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The Music at Tippet Rise
For pianist Pedja Muzijevic, music is more than just playing notes on the page. In this interview, he shares his passion for the music’s historical context and its influence in our everyday lives.
Devanney Haruta: How does knowing the music’s history influence how you approach performance?
Pedja Muzijevic: We performers always function in the past, whether it’s a work written a few days ago, or three weeks ago, or 300 years ago. For me, any information surrounding the time and the music is relevant. It helps me get into the mindset of the composer, the performer who might have played it at the time, and equally important, the audience for which it was written. Looking through all of
that historical background is immensely interesting to me. Sometimes it’s just trivia, or sometimes it’s a substantial piece of information. Was it written for a small room or a big hall? Was it a commission? Was it something somebody wrote as a love letter? What were the circumstances? I’m also interested in the instruments. Anything before the 1890s, which is when the piano as we know it today was fully formed, was written for a different model of the piano. What did they feel like? What did they sound like? I don’t force it upon my interpretation, but I let it seep through the music that I play.
DH: You often share this background information with the audience. How do you think knowing that historical knowledge influences how the audience hears the music?
CONVERSATION WITH
PEDJA MUZIJEVIC