High notes from the hands of century's greatest pianists

London pianist Piers Lane talks to TARA WERNER about the qualities which have characterised leading keyboard playing over the past 100 years.

Even though pianist Piers Lane regularly gets glowing reviews, he still admits to being in total awe of the great pianists of the past.

Lane, in Auckland as keynote speaker at the Auckland National Conference for the Institute of Registered Music Teachers, will also give a solo recital at the Auckland Town Hall on Wednesday. He will perform a concert of mainly 20th-century music, including Bach-Busoni's Toccata in C, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, Bartok's Improvisations Op 20, Carnaval Op 9 by Schumann, and a contemporary piece called Farewell to Hirta by Frances Pott.

It's an imposing and demanding repertoire, especially the scores by Ravel and Bartok. Ravel composed Gaspard de la Nuit to evoke the dark qualities of three poems by Aloysius Bertrand (1807-41), a poet of macabre imagination akin to Edgar Allen Poe.

"In the siren song of the Ondine, the water-nymph tries to lure the poet to her palace at the bottom of a lake; in Le Gibet we hear the slow sway of a corpse hanging on the gallows, as well as a tolling [B-flat] bell," says Lane. "Finally there's the demonic gnome in Scarbo.

I always approach the score with trepidation as it's one of the summits of the repertoire, which beautifully evokes the poetry and ideas behind it."

The Bartok Improvisations is another pianistic landmark, a selection of impressions of Bohemian folk tunes, full of abrupt, episodic forms and jagged, percussive passagework.

With the theme of the conference, and of the recital, named Sounds of the Century, Lane is relishing the chance to isolate some of the qualities that have typified great piano playing over the past century and to reflect on the state of the classical music industry today.

He muses about what would happen if we could hear recordings of how the likes of Beethoven or Liszt would have played.

"Imagine being able to pop on a disc of Franz Liszt playing his b minor Sonata, or of Beethoven performing one of his legendary improvisations," says Lane, who was born in London, where he lives, and has dual Australian-British nationality after growing up in Brisbane.

"Chopin's tone was apparently too intimate for large halls, yet contemporary listeners raved about his exquisite sensibilities and his ravishing pianissimos."

Lane is particularly fond of the composer-pianists Paderewski and Rachmaninov, and feels pianists could still learn much from their recordings. "At the beginning of last century, Paderewski was the most glamorous name in piano-playing. Early on in his international career, he made a fortune playing in America. His hands were insured for $100,000 way back then - probably equivalent to $15 million now. He travelled on his tours throughout the States in a private railroad car, along with a chef, butler, masseur and private physician, and piano tuner - not to mention his wife and her various helpers.

"When the pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones saw Paderewski walking down the street in London, he told his friends he'd seen an archangel come down to Earth. Paderewski had an aureole of reddish-blonde hair, which suited his admirers' concept of a famous pianist just fine."

Lane is even more enthusiastic about Rachmaninov, whom he regards as a piano colossus. "He was the greatest pianist-composer of the century, to my ears. His playing fills me with awe. He has such understated passion - gentleness at times, nervy virility at others ... His polished shaping of entire pieces, and of individual phrases within them, bespeaks a master musician."

As an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he has been a professor for the past 12 years, Lane is used to teaching budding superstars.

"Playing is much more than technique. Technique should be totally bound up with what one wants to express through one's performance. Of course, it's necessary early on in one's path towards musical maturity to practise technical exercises in a constructive and developmental way.

"Much more important, it seems to me, is to spend time listening to your inner imaging of a piece, to shut your eyes and practise in your head."

Even if young pianists hit the big time, he still feels their future is insecure. "Concert-wise, things seem to be regressing to 18th-century practices. Private patronage is again assuming more importance, and smaller musical events are on the increase. Soirees, for which so much music was written two centuries ago, are a popular form of entertainment.

"It's the large-scale concerts that are having trouble surviving. And there's a growing disparity between the Paderewski-type figures of yesteryear, and today's classical superstars. It's the Madonnas who have the glamorous lives now. This is a worrying prospect for the classical performer. There are more and more fantastic players coming out of conservatoires around the world. Where will they end up? Only time will tell."

* Piers Lane, Auckland Town Hall, Wednesday.