Wednesday, November 5, 1997
UCLA pianist to perform at piece’s world premiere
MUSIC Walter Ponce to play Piano Sonata No. 8 composed by Paul
Reale
By Kristi Nakamura
Daily Bruin Contributor
Listening to the radio can be a lesson in repetition. Sometimes,
it seems like every station plays the same songs for hours on
end.
Pianist Walter Ponce, professor of music and head of the piano
studies department at UCLA, offers a solution to the exasperating
radio redundancy for those who are willing to learn to hear in a
new way.
Tonight at 8 p.m., Ponce will perform at the world premiere of
UCLA composer Paul Reale’s Piano Sonata No. 8 ("Il Trionfo della
Folia") in Schoenberg Hall.
"Great pieces of music are not the ones that are immediately
successful, but you spend a whole lifetime, and every time you hear
it, you love it more," Ponce says. "Mozart and Beethoven are like
that. Bach is like that. Some of the more popular music, sometimes
you hear it a couple, and it gets on your nerves."
Although it may not be accessible to a listener the first time
it is heard, Ponce says that Reale’s piece is one of the great
pieces that becomes more likeable every time it is heard.
"I was working on Piano Sonata No. 8 when I first met Walter
Ponce," Reale says. "At that time, I was not completely happy with
the piece but with Ponce’s encouragement, I got it hammered out as
the kind of virtuoso vehicle that I had imagined it could be."
Reale has been a member of the music faculty at UCLA since 1969.
He says that UCLA is his attempt to escape the East coast
establishment.
"Composers are always happy for somebody to play their work, but
in this case, I almost feel honored because it’s wonderful to play
a piece you really like for the first time," Ponce says.
Ponce states that music appreciation is very much like people.
He compares understanding and liking Reale’s piece with
understanding and liking people. While superficial people who are
always smiling and happy are easy to like, more complex people take
longer to figure out and appreciate. Similarly, the most complex
and beautiful pieces take longer to become acquainted with.
In the premiere concert, Ponce will also play Beethoven’s
Sonatas Op. 90 in E minor and Op. 106 in B flat major
("Hammerklavier"), "Le baiser de l’Enfant-Jesus" from Olivier
Messiaen’s "Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jesus" and Copland’s "El
Salon Mexico" transcribed for piano solo by Leonard Bernstein.
"The pieces I’m playing, they’re all friends. Some of them
fairly recent friends, some of them, very old friends, and so it’s
like human beings," Ponce says. "They all have their own
psychology, their own emotions, their own feelings and sometimes
they change."
Ponce associates each piece he plays with a particular story,
experience or feeling. He engages with the music and transforms the
performance into something personal and emotional.
Other than Reale’s Piano Sonata No. 8, the pieces Ponce chose to
play for the concert were selected from a repertoire of pieces he
has been playing for a long time.
"I’m playing one Beethoven sonata, ‘The Hammerklavier,’ which is
one of the most difficult pieces ever written for the piano, and
I’m playing because I think not too many people play that," Ponce
says. "I feel it’s truly one of the great masterpieces because it’s
so difficult to really play."
Ponce explains that because there are so many talented piano
students at UCLA, often they play a lot of pieces, but they do not
have the opportunity to hear the more difficult and less commonly
performed pieces.
Ponce began playing the piano at age 9 after attending a concert
given by the famous violinist, Jaime Laredo. Both natives of a town
in Bolivia, Ponce was impressed by the pianist Laredo who was
brought in to play with him.
Since that introduction to classical music, Ponce has traveled
the world playing the piano. Most recently he played with the
Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra in the Colon Theater.
"I kept thinking that someday I was going to afford to go down
there (from the balcony to the stage) so I could be closer to the
orchestra or listen perhaps better," Ponce says. "It took me 30
years to get down there, but I was the soloist this time."
The experience of playing in Buenos Aires was especially moving
for Ponce. Attending high school in Buenos Aires, he spent much
time around the Colon Theater. Ponce had not been back to the
theater since then.
"It was very emotional for me because I love that city and the
orchestra and the people," Ponce says.
However, Ponce says that he takes all concerts that he performs
very seriously and that there is no difference whether he plays to
a small town in North Dakota, larger audiences in New York and Los
Angeles, or international crowds. The music takes on a personality
all its own.
MUSIC: Tickets for the Walter Ponce piano concert are $7 and $5
with UCLA ID. For more information call (310) 825-4761.