of time or the physical limits of the instrument, Lortie sees great opportunities in front of him. He joins Fred Child in the studio to talk about these issues and to bring a singing performance of Wagner's Liebestod to life.
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