He started his artistic career four years before Zarra’s historic goal against England and still gives 40 concerts a year, teaches in Dallas and spends long hours on the keyboard every day. Affable, humble and close, he denies that his record is a record, but it is
It’s half past ten in the morning, the sun shines more summer than autumn, and from the street you can faintly hear a piano. It is Joaquín Achúcarro (Bilbao, 1932), who is working at home on an ‘interlude’ by Brahms, a piece he has played many times, which he has even recorded, and he is carefully preparing for a concert in New York. It has been his way of working since his debut, because he has no other study than daily: no less than four or five hours, hardly any parties or holidays. That debut was in May 1946, so 76 and a half years have passed. To situate ourselves: it was four years before Zarra’s historic goal against England and there were still ten years to go before the first TV broadcast in Spain. Stalin had seven years to live and Gagarin was a twelve-year-old boy who couldn’t even dream of being the first human in space. Achúcarro will turn 90 next Tuesday and will continue to give concerts (about 40 per season) and teach classes in Dallas. Almost everything in its trajectory is record-breaking: suffice it to say that it has traveled ten million kilometers on flights to or from the US and within that country alone, which is equivalent to almost 250 times around the world. At the end of September, Radio France Musique’s “Les Grands Entretiens” program gave him an extensive interview which he divided into five episodes and illustrated with his recordings. But he downplays all that, like it’s normal. And he teaches a lesson in humility and in his way of understanding life and art: «Every time you play a work, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve played before, it’s the first».
– He is 90 and made his debut 76 and a half ago. Does it make you dizzy just thinking about it?
– Will I be 90? That’s not true… That’s the way I think about it, although I look in the mirror and it says yes, it’s true, so I have to accept it. I remember perfectly the debut in a week in May when great things happened to me: on the same dates, years later, I won the Liverpool competition that launched my international career, I married Emma, they made me Doctor Honoris Causa … .
– He is one of the longest races in history.
– Even the prize in the Liverpool match (1959) was a ‘pre-race’. He gave concerts mainly in Spain. I remember leaving Bilbao by train at 7am for a performance in Oviedo and arriving in the evening.
– He was in Toulouse at the end of September, then he went to New York… He doesn’t stop. Is yours a challenge to your ID?
– I don’t know. For a long time on my ID it says it expires on January 1, 9999. I don’t know what to think. So far it has given me a problem. Before ‘Brexit’, when you could only enter the United Kingdom with the card, I already met a police officer who doubted its authenticity.
– What remains of that 14-year-old boy who debuted in shorts at the Bilbao Philharmonic Society?
– Many memories: of that afternoon, of the suffocating feeling of a full house. Sometimes I still look to the left and between the violins in the orchestra I see Félix Ayo, exactly where he was that day.
– In the midst of turbulence on an airplane, or in a hotel you didn’t like, have you ever wondered what you’re doing there, how peaceful you could be at home, walking and enjoying a well-deserved peace?
– If your sense of humor can conquer all that, you don’t think about it. Let me tell you something: some time ago I was in Bergen (Norway), where my great-grandfather, who was a relative of Grieg, was born. I got there and it was raining buckets. So much so that I had to carry my suitcase on my shoulder and walk through puddles to the hotel. When I arrived I laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. Continuous travel, I can be away for a lot of time, I go home and in a few days I will be rested. You should always look for something that you enjoy while traveling. Perhaps a restaurant you enter without having any idea of what’s on the menu because it’s in a language you don’t know anything about.
– What do you enjoy more during those trips: good food after the concert, seeing old acquaintances, a walk through a beautiful city?
– They are different kinds of pleasures. About the walks, don’t think it’s so normal. Often you give a concert and you have to go to bed early because you have to catch the plane at eight o’clock in the morning. Meeting the people I love… that’s important. For example, when I go to New York, I always see Gary Graffman, whom I met in Siena. I was 18 and he was 21. He has been Lang Lang and Yuja Wang’s teacher, he is a great gastronome and we always eat out.
– And what about going on stage, does the experience make the nerves go away?
– Getting worse. You know you’re going to have a moment of panic. You check it or you accept it.
– A character of Jean Echenoz, a pianist, says that since it is certain that a note will miss, it is best that it happens as soon as possible. Do you think that as well?
– Are you missing only one note? If only there was one… It is true that standards of perfection have now been achieved that were previously unimaginable. There are many types of accidents that can occur at a concert.
So there is stage fright.
– Of course, as with other activities. Think of that long jumper who trains for many hours every day and when he gets to the game he scores three zeros in a row. My grandfather used to say that one day he went to greet Sarasate in the dressing room before a concert and found him nervous. “Are you afraid you won’t play well?” he asked. And the violinist said to him, ‘I know I’m going to play very well, but I don’t know if I’ll eat Sarasate’. I didn’t have a bad ego either… The uncertainty of having to go on stage at a set time, whether you feel better or worse, is what causes the stage fright.
– Is the fear greater if you are going to give a recital and you are alone on stage or if there is an orchestra that can help with problems or cause problems themselves?
– Everything is unpredictable. I would tell him, depending on which orchestra and which conductor. I remember once, many years ago. He would play Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 4 in New York with Zubin Mehta as conductor. We were at Carnegie Hall and when I walked out of the dressing room onto the stage I was really scared. Then I saw myself in a mirror and I felt the person reflected there say to me, ‘Isn’t this what you dreamed of? So go out and play.
– In all those years you have thousands of anecdotes with colleagues.
– I’ll tell you two. I went to play a Chopin concert in Bucharest and there I met the violinist Henryk Szeryng, who told me he would see me. At the last minute they changed the order of the program and Chopin’s piece went from the first to the second part. Arriving at halftime, when I hadn’t played anything yet, Szeryng called me to congratulate me on how good I had been.
– That’s called complete trust. And the second anecdote?
– I would play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 with Menuhin as conductor. I wrote a cadence for that concert, and since we were running out of time during rehearsals, Menuhin asked me how the cadence ended, but he didn’t listen to her. When the concert arrived, he came off the stage, came up to me while I was playing and said in a very low voice, ‘How beautiful is the cadence’.
– Didn’t you practice it? Is that normal?
– I have worked with more than 400 directors and I have met all kinds of directors. From the one who tells you, ‘You’ve played this piece many times and so have I, so let’s finish the rehearsal as soon as possible’, to the opposite: when I played ‘Nights in the gardens of Spain’ with Rattle in Berlin, we had it more in three hours before rehearsal because he wanted to know how I saw some things in the score.
– Have you stopped playing some pieces because it doesn’t compensate you for the physical wear and tear they bring?
– Part of my job is to achieve the same sound result with the least physical cost.
– And a very relevant aspect: your wife, Emma (also a pianist), always travels with you. Would you have achieved the same artistic longevity without that company?
– No (sharp). I would not have been able to solve many insurmountable problems.
– Did she ever tell you at the end of a concert ‘you didn’t play very well today’?
– She told me that a few times I did very well that I was not satisfied, and sometimes that it seemed good to me, she said ‘Mmmm’…
– A normal year, how many of the 365 days do you not play the piano?
– There were a few years when we reserved fifteen days off and at that point I didn’t touch it. But I haven’t been strictly on vacation in a long time. This past year, when we returned from Dallas, we decided to spend four days in Cancun. At that time I couldn’t play, and I admit I didn’t like it.
– Maria Joao Pires told me in an interview that she could not identify a recording where she played the piano herself. Does it happen to you?
– I’ve been through a lot. Once, when I was driving, I heard a concert on the radio and I liked it. So much so that I thought I should prepare it. Then I found out that the recording was mine.
– How long has it been since you learned a new piece?
– Not too much, although I admit that at my age, and even quite a few years younger, you usually don’t learn new things.
– Until when did you sign contracts?
– Until the end of 2023.
– Menahem Pressler continued to play until he was 94 and Mieczyslaw Horszowski until a few weeks before his 100th. Do you think of them?
– All the time I think about great pianists. There’s a lot to admire in them, even if you don’t agree with their versions. What I don’t accept is twisting the music, but other than that… Speaking of its longevity, I don’t think anyone will beat Horszowski’s record. And with Pressler I speak with a certain frequency.
– Have you ever thought that a play seems to have been written with you in mind?
– Never. Another thing is you’re trying to understand why the author did it, why he wrote that and not something else. The question is really: what is art made for? And the answer is: life. Although whoever does it could actually have lived something else.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
