Backstage: Pianist André Watts Returns

By Victoria McCabe

The first few lines of world-renowned pianist André Watts’ bio read like the stuff of fairytales and legends.

“André Watts burst upon the music world at the age of 16 when Leonard Bernstein chose him to make his debut with the New York Philharmonic in their Young People's Concerts, broadcast nationwide on CBS-TV. Only two weeks [after the broadcast], Bernstein asked him to substitute at the last minute for the ailing Glenn Gould in performances of Liszt’s E-flat Concerto with the New York Philharmonic, thus launching his career in storybook fashion.”

And indeed, the story is true. But the whole truth, Watts says in an interview with NJSO: Backstage, is something a little less destiny, a little more luck.

“There were auditions for the Young People’s Concerts,” Watts says, “and there were three girls who also won and who played very beautifully, accompanied by the assistant conductor. It’s just that Bernstein decided to conduct my concerto. He made a speech, and of course it was for television, so it got a lot of play.

“My substitution for Glenn Gould was the idea of the [New York Philharmonic’s] artistic administrator at the time. The reason that got so much [publicity] was that the big [1962–63 New York City newspaper strike] was happening at the time—all the big periodicals like Time, Life and Newsweek all sent people to cover the concert. If there had been no newspaper strike, it wouldn’t have been as big a news story as it was.”

Of course, if luck is opportunity meeting preparation, then Watts was ready to take destiny into his own hands.

“[The experience with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic was] really good for me, and now that I teach, I tell my students that luck is really important in life. When people say, ‘I never had that lucky break,’ I think that unfortunately, sometimes that is true. But all too often, the break was there, but people weren’t prepared to capitalize on it,” Watts says. “I tell students to have a program ready you can play in 24 hours, have a couple of concertos you can play at the drop of a hat so you’re prepared [to] grab a career if it should peek out at you and offer itself.”

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Watts, a favorite of NJSO audiences, returns to New Jersey to perform Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto with the Orchestra March 22–25. He spoke with NJSO: Backstage earlier this month from his hotel room while in Georgia for concerts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

The pianist is eager to return to the NJSO stage. “[The NJSO is] a great orchestra with wonderful players, so it’s fun to make music with these people,” he says. “I played with the NJSO in the days of Henry Lewis, so that’s quite some time ago. I’ve had a good time [performing with the NJSO], and I have had friendships with a few of the music directors. I’m looking forward to working with [NJSO Music Director Jacques Lacombe], and of course playing this great concerto.”

The week will be a sort of double homecoming for Watts. His main residence is in New Jersey—“despite the traffic, it’s great to be able to sleep in your own bed after concerts!” he says—and the Brahms concerto he will perform is a piece he has carried with him throughout his career.

“I first played [Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto] when I was about 19, and I recorded it with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic when I was about 21,” he says. “It’s a piece I haven’t played every season, by any means, but it probably hasn’t ever been out of my repertoire for more than three or four seasons at a time. That may mean one or two performances in a season, but for me, it’s sort of always been there.

“It’s a great work. One of my first performances of this concerto was substituting for my teacher, Leon Fleisher, in San Francisco. I studied this piece with Leon, who had great recordings of both Brahms concertos. Then, I went and played the concerto with a variety of both famous and non-famous conductors who taught me an awful lot about the piece.”

“I think that when you get to be my age and older, musicians start trotting out these phrases like ‘This piece is an old friend,’ and I remember reading [those types of quotes] when I was younger and thinking, ‘Oy, I have to listen to that?’ But what it comes down to is that it’s sort of true,” he says with a smile.

The way Watts approaches the concerto now, decades into his career, is—quite naturally, he says—different than the way his 19-year-old self viewed the work.

“Whenever you ask someone who has had a long career about repertoire and how it has changed, I’m sure it varies [for each person], but I think [the approach] can’t help but change, because people change. The ordinary or not-so ordinary reality of life itself, separate from music—if there is such a thing—changes the interior of a person, so the music making also changes.”

“When you’re very young, everything seems like a mountain. Your process of climbing the mountain is attacking it, because you’re young and powerful and strong. As you get older, you may still be strong, but there’s less impetuosity, and you take the longer view; climbing the mountain is simply climbing the mountain. And so you see the bigger picture, and certainly in the Brahms Second—it’s a big piece—the long view is way, way preferable to the short view.

“I think as you age a little bit with music, you can appreciate the smaller things that are in passing without underlining them so much. The things that are in passing are in passing. It’s like walking up a mountain. There is a destination, and you probably don’t stop and smell every last little bloom. But when you’re young, you tend to. It’s natural.”

The teacher within Watts—he teaches at Indiana University—sees the value in both approaches. “I find myself really going out of my way to defend the approaches of young people, as long as they are well done. Quite honestly, when someone who is 19 is playing a piece like [he is] a 50-year-old man, there’s something wrong. You should play it just as well,” he emphasizes, “it should be as legitimate and as meaningful and as worthwhile, but it really isn’t the same, and it shouldn’t be. There is a natural and healthy progression of life and music.”

“For me, the gem or the pearl of Brahms’ Second is the slow movement. It’s not only the great, divine cello solo; it’s also the più adagio with the piano and two clarinets, and later piano and strings—it is a kind of little paradise,” he says.

“The lightness of the last movement always made sense to me. For some people it’s more surprising, but I always thought it was quite perfect. And I find that I enjoy it more and more as I get older. It’s like taking a more philosophical view of life.”

Clarifying that he isn’t implying what Brahms’ own intentions were, Watts shares his personal interpretation of the massive work: “You have a first movement that is longer than some concertos by itself—it is its own enormous universe. The second movement in its own way is more muscular and abrupt. Then, you have this heaven of the slow movement. So after you have this entire life experience [in the first three movements], what is there left to do but smile and let the spirit dance?”

“Of course,” he laughs, “your body might not be able to dance, after you’ve gone through that! But the spirit dances, and it’s light. For me, the result of having that enormous journey end with that particular movement makes me think of a [little-known] Einstein quote I’m very fond of, when he says that there is far too great a difference between what one is and what others think one is—but one has to take it all in good humor. That’s sort of the feeling of the last movement of this Brahms concerto for me: Lighten up, we can’t be that serious all the time.”

The NJSO presents “Watts Plays Brahms” on Thursday, March 22, (1:30 pm) and Saturday, March 24, (8 p.m.) at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark, Friday, March 23, (8 p.m.) at the Richardson Auditorium in Princeton and Sunday, March 25, (3 p.m.) at the State Theatre in New Brunswick. Classical Conversations begin at 7 p.m. on March 23 and 24 and are free to ticketholders. For more information—including video clips and extended online program notes—or to purchase tickets, click here.

The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey is Concert Sponsor of the March 22 performance.