Adam Golka by tippetrise

Adam Golka at Tippet Rise

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ADAM GOLKA

The way we met Adam is a circuitous story, which suggests to us in this distanced

pandemic time how special and familial the world of classical music is, like Clara’s family in The Nutcracker Suite. I first met Adam when Tali Mahanor invited me to drop in at the American Academy of Arts and Letters up on Audubon Terrace on West 155th Street, an extraordinary hidden campus with a 730-seat hall with ideal acoustics, which the Wall Street Journal describes as: “universally recognized as a hidden gem, the best place in the city—some say the East Coast, others say the entire world—to record solo and chamber music.” Producer Max Wilcox, who first recorded at the Academy in 1959 with pianist Arthur Rubinstein, called it “a dream hall.” “It’s just perfect,” he said. Elite players who have recorded there over the past 80 years include violinists Itzhak Perlman and Midori Goto, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and János Starker, singers Renée Fleming and Plácido Domingo, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, and pianists Emanuel Ax, Claudio Arrau, and Simone Dinnerstein. 5 Adam Golka

Adam Abeshouse was the producer when Ms. Dinnerstein recorded her 2007 album of Bach’s Goldberg Variations there. “The sound has a lustrous glow,” he said. “Every musician I’ve had there has loved playing in that room.”

Ms. Dinnerstein was no exception. "That was a complete turning point for not just my career, but my playing," she said. "In that particular hall I can hear myself really well, and I can hear the sound returning. Because I can hear it, it allows me to push myself further in terms of creating a wide variety of sounds."

"…The hall winds up being a significant partner in music," said Arnold Stein hardt, who recorded many albums at the Academy with the Guarneri Quartet. "When you have a hall where everything works, you think, 'Gee, I didn't realize I could play this well!'"

This was where Tali had set up a unique recording week in October 2016 with Adam and his two friends, Roman and Michael. As they did during their sessions at Tippet Rise, they critiqued one another brutally. Nothing was sacred. It was like having three Glenn Goulds in the room at once. Tali had arranged for Leszek Wójcik, the head of Carnegie’s Hall’s recording studio, to engineer and edit the albums. They all played on Tali’s piano, Chantal, which is Adam Golka 6

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also the resident Steinway of the Chamber Music Festival at Alice Tully Hall. Roman played Haydn sonatas, Michael was playing Beethoven’s Eroica Variations that day, and Adam was playing Brahms’s Sonata No. 1, the first piece Brahms ever wrote. Each pianist created an emotionally exciting recording from this week: voicings, phrasings, intonations, philosophy were adjusted in performance until all three pianists felt each note had achieved the communal ideal. All three disks are available on First Hand Records. These recordings document a unique process of creativity. Adam, Michael, and Roman followed the same gregarious approach to recording and editing at Tippet Rise, described here by Adam. It is thought-through music of a finish that, even in an age of digital perfection, stands alone. To back up a bit, we had met Adam through Tali, Tali through Wu Han, Wu Han through the LeBuhns, the LeBuhns through the Logans, our neighbors in what we call Ego Meadows near Vail, Colorado. When Rob LeBuhn was Chairman of the Board of the Aspen Music Festival, he introduced us backstage at Harris Hall to Wu Han. Thus began a series of wonderful dinners with Wu Han and David Finckel, at Tokkuri-tei in Honolulu, at La Crêperie in Aspen, at Porter House in the Time-Warner Center, at Bouley Sud across from Lincoln Center. 9 Adam Golka

It was inevitable we’d be at the 2018 opening night of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center at Alice Tully Hall, where both Anne-Marie McDermott and Wu Han, who performed that night, said to us, “If you love pianos, you have to meet Tali!” I spent a marvelous afternoon with Tali in New York, the first of many, after which she had the inspiration that Tippet Rise would be the perfect place for Horowitz’s and Gene Istomin’s concert Steinway. Marta Casals Istomin was looking for the perfect home for it, and I hope we’ve given it a future in Montana. It certainly has a past. Tali traveled with it and with Istomin on the road for eight years during his famous “truck tours” of 30 small American cities. This was how many people in America were introduced to classical music in my youth. Istomin was part of the legendary Istomin-Stern-Rose Trio; he ran the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico for many years after Casals died. Istomin performed under all the great conductors of the age: Bruno Walter, Fritz Reiner, George Szell, Charles Munch, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Eugene Ormandy, and Leonard Bernstein. (It is his piano which Adam plays here. Horowitz recorded the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3 with Ormandy on it—available on an astonishing DVD—and Sony released last year Istomin’s Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2, recorded with Ormandy as well, one of the great events in the history of classical music. You can watch Adam play the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3 on You Tube. Rachmaninoff starts it with a simple melody with both hands playing the same simple notes. Rachmaninoff lived Adam Golka 10

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for these simple notes; he added the virtuosity, he used to say, because the audience wanted it. Of course the great rising themes at the end of the concertos defined music for decades. Only the greatest pianists, including Rachmaninoff himself, dare play this fiendishly difficult masterpiece. To be in that category today, you have to play it even better, as Adam does.) Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, the Pathétique, is, next to the Moonlight, his most well-known. Every pianist plays it, so it feels very “exposed,” very much in the spotlight, with every pause analyzed to death. Many teachers judge you on the way you “play” the pauses. My teacher, Sherman, insisted that they had to be played in your mind. I agree that the precise timing of the next chord after the immensely pregnant prior pauses makes the piece either metronomic rote or a bloody Jacobean drama, and colors the rest of the sonata. The second movement has possibly the most beautiful melody Beethoven ever wrote, so much so that it has to be tweaked, expanded and contracted, to let it breathe, to escape the accumulated schmaltzy renditions played in elevators and on TV ads. When we went to visit Steve and Lisa Bullock, I played the third movement for his children, and they danced wildly around the piano. So, after sixty years of playing it, I realized that it must be a dance, like the traditional dances that end Bach and 13 Adam Golka

Schubert pieces. As Snoopy said, if you can’t dance, at least you should be able to do a happy hop! It ends with two dramatic pauses before the last scale, harking back to the pauses at the start of the first movement. Every note has been reinterpreted for centuries by the great Beethoven specialists, so each note is judged more severely than with any other composer. The ability to think between the notes of each historic performance, to present a fresh approach without disturbing sacrosanct performance traditions, is where the triumvirate, Adam, Roman, and Michael, adds perspective, retrospect, and finesse to their achievements. Adam has studied with Alfred Brendel, Sir András Schiff, Leon Fleisher, and Murray Perahia, all Beethoven specialists. He has just played all 32 Beethoven sonatas in an 8-concert series this year, coupled with videos explaining his views on each sonata. He has played all the sonatas in public since the age of 18. The first album of his Beethoven cycle has just been released on First Hand Records. His Beethoven here has both spontaneity and deliberation. As Russell Sherman said to me once, you want to do something every second to shake yourself up, to surprise everyone, but you have to be able to listen to it a year later and think you made the right choice – so it’s a delicate balance.

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His Beethoven here has both spontaneity and deliberation. As Russell Sherman said to me once, you want to do something every second to shake yourself up, to surprise everyone, but you have to be able to listen to it a year later and think you made the right choice—so it’s a delicate balance. The poems Adam wrote for Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals are extremely witty; they are the new standard. Cathy and I continue to marvel at the chain of friends and pianos which brought Adam, Michael, and Roman into our lives, and we hope you’ll put on headphones and appreciate this very special moment in time which Adam is offering to all of us. —Peter Halstead

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ADAM GOLKA BIOGRAPHY Since first self-presenting and performing Beethoven’s 32 Piano sonatas at age 18, Adam Golka has immersed himself in studying the master’s works. He has studied Beethoven under the guidance of masters such as Leon Fleisher, Alfred Brendel, Sir András Schiff, Murray Perahia, and Ferenc Rados. In 2011 Golka performed a cycle of all five Beethoven concertos with the Lubbock Symphony, with his brother Tomasz at the baton, and in summer 2019 he made his San Francisco Symphony debut at the Stern Grove Festival in Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. He celebrated Beethoven’s 250th birthday in 2020 by creating a film series, 32@32, about his journey preparing the 32 Beethoven sonatas. The 32 short films, available on YouTube, feature conversations about the sonatas with very special guests, including luminaries such as Alfred Brendel, Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Osvaldo Golijov, Arnold Steinhardt, and Jan Swafford. Golka performed the whole cycle of Beethoven’s 32 sonatas for socially distanced audiences at the Bach Festival Society in Winter Park, Florida, in October, repeating each program three times so that more audiences could safely attend. These concerts have also been filmed and broadcasted online, and he continues his Beethoven sonata adventures into 2021

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with a full cycle at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York City, as well as online programs for the Library of Congress, Ventura Music Festival, Sitka Music Festival, El Paso Pro Musica, and Mesa Arts Center, featuring 32@32 and his filmed performances from Winter Park. Golka was selected by Schiff to perform recitals at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr in Germany, Tonhalle Zürich, as well as in Berlin and New York (organized by the 92nd Street Y) in 2015. He has been a regular on the concert stage since age 16, when he won first prize at the Second China Shanghai International Piano Competition. He has also received the Gilmore Young Artist Award and the Max I. Allen Classical Fellowship Award from the American Pianists Association. Golka’s solo appearances with orchestra have included the BBC Scottish, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Indianapolis, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Fort Worth, Vancouver, Seattle, and Jacksonville Symphonies; Grand Teton Festival Orchestra; National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa; the Sinfonia Varsovia in Warsaw; the Shanghai Philharmonic; the Warsaw Philharmonic; and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. He made his Carnegie Hall Isaac Stern Auditorium debut in 2010, performing Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto with the New York Youth Symphony. 19 Adam Golka

Golka’s past appearances as a chamber musician include festivals such as Marlboro, Caramoor, Ravinia, Prussia Cove, Music@Menlo, and the Frankly Music series in Milwaukee, and he is also a member of the Manhattan Chamber Players. He has been presented by the Musicians’ Emergency Fund in Alice Tully Hall on multiple occasions, and he has performed recitals in the Royal Concertgebouw’s Kleine Zaal and Musashino Civic Cultural Hall in Tokyo, as well as at festivals such as Mostly Mozart, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, the Ravinia Festival, the New York City International Keyboard Festival, the Newport Music Festival, the Hornby Island Festival in British Columbia, and the Duszniki International Chopin Piano Festival. Golka is also a frequent guest at the Krzyźowa Music Festival in Poland, where he premiered his own two-piano arrangement of Debussy’s La Mer in 2018 and also narrated his original poetry for Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals, created especially for the opening concert of the festival. Golka has premiered solo works written for him by Richard Danielpour, Michael Brown, and Jarosław Gołembiowski. His debut album, featuring the First Sonata of Brahms and the Hammerklavier Sonata of Beethoven, was released in 2014 by First Hand Records. In 2017 he released his Schumann album for the same label, not only playing solo works but also partnering with soprano Lauren Eberwein. This album was produced by his friends Michael Brown and Roman Rabinovich, whose First Hand albums Golka in turn produced. Adam Golka 20

Golka is greatly indebted to the late José Feghali, with whom he studied throughout his teenage years and young adulthood, as well as to his insightful studies with the legendary Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory. Golka also enjoyed a role as Artist in Residence at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, from 2014–20.

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THREE: A FASCINATING NUMBER There are three sonatas in Opus 10: two are major, one is minor. Two are smaller

in scale, one is grander. Two have slow movements, one does not. In examining any of the possible pairings, there are agreements and disagreements among the three, majorities and minorities, friends and outsiders. It’s always fascinating to record with my two great friends Michael and Roman. I can think of infinite scenarios in our friendships where two of us agree on something and the other remains alienated. I remember standing in a liquor store in Absarokee, Montana, stocking up in case of difficult recording days ahead, and drawing straws for which of us would get to stay in the two luxury cabins nearest the Olivier Music Barn at Tippet Rise. I was the “unlucky” one: I would only have a Steinway upright in my smaller cabin, instead of a private concert grand, and I would live in isolation one whole mile away from the hall. My additional punishment would be having to drive our rental car through a sublime landscape between sessions and waking up to the most glorious view of the Beartooth Mountains. It turned out it was absolutely blissful to be so secluded, and, by the way, I even had a laundry machine, which they didn’t have. Sometimes you think you lose, but you actually win. 23 Adam Golka

And then there’s a whole podcast devoted to our process of choosing pianos. You may listen to it on the Tippet Rise website, at your own risk. It doesn’t reveal all the conniving and manipulation and honest language we used to try to strong-arm each other, but it gives some idea. We knew it would be possible to use only one piano for all three albums, given our tight schedule. Even the three piano beauties had their own dynamic living arrangement: two New York Steinways against one Hamburg, two modern instruments versus one ornately carved 19th-century instrument, and two girls, “Serafina” and “Vera,” in the company of the more standoffish “CD 18,” our winner. The beauty of three cooks in the kitchen is that there is always potential for both a backup and a shake-up. It was important to have a fresh set of ears or somebody to take over producing when we needed an emergency nap. Of course, it also meant that one person could easily become the difficult one who alienated himself or the middle guy in an awkward conflict. But let’s not underestimate the perk of having someone to complain to about your other friend. Each producer had a different set of priorities in January 2019. To drastically oversimplify it, I think Roman listened for sound and color, Michael listened for flow and character, while I was a stickler for detail and doing things “right,” God help me. Adam Golka 24

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At the piano, Michael is always admirably receptive to criticism. Roman is in a sense, too: he rarely takes anything personally. In contrast to Michael, however, when he’s not interested in your opinion, you will know. Your role becomes inconsequential until he’s in the mood to talk to you again. You should have seen the look on our faces when he repeated a Haydn exposition seven times in a row, unannounced, as we desperately tried to take notes. Recording for me is probably the most emotionally complex among the gentlemen. Playing for microphones in an empty room messes with my head, and I need a cheerleader in the booth. On a bad day, I might even attack the complimenter for their undiscerning compliments, so let’s say the job of producing me is not easy. The conflicts I had with Roman were very interesting. We spontaneously changed the schedule one day, and he decided to have me produce a Haydn Sonata which I had never heard him play. We are always in the habit of assigning producers to pieces and hashing out our interpretive disagreements well ahead of sessions, but in this case we took a risk to accommodate some unexpected scheduling concerns. It didn’t go well. It happened to be a sonata I had played myself, and I was not able to remain objective or helpful to him. I got into Roman’s head with my ruthless insistence on certain details, and he was not at all happy. Michael took over that piece the next day. 27 Adam Golka

The next day the roles were reversed. Roman felt my approach to the Presto of my F Major Sonata was much too hurried and anxious. I was overexcited that evening, and I became very stubborn about my position. He was ready to fight me to the death on it; who knows, maybe the previous day’s Haydn disagreement had its karmic tax. The moment I remember reaching a climax of annoyance was when I called out Roman’s name and heard no response through the speaker. I was incredulous that he had been telling me to take walks as I was pleading for new takes, and, finally, he just ignored me entirely for several minutes. After this tense pause, the speaker came on, and I heard no words but only a Rossini overture which Roman was obviously streaming from his iPhone. He was trying to get me into a lighter mood, a more humorous mindset. It was admittedly brilliant, but I was not having it. I was in a rage about this little boxing match we were having during my session. So we took a break, exchanged emotional words, and sat together in frustration. I eventually decided to acquiesce a little and tried following his suggestions, which Michael urged me to do. Some months later, when I heard the takes, I used exclusively the ones following Roman’s advice. I apologized to him, and I’m grateful I listened. Adam Golka 28

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Now about Michael: one of my obsessions was the Largo e mesto from the D Major Sonata. I was panicked over it since it was one of my most beloved movements and I didn´t have a satisfactory take by the last night of recording. I begged Michael for three minutes from his final session to let me try the opening phrase one last time. From the first chord we both realized the universe was being kind to me, and he let me play the whole long movement instead of using the precious final minutes for himself. Just so you know, Michael was the child who gave away all his cookies to the other children at school. Our little reality TV show in the setting of the most raw nature, otherworldly landscape, and sublime sculptures remains one of the most astonishing experiences of my life so far. We had the greatest possible resources at our disposal: not only unfathomable technology, but a crew which provided both professionalism and person-to-person generosity. Beyond energy and expertise, Monte Nickles joined me in making mean jokes to Michael, which Michael always loves. Jim Ruberto took a metronome mark for every take we made just in case we were unconsciously deviating course, and he even came up to me and gave me a hug at the end of the tense F Major Presto session. (Michael and Roman had had enough by then.) Michael Toia cared so much about the tuning of CD 18 that we had to beg him to stop a few times. We were over the moon with his splendid work, but it wasn’t until the last evening of tuning that Mike smiled and said, “finally, now, she’s a real Adam Golka 30

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beauty.” By the way, CD 18 has a perfectly regulated Hamburg action and also a New York action, which we could switch between. I used the deeper, chewier New York action, but I did borrow the more brittle, spicy Hamburg mechanism for the famous F Major Presto. What an insane luxury. Zachary Patten not only helped us with every detail of daily life but also probed the meaning of life with us during meals. Emily Rund filmed us at and away from the piano and drove us around sculptures. Incredible catering was provided by local chefs Nick and Wendy, who even had me eating tuna salad, which I usually despise. We saw no other human beings for eight frigid days in the middle of nowhere. A few other people require kind mention: Jeanne Reid White was our delightful e-mail bud for many months leading up to the session, and she, as well Pete and Lindsey Hinmon, patiently masterminded our schedule and managed many impossible requests. Most important, though: none of this strange dream would have been possible without the astonishing imagination of Peter and Cathy Halstead. My visits to the Tippet Rise Art Center have expanded the way my mind works, and, to a certain degree, the place’s very existence remains a puzzle to me. Obviously one valid explanation is Peter and Cathy’s unparalleled generosity, but somehow that’s not sufficient explanation. I think they have figured out how to turn real life into poetry and poetry into real life. I am humbled and deeply grateful to have been welcomed there. — Adam Golka 33 Adam Golka

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Beethoven: Piano Sonata No 8—Pathétique - Adam Golka

Please click link to play. 35 Adam Golka

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Technical Specifications Recorded: 01/02/2019–01/10/2019 Recording Engineers: Monte Nickles, assisted by Jim Ruberto Sound Editor: Monte Nickles Denoised by: Jim Ruberto Mixed and Mastered by: Monte Nickles

Spot Microphones: DPA 4060a in Piano Schoeps MK2H for A/B Stereo pair

Performers and Producers: Michael Brown, Adam Golka, Roman Rabinovich.

Converters: Merging Technology’s HAPI and HORUS with Premium converter cards DAW: Merging Technology’s Pyramix

Recorded in Auro3D format for immersive playback in 32bit 384kHz DXD.

Microphone preamps: Grace M802s

Microphones used: Main array: Left: DPA 4006a Right: DPA 4006a Center: DPA 4006a Sur L: DPA 4041a Sur R: DPA 4041a Height FL: Schoeps MK2 Height FR: Schoeps MK2 Height RL: DPA 4041a Height RR: DPA 4041a

Photography: James Florio, Jürgen Frank, Eric Petersen, Emily Rund Text: Adam Golka, Peter Halstead Flip Book Design: Craig M.White 37 Adam Golka

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Adam Golka at Tippet Rise