In vocal-music circles, the term "accompanist" has generally gone out of fashion, but at no time could it have been properly applied to Julius Drake. With long-established collaborations with artists such as Ian Bostridge, Joyce DiDonato, Gerald Finley and Christopher Maltman (he has also concertized with Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirchschlager and José van Dam), Drake has established himself as a genuine musical partner. While he considers himself "gregarious," Drake is notably politic about answering specific questions about the performers he has worked with through his long career. This month he performs at Carnegie Hall in an all-Schubert program with Dorothea Röschmann, Ian Bostridge and Thomas Quasthoff. Recently, he spoke with OPERA NEWS about the challenges of a career in musical collaboration.

ON: As a child, did you sing in a chorus or play another instrument? What deepened your understanding of the singers and instrumentalists you perform with?

JD: I didn't sing in choirs, and my children will tell you that I am about the worst singer in the world. But I did play the double bass, because my piano teacher felt that I ought to have a second string to my bow, so to speak, so that if things didn't go well as a pianist, which was clearly what I wanted to do from about the age of seven, and if it didn't go well, maybe if I could play the double bass, I would always be able to earn a living. However, she was wrong there, since I didn't get along at all with the double bass and gave it up pretty quickly!

I think by playing a great deal with other instruments you do learn a lot about how those instruments work, rather than from having played one yourself. And singing a song is very different from playing an instrument — inside yourself, rather than outside yourself. I think the main difference is the words. When one is working with singers, one is involved with this third dimension, and everything about the words makes a difference. Words have to be able to speak — they need to have space. Certain consonants take longer to speak before you get to the vowel. You have to have a sort of intuition about how the words can come across, and it affects the way you play, obviously.

ON: Did you have any particular mentors in your education or early in your career who particularly inspired you?

JD: There were two pianists who particularly inspired me. One was Menahem Pressler, of the Beaux Arts Trio. Hearing him with his trio in London planted the first seeds in my brain that I might like to do chamber music and spend time on the stage playing the piano with others. The other pianist was Geoffrey Parsons, whom I would also hear playing with the great singers of the day — whether it was Schwarzkopf or de los Angeles — and again I would sit there and see him playing music at such a high standard and think, that would be a wonderful way to play the piano too. There was nothing that smacked in any way of somebody who was putting a program together on short notice or would let anything other than the highest standard be acceptable. That was very inspiring, and when I then studied with him, he made it quite clear the sort of work that was required to play to a high standard. It was not something you just do by winging it on any natural talent you might have.

ON: Did you find that being involved in the world of song influenced your music-making as a chamber musician?

JD: Definitely, very much so, particularly because so many of the composers who wrote songs we perform regularly — whether it be Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Fauré, Debussy or any number of others — if they were great song composers, you often got the very most intimate of all their music. Just by knowing Fauré's songs, it is a lot easier to play his chamber music — it's a lot easier to get to the bottom of what a composer is getting at. Often, when great composers are writing songs, they are somehow expressing the very essence of themselves.

ON: Have you found that young pianists think they are off the hook by playing songs and chamber music, since they are not obliged to perform from memory?

JD: Absolutely. In my classes, that's what I'm going over at with my pianists all the time. You're not just filling in harmonies — you're an equal partner, and it's not good enough unless you are playing it really well. So often, when I find pianists are not playing a score very well, I see that they haven't even written in fingerings yet. To me, not having fingerings written in symbolizes not having properly prepared it.

ON: Is there a particular singer that you have heard who has influenced you most of all?

JD: For me, I think the biggest influence must be Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau on recordings, and also hearing him live. I must have heard him at least three or four times in London before he retired, and I still remember those recitals. His style of singing song — the fact that it's so intimate, almost like being spoken to rather than being sung to — is for me a sort of ideal that one is always striving for. I think he had a wonderful way in the recording studio of achieving this that works so well in that repertoire. And it's not even the recordings when he was at his peak that speak to me the most. For example, the complete Schumann songs with Eschenbach are amazing in the artistry that comes through despite any vocal infelicities. It's the way of communicating that has been the greatest influence on me in my life in song.

ON: Which singers that you've worked with have had an impact on you musically over the years?

JD: There are some close colleagues that I have worked with often over a number of years — Ian Bostridge, for instance. We've worked together since 1992, and that's a long time, and you build up a type of trust with close colleagues like that. I will often be grateful to hear what Ian feels about the piano part. He feels as passionately about the piano part as he does about the vocal part. Because of the relationship of trust that we have built up, he can be very critical about how he thinks the piano part is sounding under my hands. I won't be offended, and I won't be hurt — I'll try to learn from it and try to get at what he's getting at. And I think that one of the great joys of chamber-music partnerships is that you can make a team. And I hope the same works the other way around. And there are other close partnerships that I value for the same reasons — people like Gerald Finley, another person I feel very close to and therefore very relaxed with.

ON: Were you always good at organizing the time it takes to learn music, or did that come through experience?

JD: That is a very, very good point you bring up. I think that's one of the really difficult things — juggling your programs, so that when you go onstage you are fully prepared. Everyone works differently, of course, but I need to keep practicing to keep the notes in my fingers. For instance, I will often need to play the same songs in different keys with different voice types. Often I find that it might take quite a bit of time to get the song in a different key feeling properly in my fingers and ear. I am not just going to be able to do that at a drop of a hat and go onstage and feel comfortable. After many years of doing this, I have a better idea about how much time it takes to really have those songs in your fingers and your brain before you get on a stage and perform it.

BRIAN MOLL is music director of opera at the Boston Conservatory and chair of the collaborative piano department at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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