The Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, 25, born in Nizhny Novgorod, gave his first performance with an orchestra at the age of eight, losing a milk tooth mid-performance, and went to Moscow’s famous Gnessin School of Music before moving to America to study. Five years ago, already widely heralded as the pianist of the future, he won both the Rubinstein and the Tchaikovsky piano competitions. Trifonov is the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 21 in C major with the Staatskapelle Dresden and conductor Christian Thielemann at the Proms on Wednesday. His new disc of Liszt’s complete concert Études is out next month.
You’ve been playing a lot of big, romantic repertoire, especially Liszt and Rachmaninov. What are the challenges of a Mozart piano concerto?
Of course every composer is very particular in their musical language. Rachmaninov and Mozart are divided by time and culture and style. With Mozart the biggest difficulty is the very crystalline, clear structure. This concerto I’m playing – No 21 in C, K467 – is one of the best loved. It’s been used in film [Elvira Madigan], and that made it very popular. Often in Mozart concertos it’s the first movement that is most representative, but in this work each of the three has equal weight which makes it especially important.
What is your feeling about the Proms, its audience, the Royal Albert Hall?
I’m looking forward to it so much. I’ve played there before. It’s great to be on stage facing such an overwhelming – in a good way! – crowd. And it’s a unique audience because those at the front in the arena are standing. It’s a very interesting atmosphere for an artist to experience. Perhaps the fact that they are on their feet means they are listening differently! In fact I myself would like to stand and prom one day. I like to be on my feet, not sitting, when I listen to my recordings, and I walk around a little too, and make certain gesticulations…
You might be a bad and distracting audience member then? Prommers are famously still when they listen.
Yes, I’d have to make sure I stayed at the back.
You recently gave a recital with your teacher, Sergei Babayan. What did he teach you?
First of all when I came to Cleveland I hadn’t met him. I came on the recommendation of my teacher in Moscow. Sergei tries to find a special approach for each pupil. There are of course many technical things, but above all he tries to inspire students to find their own way of playing a note or phrase, and to teach them emotional flexibility.
Your parents are both musicians. What in particular shaped your childhood?
Perhaps the fact that I was an only child. When I was eight they wanted me to study in Moscow, but they were working in my home town of Nizhny Novgorod, 400km away. They were willing to move and that was a big challenge, a new life. Then I moved to America, but they didn’t follow me there!
You are a composer too… how, when?
Just now, before you rang, I was working on writing a cadenza for the Mozart concerto at the Proms. It’s true there is not so much time to write music, but there are vacations. And I like composing in the mountains, in Verbier or Aspen. Hiking and the outdoors are a big hobby. When I am walking the ideas flow more freely.
Your next album is all Liszt. How would you sum up this music?
There are so many ideas beyond the technical and virtuosic. These works shaped the music of the future, they’re visionary in their harmonic and structural variety.
Where is home?
In a way New York is my main home. But Moscow is too.
You’ve just got engaged… tell us one thing about your fiancee.
Well, she is not American. And she is not Russian. She’s Dominican. And a musician, working in the business.
Who will play the piano at your wedding?
Ah, that’s all still in the works. We have time to think. It’s an impossible question right now!
