Welcome to the ISCM podcast. Júlia Stahl Novosedlíková, our distinctive pianist is here with us. Welcome, thank you for coming.
Thank you for having me.
I was going to start right off with the piano and your relationship with the instrument and practicing and things like that, but right before that you were telling me that your little girl does not sleep well and there is a lot going on, you are a mom. What about that connection – mom and a pianist? How does that work?
Oh, come on, it is a little more challenging, I have to say. But it has had a positive effect on my practice as well, because it has made me explicitly, I do not know… that…I know I have fifteen minutes to practice as well, because she is really sleeping that half an hour.
Time management has to work.
And it has taught me to practice very effectively that I am practicing only the places that I need to or I do not know. It is just like all of a sudden that head works differently somehow. So, my efficiency has increased, I have to say. My time has decreased, but it can be done as long as I have people around me like my husband, my mom. So, they help me a lot. It is doable, but it is, of course, quite skewed, I would say, the time.
But it has to be said, though, that you do not give up on the piano, that you strive to play.
I am trying, yes.
Proof of that is the Piano Days festival, where you will be performing as a piano duo with Kristína Smetanová. So, it is good that the piano works.
Yeah, it is.
And that you are keeping up.
Yeah.
It also shows that you must like the piano very much. It is obvious, even when we hear you play on concerts, even with a recording of, say, your duo, and from all accounts, but also from the fact that, alongside your motherly duties, the piano must not be absent. What makes the piano so appealing to you? What makes it so powerful that it is always present in your life?
Well, it is such a pretty essential part of my life that has been around longer. Or rather, since I was seven years old. And as I always say, I needed to find a balance between my daughter and the piano. Where one recharges me for the other. I mean, I would not want one without other. I mean, so I would say that for the piano, for me to be able to devote myself to it, I need to have all this and the same time, the piano is such a, not that escape for me, but it is suddenly such a – such a time for me that I can actually experience outside of all these responsibilities of motherhood, and it is very rewarding, and it is such a way that I feel like I am a little bit of somewhere else as well, so, how would I say it? Yes, help me please. Not that I am essential, but that I can present myself in a different way as a mom.
You said it beautifully, good thing I did not help you. And explicitly, if someone asked you that why should I take up piano or that why should I listen to it. So, what beauties or benefits would you list for him?
Well, the piano has a beautiful sound. There is actually a wide range of both harmony and those delicate ways of playing it. And it is an instrument that can actually be orchestral, so it can fill all these ranges and well, I do not know why.
You have to listen to it and it is clear right away.
Yeah, exactly, it is just a specific instrument, well.
As you also said that now in this period of time it is kind of yours as well as a means of expression or even therapeutic. I mean, we are talking about art and music rather than explicitly piano stuff, fingering and playing technique, playing apparatus. To what extent does that work for you, then – really the purely piano stuff and then the musical-artistic stuff, or is it even possible to separate the two?
Like purely piano, I mean….
To what extent is the piano music, first of all, I do have an answer, but to what extent is the finger and the piano really music as well…
This is quite a difficult question. For me, the piano has always been mainly music, and then the fingering has always somehow already come in there or somehow it has already been there afterwards.
Maybe the fingering thing works even when the music comes first.
Yes, for me it is like that, that when the music comes first for me, the instrument actually already sort of intuitively goes with the music already, well, that is how I would do it. But for everybody, of course, it can be completely different, but that is how I feel.
What about other musical instruments? Because, for example, your sister Lenka Novosedlíková is a composer, but she is also a very good percussionist. Your husband is a composer, so it is not directly that any musical instrument, but all musical instruments, and you also collaborate as a chamber player with other instruments as well. How do you perceive these boundaries between the piano, which is your instrument, and maybe the popularity of the sound and possibilities of other instruments?
Yes. I started playing chamber music quite early, actually at the conservatory. And I have sort of always been fascinated by other instruments, the way of playing, the sonority of it, and it has also been kind of an inspiration for me for my piano playing as well, because actually, as a pianist, actually the mechanics of it work completely differently than, say, a bow on strings and things like that, but you can sort of translate some of your ideas or something that comes through you – the feeling or the sound of what you want to hear, and it can actually help you in that piano as well. So, for me, chamber playing is very essential, listening to other instruments, listening to singing as well is very important for my playing.
We are talking about the piano, but you have to play something on the piano and look for repertoire so that you can also sing a melody like a violin. Now what you did say, that inspiration or playing like a percussionist.
Yes, exactly.
As long as one is at school, there is such a joint search with the teacher also for repertoire. I saw a video once. A graduate of a prestigious school, a pianist, was saying that they taught her a lot at school, but what they did not teach her is to look after herself, and you are actually in that situation of not being at school anymore, and now you are on your own looking for what to play, where to play, what to get into, and so on. How does this thinking of yours work?
Like, I have to confess, that I already had this concern for myself during my studies and of course I always fulfilled all those compulsory ones in terms of syllabus, what we have to rehearse for exams and stuff like that, but I was always reaching for something else as well, so whether it was chamber music or whether it was – I just, I really like contemporary music, so I collaborate a lot with contemporary composers as well. I mean, actually my husband is a composer and my sister is a composer as well, so I have actually always been sort of in that circle of those people. I have always enjoyed reaching for something else as well. So, it is not something new for me now, I am basically just continuing what I already had during my studies, except that I do not have a degree anymore, I do not have the compulsory curriculum that I have to fulfil, but I can of course reach for something older as well. But actually, it is still the same for me, I am continuing with it.
What does the thinking about repertoire look like? Some things come on their own.
They do.
Or is it, are you actively looking for that as well, that what intrigues you?
I come, by actually doing the contemporary one, I mean.
… they appeal to you.
Yeah, yeah. And so also by the fact that I actually play in different ensembles, whether in trio with Ferko Výrostko and Julka Urdová, or in duo with Kristína Smetanová, that we find the repertoire directly for us, for our ensembles. So, I am also looking, and that is how it comes, and the inspiration – I cannot even say if…
Maybe, what does a composition have to fulfil to make you interested in it, to make you want to get into it?
Well, I like pieces that are less played, less explored, so I like to reach for pieces that maybe are not some hits, I would call it. But they are maybe new to the listener, but of course written in the last century, past centuries, for example. I mean, that is the kind of thing that attracts me to it, and I like to let the program be so varied that it includes some more spectacular, maybe more intimate works.
So, it is a question of dramaturgy.
Yes, yes.
That is also really interesting to think about, how to actually create one big piece that is made up of smaller ones. You and Kristína Smetanová create Devanas Duo, she has talked about it before, so we can confront what your perspective is.
How real it was.
Together we talked about how you found each other. So, we have already heard that. But it might be good to hear your version, too. How you and Kristína found each other?
So, we studied in the same teacher’s class at the conservatory and he actually kind of put us together. He suggested that we see if we wanted to play together. So, we said sure, because we already knew each other. We were friends. So that is where it kind of started at the conservatory and then it actually continued in college. We found that we got along quite well in that game. We complement each other, too. We are each a little bit different, I would say, but maybe that is what is good and interesting about it, and that the overall result is so coherent, so how should I say it? Well, like this, coherent.
That yin and yang meet there and it is comprehensive.
Yes, exactly, exactly, well.
You may have opened that up already, even sort of the theme of challenges in the four-handed play. Because you also play two pianos, but let’s talk about four-handed play now, it is really such a specific phenomenon. That on the one hand this playing brings a lot of joy, but also a lot of really challenges just technically. That when suddenly the pianist only had half of the keyboard at his disposal. How do you perceive these maybe so… or what do you see as the biggest challenges in four-hand playing?
Well, there is definitely going to be that space connecting. Because a lot of times those compositions are written in a such way that you really get stuck with that person in there. And all of a sudden actually your natural hand position, like you have been used to its being, all of a sudden it is different. You have got to swing differently; you have got to dodge or something.
You just cannot get your elbow loose anymore.
And that is, yeah, but that is suddenly the thing that – that is the thing that we, when we are practicing at home separately, myself included, everything is great and then all of a sudden if comes in there and nothing, because suddenly you are actually sitting differently, you have to lean differently all the way.
So, what about, how did you resolve that or how do you resolve that with Kristína?
Well, we solve it by practicing as much as we can together to come up with the best way for performing and trying to find what is the most comfortable position for both of us. I mean, find some sort of compromise that when and who is ever going to move out of the way, when they need something again. And that is what is important about it. The fact that we have to sit by that piano together and figure it out together, because the person themselves cannot imagine the other hand that is next to them, that what they are probably going to do there.
Those are the challenges in terms of maybe the physiology or the physical meeting of two people and what about those challenges maybe in terms of content? You have kind of hinted at it a little bit, that you are each different, but you have to work together to come up to the same understanding of composition, of construction and so on. How does this play out?
This is going well. So far, we have not had a disagreement about anything. Quite the opposite in the way that I said that we are each different, so like we notice different things in the composition. I mean, we each have something to say about it, whether it is exactly the dynamics or the whole concept of the composition. Whether to the form or whatever. And we always somehow come to a result that we are both happy with. I think, I mean, I hope Kristína said that too.
Similarly, yeah. Now, you said we will tell ourselves – I mean, that is already evoking the wording verbally. Is it important for a performer not only to play, but to maybe say to themselves and formulate some things in music?
I think so, because the awareness then goes through the head, trough the hearing. Like, yes, it goes through the piano too, through the hearing but it is actually in a different way – it goes through the head and therefore, at least, I think. And thus, it actually brings about the effect that it is supposed to bring about. But clearly, it is certainly important through the ear as well, that is, to play it when for example, sometimes the words are not enough or we cannot articulate exactly that what we are imagining by it. And so maybe that kind of balance between the two. I would say both are important.
I will come back to the repertoire, because you were saying that you like less frequent pieces, surprising pieces, and maybe specifically contemporary music. So, is it safe to say that this is your specialty for a longer period of time, or do you have plans to pursue other styles or a broader repertoire?
So, definitely yes. I would say this is probably my current homeland, which is what I am into, contemporary music, so I am really into that as well. But I am definitely open to some older music as well, other genres, like I said. I mean, it is not some final, but also with Kristína, for example, so also, we do not play only contemporary or even with that trio we do not play only contemporary. I mean, it is like that there, too, I would say. Also, by the fact that I am accompanist at the conservatory, so there I encounter almost only early music. There, contemporary is hardly played at all and so I have that supplemented there as well, that part.
But the contemporary one is really so much more expressive.
I guess so.
Probably so recognizable, maybe even in that way, which is something we are very happy about, because maybe not now, but for a certain period of time it was not quite natural for pianists to play that kind of music, or to have a close relationship to it. So far with students it sometimes occurs that way, as if they end up maybe at the gates of the 20thcentury, or maybe a little bit later still in Debussy.
Yes, yes.
But no further. As it was for you with this journey. Was it immediately clear to you, or did you also have to somehow, sort of, work through it?
No, for me it was right away. Maybe it was also the sister. I definitely think, since she is my sister, we have a good relationship together, close one, and she introduced me to that world right away, but it was actually close to me from the beginning. Even when I started studying at the conservatory, I started playing works by composers, I mean students, for examples, in internal concerts. And so, it was actually still, like, that kind of thing.
Do you think we are past that period or irritating or shocking somebody with music like that, or not being their own, or is there still a lot to open up?
I think there is still somebody who is shocked by it. But I do not think it is so much anymore, but there is certainly often a person who is definitely shocked by it and maybe expecting something different, but not prepared, I would say, for it, because a lot of times the audience is expecting something nice, something harmonic, something maybe spectacular, that they are just going to get up out of their chairs and give performer a standing ovation, and that is not what contemporary music delivers, I think, to that extent, but if one adjusts to that, that one does not expect all that as if, that one is more open to that – to that contemporary music and accepts it for what it is, because I like to compare it to food, that I would not enjoy eating schnitzel and salad all my life either. (It is actual topic in this part of year.) But I also like to try new foods and new things and that is what I actually have with music and with art as well, that for me something new is not something that is intimidating or something that what is going on, but rather that it is cool and this is what it is and this is what it was, so.
To portray it as an adventure.
Exactly, and if the audience saw it that way, I do not think it would shock them so much, but there is always somebody else who I do not think was ready for it yet.
Maybe that is also the challenge for all of us who are involved in music like this, to really verbalize those things and communicate with the audience.
Exactly, exactly.
Because an open-minded person is certainly not going to reject it, but maybe, as you said, you have to prepare them so that they are not unprepared. Do you like to play games?
Yes.
Let’s play one, shall we?
Oops. okay.
It is close to your heart right now, playing with your daughter.
I like games a lot, and I always have to win, so…
You are going to win this one, I guarantee it.
I am going to win this game.
Because this game is not exactly about winning. It is the kind of game I used to play with my kids when they were little, now they are big. That when we had some long trips or they needed to be entertained, I would give them a selection of this or this and they would pick something.
Okay.
For example, ice cream or schnitzel.
Okay.
And they would choose ice cream.
Right.
Like it is basically about nothing, nobody wins, but I learned a lot about my kids, because then maybe we discussed that if we just ate ice cream, that sometimes the schnitzel is good too.
Cool, I will play that with Stella later when she grows up.
Yeah, I recommend it. Hey, when she is a little older maybe, but maybe she could handle something now. So, I am going to give you a selection like that, and a lot of the pairings I am going to provide you, you could pick one and the other, naturally. It is just that the trick of the game is that you have to pick one.
Okay.
Let’s try.
I am ready.
Classical sonata or baroque suite?
Classical sonata.
Don’t you like Baroque?
I do, but I do not play it that much.
Now that we have started to analyse it, who is the classical one?
Who?
Because after all, there is a difference between Beethoven’s sonatas and Haydn’s.
Sure, well that is exactly what it is, that is a big difference, but I like both. Both Haydn’s and Beethoven’s.
Just classicism. Musical analysis or music history?
Musical analysis.
Ratio or emotion?
Oh. This is it, I would choose both.
Yes, yes. One without the other probably does not work, but maybe in this period. Or when you are consciously preparing for a concert or studying something, which is more important?
Emotion?
Mathematics or chemistry?
Chemistry.
This is a big surprise to me because I have done this game with musicians and they all said mathematics and you are the third pianist who has chosen chemistry.
Really?
Imagine that. Concert or individual study, preparation?
Concert.
Solo or chamber music?
Chamber.
That is also about the times when there is going to be a lot of chamber music again, so you would answer solo.
Yeah, definitely, definitely, yes, yes.
Heavy technique, fancy typesetting or one-note meditative melody?
Here we go again, I would choose both, but probably a one-voice meditative.
That is what Kristína and I were talking about, that…
She certainly gave a dense one, did not she?
I do not remember now, no, she gave a meditative one as well.
Really?
Because we were talking about how it is so typical of young pianists to play fast and bravura and stuff and that like.
That we are already big.
That you are already big, that you are already moving into that you do not just need to just wow…
Yes, yes.
… but to go inside as well.
Definitely.
So, you are on that journey too.
I have always been that way; I have always had that way.
Always have been.
So, I might grow back into that effectively then.
You were not a typical young pianist. You are still one, but kind of mature. System, structure or freedom?
Freedom.
Precise notation or open notation?
Open notation.
Schumann or Ligeti?
Ligeti.
In the Year of Czech music, Smetana or Dvořák?
Well, we will be playing Smetana with Kristína.
Yes, it is close to her name.
So, Smetana, I guess.
Pedal or no pedal?
Pedal.
Legato or portamento?
Legato.
Why?
I love legato.
Like when you mentioned the violin, maybe because.
Maybe, you see, well.
Forte or piano?
Piano.
In connection with that meditative.
Well, well, I cannot say forte now.
Clearly it is already stupid, well. Fine art or dance, ballet?
Dance.
And also, do you have any experience with dance, did you go to ballet or…?
When I was a kid, yeah, I was dancing in a folk ensemble, and sort of did a classical dance, but I never really pursued it any more after that, but…
It is still there in your subconscious.
I guess it is there, but I also went to art school. So, now I do not know.
Also, have you managed to see any ballet or contemporary dance lately?
Fuh, a long time ago. I have got a little one now, so now I only see her dancing at home, so I have got that at home, you see.
Well, you have got a challenge when you chose ballet. Yeah, so you actually have a live performance every day.
Yeah, that is right.
And especially when she goes to bed, right?
Exactly.
The dancing starts.
Morning at five.
Then, yes. Sculpture or painting?
A painting.
Night or day?
Day.
We have mentioned schnitzel and salad here many times.
Well, it is Easter.
So that will be the last question, ice cream or schnitzel?
Ice cream. I have a very sweet tooth. I am the one who always prefers the sweet to the salty.
So, that was Júlia Stahl Novosedlíková.
Did I win?
Who is clearly the winner of our quiz.
Hooray!
She has got full points.
Wow.
And not just in the quiz, but also with your interesting answers and very enjoyable conversation.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for inviting me.
