What is a good interpretation? I made some conflicting statements in the past few years in this direction: on the one hand I demand to understand what the composer had in mind when he wrote the music down. I am on the other hand not at all satisfied when I “only” play what is written in the music, especially since I know from living composers that they expect us musicians to do something more personal than that with their works. This doesn’t mean one should ignore the composers instructions in general, but we have to make them our own so that at the end we can make our own statement with it. (more…)