Pianist
Sergio Tiempo and the Quad City Symphony Orchestra will perform
Beethoven's third piano concerto as Beethoven never could - on a
modern piano. But when the composer wrote the piece in 1800, that's
certainly how he intended it to be played.
His Mozart-era piano couldn't sustain the heavy style of playing Beethoven envisioned; it actually snapped the strings.
"In a way, it is the first Romantic concerto which only found its true vehicle through later instruments," Tiempo said in an e-mail interview from Belgium.
The 34-year-old pianist has played the concerto for years, but he has yet to tire of the work. "It is one of those pieces that keeps growing inside of you throughout your life," Tiempo said.
All music is like that, but this concerto is "particularly prone to a sort of eternal development," he said.
Tiempo, and the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Augustana College's Centennial Hall. The theme for this second concert in the symphony's six-part Masterworks Series is "Celebrate Theatre," with the program including Nicolai's Overture to The Merry Wives of Windsor, Barber's Medea's Meditation & Dance of Vengeance, and Tchaikovsky's Romeo & Juliet.
Tiempo began his piano studies at age two, and within five years was giving recitals in London and France. He debuted on the "Great Pianists" series at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw when he was 14, and the live recording of that performance was the first of more than a dozen albums he has released.
The Venezuela-born pianist moved to Europe at age six and now lives in Brussels, Belgium. He performs in Europe, North America, South America, and Japan as both a soloist and a chamber musician, often paired with his sister, pianist Karin Lechner.
Much of Tiempo's work focuses on Chopin, and three of his CDs are devoted entirely to the composer. As a teenager, Tiempo even created a unique arrangement mixing two of Chopin's piano studies - playing one piece with his right hand and another simultaneously with his left.
"At first I did it just for fun, but in the end I played it as an encore somewhere in Japan and it gained some popularity, so I ended up playing it in other places as well. It is a funny arrangement but it is nowhere near as wonderfully beautiful as the original work."
Tiempo describes the arrangement as more of a joke than a serious piece of music. He prefers to stay away from composing, or even arranging, music.
"I feel that there is so much great music already that it is very difficult to innovate or write something of true significance. In any case, I know that it is not my specialty. I'll stick to interpretation, where I do feel that I can bring my little contribution to the world of music."
And although he does often focus on Chopin and other music from the Romantic period, Tiempo doesn't want to limit himself.
"I don't think I could live on listening and playing Romantic music alone," Tiempo said. "I love and need Mozart and Bach, early Beethoven, and Haydn. I adore the impressionists like Debussy and Ravel. I definitely couldn't live without them or Prokofiev and Stravinsky and Bartok. I love all music, and it would be very difficult for me to give up any one of them."
Tiempo will perform with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra at Augustana College's Centennial Hall on November 4 and 5. For more information, visit (http://www.qcsymphony.com).
