Piano-Nestor Willem Brons: ‘Music is not an Amsterdam canal, it must flow’

“Oh, now something terrible is happening,” laughs Willem Brons halfway through the conversation. “Now we are coming back to a hobby horse of mine.” Once the 87-year-old Nestor of the Dutch piano world is on steam over the intricacies of the pianovak, one insight after the other rolls out of his mouth. “I prefer to talk about something that is musical. I find talking about my career totally uninteresting.” A Steinway wing, an heirloom on which bronze himself had lessons from his teacher and later father-in-law Karel Hilsum, is within reach in his Almere living room. Bronze regularly exchanges his chair for the piano stool to illustrate his answers with music.

Bronze ‘strength as a pianist lies in an almost atomic insight into the way in which the composer has built up a piece of music, for bronze the basis of an expressive version. The drive to want to know the seam of the stocking was early. “I was about fifteen, sixteen years old. And where it came from, I don’t know, but I suddenly knew: I want to do music. If I stay an amateur, it will never be something, because I need way too much time: I want to know and understand everything.”

Bronze starts as an organist, but soon switches to piano. In the 60s he made a glorious start on stage. In 1966, in the middle of a time when a romantic approach to Bach’s notes was out of fashion, writes reviewer Hans Reichenfeld van NRC-precursor Algemeen Handelsblad About bronze ” unusual, liberating Bach evening ‘in the small room of the Concertgebouw. Bronze: “I played all kinds of decorations, and in the repetitions variants that were not there and that I was not planning at all. He thought that was special. We have been talking the whole break. I got a little tired of that. But he knew a lot.” In addition to work by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Franck, Bach’s polyphone oeuvre would become a common thread in Brons’ career.

What makes you love that polyphonic music?

“It is a task to always hear it well: two, three, four things at the same time. Many people say that that is not possible at all, because your nerves are not set on it. Then I think: we will see that. Of course it doesn’t go fast, that takes time.”

“If pianists play a fuga, a well -known mistake is that they often play the theme a little louder. That makes the polyphony primitive, because then you always hear what the same is. But the theme sounds different every time, because there is always a different key or another against voice. You have to let the interaction in between, but that is of course much more difficult.”

More than half a century taught Brons Piano at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, including Ralph van Raat and Wijnand van Klaveren. Since 1983 – only interrupted by the Coronatijd – he travels to Japan once or twice a year to give concerts and master classes. In the Netherlands he still performs every now and then, he makes every two weeks radio on the concert channel And he has been organizing an international master class week every summer for three decades.

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If you teach, what do you give young pianists with you?

“People sometimes ask me: what can you still teach them? But it’s very simple: I try to teach them how to benefit much more from their talent. I try to broaden their gaze.”

How do you broaden someone’s gaze?

Bronze plays the first sizes of Chopins Nocturne, on. 27, No. 1: “Chopin was one of the first composers who understood incredibly well how to deal with the resonans of the piano. In this Nocturne he first makes a resonant sound [Brons speelt de wiegende openingsmaten in het basregister] and the melody comes from that depth [een heldere toon in de rechterhand prikt door de lage noten heen]. If you only focus on that melody – [Brons speelt de lage openingsmaten mechanischer] – Then it’s just a nice tune. But that melody must shine from the resonans of the bottom notes. That seems like a truth like a cow, but I often come across that students don’t have a lot of things. “

Or take Beethoven’s ‘Sturmsonate’: “The last part is from Papapa-Pam, Papapa-Pam, Papapa-Pam, Papapa-Pam. Four notes: he keeps it full full. How does it manage? If you don’t understand that there is variation in it, then you will play it a little faster. Then you bypass the problem. “

Pianists play too fast?

“In general. That is probably the case for two hundred years. Mozart was already complaining about it. People think: as long as you play quickly then passion comes. But the passion comes from the music itself and not from the pace.”

How can you let that passion come out of the music itself naturally?

“In classical music you have many movements that are based on short nuts. If you give direction and see that every group is a bit different, then that music will live. I always say to my Japanese students:” Music is not an Amsterdam canal, it has to flow. “

How do you think about virtuosity in that context? You are amazed by what pianists can do now technically.

“The virtuosity has increased so enormously in fifty years that many people want to benefit from it, show it. It is questionable where that is in place and where not. The power of Chopin is not in physical strength, but in spiritual strength. After the ”Fourth ballad“…” Bronze claps in his hands to imitate the applause. “Great! Impressive! Fantastic! Then I think: have you experienced that that end is actually an explanation of someone who ends up in a ravine? It’s a total desperation.” He allows his voice to tumble down from the height: “Jaaaaaaa, Jababababababababaa … But if pianists epate with virtuosity, you are more impressed by their capacity than the real emotion. ”

“People want to have an effect, excitement. Put the television on and the people shout, talk together. If you let people speak, it is not dramatic. It is of course in our entire society. But music is not a sports competition. I like all that excitement there.”

There are also competitions in music.

“If you want to prepare a competition, you shouldn’t be with me, because then you will never win a competition. My views are very often not what people expect there.”

“At competitions it is expected that the ‘Appassionata‘ [de 23ste pianosonate van Beethoven] is very brilliant, the forces dramátic. If you emphasize that a little less, but make other aspects hear … you have to be very strong, you want to be convincing with a view that is different from that of someone else. You have to dare and also be able to. There are sometimes people who succeed. “

Which music is on your wish list?

“I hardly dare say that, because if it doesn’t work, everyone says: where is it? But I just say it: the Art der Fuge. I played a lot of Bach in my life and if you have the Art der Fuge Not studying or – even better – performs, then you actually miss the crown on his work. I hear in the Art der Fuge A polyphony that is even more intense than in book I and II [van Bachs Wohltemperierte Klavier]. What also affects me is the somewhat hidden emotionality in it. It’s really exciting. I’m discovering that now. “

“I started it a few times in the past, but then everything came in again. Because I now play a little less, I think I have a little more time. I hope I still have time of life. Maybe it’s something for my ninetieth birthday.”

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