Q: Welcome to PT, Jonathan! We've heard you on PT before through concert performances, but our PT listeners don't know much about you. Let's start with some basics... Where are you from? Where do you live now?

Biss: I grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University, where my parents both teach. I left when I was 17 to go to Curtis, in Philadelphia, and I've just recently moved to New York.

Q: Your parents are violinists Miriam Fried and Paul Biss. What prompted you to take up piano rather than the violin?

Biss: Neither I nor anyone in my family has a convincing answer for this. I have an older brother who started playing the piano when I was 4, at which point I started agitating to play as well (it took my parents a couple of years to give in...) Now I sometimes wish I'd taken up a string instrument, although playing the piano means I now get to play chamber music with my parents, which is fun.

Q: With both your parents being classical musicians, you've obviously grown up listening to a lot of classical music. What are some of your childhood memories of this experience?

Biss: I literally was listening to classical music from before the time I was born, and it seemed perfectly normal to me to be obsessed with it as a little kid. The last time I was at home I went through some old photos, and was mortified to find one labeled, "Jonathan, age six, studying the score of 'Rigoletto.'" Seriously, though, I had a love affair with classical music from when I was very little, and my relationship with it has not changed in any fundamental way.

Q: Did you ever have a rebellious streak of not wanting to play the piano? Not wanting to have anything to do with classical music? What do you think you'd be doing if you weren't a pianist?

Biss: I really never did have a rebellion against music, because playing the piano was never tied up with pleasing my parents. I'm sure that my love of music is rooted in my early exposure to it, but playing the piano was always my decision, and my parents were always telling me that if I wasn't absolutely sure that was what I wanted to do, I should do something else. It's pretty hard to imagine myself doing something else, but I'm sure it would be in the arts -- probably something language-related.

Q: Have you experienced with styles other than classical?

Biss: Not first-hand. I love jazz, but I have no idea how to play it.

Q: Who are your favorite composers?

Biss: I would have to say, at the risk of making your web audience nauseous, that I love virtually all of the music that I play. But if I had to pick a composer, it would probably be Schumann. I also play a lot of classical period music -- I think for a pianist, the Mozart concertos and the Beethoven sonatas are the two greatest bodies of work.

Q: Can you tell us about your experiences at the Curtis Institute of Music? Was it a foregone conclusion that you would attend a conservatory rather than a liberal arts institution? Did you look at other schools? How did you end up at Curtis?

Biss: My experience at Curtis was wonderful. All of the things about the school that are unique turned out to be huge adventages for me: it is extremely small, which meant that I had exposure to all of the students, and much of the faculty. It is extremely flexible, which meant that I was able to have a concert schedule while being a student (and even audit a class at the University of Pennsylvania). I did do some serious thinking about whether or not to attend a conservatory, and while there are drawbacks, I think it was the right decision. My "college" years really were the time to be focused on piano-playing, and I think I grew a tremendous amount while at Curtis. A part of me regrets not having gotten a broader education, but I think that as long as I am bothered by that, I will keep studying. As for degrees - they don't interest me.

Q: What pianist and/or teacher has most influenced your playing?

Biss: I've been blessed with really terrific teachers. My experience with Leon Fleisher really informs everything I do now -- whether consciously or sub-consciously. While he didn't change my basic musical direction, when I look at my musical values, they are really very much tied up with him. Evelyne Brancart, my teacher at Indiana University (for most of my teenage years) is as knowledgable about "piano-playing" as anyone I know -- my whole concept of listening to myself critically is rooted in my years with her. And my first teacher, Karen Taylor, did a great job of instilling a love for music in me. The pianists I listen to most are Rubinstein, Schnabel, and Lipatti -- all extremely different, and yet all have influenced me a lot. (In general, I find there is something in that generation of musicians -- their devotion to music, and their great individualism -- that is tremendously moving.

Q: At what point did you realize you wanted to be a professional musician?

Biss: I don't know -- I honestly can't remember not wanting that!

Q: Now that you're living the life of a professional musician, is it everything you expected it to be? Were there any pleasant or not so pleasant surprises for you?

Biss: Since I grew up with musicians, it would be pretty absurd for me to claim to be shocked by the nature of this life. But I still do get frustrated by the endless travel, the wasted time, and the experience of meeting someone who is not as passionate about music as I think they ought to be. This business of playing concerts, though, is as thrilling as I expected.

Q: You've performed in solo, chamber and orchestral settings. Do you have a preference among them?

Biss: Really not. In fact, it is keeping a balance between these things that I love. Playing chamber music makes me a better solo player, and vice versa.

Q: Now for some lighter questions... What's your favorite food?

Biss: I'll eat almost anything. I do love asian food, especially...

Q: Favorite movie?

Biss: Annie Hall, Life is Beautiful, A Day at the Races, Dr. Strangelove (anything with Peter Sellars, really), and Being John Malkovich.

Q: Favorite TV show?

Biss: Probably Seinfeld -- it struck a nerve. Blind Date is my guilty pleasure, although sometimes I get so embarassed for the participants that I can't take it anymore. (I can't believe I am admitting to this...)

Q: Favorite radio station? Radio show? On that note... What are your views on classical music on the radio? How much do classical musicians rely on being heard on the radio?

Biss: NPR! Performance Today! Obviously! Seriously, I think it is tremendously important to have classical music on the radio -- it is the easiest, best, and most obvious way to keep it as part of the publc discourse. Having live performances and serious minded talk about the state of classical music broadcasted to a national audience is absolutely vital to our survival -- even if the audience is not as large as it is for other programs. Classical music does not -- and, I believe, need not -- play to the largest audience. If this causes public radio to give up on it, it will be demonstrating seriously skewed values, and perhaps more importantly, a fundamentally flawed conception of its (public radio's) role in American life.

Q: Back to lighter questions... Favorite hangouts in New York?

Biss: I've been a New Yorker for less than two weeks now... Hopefully your listeners (readers) can tell me!

Q: What do you like doing in your free time, that is, if you have free time?

Biss: I don't think I know anyone who has free time. It sounds nice... I love to read, and I am a serious tennis freak. I don't get to play much, though.

Q: You may know that this year PT is presenting a list of 50 essential classical CDs, the "PT 50" as we're calling it. We won't ask you to name 50, but what would be in the Biss essential 10? If you were stranded on a desert island with a discman and 10 CDs, what would those CDs be?

Biss: I feel like Rob in High Fidelity -- having waited my whole life for this moment, I am so nervous I will go screw it up now! At the moment:

     1) Szigeti and Bartok in a live recital (Beethoven -- Bartok -- Debussy)
     2) Budapest Quartet playing middle Beethoven quartets
     3) Schnabel playing Mozart a minor rondo, and anything by Beethoven
     4) The complete Dinu Lipatti recordings
     5) The Vegh Quartet playing the Bartok Quartets
     6) Fleisher/Szell/Cleveland playing Mozart 503 and Beethoven 4
     7) Fleisher/Szell/Cleveland playing Brahms 1 and Fleisher playing the Handel Variations
     8) Stern/Schneider/Katims/Casals/Tortelier playing Schubert quintet
     9) Miriam Fried playing Bach Sonatas/Partitas
     10) Furwangler conducting Beethoven Eroica (and Brahms 4 and and and....)

I would like to include something non-classical (Sara Vaughn, Art Tatum Duke Ellington) but these were somehow not as urgent...

Q: Do you have a guilty pleasure in music? Something you don't quite want to admit that you listen to but you totally love?

Biss: Britney! (Just kidding....)

Q: Can you tell us some of the best music performances you've attended, classical or otherwise?

Biss: This, again, is hard to limit. I'll just mention a Richard Goode recital, because it was very recent. There was nearly two hours of music (Mozart K 533, Debussy Preludes, Beethoven Les Adieux, Schubert late A Major), and every note of it was packed with the kind of meaningfulness and urgency that is life-altering -- just as classical music SHOULD be!! Anyone in the audience who didn't leave in a stupor wasn't paying attention.

Q: What do you think you're best performance has been thus far? Does any one performance in particular stand out for you?

Biss: I think the nature of my profession requires me to be severely self-critical, so I spend a lot more time reflecting on what I didn't like than on what I liked... The performances that stand out do so more because of the occasion -- playing in Carnegie Hall for the first time, playing with Isaac Stern, playing pieces like Beethoven 4 for the first time. All memorable.

Q: We recently had a feature on pre-concert rituals of some classical musicians, ranging from wearing pajamas to drinking V-8. Do you have any peculiar pre-concert rituals?

Biss: I drink V-8 while wearing pajamas... Seriously, circumstances vary so wildly from concert to concert that I think it is better not to develop a ritual, because you'd have to break it half the time!

Q: Can you tell us something about the music you'll play on PT?

Biss: The music I'm playing is a cross-section of the greatest music written for the piano (with a bit shaved off at both the most ancient and most recent ends...) The two classical pieces, Mozart 2 Piano sonata (w/Jeremy Denk) and Beethoven "Apassionata" Sonata, are both masterpieces, but as different as two great pieces can get. They both tend to reenforce the stereotypes about their composers -- the Mozart is all joy, beauty, and celebration, whereas the Beethoven is dark, tightly coiled, and even today, earth-shaking. Wednesday is all-Chopin -- can you imagine 5 hours of piano music with no Chopin? He is among the most loved composers, and yet he still doesn't get the respect he deserves for his incredible craft (to go with his amazing melodic gift.) Thursday and Friday bring two great Brahms chamber music works, the Piano Quintet (w/ the Mendelssohn Quartet) and the G major Sonata (with my mother, Miriam Fried). Again, the contrast between these works is striking: the quintet is brooding, intense, and relentless. The Sonata is one of the most reflective, and, I think, heartbreaking, works ever written. Debussy's beautiful Estampes (images of China, Spain, and France, through Debussy's eye) and Janacek's remarkable In the Mists (his rallying cry against an unsympathetic musical world) round out the week.

Q: Thanks for talking with us, Jonathan!

Biss: Great to be here!

If you have questions or comments for Jonathan, send us an e-mail at pt@npr.org

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