Interview, John-Henry Crawford on Rachmaninoff (transcript)

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth, John-Henry Crawford and Santiago Asuncion dive into the "singing" quality of the cello - an idea so often discussed that it's almost a cliché, yet also clearly perceptible in Rachmaninoff's music.

Placing arrangements of his vocal music alongside instrumental works (including a gorgeous arrangement for cello and piano of the famous eighteenth variation from the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini) shows the closeness of the relationship, and Crawford and Asuncion's musicianship draws out this expressive nature still further.

John-Henry was kind enough to offer some of his thoughts on the works recorded here, and his performing career more broadly...

Your previous album, Corazón, focused on composers from Latin America - quite a different corner of the repertoire. What led you to look to Rachmaninoff for this one?

It’s true, Russia and Latin America couldn’t be further apart, both geographically and culturally, and maybe even musically. The idea for this album came to me because this past year, 2023, is the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninoff’s birth. And Rachmaninoff, being a pianist, composer and conductor, is mostly known for - of course - his piano works, his piano concerti; but I wanted to show his work in a different light, and show it in a way that maybe people hadn’t considered before, which is Rachmaninoff as a singer.

I believe that Rachmaninoff, in his piano works and his vocal works, and of course the cello sonata, was not just trying to be a pianist, but he was trying to sing, and be a singer - through the melodies that he writes, through the registers he chooses. I think that’s very apparent in the pieces that he chose to write, such as the Vocalise; several of the piano arrangements that we’ve done on this album really show his voice in a way that I think people aren’t, maybe, used to hearing. So to start off the album is a piece that’s actually for piano solo - Elégie, from his Morceaux de fantasie. And we’ve sort of ripped it apart in a way, and given the cello the melody, and the piano is layering this melody and harmonising around it. I think it immediately shows Rachmaninoff in this different light of “composer as singer”, and not just “as pianist”.

So I was very glad to work on this album, and Victor, who is a marvellous pianist, really shows Rachmaninoff in his optimal state in my opinion. I’m just very lucky to have been able to make this record and choose the pieces that we did.

Like an increasing number of today’s musicians, you make use of social media - in particular giving your followers a peek into the daily life of a working musician via your Instagram. Do you ever worry about being so constantly ‘on display’, even beyond your concert appearances and recordings?

This is very relevant today, because more and more musicians are using social media - Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook - to connect with audiences and to share either the behind-the-scenes or their process. I think it’s a wonderful thing, on the whole. Personally I do try draw a line between my private life and my professional life. And there are certain things that I’ll share, moments that I think are fun, from my private life, that maybe audiences might want to see - whether it’s jumping into a lake in Alaska or some pictures of bears, or something that I’ve found that I think people can relate to. But I certainly want to keep certain things to myself, and I think it’s just up to each person to decide what they want to share and what they don’t. Ultimately I think we shouldn’t do things that we’re uncomfortable with. So, you know, if people don’t want to post a video of them practising in their pjs, they shouldn’t feel obliged to!

The other thing is that oftentimes we record things that don’t make it out onto social media. And oftentimes we record things that we didn’t plan to go on social media but end up going on there because they turn out to be something we like. So I think we really just have to be honest with ourselves and be true to ourselves as far as what we want to share. Just everyone kind of figuring it out for themselves and deciding what they, voluntarily, want to put out there.

The eighteenth variation from the Paganini Variations has deservedly become a favourite with audiences. What’s the history of the transcription for cello and piano that you’re playing here?

It was a little bit of a challenge with some of the transcriptions because several of them were written for piano and orchestra, and there’s a grandeur to these works that we wanted to maintain with the arrangement. And I’m happy to say I feel we did that with this Rhapsody variation, because Victor’s playing almost exactly what the piano soloist is playing when it’s with orchestra, and I wanted to keep that exactly, as close to the score as possible. And what it does is it allows Victor to just kind of take the reins and be the soloist in this movement. For the cello line, what I wanted to do was give the cellist an opportunity to lay a foundation - sort of a bed - that the orchestra normally does.

The other thing is that there are some arrangements of this work for cello and piano, and they don’t quite take the the line to its climax, so there’s a little bit of a modulation and then a starting over again - and I wanted to do it just exactly as Rachmaninoff wrote it. So that’s what we did with this arrangement, which is kind of a fusion of an adaptation by Yi-Wen Tsai. It’s kind of an arrangement-of-an-arrangement, and I’m very glad that we were able to do this, and I hope that the integrity of the original piece holds true in this arrangement.

Your three albums to date have been very different. A triple-bill of sonatas, a whistle-stop tour of Latin America, and a tribute to Rachmaninoff. Can you tell us anything about what’s in the works for the future?

I can’t say too much, because things are still kind of going behind the scenes, figuring out the next project - but I can say that there is an album that is in the pipeline, that has been recorded, and it features some of the greatest works for cello. I can also say that this recording is with an orchestra, and I’m very happy to be sharing this next year some time. I can’t wait to let people know about it but I can’t say too much other than that.