Speaking from his Berlin apartment, Julius Asal throws open the windows. Admittedly, there is a heat wave in progress, but this young German pianist, aged 27, is himself a breath of fresh air. For him, improvisation goes hand in glove with musical interpretation, as would have been the case for pianists 150 years ago, yet rarely is today; at the same time, his edgy, intuitive programme-building is distinctly 21st-century. On his first recording for Deutsche Grammophon, he juxtaposes two composers who on the surface could not be more different – Scarlatti and Scriabin – and sometimes links them with his own improvisations.
“The central idea was to record the first Scriabin sonata, which I have always loved,” Asal says. “I’ve never understood why so few pianists perform or record it. To me, it’s a miracle piece. I think it is perfectly shaped, with so many different colours and shadows captured within it. I also feel it points forward to the late Scriabin: in this early work, he has already found his strangeness.
“Recording it was a big dream. And to combine this with another world… I don’t know how I got the idea! But in finding a composer from another era who is totally different in style and aesthetics, then finding a new ‘room’ where they meet, I felt that perhaps they share an inner space through their miniature pieces and their quantity of detail, like small lights that appear and disappear again.”
It is a risk, but one senses an internal, subconscious logic. “It was interesting to go on this journey, because there are many connections that I can’t explain either,” Asal says. “Sometimes a Scriabin prelude ends on a note that will also be the first note of the next Scarlatti sonata. But on a different level, I feel it’s beautiful to discover things that can’t really be put into words.”
He begins and ends the programme with portions of the final Funèbre movement of Scriabin’s First Sonata; in the middle, he plays the entire work. The rest is devoted to a selection of the Russian composer’s preludes and études and Scarlatti’s sonatas, plus some “transitions” by Asal that started out as improvisations.
For many classical pianists, improvisation remains a closed book. After being trained from childhood to adhere strictly to the score, the concept of deviating and creating one’s own extemporisations can be quite intimidating. However, Asal’s experience is quite different.
“Improvisation was my first step in music. My mother is a pianist, and we had a piano in the living room. I was almost three years old, and I couldn’t talk to my parents – I began to speak quite late. But I found those black and white keys and thought it was really interesting.” He did not have “proper” piano lessons until he was eight. “My parents just let me play. I’d listen to my mother and her piano students and try to reproduce what I heard. I was playing freely and improvising; it was very natural and I never questioned it.”
The family of musicians lived near the Taunas mountains outside Frankfurt – “but growing up in the mountains sounds dreamier than it was,” Asal jokes. “My father was solo clarinet in the Frankfurt Opera House, my grandmother was a pop singer and my brother is now a jazz and pop drummer. There was a lot of music in the house. I think they understood that if a child really wants to play like that, it’s the most precious and natural thing to just let him do it. The wish and the energy to go further came very much from me.
“When I went more to the classical side, it was not really a decision. I felt this is much more natural to me. It feels like who I am.” He studied first with Sibylle Cada, Wolfgang Hess, and Oliver Kern in Frankfurt: “I was lucky to find the right people to give me the framework I needed.”
Still, he never lost his sense of improvisation: “It is much more than just playing what comes into your mind. It’s also an approach to performing on stage. This is music that really deserves to be explored in the moment, and many great artists are making that real. For example, last year I worked on Mozart with Robert Levin. This is a wonderful example of how you could include improvisation with some vibe of today’s context, but also with the tradition of that era. I think that’s a beautiful way forward. It’s not the only way, but it’s one possibility.”
Understanding music from the inside, from a creator’s viewpoint, could potentially add an extra level to a performance. “It’s a tightrope walk,” Asal admits. “On the one hand, I believe that connecting tradition and innovation is the most important thing to me personally. On the other hand, exploring the score and being close to what the composer intended is essential. There is a way to find your own language within the details that the composers left.”
After visiting Berlin, Asal decided he wanted to live there. Studying with the Uzbek pianist Eldar Nebolsin was part of this decision: “I really wanted to be in Berlin – I always felt a different energy there, especially for classical music. This is where I met Eldar, and we have had a beautiful connection. He understands the music of Rachmaninov so well, but also when I first met him, he asked me to play either a Schubert or Beethoven sonata. I love the way he works on structure, looking at how colour comes into it, which is one of the essential questions that I have found so enriching.”
He first met Sir András Schiff in 2018, “mainly for chamber music – and after I had played to him at various festivals, he asked if I would like to study with him at Kronberg Academy. I’m very happy and honoured to have the chance to know him and to work with him. He has no limitations! He’s convinced by his ideals, while also able to see who you are, which is a wonderful balance. To study Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók with him – that’s a whole world. And then I brought him some Scriabin – which I think most people wouldn’t do.” Schiff rarely if ever performs Scriabin: “that was a very fresh, enriching exchange.” Asal has since performed in Schiff’s Building Bridges series, in which he presents young artists in recital: “I think it’s his answer to the competition world,” Asal says.
“I was invited to take part in a big competition, but the DG album recording came along and it wasn’t possible to do both. I felt this might be a sign. I would love to focus on what I really want to do, without having to take care of the right repertoire for each round… I admire all my colleagues who go to competitions and are able to produce what they want to say under these conditions. Personally, I’ve rarely felt at home on a competition stage.”
Ironically, his turning point came during the pandemic. In the midst of it, he recorded an enormously impressive album of Prokofiev: the Four Pieces Op.4, Pensées Op.62 and excerpts from the ballet music Romeo and Juliet, much of the latter in his own transcriptions (released on IBS Classics). It started off partly as a strategy for survival. “We were all shocked by the pandemic and lockdown. I immediately thought about what I could do to use this time in a positive way. And Mr Prokofiev moved in. Prokofiev is my Covid.
“I lived with Sergei Prokofiev for at least one and a half years. We spent much time together and this album with my own transcriptions became real. It was a strange experience to finally have the air to breathe for such a personal project and to find that inner freedom when the outer world was not free at all.”
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