Acclaimed Pianist On The Power Of Music To Connect With People

Clare Hammond has been hailed as a “pianist of extraordinary gifts” (Gramophone) and “immense power” (The Times). In 2016, she won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award in recognition of outstanding achievement and over the past six years has given more than 30 concerts in UK prisons. Her wide-ranging Harrogate recital of Romantic music celebrates the legacy of recently rediscovered composer Hélène de Montgeroult, fêted as “the missing link between Mozart and Chopin”.

Here, Clare tells us more:

Your HISS programme is incredibly varied. What can you tell us about it?

I like to build a programme around core works that I really love, in this case it’s Ravel’s Miroirs, which I’ve wanted to do since I was a teenager. Musically, it’s such a thrilling and imaginative piece and it’s a real joy to play. I like to combine well known works like this with those that are less familiar but which I think audiences will enjoy just as much. Classical programmes can sometimes get a bit repetitive and people end up playing the same works all the time, but because there’s such a wealth of really wonderful music, particularly for the piano, I think it’s really important to explore that and bring it to light.

You’re also performing works by the little known French composer Hélène de Montgeroult who has been described as the “missing link between Mozart and Chopin”. What can you tell us about her?

Montgeroult was a contemporary of Mozart and lived an extraordinary life. She was an aristocrat who got caught up in the French Revolution and managed to negotiate her freedom by improvising a set of variations on La Marseillaise during her trial, which showed extraordinary presence of mind. Some of her music, particularly the Etudes, is extraordinary and it’s astonishing that we didn’t know about her music earlier. Part of this is because she was a woman and a very private character and also her one son didn’t really appreciate the magnitude of what she had achieved. He didn’t save all of her correspondence and manuscripts, so it’s taken a long time for her music to come to light. I feel very fortunate that I happen to be working at a time when people have become more aware of her.

What takes Montgeroult’s music so special?

She wrote in a style that was really ahead of its time. It sounds more Romantic even though she was composing decades before people like Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann, so her music is remarkably advanced. All great composers have a very specific style. You immediately recognise works by Ravel or Mozart, for instance, and Montgeroult’s music is also very distinctive. There’s nothing generic about her music. It’s very exciting. We are in the process of discovering a new voice and a significant composer, and that doesn’t happen very often.

How did you first become interested in music, and what inspired you to pursue a career in it?

When I was eight, I was taken to an orchestral performance at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham, where I grew up. I can’t recall which orchestra it was, or what they played, but I still have a visceral memory of the excitement I felt. I was completely swept up by the music and decided at that point that music would be my career.

Why did you choose the piano as your instrument?

It was chosen for me! My mother never had the chance to learn piano and regretted it, so she made sure that her children had the opportunity. I started when I was six and wasn’t desperately keen at first, but it soon became a real passion.

What drew you to classical music?

I enjoy listening to jazz very much and some pop music too, but with the piano it just felt very natural for me to play classical music. I feel very fortunate to have been able to build a career because although it’s challenging it’s a wonderful thing to be able to share all this wonderful music with people.

Since 2018 you have been performing prison concerts in the UK. Can you tell us a bit more about this and the impact it’s had on you?

I suffered from post-natal depression after my second daughter which prompted me to evaluate my life and reassess what I really wanted to do. It was around this time that I started doing prison concerts as a way of connecting with people in a different way. They went down really well and it was interesting to see how music resonates with people when they’re in a dark place. I’ve found there are people in prisons who may not have been exposed to classical music before, or thought it wasn’t something for them, who then found themselves connecting with the music emotionally. This has been hugely rewarding for me to see and has helped with my own recovery. It has made me really appreciate the power of music to inspire people and create a sense of community, and I feel I understand the purpose of music much better now.

What is the future of classical music? Recent research shows that 20% of audiences aren’t coming back and with the recent blow to several organisations with Birmingham City Council cutting funding for all culture projects and local arts development, is it a bleak future?

The classical music industry is certainly going through a tough time at the moment and it is very easy to lose heart. Funding cuts have been catastrophic in places, we hear frequently that music education is being axed in schools, and streaming has decimated recording income for performers. Yet classical music has lasting appeal and will survive. For those of us working in the Arts, it is vitally important to keep heart, respond actively to change, and keep trying to communicate our love for this astonishing art form to as many people as possible.

What is your biggest achievement or highlight from your performance career so far?

That’s a very difficult question to answer. A performance career is so demanding, in so many myriad and unforeseeable ways, that my biggest achievement, really, is sustaining the determination to keep going. The highlight is managing to communicate the passion I feel for this music to an audience, and seeing how it can inspire and energise people.

What are you looking forward to most about performing in Harrogate?

I’ve played in Harrogate before but this is the first time for the Festival. I’ve read a lot about the Sunday Series concerts and I’m very glad to be a part of them. I have family in Harrogate so my auntie and uncle will be coming along – it’s always lovely to play for your family so this will feel like I’m playing on home turf.

How do you hope the Harrogate audience responds to your concert?

I hope they have an entertaining morning first of all. I also hope they discover something new and feel emotionally connected to the music. I think the whole point of live music is that it’s a shared experience and I feel there’s something very precious about that.