Piano Man

Michael's got something that I can't explain. It must be God given. He's just got some kind of magic, and when he's doing a slow movement often I'm moved to tears.

– Sister Mary Eulalie on Michael Houstoun's musical gifts, early in this documentary

I was able to reproduce the songs I heard on the radio — this is what I've heard, you know — and I was able to correct my mistakes quite quickly, so that suggested that I had an ear and sort of some kind of understanding. And I must have liked it to some degree because I believe that I was asking to be taught by the time I was five.

– Michael Houstoun on his talent as a small child

Musicians or indeed any performing artist are really athletes in their own right with the same type of skill set and same demands on them as Olympic athletes. So in the case of a pianist they are an athlete at the keyboard, and they need to have perfect technique, as does an elite kayaker; they need to be able to execute things at speed like a sprinter needs to;, they need endurance, like a marathon runner, and they need the psychological skills like an elite tennis player.

– Sports doctor Dale Speedy on Michael Houstoun's set of physical and mental requirements

I made no announcement that I had it. I just withdrew, and my withdrawing from performing was just done very quietly through the management systems that had organised the concerts. There were no big public announcements, and people gradually got to know about it and of course everybody...wanted me to get better you know, but I didn't talk about it.

– Michael Houstoun on being struck with neurological illness focal dystonia

The Beethoven Sonata cycle is the Everest of the pianist's repertoire. Not many pianists ever attempt it. This is an achievement in the musical annals of New Zealand that will take a long time to match.

– Houstoun's former tutor Maurice Till on Houstoun's series of Ludwig van Beethoven concerts

At the end of the concert they threw flowers on the stage, and I was deeply affected by it because he'd nailed it.

– Ian Fraser recalls Michael Houstoun's performances of Beethoven's sonatas

One is treated as a commodity, as something to sell. The agencies, the people who control the business, the people with the finance, the people who promote artists are only interested in it from a sales point of view . . . they're trying to sell me to the market and I don't like that. I feel like a pound of butter.

– A young Michael Houstoun, in an interview from the late 1970s

Michael's achievement in overcoming his focal dystonia is nothing short of phenomenal. There have been very few international level musicians who have achieved what he has, and then usually only with the help of botox which only ever gives a couple of months relief and then the problem is back again.

– Sports doctor Dale Speedy on Michael Houstoun's remarkable comeback

Michael has technique to burn. You know there's never an issue technically with him. But it's not technique for the sake of pyrotechnics, it's technique at the service of music, and that's why I consider him our best musician.

– Conductor Marc Taddei on Michael Houstoun

...the first time I heard it, I was sort of galvanised. I remember my stomach turned over, and that has always been the sign in my life that something's real. It's like when my stomach flips, I take it seriously, and it absolutely flipped, and it said 'that's what you will do'. That was my life somehow explained to me.

– Michael Houstoun on first hearing Beethoven's Apassionata Sonata, at the start of this documentary

When I saw him planning the whole cycle, especially over such a short period, I thought he was crazy. Because what other pianist in the world has done 32 Beethoven sonatas — that is to say 800 pages of manuscript, memorising it in the head, and done it in a time span of three weeks?

– Michael Hostoun's ex teacher Ian Dando on Houstoun's plan to perform all 32 of Beethoven's sonatas

At the end of that cycle there was a feeling I guess amongst everybody there that this needed to be recorded for posterity . . . In the end I said 'well damn it, we'll form a trust, and we'll record them.' Because it seemed a great thing to do . . . in the end, unwittingly, we established what I think has been quite a good local classical CD company.

– Late entrepreneur Lloyd Morrison on recording Michael Hostoun's versions of the Beethoven sonatas