I'd be interested to know what others would like to hear interviewers ask performers or composers. Granted, asking in this context is pure fantasy, given that no one here needs to worry about getting future interviews (which rules out asking, e.g., 'why was your last recording of negligible encore fluff or endlessly-recorded warhorses? is because you've run out of ideas or because you're having trouble making your yacht payments? or were you always this shallow and just pretending otherwise?).
No, let's assume you would be tactful enough not to be quite so brutish and tasteful enough not to ask about the performer's romantic or family life. What then [I]would[I] you ask?
I think I'd ask change and 'what if?' sorts of questions: how has your playing changed over the years? what sort of sound do you cherish now that you didn't before? which composers have you grown tired of? which do you now yearn to play whose work you wouldn't have thought to play earlier? And the Pauline Viardot question (she of the dying breath 'Norma'): what do you wish you could play that you just can''t at the moment (and perhaps never will be able to)?
No, let's assume you would be tactful enough not to be quite so brutish and tasteful enough not to ask about the performer's romantic or family life. What then [I]would[I] you ask?
I think I'd ask change and 'what if?' sorts of questions: how has your playing changed over the years? what sort of sound do you cherish now that you didn't before? which composers have you grown tired of? which do you now yearn to play whose work you wouldn't have thought to play earlier? And the Pauline Viardot question (she of the dying breath 'Norma'): what do you wish you could play that you just can''t at the moment (and perhaps never will be able to)?
Comment