Fridays@3

So at ANAM there is a 'series' called Fridays@3 which is usually a conversation with a visiting artist. This last week, the cellist Alban Gerhardt was in residence, along with the Silver-Garburg piano duo. All were pretty phenomenal artists. Mr Gerhardt was the guest for the conversation at the end of last week.
I often sit in lectures of all sorts (well, I suppose necessary at university to do so...) and write lots. Often I write to keep awake, or to just get as mkuch information as possible, for processing later. This conversation, however, needed no good reason to keep awake - Alban Gerhardt was highly entertaining and candid. I was glad to have some paper and a pen to record some of these pearlers:

* About chamber music: "We get paid the same amount, but the pianist has to work so much harder (then the cellist)". (I KNEW it! Thank goodness a cellist has admitted it!!)
* About being asked whether one should play new music that isn't written for you specifically: "I found the question stupid, and telling."
* On not listening to recordings much and absorbing concepts and ideas from many sources: "I'm not very good at arts, visual arts. I mean, I've seen stuff..."
* "I've played sixty, seventy, cello concertos, which is not that much....(of the approximately 250 written for the instrument)." Oh yeah, not much at all...
* About his early listening experiences (which were not much to do with cello): "Well, I wasn't very interested in wind music, sorry...I'm sure there aren't any wind players here." On the contrary, a good proportion of the wind students were in attendance.
* "I wrote a blog, and called it 'Schumann and sweets', or some sort of shit title."
* "These scones, not British ones that are light and fluffy, but these American ones..." Good to know his taste preferences!
* "I have a good story...actually, it's not very good...anyway...."
* "We always think about Hungarians as perpper and paprika, and stuff..."
* About Jacqueline du Pre: "She was so beautiful, well, not really....she's not ugly, but she's not a movie star...you wouldn't want to watch her every day."
* About the Max Reger cello sonatas: "These sonatas, the cellist can learn it in a week. The pianist needs a year!"
* About a concerto: "It's for three cellos, which is a dumb idea!"
* "In Germany, we have been tortured by our own modern composers."
* "...he is not a charlatan, he is not Philip Glass!"
* On listening to Philip Glass play a concert: "Shit! I could improvise better as a six-year-old than Philip Glass!"
* On composing (which he has no intention of doing so now): "I wrote a piano trio when I was nine. I wrote it for myself and  my siblings. It lasted a minute and fifty seconds. It sounded like Strauss."

What a dude!