“My Goal Is Always to Try to Disappear” — Denis Kozhukhin in Évian

When performing with Maria Dueñas, how much freedom can you allow each other during the performance?

I would say that with her, quite a lot of freedom. Every encounter with a new artist is always a kind of experiment.

Of course, I knew who Maria was, and she knew who I was, but we had never met. In fact, we met for the first time yesterday, which is quite a tour de force: we rehearsed in the morning, having never played together before, then rehearsed again in the afternoon, and then went straight on stage.

It is fun when it works. With her, it was very easy.

With some people, it is like that: you can play together for one hour and it feels as though you have known each other your whole life. Between us, there was a good chemistry, I think.

What draws you to Brahms’s Third Sonata?

For me, this piece is special because I think it was one of the first Brahms works I ever learned, a long time ago.

After that, I played almost every chamber music work Brahms wrote for piano and other instruments. This sonata is a late work, and towards the end of his life Brahms had, I think, quite extreme moods in his music: either full of light and hope, or complete despair, a complete feeling of being lost in this universe.

In this sonata, I think both are present. There is more than that, of course—I am simplifying a great deal.

But the first movement is a very depressive one. Of course, there is also light, and a kind of human voice saying that things are not that bad. But overall, especially in the development, there is this ostinato, this repeated A—an obsession with A. Schumann also had this obsession with A.

Then there is the beautiful second movement, probably one of the most gorgeous melodies Brahms ever composed. Then comes this really crazy scherzo, in which it is not so easy to find the mood or to describe what it is about. It is a bit Schumannesque, I would say.

And then there is the last movement, which is complete madness. The world is collapsing. And yet, in some places, it feels as though whoever is telling the story is trying to escape from reality and find shelter—something he or she finds for a little while. And then, once again, you are in the middle of a battle.

It is a very complete piece. It is almost like a symphony for two instruments. So I think it is an extraordinary work by Brahms.

And Brahms—I love Brahms. So for me, having this piece is like a huge birthday present. Actually, my birthday is next week.

What is the last thing you do before a performance?

The first thing that came to my mind was praying. Sometimes I do that.

Going on stage is a very strange thing. I have a lot of experience of it, obviously, but you never know what to expect.

Not in terms of what will happen during the performance—a performance is always a mystery. For me, it is like some kind of distortion in the time-space continuum, between your normal life before and your normal life after. Then there is this concentration of everything: sometimes stress, sometimes emotion, sometimes joy. Performance is so concentrated.

I also never know what to expect from myself. I still have not figured out why sometimes I go on stage to play a piece I have known my whole life, something I have performed fifty times, and I get incredibly nervous. Why? I do not know.

And then, on another occasion, you can go and play a super-difficult concerto for the first time, on a major occasion, and feel completely relaxed. I do not know. It is something in the chemistry of the body that is very hard to understand.

Some people need to be completely isolated until the very last moment. They do not want to be disturbed, they do not want to talk. I am the opposite. If I am alone in my dressing room, I start to become very anxious.

That is why, when I play with orchestras, I tend to walk around and start conversations. I prefer to have that kind of human contact right up until I go on stage. It helps me.

What do you want listeners to hear in your playing?

The music itself. When I was young, one of my teachers once said: “Denis, the best compliment an artist can receive is not, ‘How great you play’ or ‘How wonderful you are,’ but rather, ‘This is such gorgeous music.’”

For me, that means something very important. Of course, to achieve that level of symbiosis—to lose yourself completely in the music—one needs experience, and of course charisma and all the rest.

But I believe that when we perform on stage, my goal is always to try to disappear, so that I am simply the conductor between the music and the audience. If I can become completely transparent, and the audience is left only with the beauty of the music, then I have achieved something.

Of course, there is also the magic of the name, the story behind the artist, the achievements—especially when it is someone very experienced. But in the end, the best musical experiences I have had are those in which you close your eyes and do not know who is playing. You simply think: my God, this music is so beautiful.

Obviously, music does not exist as life without us—it is only a score. We give it life. But I think one has to be very careful about how much of ourselves we give to it.

We need to give something, of course. It is a question of balance. But for me, the most important thing is the score, and trying to understand what the composer meant by those little black marks on the page. This is how we spend our lives, sometimes. I love that.

What is the first thing you play when trying a new piano?

One thing I always try on a new piano is the second movement of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto.

That first phrase already tells me a great deal about the piano. Actually, now that I think about it, this is what I always do.

Then, of course, I try other things as well. I suppose it also depends on what I am working on at the time. Sometimes it is unexpected: I sit down and suddenly find myself playing a bit of a piece I have not touched in twenty years.

But that Beethoven passage is something I always try, because it is a little like a shortcut to the piano—or perhaps a nice handshake. You immediately feel the soul of the instrument.

Interview conducted by Pauline Lambert.