모처럼 NHK를 켜니 마리앙 조안 피레스가 나왔다. 베토벤 소나타 31번를 친다. 다음은 슈베르트의 환상곡. 끝곡으로 첼로반주로 ‘새의 노래’, 카잘스가 편곡한 스페인 카탈루니아 민요가 희미하게 사라진다.

피레스는 바이올린니스트 오귀스탕 뒤메이의 반주를 많이 했다. 현재 브라질에 산다고 하니, 카잘스가 고향을 생각하며 흥얼거리던 그 ‘새의 노래’가 더욱 슬프게 들렸던 것 같다.

피레스에 대하여 궁금해져 웹을 검색하니 다음과 같은 글이 있었다.

Maria Jo? Pires, born in Portugal, began playing the piano at the age of three and gave her first public performance at the age of five. At sixteen she graduated from the Lisbon Conservatory, having studied Piano, Composition, Harmony and Theory with Prof. Campos Coelho and Francine Benoit. A Gulbenkian scholarship enabled her to study with Rosl Schmidt at the Musikakademie and with Karl Engel in Hannover.

Pires won the Beethoven Bicentennial Competition in Brussels in 1970 and made her debut in London in 1986 and New York in 1989. In 1987 she was soloist with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and Claudio Abbado on their inaugural tour to Hamburg, Paris and Amsterdam. She is now a regular visitor to all the major orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris.

In addition to pursuing her career as a soloist, Maria Jo? Pires is an avid performer of chamber music. Since 1989 she has worked primarily with the French violinist Augustin Dumay and it was with him that she made her London debut. The two artists have also appeared together throughout Europe, and have visited Japan giving recitals during an extended tour in autumn 1992 and summer 1994, and together with the cellist Jian Wang (a perfect addition to form a trio), they toured in the Far East during autumn 1998.

을하