André Watts is hoping he will not break out in song Sunday.
He knows it's bound to happen. It always does, always has. Two things are givens at an André Watts performance: He will grimace - a lot - and sing - usually quietly.
"I actually played a recital the night before last. And it was a brand new piano and it was very, very quiet. And at some point in the middle of the concert I thought, 'What are you doing? You're singing louder than these notes', and I was pounding away," Watts said during a phone call Monday from a concert stop in Florida. Then he chuckled softly, like he was in on the joke even if it was on him.
"I will sure have to pay attention to it while I'm playing and Michael York is speaking or he'll think, 'Boy this guy's competitive'," he said.
On Sunday, Watts will share the Berger Performing Arts Center stage with York for Chamber Music Plus cellist and playwright Harry Clark's latest musical portrait "Lisztian Loves." The English-born York, whose nearly 45-year film career includes roles in nearly 150 movies and TV films, will perform the dramatic reading while Watts will play a program of Liszt music that includes the popular "Un Sospiro" (aka Étude No. 39) and his Hungarian Rhapsody. Watts also will perform Liszt's "The Sad Monk," which he has never performed before, he said.
His appearance here is his first in Tucson since he performed with UApresents in 2003. It also marks the first time he has performed in one of Clark's plays, although he's done recitals for Clark and his wife Sanda Schuldmann's Chamber Music Plus when it was in Connecticut.
Clark wrote the piece for Watts, with whom he has been friends since Clark was a cellist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and Watts was the guest soloist.
"I played Second Brahms, which has that enormous cello solo in the third movement. It was, I believe, his first time to play that solo with the Hartford Symphony," Watts, 64, recalled.
"That's a very scary solo because you have to play very lyrically and calmly," added Clark, who admitted he was a bit nervous. "But he was complimentary afterwards."
"We did good concerts and then went out and became friends," Watts added.
Over the years, Clark, Watts and Schuldmann have remained friends; last year, Schuldmann reached out to Watts after she suffered a stroke to seek his advice. He had suffered a subdural hematoma in 2002 and escaped with no lasting effects.
"It's that recognition factor. If someone says this hurts, or that happens, my blood pressure, I thought I was going to die - yeah, I know," the 64-year-old Watts said.
When he was writing "Lisztian Loves," Clark consulted with Watts on the music.
"What was very nice is that André is one of the few pianists who plays not only the really well-known stuff by Liszt but particularly the latter works," said Clark, who was inspired by the music to shape his story around the later part of Liszt's life.
Clark's piece begins at Liszt's ending.
"Harry is so clever. He found a perfect angle - Liszt as an old man looking back," Watts said. "It's perfect for an overview of his life."
The performance Sunday is the piece's world premiere. Watts and York will perform it again at Chicago's prestigious Ravinia Festival in July, an engagement arranged by the festival's CEO and President Welz Kauffman, who heard about the piece during a trip to Tucson. Watts said Kauffman had worked with "Michael" before and made a few phone calls to pull the performance together.
"I don't know why I'm calling him Michael. I've never met the guy. 'He's Mr. York to me buddy!'" Watts joked, then added that he's heard York "is a very nice, kind person" who probably wouldn't be offended by the informality.
As for the possibility of singing during the concert, Watts is working on it. And on toning down his facial expressions, which remind you of a rock guitarist lost on a screeching solo rant.
"I'm not sure (Liszt) would approve of either my position or my grimacing at the keyboard," he said with a chuckle. "It's OK to get lost; I have a lot of colleagues who get lost. But they do it without making so many damn faces. That's why I really hate looking at myself in performances."
If you go
"Lisztian Loves"
• Presented by: Chamber Music Plus.
• Starring: Pianist André Watts and actor Michael York.
• Written by: Harry Clark.
• When: 3 p.m. Sunday.
• Where: Berger Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Speedway.
• Tickets: $60 by calling 400-5439 or ordering online at www.cmpsouthwest.org
• Et cetera: This is the world premiere performance of "Lisztian Loves." Watts and York will perform it again at the venerable Ravinia Festival in Chicago on July 20.
• Review: See review of Sunday's performance in Monday's Tucson/Region section.
Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@azstarnet.com or 573-4642.
