Creativity Quote by Victoria de los Angeles

There is a quiet hierarchy embedded in "accompanist", and Victoria de los Angeles knows exactly how loaded the word is. On paper, the accompanist is the helper: the pianist tucked to the side while the singer takes the spotlight. In practice, she implies, the accompanist is a co-author of the performance - and that job is rarer, harder, and more psychologically complex than audiences tend to credit.

The intent here is protective and corrective. De los Angeles is defending an art that disappears when done well. A "great accompanist" needs technique, yes, but also a kind of high-level empathy: the ability to breathe with another person, to anticipate rubato without bullying it, to shape a phrase while seeming to merely follow. That paradox is the point. The accompanist must lead by not leading, assert taste without stealing attention, be emotionally present while remaining professionally invisible.

The subtext also carries a veteran performer's fatigue with mismatch. Singers are often told to be singular, irreplaceable; accompanists are expected to be interchangeable. Her "always really difficult" pushes back against that transactional view, hinting at the scars of collaborations where the piano part was treated as a metronome, not a mind.

Context matters: de los Angeles came up in a 20th-century classical world obsessed with star identity, yet the recital tradition depends on partnership. Her line is a reminder that greatness in music is frequently a two-person illusion - and the most important work is often the work you are not supposed to notice.