A perpetual and enduring dialogue

A quick dictionary search will confirm that the word “timeless” means something not restricted by a particular date, nor subject to the passing of time or changes in fashion. To quote Merriam-Webster: Something that is “timeless” has no beginning or end and is not affected by years going by. Despite the appeal this term has for selling everything from luxury watches to Levi jeans to Coca Cola, we at PPI believe that solo piano music truly deserves the label. Not only because so much of the beloved and respected keyboard repertory has been around much longer than the above commodities (birth of the piano, circa 1700, birth of Diet Coke, 1982), but also because it constantly finds new relevance without having to seek it out. Marketing to achieve timelessness is one thing. Possessing it inherently is quite another.

Commodities, however thoughtfully designed, are always subject to economic climates and the human desire for newness. A spontaneous visceral response to tone, pitch and rhythm, tapping tapping directly into the brain’s emotional core? That’s a bedazzling innate power that truly belongs only to music. The fact that a composer can commit an authentic and individual expression of intellect and emotion on paper and then grant others the potential of making it immediately audible, perhaps centuries hence, to me, is what elevates music above all the other arts. More than painting, writing or sculpture, music provides an ongoing conversation, a perpetual chain of connection between one generation and the next. And whether you’re performing the music yourself or merely listening in quiet appreciation, the same philosophical truth applies: Time vanishes. Chronology flattens. 

Looking at our Timeless lineup for 2026-2027, I encourage you to notice the thoughtful continuing storylines in each artist’s chosen repertory, and marvel at the exciting dialogue that emerges between the programs. Although it’s almost impossible to single out a sole example (Chopin was inspired by Field! Liszt and Chopin were lifelong frenemies! Brahms admired Chopin but allegedly snoozed through a performance of Liszt’s B minor sonata! Amy Beach was deeply influenced by Brahms, Chopin and Liszt!) I was immediately riveted to observe that both Ying Li (on December 6th, 2026) and Nikola Meeuwsen (on May 9th, 2027) will play arrangements of Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor. 

Now, the original work, composed between 1717 and 1720, was intended for the solo violin, but it doesn’t take advance degrees in musicology to recognize, on listening, that Bach’s predilection for the organ, underpins the imagination behind it. As Brahms remarked in a letter to Clara Schumann, more than 150 years later, in the summer of 1877: 

“The Chaconne is, in my opinion, one of the most wonderful and most incomprehensible pieces of music. Using the technique adapted to a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. (…) There is only one way in which I can secure undiluted joy from the piece, though on a small and only approximate scale, and that is when I play it with the left hand alone. The same difficulty, the nature of the technique, the rendering of the arpeggios, everything conspires to make me feel like a violinist!”

Hear what Brahms means by this as you listen to his 1879 transcription of the Chaconne here, played with stupefying agility by Daniil Trifonov. 

Then compare this to Busoni’s completely opposing but equally stunning interpretation (here played breathtakingly by a young Hélène Grimaud) and the conversation continues. Which version evokes the strongest emotion in you? Which aesthetic is the most faithful to the original Bach? Which interpreter carries the most authentic voice? And, come PPI’s recitals, which performance will speak to you more intently?

None of these questions have finite answers, of course. They shouldn’t! What they do, though, are point us to the very essence of what we strive to do at PPI: To keep conversing, backwards and forwards, across times and programs, for 49 seasons and counting, to infinitely relish in the spirit of the eternal!