Randy Hodgkinson, an award-winning classical pianist with a career spanning 40 years, will perform at the Warner Free Lecture at Fivesparks Friday, Jan. 24, at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. A teacher as well as a performer, Hodgkinson will guide the audience through Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” with the intention of heightening the listener’s experience. There are so many platforms for listening to music, Hodgkinson said in a phone conversation, “But there is no question that live music is a completely different animal.”
Randy Hodgkinson.(Courtesy photo)
With his mother as his first piano teacher, Hodgkinson was set on a path to music at an early age. He is the winner of several awards, including the grand prize at the Fourth International American Music Competition sponsored by Carnegie Hall and the Rockefeller Foundation. He has played with orchestras in major cities across the country and abroad in Italy and Iceland. He has also performed numerous recital pieces, spanning the repertoire from Bach to Donald Martino. Currently he teaches at the New England Conservatory, where he himself was a student, and at Wellesley College.
The focus of the evening will be on “Goldberg Variations,” a piece that Hodgkinson said has been of increasing interest to him over the past few years and which he has spent many hours playing. The more he has gotten into it, the more he realizes how much more there is to know. While there are definite strategies and structures—“a system”— to the piece, Hodgkinson said, “It sounds user-friendly and is fun to listen to. Bach has done all the work to make it fun.”
The story of the “Goldberg Variations” is that a Russian dignitary who was visiting Germany suffered from insomnia and commissioned Bach to write a composition to help him sleep. The result, in 1741, for which Bach received a huge payment, opens with an aria and then 30 variations on it. It was first played by the Russian count’s private harpsichordist, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg.
Hodgkinson said he struggles with how much he, as a musician, should talk about the compositions he is playing. He recalled one incident when he was staying with a family abroad and at the concert where he was playing, his host stood up, voiced his irritation at how much Hodgkinson was talking, and stomped out of the hall. Everyone brings different experiences to a concert, and Hodgkinson constantly questions what he can say that will help—or hinder—their enjoyment. Perhaps influenced by the “Lecture” part of the Harvard event and also by his desire to deepen the audience’s experience, he has come down on the side of talking about the music as he plays it.
He will start by playing an excerpt and then alternate between saying things he hopes will make the music more meaningful and playing an excerpt that illustrates a point he has made. He will describe what structure or strategy exists and suggest what to listen for. He believes no matter how knowledgeable one is, there is always more to discover. He will end with an uninterrupted performance of Bach’s work.
Hodgkinson said he, like any musician, is sensitive to audience reaction (particularly if they stomp out in the middle of his playing!), and at the end of his program, he will ask the audience what they thought. He very much wants to know if his “guidance” has enhanced or detracted from their listening experience.
