Christian Zacharias explains that his relationship with the piano has always been guided by his attachment to the music itself, much more than to the instrument: “I was eager to know and feel these musics. I wanted to play with a violinist friend, I wanted to read Mozart’s sonatas. My sound developed quite quickly from there. I tried to imitate Michelangeli’s sound in his interpretations of Beethoven, Emil Gilels too, but I didn’t succeed; his sound is impossible to imitate.” This passion is accompanied by a complete training, combining piano, harmony, counterpoint, and analysis.
In parallel with his piano studies, he began conducting with Heinz Karl Gruber. He even hesitated between piano and conducting, the latter seeming more secure at the time: “As a conductor, we had more possibilities for success.” But after winning the 2nd prize at the Geneva Competition, he chose to dedicate himself to the piano: “I gave myself 5 years to live off my piano.”
He continued his training with Vlado Perlemuter in Paris, where he discovered rigor: “He is an interpreter that I deeply loved, I knew I wanted to work with him since I heard him in Chopin. He is quite austere when I meet him, but I learned a lot from him. I almost learned more about precision and discipline in themselves than about Chopin! In the end, that’s what I was looking for, playing Chopin but without any fuss. You have to know how to honor the great works.”
While competitions have been important milestones in his career, he points out that the results are not enough to define it: “Winning a competition is not always a guarantee of success. For example, I went to the second round of a competition without winning a prize, but this performance still allowed me to receive concert offers.” He emphasizes the importance of failure and doubt in musical practice, considering inner demand as vital: “One must be dissatisfied! An artist’s story is the story of their eternal dissatisfaction.”
