KEY POINTS:
Tonight, on the Town Hall stage, Tamas Vesmas farewells the city he has called home for almost quarter of a century. Next month, the pianist crosses two oceans to Paris, the city he embraced 40 years ago when he fled the regimented rigours of his native Romania.
"So many things have been written and said about that nation and its problems, I am not sure if I can add too much," he says.
Nevertheless, in spite of political restrictions there were cultural compensations. "At 14, I had a little trio and we played all the Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn trios. We didn't quite manage all of Beethoven's because the Archduke was too difficult.
"We really got through the repertoire. We were keen, passionate and this music was the basis of our existence."
His Bucharest teacher had valuable connections, having learned herself from Alfred Cortot and Yvonne Lefebure.
Eventually, a scholarship took Vesmas to Paris with one suitcase and US$10 bought on the black market.
Then there was his time in London during the 1970s. "It was the centre of the musical world," Vesmas remembers.
He played a complete cycle of Brahms piano works in three recitals at Wigmore Hall and pianists Radu Lupu, Murray Perahia and Mitsuko Uchida were close friends. It was pianist Peter Frankl and violinist Gyorgy Pauk, returning from some New Zealand concerts, who advised him to apply for a position at the University of Auckland.
Once he arrived, his first concert experience with "the absolutely amazing Dorian Singers under Peter Godfrey" confirmed it had been the right decision. Within months, Vesmas would make an exhaustive national tour for the old Music Federation; tonight's concert is one of a number around the country that revisit his introduction to New Zealand audiences all those years ago.
That first tour put him in contact with the musical life of this country, Vesmas explains. "I found out that people not only loved music but they were also very knowledgeable. Farmers, teachers, folk from all kinds of backgrounds. I learned you should never underestimate your audience."
Vesmas' various CDs show that we should not underestimate him either. He has recorded Prokofiev and Schnittke with cellist Alexander Ivashkin, a double album of the complete Debussy Preludes as well an attractive set coupling the music of Debussy and Bartok.
He is quick to point out that tonight's programme includes the second set of Debussy Preludes as well as Bartok's 1920 Improvisations, which features a tribute to the French composer.
Tamas Vesmas is more than just a remote figure at the Steinway. He was responsible for launching the Auckland International Piano Festival in 2006, and has touched dozens of musicians through his teaching. He is modest about his abilities. Quoting the pianist Heinrich Neuhaus, who once claimed that there were no great teachers, only great students, Vesmas stipulates that "the big talents will get there sooner or later regardless of their teachers".
Yet, he worries that "too many just practise".
"I had one very clever student playing Ravel and suggested that she listen to Daphnis and Chloe to stimulate her sound imagination. Unfortunately, she didn't. But then this was a person of 18 or 19 who admitted she had not read a single book in her whole life. It's not just a matter of playing the keys."
* Pianist Tamas Vesmas will be playing at the Auckland Town Hall, tonight at 8pm
