Conversations with the Performers


 		 

Main - Conversation with Christopher Cullen - Jonathan Faiman

Jonathan Faiman - Piano

On the “end of time”:

Before I started working on the piece I just thought it really was about death. But I think that is sort of a superficial take on the piece. It is much more than that. There is a lot of careful compositional thought about it, and even some things he does which I don’t think you can hear. This is an issue. The techniques he uses, what can the listener hear? How does that relate to the “end of time?” There is the idea of something extremely slow – a piece that’s very slow, a movement that’s very slow, and repetitions of chords that is incredibly slow. All of these things are techniques that you hear, and that you say, “My God, yes.” It forces you to slow down your fast paced idea of life. If you can experience the music at that slow speed, then you will hear bar lines, you will hear the harmonic progression. It’s just slower. You just have to get in the mood. Now, I don’t know if that’s going to be possible on a Friday night on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But that’s the mystery of live performance.

On experiencing the music:

There is something about Messiaen’s music, and French music in general, where you just play something – and you play the next thing and you play the next thing – and there is not as much idea of building towards a grand climax like in German music. And if you can just be satisfied with that experience, then the piece is very straight forward. You start, and you play, and you are expressive when you have to be. A lot of the piece is one sound after another.

323 West 108th Street · New York, NY 10025 · (212) 663–6021 · Contact Us