You often immerse yourself in a single composer over a period of time, your Beethoven project being a recent example. Why do you like to take this approach?
The reason for trying to explore a single composer is my own curiosity. It only works with the very best of composers; there are only about half a dozen that can carry a whole program. Apart from that, a project based on a single composer is also a learning experience, immensely satisfying for the audience and for the performer alike. To me, even a mixed program must contain works that are closely connected to each other.

What attracts you to Haydn’s piano music?
Of all the great composers, Haydn is still the most misunderstood and underrated— with Mendelssohn and Schumann in second and third places. It is a worthy challenge to try to change the status quo.

Why do you think his works are so neglected?
Haydn’s piano music is neglected because most of the great pianists of the past have neglected it. Liszt never played Haydn, nor did von Bülow, Rachmaninoff, Godowsky, Hofmann—not even Schnabel. The biggest challenge of playing Haydn (compared to his contemporaries) is that Haydn was not a virtuoso pianist, like Mozart and Beethoven were. He writes absolute music for the keyboard, that doesn’t necessarily come from the character of the instrument.

The piano that Haydn wrote for is very different from today’s model. Do you take that into consideration in your performances?
During his relatively long life, Haydn wrote for a variety of instruments, first for the harpsichord, then for the German, finally for the English fortepiano. It’s good to be familiar with all of these, and I am. When playing a modern piano—Steinway or Bösendorfer—I always think of my experiences with the old instruments. It is thus possible to make an adaptation.

Turning now to your In Focus series, how did you select your February 25 solo recital program?
If you are presenting a single recital of Haydn’s piano music, then it’s obvious that you can’t put everything into it, so I tried to select some of the works that I like the most, that I find particularly interesting. These include sonatas from different periods, and also shorter works that are wonderfully original and that are very seldom heard.

The second In Focus program on February 27 consists of Haydn’s piano trios. First, why the trios? Why not another solo piano recital? Then, how did you choose which trios?
The trios are the most neglected masterpieces of this neglected composer. Apart from the famous one with the “Gypsy” finale (Piano Trio No. 39 in G major, H. XV:25—ed.), none of them are well-known. This is criminal. Part of the problem lies with the cellists; many good cellists don’t want to play them because they feel that they don’t have enough to do. How wrong they are! Playing these notes with character and understanding is a major musical challenge. In this program we have deliberately left out the “Gypsy” Trio and included five great trios that are seldom played.

Tell us about your Trio partners.
My partners are my favorite ones. One happens to be my wife. We met more than thirty years ago at Marlboro. Miklós is, to me, the greatest living cellist, and he is happy to play Haydn trios.

This will be your first lecture-recital in the U.S., after great successes elsewhere in the world. Can you tell us when you started them and why?
The idea of lecture-recitals came to me 5-6 years ago, at the Wigmore Hall in London. This is one of the best venues in the world for intimate music-making, with a seating capacity of about 600. Therefore, it’s very difficult to get tickets. When playing the 32 Beethoven sonatas there, I always did a lecture the day before the concert. They were free of charge. We also wanted to attract a younger audience; they are certainly welcome, and if the tickets cost nothing, then money can’t be the reason for their absence. Needless to say, the same elder people came to the lectures as to the concerts. However, these lectures have been recorded, and the Guardian newspaper has put them on its website. Since then many people have been listening to them on the Internet.

(Mr. Schiff’s Wigmore lectures are available on the Guardian‘s music blog. There is also a wealth of material by and with András Schiff on YouTube, including performances, master classes and lectures, such as a six-part lecture-recital on Chopin.—ed.)

This is your sixth appearance at the 92nd Street Y. Do you have any special memories here?
There are many fond memories at the Y, both as a listener and as a performer. The hall is excellent; it is somehow the best chamber music venue in New York. It was especially good to play the Schubert sonatas here back in the 1990s. Hanna (Tisch Center for the Arts Director Hanna Arie-Gaifman—ed.) is a special friend; we go back many years now. We are both Central-Europeans with similar backgrounds (Jewishness not being the only one), so we understand each other well. I’m delighted to know that she is at the Y. That’s a guarantee for high cultural standards.

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