From Bach to Stravinsky, Part II

On the second day Susanne repeated the Stravinsky and this time played it with varied expression and good phrasing. Gitlis was much impressed by her progress since the day before and said so. Susanne's tone was, by the way, full, and either the key was low or it seemed low, so that it sounded like a viola but in a good way. Again the advice was to use the bow more sparingly and leave time for the music to develop; he added that she should trust in her good musical abilities and feel free to go further and enjoy herself. Dana was the accompanist again, and Gitlis, who evidently found her personality striking and amusing too, remarked admiringly that she (to paraphrase) "gives better direction than many conductors."

[YouTube: 1. Yehudi Menuhin, "La Campanella" by Niccolò Paganini, written 1826 and rec. 1930]

Tristan likewise repeated the "Campanella." This time Gitlis used the analogy of dancing to demonstrate that a singlemindedly driven approach, and lack of sensitivity to rhythm, is not ideal for the music. Then he went on to defend Paganini as a musician, especially because the Italian was such an important figure in the history of music and did in very truth divide it into a before and after. While the composer is not Bach — whom Gitlis obviously venerates as a creator of music in its profoundest sense — his music is still nice music and funny music, and in works like the "Campanella" "there are jewels every second" which it is worthwhile to seek out. Then there was a lengthy discussion of technique, in which Gitlis went over the passages with skittering mordents which Tristan seems to have been phrasing inaccurately, and emphasized (as I paraphrased it in my notes) that, "not only each arm but the divers components (fingers, wrist, etc. up to shoulder) should also be independent." And, returning to more abstract questions, he repeated that there is (to quote my notes again) "no need to be too blatant," that one should "suggest rather than say outright."

After that a Korean girl, who will be named Hu Jeong, performed Brahms's violin concerto. She is relatively tiny, so she has to lower the neck of the instrument and slightly bow over it as Mischa Elman did; besides her hair was in a neat pixie cut and she had the endearing habit of hiding her face a little behind the base of her violin as she awaited criticism. But despite her diminutive size, she tackled the technical demands of the concerto very competently. It felt as if the tempo of the violin were constantly lagging behind, but I've since discovered that effect is common in recordings of the work. What also bothered me is that it was one of those times where a public performance sounds like a solo practice session; it felt rehearsed.

During the discussion of her performance the question of nervousness came up. Ivry Gitlis told us an anecdote about Sarah Bernhardt: backstage at a performance she met a young colleague, who asserted that she wasn't at all nervous, whereupon the great actress (crushingly) replied that she would be once she had talent. Then the masterclass turned to technical points again, and Gitlis tried to get Hu Jeong to shift her whole arm and not just her finger in anticipation of lower (or higher) notes. It was also rather amusing when he remarked parenthetically that he envied violinists with strong fourth fingers; he explained that for him the fourth finger is a little "verstuzt" — then he paused, laughed and said, "I have no idea what that means, but it sounds good." (The masterclasses were mostly in English, but some German and French, maybe a little Hebrew, and a Russian saying, were thrown in.) And after that there was a touching moment, where Gitlis was going over a simple and gentler phrase in the concerto, and was all of a sudden very moved by its beauty. He took a while to collect himself, and then asked the student to play the music again, and as she did so stood on the stage with her and looked her in the eye so that there was a very nice unspoken exchange, as she rendered it once again, with feeling.

[YouTube: 1. Ginette Neveu, Violin Concerto in D major by Johannes Brahms, written 1878
(There are plenty of good recordings, so I took this one at random.)]

After that a fellow Korean, Ha Lim, played the Poème Elégiaque by Ysaÿe. Here I felt that the criticism of "too healthy" really applied. As far as I could tell the piece required a clear and cooler and perhaps mournful tone, tinged with cynicism, whereas she played it quite naïvely and with a gentle and cushioned tone (which may also have been caused by nervousness, since her tone on the following day was clearer). Her accompanist — Nao, from Japan — was, I felt, quite good, playing with appropriate lyricism and bravely eschewing the Music Student's Mezzoforte. It might be partly flattery but Gitlis, when told that the student would be having a different accompanist the next day, asked why one would change accompanists when this one was doing such a fine job. (The reason was logistical.)

In answer to a question of Ha Lim's he spoke reassuringly about her tendency to use a large vibrato, which her latest teacher had apparently trained out of her; basically his philosophy is that, if it really feels right to you in a particular situation, do it. (I think the teacher's problem with her vibrato may be the modern love for "what you see is what you get" playing without adornment or romantic wallowings. To me that's one-dimensional and, in its exclusion of a worthy though aged musical tradition, no more reasonable than demanding that women never wear skirts or dresses, only pants, to suit the trend.)

Then he made a remark which I found really insightful, which is that performers often adopt a persona when performing, and that we always or often strain to be something more or other than we are. Perhaps we should accept what is and just try to be ourselves. In that context Ivry Gitlis told an anecdote of a concert which he gave in South Africa. It was the middle of winter in the hemisphere, the weather was squalid, and the highly straitlaced audience looked moribund and mummified. Evidently nobody was enthusiastic about being there. During Paganini's Concerto in D Gitlis's fingers stumbled over themselves — a minor disaster — but that brought about the realization that he could just try to enjoy it. So after that the concert improved for him, and it improved for the audience, which became one of his best ever.

The fifth and last student of the day was Ji Jong, who repeated the Bartók (and due to time constraints never had the opportunity to play the Saint-Saëns piece she had also prepared). In my notes Gitlis's commentary is summarized as "take risks — reflected risks."