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I’ve interviewed many wonderful musicians over the year, have learnt much and had my thinking challenged many times. Here are just a few of the highlights, with links to the full articles: 1 Being an amateur is something to aspire to: perfection is over-rated The late Peter Cropper, former leader of the Lindsays ‘I didn’t start practising until I was 18, and I had a lot to make up. I think that’s why the quartet was successful for the four of us – because we were four amateurs, and amateurs love things much more than professionals. Hans Keller said that there isn’t such a thing as a professional quartet, because quartet people love playing quartets. We did it because we loved it, and I think it came across. I don’t say it was always immaculate. Who wants perfection? Perfection is sterile. We’re human beings.’ 2 We need more global alliances in classical music, especially between music colleges Pinchas Zukerman, violin and viola ‘How can we bring up the standards? Let’s create global coalitions for music education, not just according to country, but bringing everyone together through technology. We’re forming all sorts of alliances, but music schools still feel isolated. One music college doesn’t talk to another. It’s enough already! In medicine, doctors share information about the same patient, but we can’t do that in music. Why are we so isolated?’ 3 Performers can’t demand an audience not cough Viktoria Mullova, violinist ‘The atmosphere in concerts is so stiff. It’s not like when you listen to jazz or pop music. The audience is becoming older and older. People are scared to cough. It’s terrible. What if you want to cough? You don’t do it on purpose. What can you do? I don’t consider myself so important that people can’t even cough. If you can magically provide the kind of sound that fascinates everyone so they start not even breathing then that’s great, but you can’t demand that.’ 4 Being a musician is easier when you’re young Alexander Pavlovsky, first violinist of the Jerusalem Quartet ‘We were 22 when we first played Bartók no.6 and we had fewer questions. I’m not saying it was wrong – it was different. At that age you have passion and endless energy and fewer questions for yourself, because life is easy. Today you know life, the profession and your instrument better, but you have a thousand times more questions. Unless you find a good answer for these questions you can’t be peaceful. They are always on your mind. At the same time you also have much less time to answer them, because you are learning so many new pieces to play for a season. We were given some good advice, that the stage between ages 30 and 40 is a very interesting transition, but it’s also very dangerous. Many musicians and ensembles stop playing and disappear.’ 5 You can learn a lot just by watching and copying other players Paul Silverthorne, violist ‘There are things you can only learn by catching a feeling from another player. When I left the Medici Quartet, I played with the London Sinfonietta, with Nona Liddell, and I used to marvel at her bow arm. It was totally relaxed and yet she made a massive sound. There was no point asking her how she did it. The only way I could pick anything up was by sitting next to her, imagining what her arm felt like and trying to make my arm feel like that.’ 6 The best way to learn jazz violin is not to listen to jazz violinists Regina Carter, violinist ‘The interesting thing about learning this music is that there are no books one, two and three saying, “This is how you bow a swing passage” or “This is how you get the sound.” You just have to listen and copy the sound. For example, as violin players we’re taught to use the whole bow, but with swing or bebop especially, you have to use less bow and be very light on the string. You have to figure out bowings for yourself because some of those lines are not what you expect them to be. You have to figure out how you want to use vibrato, or not use it. I love Ben Webster and the big vibrato he has on his horn so I copy that by slowing it down, or sometimes I’ll use a faster vibrato to get an effect, but the regular vibrato we learnt in class doesn’t work.’ 7 Young musicians should spend less time online. (And maybe some others of us, too!) Thomas Demenga, cellist ‘Young people spend too much time with their media. In my time I practised a lot at one point – five or six hours a day. If you don’t do that you don’t develop ability in your hands. It’s like training for sport. Every sportsperson, dancer or circus artist who has to do something difficult has to practise, practise, practise. There’s no way round it. Before auditions my students get scared and then it’s amazing what happens. They play better, even if it’s a week or two where they really go for it. I don’t understand why they don’t do it all the time. I feel stupid saying that it’s because young people waste a lot of time on the Internet and Facebook, but I have children aged between 11 and 25, and I see what happens. They sit in front of their screens for hours every day. You have 50 people who want a tutti job in a second-tier orchestra and these organisations can choose from all these fantastic players. It’s a competition.’ 8 Contemporary and classical music should be viewed as fundamentally the same John Woolrich, composer ‘Many performers don’t come across contemporary music of any kind, even straightforward contemporary music, and they don’t know how to put the notes together in a musical way. The assumption is that contemporary music is different from Brahms, but it’s not. It’s the same in respect of considering a way of shaping it, slowing down, speeding up.’ 9 The world doesn’t need more violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi, violinist ‘I tell my students that the world doesn’t need another violinist. We need artists, poets, people who move us. I try to influence at least the people in my sphere to take chances and to find their voice, while being faithful to the score. I believe it is possible. I recommend anyone who doesn’t truly love music to look elsewhere for a career, because if you don’t have that love, you don’t have the rewards. All you have is a commercial profession. But even if you love it, you have to eat, so you have to make compromises and sometimes it’s painful.’ 10 We might never understand what a composer is actually trying to do but we have to try Catherine Manson, violinist ‘It’s wonderful that composers set out these complex riddles for us, and they still want us to look at them and to figure them out, and to keep them company. Maybe there’s no answer, but it’s our duty to try to get as close to it as we possibly can and to pay them the respect of trying to solve their puzzles.’ 11 Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas reflect the social hierarchies of the time Gil Shaham, violinist ‘I remember reading an article about the traditional Baroque suite. The author explained that the king and queen, or the couple with the highest rank, would dance first: an allemande, courant, or loure, maybe – a stately dance with movement focused on the arms and legs. Then more of the nobility would join in for a courant, a less-formal running dance. By the time you get to the sarabande, a sensual dance where one would use facial expressions and other parts of their body, or a gallant dance, formality relaxes. Finally, everyone dances a gigue. After reading this article, I found I heard this music differently.’ #view

I have a theory that musicians write in exactly the same style that they play their instruments. I’m pleased to see it proven, somewhat unscientifically, by the new book from Takács Quartet first violinist Edward Dusinberre, Beethoven for a Later Age. In this engaging and insightful account of his life with the group and with the composer’s quartets, Dusinberre shows himself to be as thoughtful, sincere and open a writer as he is a violinist. He also proves adept at counterpoint, weaving together several parallel narratives to keep the pace smart and the tone varied. The underlying one is of his own musical coming-of-age within the Takács Quartet, which he joined in 1993, aged 23 and barely out of musical nappies from Juilliard. Never having played quartets professionally, he finds himself the stiff young Englishman, bound up with three passionate Hungarians who are steeped in the Eastern European music tradition and who have been together for nearly 20 years in one of the world’s most successful string quartets. Thanks to Dusinberre’s ear (and memory) for dialogue, we feel like we are with in the rehearsal room in Boulder, Colorado, as he works out how to fit with his elder colleagues and to make his mark, and it’s a fascinating process – essential reading for any aspiring musician. With self-deprecating humour and remarkable honesty, he charts the ups and downs of being bound to three other people in a creative endeavour that requires near-constant physical proximity. (One secret, it turns out, is booking hotel rooms at other ends of the building, and not sitting next to each other on airplanes or eating together on tour.) The other main narrative is that of Beethoven’s great middle and late quartet opuses, which Dusinberre tells both in historical and musical terms. He explains how Beethoven came to write them, and the relationships with his patrons and performers. He describes certain passages in specific technical detail, and goes into great depth about their musical challenges, offering a rare perspective for the listener. It has been said that ‘Writing about music is like dancing about architecture,’ though, and it helped to have the Takács performances on as I read, fully to appreciate the music and understand Dusinberre’s insights (an accompanying CD would have been a treat). There are several other themes that run throughout. Beethoven himself bestrides the pages with his massive personality, through well-chosen quotes from the man himself and his associates: it’s wonderful to imagine him laughing (when violinist Schuppanzigh can’t play his music), although I’m not sure I needed to visualise him suffering diarrhea. We also have a potted history of Vienna and of Austria, to put the composer and his music in proper context. Rude members of the public also make regular appearances – the book starts comically with an audience member at the Wigmore Hall coughing disruptively, and also includes the story of someone writing to the Takács’s agent to complain about Dusinberre’s foot-tapping. This self-effacing humour is often used to counterpoint more serious subjects and emotions (such as at the death of violist Gábor Ormai) and profound insights about human behaviour, music, and the nature of life itself (none more so than his fascinating analysis of the Grosse Fuge ending of the Op.130 Quartet). For the string-music geeks, there’s plenty of technical detail about how Dusinberre plays the violin, comparisons of the various strings he uses, and a fascinating discussion of how the players’ old Italian instruments work within the group. There is also practical advice on the psychology of rehearsing – one of the things he learns quickly is how rehearsals often go better the less talking there is, with players adjusting better just by listening to each other. And so, like a Beethoven quartet, Dusinberre’s book has great depth, appealing themes, vivid characters, and plenty of light and shade, all cleverly structured, and I recommend it to anyone who has ever enjoyed any of these works (preferably while simultaneously listening to them). This review was first published on Sinfini Music and is republished by permission. #review #stringquartets #takacs #view

The ground-breaking English folk band has broken up after 12 years, leaving this fangirl sad – but grateful I’m not a mosher. I don’t generally mosh. I’m more likely to be seen standing at the back of a gig venue, hands in pockets, listening carefully, judging warily and only jiggling my hips – a little self-consciously – if the music takes me. Maybe it’s something to do with my classical music background and a training in which every sound gets analysed, every phrase gets criticised and every structure gets deconstructed. Or maybe it’s because I have trust issues. I have to believe in something completely, both on logical grounds and through repeated experience, to really give myself to it and make a fool of myself for it. (Yes, I am single.) Then I met Bellowhead, and all my self-consciousness and doubt went out the window. I became a full-on groupie and could be found at nearly all their London gigs, pogo-ing up and down near the front of the stage with a big grin on my face. Now they’ve toured their last tour, leapt their last leap, and sung their last song, and like so many other fans, no doubt, I’m feeling bereft. It all started in September 2006, when my band, Los Desterrados, opened for John Spiers and Jon Boden at the much-lamented Spitz Club. I knew nothing of English folk music at the time beyond the clichés of beards, sandals, fingers in ears and monotonous voices. The duo, which at that time was starting to have success with Bellowhead, already gave me a new glimpse of the power of folk narratives and the range of sound and impulse of the melodeon and fiddle on their own. Intrigued, I went to my first Bellowhead gig in the Royal Opera House bar, in February 2007. The sound was dreadful, as you would imagine in what is basically a giant greenhouse. But even so, I caught the sense of energy and excitement of the band’s arrangements and performances. I bought their first two CDs – E.P.Onymous and Burlesque – and listened to them on repeat. I was hooked. The moshing came surprisingly easily. From the beginning, the band was able to build up the energy of their gigs, pacing the audience with slow ballads leading to wild dance numbers. They got better and better, and at each gig you could see their stagecraft improving, particularly Jon Boden’s playing of the crowd, and the sheer wild sense of fun and subversion of the whole crew. There I would be – handbag contents carefully planned for minimum encumbrance – jumping a metre up and down in the air, in a complete trance, totally immersed in the moment. For all the soul-enhancing and tear-enducing moments I have had either playing or listening to classical music, none of them comes close to this sense of abandon. Somehow, these ancient tales even managed to make me feel English, maybe for the first time ever. That may sound strange. But being first-generation English and culturally Jewish, with a mother who escaped Germany in 1938 and a father who fled South Africa, I always felt it difficult to identify as English. At home we listened to a mixture of classical music, Viennese schmaltz, jazz and classic musicals – the Beatles were about as English as it got. I’m grateful to this eclecticism now, but at the time it left me hopelessly out on a limb culturally, and having curly hair and a foreign-sounding name didn’t help. My family history was a dislocated one, and in many ways I was brought up more culturally German than English or Jewish, and yet none of them. The result was that I found it hard to say, ‘I’m English’. But listening to the old English tales embedded in the Bellowhead songs, I felt I was assimilating the whole of English culture and history. The old narratives of love, death, taxation, drink, the sea, even prostitution, became my narratives (even though they were mostly male). Even the street names I passed located me at the centre of these stories: not by accident is one of my favourite songs London Town, whose hero ventures ‘up Cheapside’, where I worked at the time. One thing led to another and I listened to lots of other English folk musicians past and present, and started going to Cambridge Folk Festival. I went to a fiddle class run by Sam Sweeney and when I was Editor of The Strad I commissioned Jon Boden to write an article about the English fiddle tradition. This was now my tradition. Not that I ever lost my sense of critical judgement. Part of the massive appeal of the songs was the sheer inventiveness, sophistication and intelligence of the arrangements, and I revelled in these. With eleven players, a bass section unusually made up of a helicon, trombone and a cello, blending with saxophone, trumpet, oboe and fiddles, among other instruments and random rhythmic devices, this was a new sonic world, more like an orchestra or big band than a folk group, and the arrangements exploited all the possibilities, both rhythmically and sonically. Each song had its own sound stamp, its own quirks, riffs and textures, but all were unified by the superb individual musicianship and a certain acerbic sense of humour – no doubt typically English. It was the ideal mixture of carefully crafted music with wildly danceable rhythms – Nietzsche’s perfect synthesis of Dionysian and Apollonian. There were times when I judged harshly, though. There were a few albums in the middle that I thought were fussy and over-produced: too punky, poppy or clever. Inevitably the live gigs were better than the recordings, few of which captured the madcap energy. There was also a part of me that was a little jealous of the attention they were getting from the likes of Chris Evans on his radio show and the funny tour videos they put out – I didn’t want them to be too mainstream, and I scorned the bands who tried to copy them, with less of the talent and intelligence. I could also identify with the artistic challenges they faced, as my band was having the same issues. In a parallel sort of way, we perform ancient Sephardic-Jewish songs with similar timeless narratives of love and death, which we arrange according to our own variety of musical sensibilities, and sing in Ladino. We’ve been going even longer than Bellowhead, since 2000, and the dilemmas are the same. How do you keep growing as individuals, developing the band sound in interesting ways, and making distinct albums, without going too far from what made you good in the first place and from what the audience wants to hear? And what if members want to express themselves by writing their own songs to add to the tried-and-tested historic canon? Thankfully, Bellowhead stuck to the old ones, although occasionally they threw in other classics – their version of Jacques Brel’s Amsterdam is a masterpiece of musical tension-building. (And they did do some wild cover versions, including ABBA and Madness, at their special New Year's Eve parties at the Southbank Centre in 2009 and 2010.) Therefore, when I heard the news that Bellowhead had decided to disband after twelve years together – that Jon Boden was leaving and the rest of them didn’t want to continue without him – I was miserable, but I also understood and respected the decision. Better to quit at the very top of their game than for individual members to become frustrated, to take the core identity too far away from the audience’s pleasure, or to become essentially a tribute band playing the old hits. It was with heavy heart that I went to the London Palladium last week for Bellowhead’s last London gig ever, but determined to drink in every last second of being in the room with them all before I would have to resort to recordings. Did I mosh? Friends, the Palladium was seated and it was only at the end that the collective will of the upper circle turned to dancing – imagine my frustration. Did I cry? Of course I did – they finished with Prickle-Eye Bush, one of the first songs I heard them sing at the Royal Opera House. And am I sad? Yes, but less so for knowing that I enjoyed every minute of the 14 Bellowhead gigs I went to over the years (see how much of a fangirl I can be when so inspired?). The visceral sensation of moshing at the front on a sunny summer evening in 2013 at Kew Gardens, and at all the other gigs, will remain with me forever. Which I guess is the lesson, one which David Bowie and Prince fans probably understand only too well: don’t ever take live music and musicians for granted. Find them, treasure them, love them and lose your cool over them. I certainly lost my cool over Bellowhead – and found it. So, can anyone recommend any good live bands? #bellowhead #folk #view

Who are my favourite violinists? A list of 20, which I made for Sinfini Music in 2014, still largely stands, but is sure to provoke a response from fellow violin lovers Classical music website Sinfini Music recently closed, a sad loss to the classical music world, and a minor – but I hope not fatal – defeat in the project of drawing in new audiences by telling great stories and generating exciting content. I certainly believe this is the future for classical music, and that Sinfini was maybe too far ahead of its time to work. I hope it will be reborn in some shape or form, and in the meantime, I have been allowed to post articles I wrote for the website. Seizing the bull by the horns, and standing by for dissent and ire, here is my very personal list of top 20 violinists, which I wrote for the site in July 2014. In the original article I included some caveats, but I will reiterate them now: This is not a list of the ‘best-ever’ 20 violinists. That would be absurd. This is not even a definitive list of my favourite 20 violinists – in fact, as I predicted in the article, they have subsequently changed, and I would probably swap at least two players. However, it stood at the time, so I won't change it. I wanted to keep a balance between old and new, which roughly splits half and half, as well as recognising Baroque and jazz styles. I could, of course, have made a top 20 of each, but the commission was for 20. Joshua Bell isn't my favourite – it‘s in alphabetical order. So here is the article and list in its entirety, unedited. Please comment (politely if possible) at the end. Since the violin emerged in the form we now know it in the 16th century there have been hundreds of thousands of violinists. Of those, maybe hundreds of great ones. So how to pick a top 20? What to look for? Playing in tune, with good rhythm, respecting composers’ intentions, abiding by the rules of musical structure are all basic. Beyond that, what imagination or intellect does a player display? What colours do they have at their disposal? How well do they tell a story? What risks do they take? When you hear them, do you have to stop what you’re doing to listen, so forceful is their charisma? And then there is their individual sound, which is as personal as a singer’s voice. In some ways these are mechanical matters and can be objectively analysed. But ultimately our response as listeners is instinctive, relating unconsciously to these factors, but also to our own personal taste. The 20 violinists I’ve chosen are all players whose performances speak to me and whose sounds please my ear, at this point in my life. It’s not been easy to choose – there are many other players both living and dead I would like to have included. I’ve avoided debate comparing today’s players with those of the past by including as wide a spread as I can of historic players and living ones of all ages. It’s fruitless to be nostalgic when there are so many great players to listen to today, but at the same time it’s important to keep the old ways in mind and to learn from our forebears. Players are listed in alphabetical order, as this is not in any way a ranking – it’s a list of 20 great players that I’ve enjoyed listening to most as I’ve done my research. Ask me next week and I’ll give you a different selection! Joshua Bell (b.1967) Joshua Bell may be one of the most famous and glamorous violinists on the planet right now, as likely to be seen playing for Dancing with the Stars or judging Miss America as gracing the stage of Carnegie Hall. But listen to his playing and you discover the paradox: an old-fashioned soul, full of innocence, tenderness and yearning. Nothing is forced or heavy – there’s exquisite delicacy and poetry in his use of colour and inflection, whether in concertos or the sonata repertoire. Maybe his international celebrity is proof, if needed, that the general public understands great playing when they hear it. In recent years he’s expanded his work to include leading the Academy of St Martins from the concertmaster chair. Giuliano Carmignola (b.1951) Italian violinist Giuliano Carmignola began his career winning the Paganini Competition and performing 20th-century works but these days concentrates on Classical and Baroque music, often focusing on Italian composers. Within the conventions of this repertoire he brings such grace and natural elegance in the fast music that the works feel newly minted, improvised, even, rather than being any sort of historic artifact or academic exercise. In slower music, such as the violin solos of Bach’s cantatas, there’s a raw sonority and a depth of feeling that is profoundly affecting, however you feel about historically informed performance. James Ehnes (b.1976) You only have to look at the breadth of Canadian violinist James Ehnes’s discography for evidence of his musical curiosity and openness. Over the last ten years his prolific recordings have ranged from Bartók, Barber, Bruch and Bach to Dallapiccola, Debussy, Dohnányi and Dvořák, with many in between. Each is performed with the appropriate respect for the composer’s style – his Elgar Concerto received rave reviews, notoriously difficult for a non-English player to achieve. There’s an old-fashioned sincerity and lack of fussiness to his playing, although he can strut his virtuosic stuff with the rest of them. He is also committed to chamber music, regularly performing with his group, the Ehnes Quartet. Ivry Gitlis (b.1922) You either love Ivry Gitlis’s playing or you loathe it – there can be no in between. Everything is extreme – tempos, intensity, phrasing, emotion. His playing is never safe or generic, such is his desire to communicate, to provoke a response. He was born in Israel but left to study in Paris aged twelve, going on to learn with Enescu and Ysaÿe, two of the towering violinists of the age, and then Flesch. Maybe because of his individuality he never quite had the performing and recording career he could have had. But he was probably too busy playing with John Lennon and the Rolling Stones, appearing on French television, acting in Truffaut films, and working as a UNESCO ambassador, to care. Stéphane Grappelli (1908–1997) Stéphane Grappelli is on this list not only as a representative of the jazz idiom but because in his own right he had a fantastic technique and one of the sweetest, sunniest sounds of all. As well swinging, his playing is highly expressive – maybe not surprising when he’s playing the vocal lines of standards, but he had an instinctive sense of musical phrasing. He started the violin relatively late, at twelve, and largely taught himself, although he did spend three years at the Paris Conservatoire. He founded the innovative Quintette du Hot Club de France with Django Rheinhardt, toured the world and created many successful collaborations, including one with Yehudi Menuhin. He is regarded by many as the father of jazz violin. Ida Haendel (b.1928) Even when she plays these days, well into her 80s, you might not find technical perfection in the playing of Ida Haendel, but you will find the intensity of sound, instinctive musicianship and the highly personal voice that mark her earlier career. Born in 1928 (or 1923, according to some sources) in Poland, Haendel graduated from the Warsaw Conservatoire and went on to study with Flesch and Enescu, two of the leading teachers of the day. Up until recently she maintained a busy international touring schedule and was the first Western player to perform in China in 1973, after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Her broad repertoire included 20th-century works such as the Britten and Walton concertos. Jascha Heifetz (1901–1987) Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that Heifetz’s playing is cold. It’s incandescent, thrilling, and deeply human. But the impassivity and focus of his stage demeanour confused people, and his technical perfection in the most fiendish of music seems unbelievable, even now, when standards are so high. Born in Vilnius in 1901, Heifetz was a prodigy, able to play the Mendelssohn Concerto by the age of six. He developed a complex personality, as prodigies invariably do, full of conflict and paradoxes, and some people feel that he ushered in a new era of a brash style playing. But for most violinists, Heifetz remains a benchmark. Bronislaw Huberman (1882–1947) It’s amazing to think that Huberman performed the Brahms Concerto in front of the composer himself, in 1896, to the great man’s approval. If that pinpoints him in the timeline of music then so does his playing, with its portamentos, wide vibrato and sometimes counter-intuitive (or personal, depending how you look at it) phrasing. Indeed, technically his playing might not stand up well against that of today’s stars, and yet there’s so much charm to his performances, such a sense of intention. He also carries a certain moral authority for his prescient actions in setting up the Palestine Symphony Orchestra as a way to save nearly 1,000 European Jews from Nazi concentration camps. Janine Jansen (b.1978) Dutch violinist Janine Jansen is a force of nature with technique to burn and a vast range of colour at her disposal. Her playing seems to come straight from the heart – passionate and impulsive, but intimate and charming, too. Having grown up in a family of musicians maybe it’s not surprising her musical intelligence seems so instinctive. She has played and recorded with some of the finest orchestras in the world, although her repertoire thus far has been relatively conservative. She is also a committed chamber music player, and has set up her own chamber music festival in Utrecht. Leonidas Kavakos (b.1967) Although he had won prizes in several international competitions by the age of 21, Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos took his time finally to get the public attention he deserves. For a long time he was something of a secret among violin lovers, with astonishing videos of his youthful performances of Paganini and other virtuosic works doing the rounds. His technique remains invincible, and working with more profound repertoire he brings a seriousness of intent, an enormous range of timbre that he’s not afraid to push to extremes, and impeccable attention to the composer’s detail. He also holds the distinction of being the only performer to have been sanctioned by Sibelius’s family to record the composer’s Violin Concerto in its first – and much more demanding – draft. Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962) Having graduated from the Paris Conservatoire at the age of twelve, Austrian-born Fritz Kreisler trained to be a doctor and subsequently served on the front line in the First World War. Perhaps these life experiences lent his playing the deep sense of wisdom and humanity that shines through the Viennese charm. It speaks so directly, with such grace, conjuring a different era. He was never one to practise much, but you wouldn’t know it from his recordings of virtuoso works, and his use of vibrato and portamento is effortlessly tasteful and expressive. He also composed many enchanting encore pieces and the most commonly played cadenza to the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Gidon Kremer (b.1947) Latvian-born Gidon Kremer kicked off his career by winning most of the major international violin competitions going. Since then his playing has done anything but conform to others’ expectations. He brings a creative, improvisatory spirit to whatever he plays, whether in crafting meaning or searching for sound qualities – he uses one of the broadest palettes of today’s violinists. This probing quality has led him to explore modern repertoire and he has premiered works by Pärt and Schnittke among many others. Since 1997 he has also directed Kremerata Baltica, a group of young players with a similarly broad range of repertoire. Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) Of all the child prodigies in this list, Yehudi Menuhin is probably the most remarkable. Einstein is supposed to have said on hearing him, ‘Now I know there is a God in heaven.’ Listen to Menuhin’s 1932 recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto, made at the tender age of 16 with the 75-year-old composer conducting, and you understand why. The violinist is able to identify completely with the wisdom and profound sentiment of the older man. He brought this vivid imagination and a deep musical understanding to the wide range of works and styles he championed. Later in his career his playing lost its technical confidence but he devoted himself to many humanist, pedagogical and musical causes. Viktoria Mullova (b.1959) It’s been fascinating to watch Viktoria Mullova’s career unfold since her defection from Soviet Russia in 1983. At that point she had won three of the top international violin competitions and arrived in the West with a standard repertoire and a brilliant Russian technique, full of power and authority. As time has gone by her playing has become more relaxed and intimate, while maintaining her musical thoroughness, and her programme choices have widened. She has explored jazz and world music styles in recent recordings and in 2009 she recorded the Bach Sonatas and Partitas on a period instrument with gut strings, revelling in the distance she had come from her Russian training. Ginette Neveu (1919–1949) If anyone tries to describe violin playing as masculine or feminine, point them to the Paris-born violinist Ginette Neveu. Her style is as forceful and weighty as that of any of the male players in this list, making a nonsense of the description. It’s also subtle, nuanced and highly personal. We’ll never know the full extent of her range and talent, for she died tragically young in a plane crash over the Azores on the way to a concert in 1949. But in her 30 short years she had established an international concert career and fortunately there are enough recordings of concertos and shorter works to know something of what was lost in that plane. David Oistrakh (1908–1974) David Oistrakh was a heavyweight player with a big, brassy sound well-suited to the big concertos of the repertoire. Indeed, he premiered many 20th-century ones, including those by Kabalevsky, Khachaturian and Shostakovich. Given that Shostakovich wrote his two violin concertos for Oistrakh and that the player was involved in revising them, his performances of the works could be seen as definitive. Like many great violinists of his generation, Oistrakh was born in Odessa, Ukraine. In the 1930s he won many international competitions, although he came second to Ginette Neveu in the 1935 Wieniawski Competition. Due to the war and subsequent political fall-out much of his career happened in Russia but he made up for this with international touring from the 1950s onwards. Itzhak Perlman (b.1945) Listening to Itzhak Perlman play encore pieces, you can’t help but smile, such is his generosity of spirit, humour and charm. But he also has range, power and technical brilliance in the great concertos. His gloriously sweet, warm tone has been copied by generations of students but few can match his instinctive sense of music and his charisma. He was born in Israel and came to fame in the US at the age of 13 when he was picked by Ed Sullivan to play on his show, subsequently remaining in New York. In the 1960s he was part of the musical clique of Barenboim, Zukerman and du Pré. These days he performs recitals occasionally but is mainly devoted to teaching. Gil Shaham (b.1971) The career of Gil Shaham began in dramatic fashion, when he was called in at the last minute to replace Itzhak Perlman in a concert series in London in 1989. He’s not looked back, having built up an extensive discography and a steady international touring schedule. His current project is to record violin concertos of the 1930s, the first volume including works by Barber, Berg, Stravinsky, Britten and Hartmann. The repertoire provides a rich seam for his romantic (but never self-indulgent) charm and the warmth of his core tone. And with his complete security of technique, he is always willing and able to take risks. Joseph Szigeti (1892–1973) Of all the players here, Szigeti was probably the least virtuosic – not that he didn’t have ample technique, but because he just became less interested in showy repertoire, and he never really possessed a huge sound. His humility, poetic intelligence and integrity towards the composer shines through in smaller repertoire. He premiered many new works, including by Prokofiev, Bloch and Rawsthorne. Ysaÿe was inspired to write his Solo Sonatas after hearing Szigeti performing Bach, and his lifelong friendship with Bartók led the composer to write his First Rhapsody for him. The recording of the two performing the work together along with other pieces is probably one of the greatest musical partnerships on record. Szigeti’s beautifully written texts about music and violin playing provided another outlet for his intellectual and curious nature, especially as the affects of age took their toll on his playing. Pinchas Zukerman (b.1948) Where his peer Itzhak Perlman’s playing is all sweetness and joy, there’s a brooding quality to Pinchas Zukerman’s playing, a seriousness which, when he feels like it, reaches into the profound. He also has one of the best tone production set-ups in the business – his bow hand is a model of efficient power. Like Perlman, he came from Israel to study in New York as a teenager, with Ivan Galamian, and made the US his home, although he has recently been working in Canada mainly as a conductor. He is also one of the finest viola players in the world. But don’t expect him to play Baroque music in authentic style – he has been known to rail against historically informed performance. So, who would be on your top 20? #view

The current Southbank Centre slogan offers a lesson in how not to talk to about classical music There are a few obvious rules in marketing copywriting. One is that if you’re trying to sell a product that has negative associations, you don’t mention those associations. If you’re advertising cigarettes, you don’t use the word ‘cancer’. If you’re selling cheap clothes you don’t bring in ‘child labour’. Even if you put ‘not’ in front of the bad word, the reader doesn’t take it in and is left with the impression of the negative concept, just as if I tell you not to think of a pink elephant in a bikini. Now, if there’s one word that dogs classical music, it’s ‘exclusive’. It is often thrown at the whole genre as an accusation, whether or not it’s deserved, and just about every strategic decision made by arts organisations these days is about being the very opposite – inclusive. So I’m baffled that Southbank Centre, one of the most vibrant and engaging venues in London, is currently using this slogan: ‘A classical music season exclusively for pretty much everyone.’ What were they thinking? Maybe they thought they would confront the prejudice head on; that ‘for everyone’ would negate the ‘exclusive’ tag with its amusing word play. But it doesn’t – the remaining impression is still the word ‘exclusively’ (are you picturing pink elephants yet?). ‘It’s a classic example of an organisation talking to itself in its own language rather than to outsiders in theirs’ The trouble is that the paradoxical word play only works if you’re one of the lucky people who realise that classical music really IS for everyone – which is anyone who actually engages in it. We all know how great it is. No doubt the copywriter and everyone at the Southbank Centre know that. They all get the joke. But someone who has no idea about classical music or genuinely feels excluded by it is only going to see the word ‘exclusively’ and turn around. It’s a classic example of an organisation talking to itself in its own language rather than to outsiders in theirs. Which is fine if your goal is to make your members feel good, but if you’re an arts organisation trying to reach out to new people, it’s foot-shooting. ‘Exclusively for everyone’ is also an advertising cliché, used by Marks and Spencer in 2000 and Smirnoff in 2014, although tellingly, for both of those, the intention was probably to lift rather humdrum brands into something more classy. As if this mixed message isn’t enough, the copywriters undermine themselves further with ‘pretty much’: in other words – it’s not for everyone at all. This to me is the worst kind of English, self-effacing, apologetic nonsense, its tone stuck up, to boot. I imagine Hugh Grant bumbling away as he tries to describe the classical music season: ‘It’s err… exclusive… well no, in a good way, I mean it isn’t at all actually, it’s for everyone, obviously you know, but well in a sort of exclusive sort of way, you know, well nearly everyone, pretty much everyone, obviously, because not everyone really gets classical music, obviously, but apart from that, well it’s really quite good and maybe you might like to come and see if you might like it etc etc.’ This is not the way to sell classical music to people who think they’re not going to enjoy it – which I presume is the brief. The basic sentiment of the ad is fundamentally true: ‘A classical music season for everyone.’ Why dilute it with this subliminal apology? Why should we apologise about classical music? What do we mean by ‘exclusive’ anyway? In one sense it’s about the form itself – it may be long and complex, sometimes making it hard to understand and be moved without some knowledge. In another sense, the social experience makes people feel like awkward outsiders, that they’re not welcome. In either of these respects, classical music is no more and no less exclusive than any other music or art forms I can think of (apart from maybe pop music in the former). I’ve been to folk concerts, jazz gigs, raga performances and felt just as much an ignorant outsider as newbies must feel at classical music concerts, both in understanding the forms and feeling as if I belong there. I probably wouldn’t even dare go to a heavy metal, teeny-bopper or hip-hop concert (even though I’m partial to a good head bang). But would we call any of these genres exclusive? This is most definitely not to do with cost, which is usually held up as the prohibitive factor. It’s fairly easy to get £6 tickets for the Royal Opera House, £10 for the Royal Festival Hall or £15 at the Wigmore Hall. That barely buys a of drink at a rock concert or a souvenir at a football game. You just have to want to, or at least be intrigued and open-minded. Indeed, classical music is probably more excluded than exclusive these days in popular culture. At most classical music festivals now, such as BBC Proms and Verbier, for example – there is some world music and crossover. I’ve been to Womad, Cambridge Folk Festival and Big Chill, and I’ve never seen so much as a nod to classical music (although ENO did visit Latitude a few years ago). It’s not cool enough, and many people just aren’t willing to open their minds to it – so who’s being exclusive? The only sense in which classical music is exclusive is for performers – it has to be practised at a young age, with a great deal of application and resource. Over the years, and increasingly so, this has inevitably made it an upper middle class activity in the UK (although in other cultures and countries, this makes it aspirational). This is only liable to be made a whole lot worse with the proposed changes to the EBacc in England, with disastrous plans to take music and arts out of the core syllabus, meaning students are likely to have little access to it (you can find out more about that here and join the campaign here). But exclusivity is no more intrinsic to classical music than it is to jazz, hip-hop, heavy metal or any other type of music. It’s not in a Mozart overture or Brahms or Shostakovich symphony. It’s in people’s minds. It’s Simon Cowell in this clip from Britain’s Got Talent, talking to millions of viewers about how miserable classical musicians look – would he say that about rappers or jazz players? It’s in anyone who doesn’t acknowledge that any art form has certain conventions and audience behaviours, and super-users who treat it like a cult. It’s in a popular culture that likes to sneer at ‘middle-class’ activities. It’s in the cultural stereotype that classical music is only interesting once you’re past 40. It’s in marketing departments that prefer to split off sub-genres rather than making lateral connections between art forms. So, it’s complicated. We have a long way to go to open people’s minds, and there are many people who are doing this from the grass roots up, creating exciting programmes, in new contexts, with energy and vision, both in schools and concert halls. But in the meantime, we can be sure – and Southbank Centre can truthfully assert – that classical music is for everyone. #comment #copywriting #marketing #view

Regina Carter started with Dont and Galamian but she only truly found her voice when she discovered jazz. She tells Ariane Todes about the journey, and explains how the best way to learn jazz violin is to listen to horn players ‘Who says?’ exclaims Regina Carter. Perhaps my suggestion, to one of today’s finest jazz violinists, that the instrument doesn’t naturally suit the genre, is a little thoughtless. She laughs wholeheartedly, as she does throughout our conversation the day before her appearance at December’s London Jazz Festival. But she explains why it’s possible to think this: ‘There were so many violinists early on in the jazz tradition. You look at Stuff Smith, Ray Nance, Stéphane Grappelli, Eddie South, Sugercane Harris. Maybe with bebop we didn’t see so many violinists, so people don’t think of it as a jazz instrument.’ The issue is irrelevant, though, really: ‘I don’t think of violin as either a jazz instrument or not. I think of it as an extension of my voice.’ Hearing Carter live is to hear this voice in full blossom. She has a phenomenal technique, but it’s only there to serve a vivid imagination and to power the story of the music. She has magnetic charisma on stage but, as when talking to her, no starriness, and she melts into the background when her colleagues solo. It’s not surprising that she was given a MacArthur Fellows Program grant in 2006, the awarding committee citing that, 'Through artistry with an instrument that has been defined predominantly by the classical tradition, Carter is pioneering new possibilities for the violin and for jazz. Listening to her recent Southern Comfort CD, which focuses on the music of her paternal grandfather, a coal miner in Alabama, or her recent back catalogue, in which she explores her mother’s favourite jazz standards (I'll Be Seeing You) and the music of her West African heritage (Reverse Thread), you also get a sense of a musical imagination moving forwards constantly. Talking to her, you discover that this voice has been hard won on a ceaseless quest that began with Suzuki, Dont and Galamian, eventually led her to discovering a home in jazz, and that continues among various musical heroes and styles. ‘Jazz gave me the leeway to say, “This is how I feel.”’ Carter was trained in the Western Classical tradition (throughout the interview she’s at pains to describe it like this: ‘I always ask people – whose classical music? Everyone has a classical music!’) She went on to study at the New England Conservatory but never quite felt comfortable: ‘It was so strict and boxed in. “You have to play this way. No, you can’t do that here.” I remember working on a Bach Partita once and my teacher said, “No, it has to be played like this,” and I said, “How do you know? Did you talk to Bach?” It was a smartass thing to say, but I knew I wanted to play it my way. Jazz gave me the leeway to say, “This is how I feel.” Still respecting the music, the melody and what it’s about, but I get to have my say about how it’s going to be played.’ The orchestral experience was also confusing for her: ‘I found it really difficult. I never understood the conductor because he’d give the downbeat and everyone would come in two seconds later and I’d wonder, “Why am I coming in early? They all understand when to come in apart from me.” I find it amazing when I watch a conductor and he’s way ahead, and the orchestra is together but they’re behind him. In a jazz group the beat is right there, where you count it.' Carter was turned on to jazz by a friend: ‘My girlfriend brought me three records – Noel Pointer, Jean-Luc Ponty and Stéphane Grappelli – and I just started learning their tunes and solos, and put together a basement band. It was easy to mimic them because what they were doing was violinistic.’ What did she learn from each of them? ‘They had three distinct voices. At the time Noel Pointer was more pop-oriented, or soul, which was the music I listened to growing up in Motown, so it was easier for me to transcribe him. I loved Jean-Luc Ponty because he had all the effects and the pedals and it was fun because you didn’t hear that on the violin. Grappelli was the most straight – there were no add-ons, it was just him playing the violin. He played more of the American songbook, so it was simpler to learn standards listening to him. Hearing how he approached them made it easier to understand from a violinist’s point of view.’ ‘In jazz you want to have your own voice’ Carter transferred from NEC, which didn’t have a jazz course at that point, to Oakland University in Michigan, which did. Some of the most important advice she had was not to listen to violinists: ‘The head of the jazz department told me to stop listening to violin players because I would start sounding like one of them and I needed to have my own voice. I’m really happy he told me that because back then you could count on your hand the prominent jazz violinists and it would have been too easy to copy them. In jazz you want to have your own voice.’ ‘You just have to listen and copy the sound’ So she turned to the great horn players and singers for inspiration, which offered her a whole new range of sound possibilities and forced her to challenge the limits of the violin: ‘The interesting thing about learning this music is that there are no books one, two and three saying, “This is how you bow a swing passage” or “This is how you get the sound.” You just have to listen and copy the sound. For example, as violin players we’re taught to use the whole bow, but with swing or bebop especially, you have to use less bow and be very light on the string. You have to figure out bowings for yourself because some of those lines are not what you expect them to be.’ As for vibrato: ‘I think of it as an effect. You have to figure out how you want to use it or not use it. I love Ben Webster and the big vibrato he has on his horn so I copy that by slowing it down, or sometimes I’ll use a faster vibrato to get an effect, but the regular vibrato we learnt in class doesn’t work.’ Coming out of the discipline of Western Classical music the process was not necessarily easy. ‘I didn’t understand how to learn this music because from a classical point of view you had your book for shifting or your Dont or your Galamian, you had the pieces you were learning, and you could listen to people playing them. You were always working towards a goal, learning repertoire so you could either be a soloist or get into an orchestra. It was very specific. Whereas jazz is a huge umbrella and a lot of styles get shoved underneath it. Where do you start? Back then there were no books, and I felt lost.’ 'I need to hear how other people are approaching it' One particular challenge was jazz harmonies. ‘I had studied harmony but when it came to learning jazz I had no clue. I still don’t have a clue!’ (More full-throttle laughter.) ‘I would study with people and try to learn the theory of “You can play this over these changes,” but to me it didn’t make sense. It’s the same when I learn languages. I go to class and they say, “This is the grammar: the shoes are red. I’m going to the store,” but when am I going to go somewhere and say, “The shoes are red”? I needed to hear it in context. I need to hear how other people are approaching it – to listen to four or five people playing the same tune. Then I understand, “Oh, that’s what a II-V-I progression sounds like.”’ ​​ Even now, the process of transcribing tunes helps her in this and she is systematic in this process. ‘I pick tunes – this week it’s going to be Stuff Smith, Ella Fitzgerald and Tommy Flanagan. I have a whole list. I listen to how they approach their solos and I learn them. That’s how I learn my theoretical information. At the beginning it seemed like there were a gazillion tunes so I tried to categorise them into ones that come under specific rhythm changes. And there are ones with different bridges, for example, and then those that are nothing like the rest.’ ‘We take on aspects of other people – we can’t help it’ It may seem paradoxical that Carter has found her own voice by exploring the sounds of other musicians, and yet this research has given her the vast palette that is such a distinctive part of her personality. ‘When I’m listening to Ella I’m trying to transcribe her sound. Of course no one else will ever sound like her, but doing that helped shape my voice. The same with Ben Webster or Paul Gonsalves. We take on aspects of other people – we can’t help it. They’re not always violinistic, but you find a way to do it and it becomes yours. It’s like you grow up in your family and when you answer the phone you sound like your father – it’s not that you tried to, but you took it on growing up. Now it’s something you identify when you hear my voice rather than someone else’s.’ ‘It’s just a piece of wood that’s got some strings on it’ Surprisingly, her imagination benefitted from the theft of her instrument early on, as she explains: ‘Years ago I had an electric violin with all the equipment – echoplex and wah-wah. It was fun, but it was stolen. When I got another it was an acoustic violin and I enjoyed trying to find the sounds I got using the wah-wah pedal. When I joined the String Trio of New York they played a lot with altered techniques, which I’d never done, and it really expanded my thinking. There are all these sounds you can get out of the instrument if you don’t place rules on it or have preconceived concepts. People have the idea that the violin belongs in Western Classical music, but not necessarily. There are so many possibilities. It’s just a piece of wood that’s got some strings on it, so depending on who’s playing, it can be anything.’ ‘It’s a whole community of musicians working together’ Having struggled herself, how does she help young players now that she teaches? ‘There are different ways to teach jazz. Sometimes we’ll just get together and play, or we’ll talk about bowing and I’ll say, “Try doing this with the bowing.” But they have other professors who can talk about, “This is a II chord.” Many university students don’t do a lot of listening. They listen on their phones or tablets, but you can’t hear all the instruments and all the things that are going on, and they’re missing a lot of information. So I bring in pieces and make students transcribe them, but not just the tonality: they have to hear what the drummer, bass player and piano are doing. I want to know how they feel. Someone might want to take the line, and then they support someone else, because it’s important we help each other. That’s part of jazz, it’s a whole community of musicians working together. When you’re at school you get used to someone telling you what to do, so you don’t get that sense of community.’ Defying a lot of negativity around the future of music, Carter is optimistic for her students. ‘People can put out their own music now and not have to have a label behind them. We’re tired of radio stations or record companies or television channels saying, “This is what you’re going to listen to and this is all there is.” We can now hear so many other cultures of music we were never exposed to and it’s opening things up. People are collaborating with other musicians in a way we never thought we’d see and creating some really new and different music.’ And being a niche is an advantage: ‘I think for most of us playing jazz, folk or art music, we’re always going to be able to navigate our way. We’re never going to be the popular music.’ ‘People still don’t think of it as a job' However, she is frustrated by the attitude, increasingly common it seems, and typified by Spotify, that music should be free: ‘For musicians who don’t have exposure Spotify is a way that people can hear us or get to know us, but I don’t think there should be free streaming. There should be samples and then people should have to buy it. People still don’t understand that for artists this is our job. This is how we make money. Coming through customs I gave the gentleman my paperwork and said I was coming for the festival and that I was a musician, and he said, “You get paid to do this?” Yes. I wouldn’t just get on a plane for the fun of it. People still don’t think of it as a job.’ ‘It’s our responsibility as musicians to cultivate our own audiences’ Carter puts the onus on musicians actively to seek new audiences. ‘If you don’t understand a certain style of music or how it works then you have a tendency to shy away from it. It’s important for me to do classes or demonstrations for audiences, to show them a piece we’re doing on stage so that they get it, or are more apt to go to another jazz concert. It’s the same with European Classical music. It’s our responsibility as musicians, no matter which form, to cultivate our own audiences.’ One of the keys to this communication, which comes across whether in her playing, her approach to education, or the projects she chooses, is the importance of story telling, as she explains: ‘It’s easy to take an old standard that everyone knows and play through it without any embellishments, and then talk while we’re playing – “Now I’m going to take this solo and I’m having a conversation with the band”. The audience can see how we’re working off one another and that when I’m done I might look at someone or they might jump in. It’s taking something they know and breaking it down to show them how it works. When I was younger and playing in a youth orchestra my teacher would come and tell the stories of the pieces – this is when it was written, this is what it means politically, this is when the bassoons come in, so it made sense and you felt part of the music. That’s really important for an audience with any style of music, and especially in jazz.’ ‘I don’t want to bang people over the head’ Her aim on stage, she says, is to create an intimate experience for everyone: ‘I still want there to be a sense of a community, as if we’re all sitting on a porch somewhere, the audience included.’ This is one of the reasons she doesn’t use a monitor on stage and avoids searing volume levels: ‘I don’t use a monitor. I don’t like the sound of most of them and I find that hearing the sound coming out of the monitor below me and not under my ear is strange. The rest of the band uses them but very little. I like them to be quiet. If I can’t hear myself or you can’t hear me then the band is too loud so we need to turn them down. I don’t want to bang people over the head – it’s fine sometimes, but not with this music.’ ​​ A sense of story-telling is especially resonant in her latest project, Southern Comfort, which explores the songs her paternal grandfather would have known as a coal miner in Alabama. In researching it she went into the archives of the Library of Congress and the collection of field recordings that Alan Lomax made. She explains her drive: ‘I wanted to dig into my father’s side of the family. I found out that often when they had great tragedies they didn’t talk about it and burnt the paperwork, so unfortunately it’s difficult for African-Americans to get to their history. Knowing my grandfather was a coal miner and the areas he lived, and going on Ancestry.com, I hooked up with other family members who had information. I was interested in the music that was happening during his lifetime and I thought that might give me a better understanding of him and what he had to go through.’ ‘I don’t categorise it – it’s music' The album is full of different folk and jazz influences and Carter refuses to define the style: ‘I don’t categorise it – it’s music. It’s my search, my journey, and I just hope people enjoy it.’ Indeed it comes from an area that itself was a hotchpotch of musical styles, as she describes: ‘It was interesting to see all the cultures that were living in the Appalachia area: Scots, Irish, Native Americans, African-Americans. Their music and art mixed and informed this unique and beautiful music that we call Appalachian.’ How does she reconcile all these different styles with her own jazz vision? ‘I spent so much time trying to listen to it and to be true to it while moving it forward and putting my own take on it. You become a chameleon. I had in mind the sound but I wasn’t trying to force it or be phoney with it.’ Audiences have responded to this powerful history and story-telling: ‘With Southern Comfort I find it makes people think about their own families and how they grew up, and it brings up memories that they forgot about. They start to think, “My grandfather was a coal miner,” or “My grandmother listened to this.” It stirs up memories and that’s beautiful.’ She’s also aware of narratives as she performs: ‘Each tune is a story and I try to have an idea of what that is. If it’s Miner’s Child I try to think of these coal miners working and what they were going through, the songs they would sing and the hidden messages. Or if it’s New for Orleans, which the drummer wrote after Hurricane Katrina, I try to understand the healing process that had to go on.’ ‘We all need to be exposed to our own traditions’ Carter sees that many young people have lost touch with their traditions, but she is optimistic that this is changing: ‘For young people popular music is usually what they see and hear on television. They’re not being exposed to their own traditions. Some people don’t want to hear Old Time music but I think if they listen they might hear the beauty and connect to it. Even if they don’t like it, we all need to be exposed to our own traditions. It’s important that people are playing this music. I think there’s a resurgence, with musicians going back to their roots. Everyone’s looking for something, even if it’s not presenting the music in its original form but collaborating with others and coming up with a new flavour. As long as we can attract young people to know there’s more out there than what we see in music videos, to inspire them to be curious.’ Ultimately, getting in touch with traditions like this is part of the original search to find her own voice: ‘What makes me me? What all went into that pot?’ As part of her research, Carter took a DNA genealogy test that revealed that she was 70 per cent West African and 30 per cent Finnish. She jokes, ‘I’ll call my next album “I’m Finnished”. I suspect that she’s not actually joking, but it will be exciting to see where her quest next leads her. Read Regina Carter's advice for improving your jazz playing #article #jazz #interview

A trip to the Musical Instrument Museum in Arizona offered profound and uplifting insights into the human condition, and interesting results at an instrument blind test Do you get depressed watching the news and reading Facebook? Does it feel to you that the world is imploding, with cultures at war, nations fragmenting, and ancient hatreds resurfacing? Well, I have just the tonic for you. Last week I went to Phoenix, Arizona, to give a talk at the Musical Instrument Museum, at the opening of its new Stradivarius: Origins And Legacy Of the Greatest Violin Maker exhibition. While I was there, I visited its extraordinary collection of musical instruments from around the world. On display are 6,500 – of a collection of 16,000 instruments – from 200 countries around the world, curated either according to country, style or theme. As you walk around with headphones on, technology allows you automatically to hear the instruments in action in carefully chosen music clips. ‘You only need to look at the many various violin forms around the world (and of course I did) to see how resourceful we are’ What I found there made me feel better about the world. For what is really on display, underlying the various designs for noise-making boxes, bowls and tubes, is the human spirit at its very finest. The diversity of our creativity is astounding. You only need to look at the many various violin forms around the world (and of course I did) to see how resourceful we are. Whatever means we have – wood, metal, animal parts, and even rubbish (in the case of the Paraguayan exhibit of Landfill Philharmonic instruments), we find ways of making sound. The richer we are, the more refined these design solutions may become, but my favourite instruments were often the most primitive looking, with crude details and sans varnish or sheen. Seeing some of the more primitive forms, I also realised for the first time the intimate relationship between music and nature. Most instruments were first hewn from some part of our surroundings, whether tree, cow hide, ram’s horn, bird skeleton, horse tail or even fish skin. Music must originally have felt like a way of celebrating nature and while we’ve gained much in sophistication and technical advances, maybe we’ve lost this sense of closeness to Mother Nature. ‘This is a world where all musical expression is valid and there is no hierarchy’ We are also diverse in the ways we use these many forms, and the sound clips are thoughtfully curated to include several different types of native music from each country. For example, David Oistrakh can be heard alongside three other Ukrainian folk music groups; for England, you can hear the Elgar Cello Concerto, George Formby and Morris dancing music. This is a world where all musical expression is valid and there is no hierarchy. It’s exactly how I want to hear music – with all genres jostling along together nicely (and with good quality control). And yet, beyond this diversity, we find the powerful universal need to express ourselves through music, to reach beyond the mundane to something greater than ourselves (or at least to dance to a good tune). And it’s quite overwhelming to experience that sense of need, coupled with creativity, concentrated in one place. For a hardened rationalist like me, music is as close to a religion as I get, and visiting these galleries was the nearest to a religious experience. I've uploaded a gallery of just a few of the instruments here. ‘There are also refreshing references to some of the female figures in the history of violin making’ The Stradivari exhibition itself is also cleverly thought out, aimed at a general audience, but with plenty for the geek (see my photogallery here). It is Stradivari in name, but by contextualising the maker, is actually more of a history of violin making. It starts with historical background on Cremona, lingering on a few beautiful Cremonese instruments – including the 1728 Artôt-Alard Strad and 1566 ‘Carlo IX’ Andrea Amati. There are also refreshing references to some of the female figures in the history of violin making, such as the great patron to luthiers Catherine de Medici and the wife of Guarneri ‘del Gesù’, and the viola of the first woman to win the Cremona Triennale prize, Ulrike Dederer, is displayed. We see tools from Stradivari’s workshop (it’s not clear whether he would actually have used them), as well as a facsimile of his will, in which he remembered a 40-year-old debt of one of his sons (the tightwad). There are also some fascinating graphics, including a family tree of Cremonese makers, and a map of where instruments are held by foundations around the world (current tally: America 37; Japan 19; England 14; Italy 12; Taiwan 9; Austria 9; France 8; Russia 6; Spain 5; Switzerland 4; Germany 4.) It takes the story right up to the present, with a good proportion being about today’s craft and craftsmen, who get to explain how they got the lutherie bug in the captions – and some modern instruments, most from the Museo del Violino in Cremona. Again, headphones provided audio, whether of interviews, the instruments being played or interviews with players, and even a short taster of a blind test, with clips of two violins, one a Strad and one modern, and the visitor enjoined to guess which is which: the answer is tantalisingly and cleverly left hanging. Not so, however, in the final event of the gala opening weekend, the ‘Playoffs’ blind test, with Rachel Barton Pine playing a selection of instruments both old and new. The format is a little different to the research-based blind tests I’ve seen first-hand in New York and Indianapolis, but it’s an interesting one. Instruments are played in pairs: she plays a scale on the G on each; a scale on the E on each; an arpeggio on each; the opening of the Saint-Saëns Third Concerto on the G string, on each; and the opening of the Mendelssohn Concerto on the E string on each. She then asks the audience for their perceptions and takes a vote on which the audience prefers. The ‘winning’ instrument is then taken forward to be in the next pair, and the ‘losing’ one announced. Barton Pine herself plays the 1742 ‘Soldat’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’, and her foundation has just been given a 1732 ‘Lady Sylvan’ Strad. She’s quite open about modern instruments, though, prefacing her playing by saying, ‘Modern instruments can be just as beautiful as old ones but they usually have fewer colours. The colours are just as gorgeous, there just aren’t as many of them.’ While it couldn’t really be classed as a scientific experiment – there were too many uncontrolled variables – it nevertheless provided some very interesting evidence. For example, the first instrument to be ‘eliminated’ was actually the 1732 Strad. Barton Pine took this on the chin, though, and explained that the instrument has not been played for a while and is about to undergo some basic restoration, proving the point that not all Strads sound wonderful. The next instrument to be eliminated was a Rugeri, which had been in the exhibition, although the show of hands was pretty evenly spread. The instrument that had beaten both the Strad and the Rugeri was knocked out in the next round, so we found out what it was – a modern instrument made by local luthier Joel Shewchuk. Another modern instrument didn’t make it so far, being knocked out in its first round – this one made by Cremona-based Bruce Carlson. Barton Pine explained that the instrument has been on display in Cremona for the last 20 years, hardly a fair fight, especially as we discovered that the instrument that had beaten it was the 1733 ‘Prince Doria’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’. This, in turn, was knocked out by the 1728 ‘Alard’ Strad. By now, it was getting harder to choose preferences, and most votes were split pretty evenly, only marginally going one way. And maybe it was no surprise when we discovered the instrument that had triumphed – Barton Pine’s own ‘Soldat’. Barton Pine admitted it had an unfair advantage but qualified that by saying, ‘I do my best to be fair, but this is one of the best instruments in the world and it’s being played every day.’ So, what were the possible conclusions? A general audience – which this was – can hear some differences in sound, and those who volunteered their feedback were able to articulate these clearly, using words such as rich, open, deep, mellifluous, full-bodied, sweet, raspy, crisp, and other apt descriptions. Most of the votes were evenly balanced between the two instruments, proving that at a certain level, nuance isn’t that important for a general audience. The times when there was an obvious preference in the votes were when it was obvious that the instrument wasn’t played in – whether old or new. This proves how important set-up is – maybe even more important than age. At the very high end of the spectrum, between well set-up Strads and Guarneris, it was really hard – even for an old hack like me – to judge a preference. Ultimately, the most appropriate instrument – Barton Pine’s own ‘del Gesù’ – won the day, proving how important the player’s own preference and comfort are, not just for themselves, but in how the audience reacts to their performance. So, maybe not scientific, but meaningful nonetheless, and a fascinating way to round off an excellent visit to this unique place. If you happen to be passing Phoenix, I highly recommend the museum, and if you get there before 5th June, you will have a chance to see the Stradivari exhibition too. For photogalleries click here for world violins and here for the Stradivari exhibits. #stradivari #bartonpine #amati #guarneri #blindtests #view

On what would have been the 71th birthday of Jacqueline du Pré, the words of János Starker sound a provocative warning Jacqueline du Pré was born 26th January, 1945 and died on 19th October 1987. She was a natural talent who burned very brightly indeed, all too briefly. She came to epitomise both the joy and optimism of a golden era of music making in the 1960s, and then the searing tragedy of human fragility and the transience of life. Of course we are left with wonderful recordings, but pity any cellist – whether female or male, British or otherwise, who ever performs the Elgar Cello Concerto. I once interviewed the great Hungarian cellist and pedagogue János Starker and asked him about her. I was surprised by his response: ‘The first time I heard her I was sitting in a car listening to the radio. I didn’t know who was playing the Elgar, but I said to the driver, “Whoever this person is isn’t going to live very long.” After I made this statement somewhere all her friends and colleagues were very angry with me but it was a factual statement, because if someone exerts this kind of intensity consistently they will destroy their nervous system. I was saddened when she was struck with the sickness. She was an outstandingly effective and dedicated performer, but I have a strong belief that whoever plays with this kind of intensity cannot last long. Exerting unbroken intensity can be appealing to the public. It was and she was a successful performer, but in my mind you’re supposed to “play” music – you’re not supposed to work. In my life I’ve tried to use as little energy as needed in order to get the message across through a masterpiece. I always say you have to approach the instrument with all the power available, of which use as little as necessary. My example was Jascha Heifetz.’ I’m not sure neurologists would agree with his diagnosis of the tragic onset of multiple sclerosis, but his views on effective playing certainly bear some weight, especially when you see the ease with which he performed. Photo of du Pré: Allegro Films #blog #cello #dupré #starker #elgar #view

As Nigel Kennedy goes on Radio 4's Mastertapes programme to be rude about Baroque performance practice, here's a blog I wrote in 2011 on the subject I love Nigel Kennedy, really, I do. I’ve been mesmerised by his Elgar, thrilled by his Vivaldi, convinced by his Bach and amused by his jazz. But he doesn’t half talk a load of rubbish sometimes. In his programme notes for his solo Bach BBC Prom concert in August, Kennedy offered his view on the performance of Bach. He took a pop at the New York and Russian schools, but the real derision he saved for his authentic brethren. The main salvo: ‘Specialists are pushing Bach into a rarefied and effete ghetto which leaves many people feeling that Bach’s music is merely mathematical and technical – I see it as my job to try and keep Bach in the mainstream and present his music with, rather than without, its emotional core.’ The argument was blown up and shrunk down in the press, Kennedy got a lot of publicity from it, and I was going to let it lie, really, I was. He’s Nigel – he can say what he likes. But then I went to a performance of Bach that made me change my mind. The show was Bach’s St Matthew Passion performed with Baroque bows on modern instruments but in historically informed style by the Southbank Sinfonia at London’s National Theatre. As I listened to the subtly stylised phrasing, its inflections full of appropriately raw emotion, and the fruity timbres of the stringed instruments, I found myself arguing with Kennedy in my head. Firstly, there’s no need to worry about marginalisation – Herr Bach can look after himself. He’s done pretty well in the face of such historically informed hooligans. The Olivier Theatre, which seats 1,200, was sold out over all four performances and the audience was ecstatic. The Royal Albert Hall was sold out for Kennedy’s Bach Prom, too, and I was there. His Bach D minor Sonata was expressive and well-formed, exactly as he says it should be. But it was highly conservative. A week later, I saw Gil Shaham playing the same E major Preludio with which Kennedy started his concert. It had much more jazz and colour to it. So it’s a little ironic for Kennedy to criticise players who choose to play by certain formal rules when his conception of the music owes more to the type of research he rubbishes than he would care to admit. There’s also a sour taste left by a musician who undermines the work of their colleagues publicly, and the danger that a whole genre gets sidelined. How would Kennedy feel about people losing their work through his comments? Players such as Giuliano Carmignola, Pavlo Beznosiuk, Fabio Biondi, Andrew Manze and others who have spent their lives understanding the origins of music don’t deserve that. Not to mention the leagues of players whose interpretations are informed and improved, if not necessarily determined, by academic research. The necessary connection that Kennedy sees between authentic style and mathematical and technical playing that lacks an emotional core is misconception and prejudice. Music is either well played or not. He is right in his analysis that Bach must be played with attention to depth, architecture and emotion, but that goes for all music, and the fact that you understand the context in which a composer wrote doesn’t exclude you from realising that. Someone who has no knowledge of authenticity can play mathematically, too, so scorn that type of playing, yes, but not a whole approach to playing. Ironically, Kennedy recently filmed a video for the BBC complaining about the eviction of a travelling community from a plot of land in Essex. One of his arguments was about diversity: ‘One of the things we’ve prided ourselves on in this country is the diversity of culture. For me, our culture is enriched by people who have got different ways of living.’ Doesn’t that go for interpretations of Bach, too? Musicians have the right to express opinions, of course they do. This has been brought into sharp focus with the suspension of four players of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. That issue would take pages to pick apart and I wouldn’t want to wade in merely to generate an opinion without a considered analysis. And that’s exactly my point. With the right to free speech come responsibilities: the responsibility to be intellectually rigorous, logically consistent and properly informed; and the responsibility to be aware of any potential damage to your own communities. Without that, such proclamations are empty and provocative, and lead one to the conclusion that performers really should stick to what they’re good at – playing. First published on www.thestrad.com in October 2011. Photo: Lukas Beck/EMI Classics #kennedy #baroque #bach #view

Thank you for visiting Elbow Music in 2015. It’s been a bumper year for the site, and I’m planning some developments very shortly, so please keep coming back, or sign up to the Facebook group or newsletters to keep informed. I wish you many good musical wishes for 2016, and in the meantime, here are the top five most-visited posts of 2015: No.1 An interview with the cellist’s cellist, Gary Hoffman No.2 My report on some strange results at the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in June No.3 My violinist’s guide to playing the mandolin, with advice from Chris Thile No.4 Former Vermeer Quartet leader Shmuel Ashkenasi discusses the negative sides of Ilona Fehér’s ‘tough love’ school of teaching, and of violin competitions No.5 The case for modern instruments: when violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann had to give up his borrowed Strad in February, I challenged him to go modern

I’ve interviewed many wonderful musicians over the year, have learnt much and had my thinking challenged many times. Here are just a few of the highlights, with links to the full articles: 1 Being an amateur is something to aspire to: perfection is over-rated The late Peter Cropper, former leader of the Lindsays ‘I didn’t start practising until I was 18, and I had a lot to make up. I think that’s why the quartet was successful for the four of us – because we were four amateurs, and amateurs love things much more than professionals. Hans Keller said that there isn’t such a thing as a professional quartet, because quartet people love playing quartets. We did it because we loved it, and I think it came across. I don’t say it was always immaculate. Who wants perfection? Perfection is sterile. We’re human beings.’ 2 We need more global alliances in classical music, especially between music colleges Pinchas Zukerman, violin and viola ‘How can we bring up the standards? Let’s create global coalitions for music education, not just according to country, but bringing everyone together through technology. We’re forming all sorts of alliances, but music schools still feel isolated. One music college doesn’t talk to another. It’s enough already! In medicine, doctors share information about the same patient, but we can’t do that in music. Why are we so isolated?’ 3 Performers can’t demand an audience not cough Viktoria Mullova, violinist ‘The atmosphere in concerts is so stiff. It’s not like when you listen to jazz or pop music. The audience is becoming older and older. People are scared to cough. It’s terrible. What if you want to cough? You don’t do it on purpose. What can you do? I don’t consider myself so important that people can’t even cough. If you can magically provide the kind of sound that fascinates everyone so they start not even breathing then that’s great, but you can’t demand that.’ 4 Being a musician is easier when you’re young Alexander Pavlovsky, first violinist of the Jerusalem Quartet ‘We were 22 when we first played Bartók no.6 and we had fewer questions. I’m not saying it was wrong – it was different. At that age you have passion and endless energy and fewer questions for yourself, because life is easy. Today you know life, the profession and your instrument better, but you have a thousand times more questions. Unless you find a good answer for these questions you can’t be peaceful. They are always on your mind. At the same time you also have much less time to answer them, because you are learning so many new pieces to play for a season. We were given some good advice, that the stage between ages 30 and 40 is a very interesting transition, but it’s also very dangerous. Many musicians and ensembles stop playing and disappear.’ 5 You can learn a lot just by watching and copying other players Paul Silverthorne, violist ‘There are things you can only learn by catching a feeling from another player. When I left the Medici Quartet, I played with the London Sinfonietta, with Nona Liddell, and I used to marvel at her bow arm. It was totally relaxed and yet she made a massive sound. There was no point asking her how she did it. The only way I could pick anything up was by sitting next to her, imagining what her arm felt like and trying to make my arm feel like that.’ 6 The best way to learn jazz violin is not to listen to jazz violinists Regina Carter, violinist ‘The interesting thing about learning this music is that there are no books one, two and three saying, “This is how you bow a swing passage” or “This is how you get the sound.” You just have to listen and copy the sound. For example, as violin players we’re taught to use the whole bow, but with swing or bebop especially, you have to use less bow and be very light on the string. You have to figure out bowings for yourself because some of those lines are not what you expect them to be. You have to figure out how you want to use vibrato, or not use it. I love Ben Webster and the big vibrato he has on his horn so I copy that by slowing it down, or sometimes I’ll use a faster vibrato to get an effect, but the regular vibrato we learnt in class doesn’t work.’ 7 Young musicians should spend less time online. (And maybe some others of us, too!) Thomas Demenga, cellist ‘Young people spend too much time with their media. In my time I practised a lot at one point – five or six hours a day. If you don’t do that you don’t develop ability in your hands. It’s like training for sport. Every sportsperson, dancer or circus artist who has to do something difficult has to practise, practise, practise. There’s no way round it. Before auditions my students get scared and then it’s amazing what happens. They play better, even if it’s a week or two where they really go for it. I don’t understand why they don’t do it all the time. I feel stupid saying that it’s because young people waste a lot of time on the Internet and Facebook, but I have children aged between 11 and 25, and I see what happens. They sit in front of their screens for hours every day. You have 50 people who want a tutti job in a second-tier orchestra and these organisations can choose from all these fantastic players. It’s a competition.’ 8 Contemporary and classical music should be viewed as fundamentally the same John Woolrich, composer ‘Many performers don’t come across contemporary music of any kind, even straightforward contemporary music, and they don’t know how to put the notes together in a musical way. The assumption is that contemporary music is different from Brahms, but it’s not. It’s the same in respect of considering a way of shaping it, slowing down, speeding up.’ 9 The world doesn’t need more violinists Shmuel Ashkenasi, violinist ‘I tell my students that the world doesn’t need another violinist. We need artists, poets, people who move us. I try to influence at least the people in my sphere to take chances and to find their voice, while being faithful to the score. I believe it is possible. I recommend anyone who doesn’t truly love music to look elsewhere for a career, because if you don’t have that love, you don’t have the rewards. All you have is a commercial profession. But even if you love it, you have to eat, so you have to make compromises and sometimes it’s painful.’ 10 We might never understand what a composer is actually trying to do but we have to try Catherine Manson, violinist ‘It’s wonderful that composers set out these complex riddles for us, and they still want us to look at them and to figure them out, and to keep them company. Maybe there’s no answer, but it’s our duty to try to get as close to it as we possibly can and to pay them the respect of trying to solve their puzzles.’ 11 Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas reflect the social hierarchies of the time Gil Shaham, violinist ‘I remember reading an article about the traditional Baroque suite. The author explained that the king and queen, or the couple with the highest rank, would dance first: an allemande, courant, or loure, maybe – a stately dance with movement focused on the arms and legs. Then more of the nobility would join in for a courant, a less-formal running dance. By the time you get to the sarabande, a sensual dance where one would use facial expressions and other parts of their body, or a gallant dance, formality relaxes. Finally, everyone dances a gigue. After reading this article, I found I heard this music differently.’ #2015

Bartók’s quartets are often played ‘brutal, fast and loud’, but they should be approached as Classical masterpieces, says Jerusalem Quartet first violinist Alexander Pavlovsky I recently interviewed Alexander Pavlovsky, first violinist of the Jerusalem Quartet, for the programme notes of the group’s next London concert. The players are performing Haydn’s Quartet in G major, op.77 no.1, Bartók no.6 and Dvořák’s ‘American’ and Pavlovsky gave me plenty of insight about the works. I couldn’t fit it all in, so here are some of his comments about Bartók and Dvořák, as well as more general comments about the problems of growing up as a musician, and some key advice that can help anyone who plays an instrument. Bartók as Classical music ‘You have to treat this music within the conception of Classical music and to concentrate on a clear Classical sound. Everything is so well written, with many different strokes and colours indicated. It makes more sense to listeners if you keep it Classical and without too much brutality. Some recordings are very exciting, but you don’t understand what’s going on. For example, when some people play the Fourth Quartet it sounds crazy and you hear that it’s “very Modern”. But it’s such simple sonata form, and there are melodies and Classical canons that could have been written by Haydn. When you exaggerate, making it brutal, fast and loud, you miss a lot of delicate and interesting things, and you ruin the conception of the form of the music. To bring out the sound qualities and all the articulations, you have to do it from a Classical standpoint. ‘When we play Bartók we talk a lot about the articulations. There are many dots and accents, including vertical accents, which are the most hard-sounding. All these different kinds and levels of articulations must be clear – for us and for the audience. In the Western Classical approach, if you don’t have any information from the composer that you have to play an accent or make notes sound unconnected, you have to treat it as if it’s a theme, otherwise you can’t bring out all the different levels – they can’t be heard. If you think, “It’s Modern so let’s bring out every line and every accent,” you miss all of this. You have to treat Bartók as you do Mozart or Haydn. Bringing out the articulations clearly also makes it sound like folk music. Like Beethoven, Bartók has many layers – you can always go deeper. You always find new colours, and harmony that surprises you. That’s why we do this. If we did it exactly the same every time it would be boring.’ Dvořák’s ‘American’ Quartet ‘Dvořák makes it simple in this work. There aren’t many contrasts and there is a lot of ostinato. For example, the slow movement has the beautiful first violin melody, based on the pentatonic scale, but look at what happens in the other parts underneath: it is the same from the first bar to the last. We all know that Dvořák could write more complicated and interesting things, but he doesn’t. The viola and second violin play the same music for eight minutes. But you must not sound the same: you must follow the melody, the tensions and the harmony.’ Growing up musically ‘We had a wonderful teacher at the beginning, who gave us a very good base. Many things were on an intuitive level, and that’s very important. Sometimes you can’t even explain things, but you say, “I feel this is wrong or right.” Most of the time you’re right. You can feel the tension and release of music by intuition – you don’t need a doctorate. It helps when you can analyse the form and harmony – it gives you a shortcut, but it’s also takes away some of the naturalness. ‘The difficulty is that with time you have much more knowledge from different directions, from listening to other people, working with great players and orchestras, as well as playing together on stage. You get more information and you have to deal with it. We were 22 when we first played Bartók no.6 and we had fewer questions. I’m not saying it was wrong – it was different. At that age you have passion and endless energy and fewer questions for yourself, because life is easy. Today you know life, the profession and your instrument better, but you have a thousand times more questions. Unless you find a good answer for these questions you can’t be peaceful. They are always on your mind. At the same time you also have much less time to answer them, because you are learning so many new pieces to play for a season. We were given some good advice, that the stage between ages 30 and 40 is a very interesting transition, but it’s also very dangerous. Many musicians and ensembles stop playing and disappear.’ It’s not all about you ‘After 20 years you realise that simplicity is the most difficult thing to achieve, and it has a strong message. The hardest thing is to do what is written. You just have to help the music – you don’t have to try to do it well. Just let it speak. Find the composer’s message and communicate it to the public. It’s not about us – it’s about the composer.’ Just listen ‘My answer to everyone who wants to deal with this occupation is to learn to listen better – to yourself and to your colleagues. We give many masterclasses around the world. Some groups are amazing, some are not and some are average. Most of the time they lack this quality of careful listening. That doesn’t mean that my colleagues don’t say to me, “Listen, Sasha!” We say this all the time. It’s also connected to the fact that one always wants to be right, but one can’t be. There are always different angles and views on things. It’s good to be polite and to accept things. Just listen. Sometimes we think we are listening, but we are not. It’s an excellent life skill – to listen to yourself and to your partners.’ Photo: Felix Broede #bartok #jerusalemquartet #dvorak #quartet #violin #interview