New Zealand Pianist Returns Home

Press, Volume C, Issue 29508, 9 May 1961, Page 2

New Zealand Pianist Returns Home

“Fame and success are nothing to a true artist. If they do mean something, then you are not ready for them.” This is the view of Miss Tessa Birnie, the Ashburton-born pianist who has now achieved international repute.

>*.. “There is no such thing as perfection in music,” said Miss Birnie in Christchurch yesterday. “After a great deal of study, you begin to learn the language of a composer, and each time you play, you try to express more of what he is saying.”

"But you realise that the music is much greater than yourself—ft is a tremessdous feelmg of responsibility" Miss Birnie, who has recently completed a 16-month world tour, is now making a concert tour of New Zealand, her first since 1952. She will give her first concert in

Christchurch next week. Her programme will include many of the little-known works of Schubert.

She regards Schubert as one of the greatest composers for pianoforte. "As you go on in music, your taste progresses by a natural process

—■with me it was from Chopin to Schumann, then Beethoven. Schubert, Mozart.” This last tour has seen Miss Birnie as an interpreter of Schubert. “Next time round I shall probably be playing mostly Mozart—although of course I have played some of his work already,” she said. New Zealand Composers

Her second programme will Include works by the New Zealand composers, Douglas Lilburn and Edwin Carr. “I feel that we New Zealand artists owe a duty to these New Zealand composers who are excellent craftsmen,” she said. She has played their works in many countries overseas, and said that they were very well received.

Miss Birnie plays little contemporary music. “I prefer music to which I can bring the most content. X find in the earlier composers qualities that are more satisfying to me than most contemporary music.” Contemporary Scene Although there were modern composers of great integrity and craftsmanship. Miss Birnie felt it was too soon to assess the contemporary musical scene. “There is "a tendency for people to expect a genius to appear all the time —but it would be perfectly normal to have no great composer for perhaps 200 years. Fame and greatness are not really synonymous—greatness can only be felt by some sort of instinctive feeling.” Original manuscripts are used by Miss Birnie for her I performances wherever possible. For example, one of I the Schubert sonatas to be ' played in a Christchurch concert will have its four moveIments placed in a different ' order from that of the usual i editions. [ “It is impossible of course Ito actually have the original copies—these are carefully kept in museums.” she said. But she obtains the best printed editions available, and corrects these from her researches into museum sources. Composers’ Piano She was privileged to study at the Mozarteum. the international Mozart foundation at Salzburg, and even to play on his piano. Schumann’s piano, and one of. Beethoven’s. have also been played by Miss Birnie. “They are all down about a minor third, as they have not been retuned, but otherwise they are in perfect condition,” she said. Her interpretation of Beethoven's work was greatly assisted by trying his piano, she said. “He wrote very detailed pedal directions in his scores, but some people thought that the pedals on his piano would be so light that they would make little difference. The opposite is true.

“Beethoven's directions must be carefully observed in all cases.” This was true of all com-

posers, said Miss Birnie. Pianists should observe all the markings in every score. “Then gradually you will feel them,” she said.

Future plans are rather vague at present for Miss Birnie. Her present tour has taken her 40.000 miles and to 60 cities. After her New Zealand concerts she hopes to return to Sydney, where she has her headquarters. "And for a month I am going to do nothing but read and think and sit in the sun. But I have some wonderful music I have brought back from Europe—perhaps I could try just a bit of it.”