 Hello, Andreas. So nice to see you and thank you for your time for this interview. Wonderful, yes. Thank you so much that you're ready for this video interview about your fingerings of the Brahms piano works. And I might introduce you, Andreas, we are friends for so many years. I miss you, I would love to see you live, but you're a Melbourne, we are in Munich. So it's fantastic to have the chance to do the video Zoom interview instead of live, but let's look forward to meet again in person. I would love this. So I should mention that a couple of years ago we published a totally revised new Brahms piano pieces, word text edition. And in 2019 also the best selling title, one of our best selling titles of the Brahms piano sonatas, Scherzo and Ballard. And according to the Neuer Brahms complete edition Gesamtausgabe, we were very happy to that you agreed to our invitation to do the your fingerings to the practical edition. Thank you for this. And that's the reason why we talk today. We are curious to learn a little bit about your ideology about your thinking what fingering all about and my first question would be, print it fingerings in word text edition, what's the reason? Why do you do this? Why is it helpful or what's the background? Well, I regard the practical edition, an edition which goes a bit further. And I think fingerings are very important. I would say you have fingerings which are technically comfortable, you have fingerings which support your musical ideas, and you have fingerings which help you to memorize the piece. And it's very interesting to discuss this. And I think every pianist has a different philosophy and fingerings are very personal, but I really enjoy doing them for the handed publisher, and to share some ideas, which of course some of them are very personal. So Andreas, may I ask you, are these fingerings which are printed now in the Handler word text edition, your own, the ones you really play on stage, or do you have a kind of a user in mind and you change here and there your own ideas? I think it's both. Of course, I would base them on my fingerings. At the same time I'm trying to balance them, you know, some of them are very personal, very idiosyncratic, it depends what hand you have, how your musical mind works. All that is very important to decide what works for you. However, when you publish fingerings, of course you want to reach out to as many pianists as possible. And therefore, I have revised every fingering I use, and often I thought, hmm, that's a bit personal. I think I want to change that, but there are other passages where I think I have a good solution for a challenging passage, for instance, which hopefully will help pianists. Because your fingerings, your printed fingerings and your app fingerings are in the market for a couple of years now, we receive comments by users, by pianists, and we discussed this, Andreas, already there are so many enthusiastic reactions by piano teachers and professional colleagues of yours. But there are also, of course, as always, because it's so subjective, some quite negative reactions. They would not accept things, especially your decision to distribute some notes to between the heads, contrary to what Brahms wrote. Why do you do this? What's the reason? To start with, of course, it's divisive and people always discuss hand chairs, that's quite fair. On the other hand, I decided to include some of them, because literally every pianist who performs on stage use them. And I think the only time I heard someone being completely faithful to their score, there was a pianist who played the bandra fantasy by Schubert, and it was a, it was pretty disastrous. And therefore, every colleague I know, use extensive hand chairs. And I think that's very important, because we serve the music. We are not, it's for sheer practical reasons. There are certain passages in the second piano concerted by Brahms where you really have to think about hand chairs, otherwise it's next to impossible to play that passage. But I have to say I have never met a pianist who is frequently performing on that level, who said, I never use any hand chairs, I have never met. So, and, and I have to say these are suggestions so you can, you can decide for yourself it's clearly marked that it is my suggestion, and you can ignore them if you like. And so that's that is something I find always very important I'm not saying I'm right or this is the only way to play that. Certainly not. But here's a suggestion which might be very helpful. Helpful in the sense of practical, pragmatic to be more precise to, yeah, to be to be safe. At least on stage, if you play some things and the Brahms scores are quite dense and a lot of notes to be played at the same time. And since, an example, the first rhapsody over 79. There is a melodic line, which is very hard to play because the chords are, you know, a big stretch and so if you use your right hand to support the melodic line that will be much more musical in the end. And I think that serves a musical idea, which is more important than being a purist and say, no, this is the only way to play it and there is no other way. And another one which I thought for a while if I should use it or not is the the first sonata in and see major in the development section of the first movement is a passage where the right hand has a polyrhythmic very energetic passage. And, and I thought for a while but I should suggest that, but to bring out this rhythm in a in a very mark harder way. You would use the left hand. I think it's it's a great help to make it more characteristic. But obviously it's it's your choice to follow that suggestion or to say no, not for me. And so these are two examples one serves a very musical idea, which I think is is really important. And the other one is, you know, is helpful to to play that in a technically really precise way. So, Andreas, we have some fingering original fingerings by Brahms, we all printed them all in italics, because if print print. What do you think, talking about the passage you showed us in the first sonata first movement, what there's no, no Brahms fingering what, what do you think had Brahms done, maybe he used the left hand like you do you did it or what do you think what is his style of playing his own words. I think this is a misconception that that a composer would be exactly writing it in the two systems the way they would play it. And they did it simply for practical reasons to avoid ledger lines or have you and just wrote it in the other system. And, and I think Brahms fingerings are very interesting, very idiosyncratic, and there is a little old fashioned. And this is, it is something which was also described the way he played the piano and it was very special and there is there are some fingerings which I try to follow. And I was always struggling and, and then I even spoke to colleagues and I said, gosh, you know that's really quite a, quite a difficult passage to play. And I thought, let's, let's try another fingering and here's one example, and that's from the, from the book was 116 number two, and you can see it. And here, and I make a further suggestion, adding to Brahms's fingering, which I think for me, all of a sudden made it much easier to play this passage. So, and then I was very happy to, you know, when I talked to colleagues and said, Oh my God, you know that was so helpful. And I think it's absolutely fine not to use Brahms's fingering. Again, I'm sure he would have suggested he would make a suggestion and say look, use it or leave it. So talking about hands, we all know that we are individuals, we have all different shape of hands. What's the perfect in your idea, the perfect pianist hand, how does it look? Yes, I think fingers, contrary to common belief should not be too long. They, you know, the hand itself, and the palm should be powerful because that's, that's where the strength comes from, and, and hands should be very flexible. So, I know some students, they have pretty big hands, but they're not very flexible, and, and they still find it hard to, to, to play certain chords, while others with smaller hands would not have that problem. So, it's something very individual, very personal, and, and therefore you cannot make everyone happy. But I would say there are certain common grounds, which, you know, I'm trying to use a lot, and I think this is, this is good. When it, when it comes to, to a publication. I also find it interesting that you have also fingerings, which would fit a musical temperament. So some people find it very important that the fingering would support their memorizing process. So they would find it easier to memorize a passage with a certain fingering. Other people say, I don't have a problem, I just need a technically comfortable fingering. And, and I would often try to find the fingering, which is not the most comfortable, but the most musical one, which would, you know, bring out a melody and or, or, or, you know, make sure that that you have that legato line or you don't please lose the base or, you know, all this. And even if it's a, if it's a less comfortable fingering, or a more controversial one, if it serves a musical idea, I would do. Talking about comfortness, comfortability. What about the tempo, I mean, and the memorizing thing. I think sometimes in, you know, in a, in a slow tempo, if you really want to bring the music into your fingers first, you have a slow you choose a slow tempo. And it may be not the best fingering in the original tempo, if it's a fast tempo, what, what is your approach to this aspect. Yes, you would, you would sometimes have fingerings which work beautifully when you play that passage in a slow tempo, the moment you speed it up. It starts to get challenging. And, and this is, you know, interesting, you might also have a few fingerings in our edition, which you would go, Oh, that's unusual. And that would say, well, just wait until you have to speed up that that passage. And all of a sudden you would, you would notice are this is why it works because it really works when you when you play it in a fast speed. Thank you very much. You've recorded the complete piano works of Johannes Brahms yourself. So may I ask, is it a long, long love story between you and Brahms or how, how is your approach to this huge repertoire. I remember when I was a child I, I, and the first time I heard actually his piano works. I was completely fascinated by it. And I have to say, I'm also astonished that not many people actually perform the complete works by Brahms, which I find surprising. And I thought, yeah, that's, that's possibly something I want to do. And I have to say to learn, perform, and, and think about all the words, gives you a broader perspective and you also start to understand or get a deeper understanding of his, of his composition. Andreas there, the surprising or not so surprising thing with Brahms is there's his first opus, the first work he really published dedicated to Joseph Joachim is so connected, as you said before, to Robert Schumann and his circle. And he was a young, a young pianist composer himself. So when he started publishing his words, it was piano solo work, I mean the opus one is C major sonata is incredibly difficult to play, hard to play. And may I ask you if it's, it doesn't make a difference for you if you play this as a young pianist, the, you know, the repertoire of the young prosperous Johannes, or the very late the latest works, the, the intermezzi etc. Being a young person or an old person doesn't make a difference. You know, what's your experience with Brahms over the years. That's an interesting question. I think it has advantages both ways. So if you, if you talk about the sonatas for instance, of course, you have to be a young spirit. And it is so storm and strong. It's wonderful. But I think a student would benefit enormously. When they would play the late works as well. In 1717, 1819. Because it's a different approach, and to get actually that his, his, his compositional ideas and how they develop, and, and also the intimacy of the pieces, which you can't, you can't just put the melody and just some accompaniment underneath. That is not Brahms, not even in this early works. But I think it's, it's also absolutely marvelous if you have an older pianist who plays some of the great virtuosic pieces and I, I think, you know, take the Paganini variations. I noticed that one or two performances, they were so perfect that they were not even exciting anymore. And you want to have someone who also struggles and, you know, it has to be an Olympic fight. And yes, and they're so inventive as well. And it's not just the virtuosity for the sake of fast notes and fast passages. It's actually the sound, the sound world he develops and so he never Brahms, he never composes a piece for the sake of being virtuosic. He had the full range from the early to the late. And, and there's so much to discover. And, and I think all ages will benefit from it. And thank you very much indeed for the wonderful explanation. And you said revolutionary I have to think about this. Andrea, thank you so much for this wonderful talk and let's hope that many, many pianists will find it very helpful to have your fingerings and your suggestions to perform these works from opus one to opus 119. Together with the hand or text edition. Andrea, thank you very much for your time and have a good night and hope to see you again very soon. No, thank you very much. That's really wonderful to talk and it's really wonderful to be associated with the hand of publishers.