Classic FM Interview 11th February 2007

With Anne-Marie Minhall on The Guest List

AMM Maxim Vengerov, who took a year’s sabbatical away from the concert hall, has now embarked on a two year quest to record Mozart’s complete works for violin and orchestra. Performing with the UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, Vengerov is about to release the first CD, which features the Violin Concertos nos 2 and 4, as well as the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola. The Russian has been working with the Orchestra, which is made up of youngsters all in their teens or twenties from some 30 countries, for 18 months. The release is timed to lead into a Spring tour, which will also see Maxim Vengerov conducting the Orchestra from the violin. He came in to talk to the Guest List earlier this week, and started by telling me that he believed Mozart would have approved of young musicians touring with his works.

MV Mozart would have been very happy to see this collaboration because he was also around this age, he was himself 18-19–20 when he was writing concertos, he was a bit older when he was writing the Sinfonia Concertante, his masterpiece, where he grew enormously over this few years time, and this is almost incredible to see that this is the same composer that’s writing this. Mozart is real genius and we had incredible opportunity, together with young people, to explore the beauty and the profundity of his works, and to really get down to business and discover lots of very interesting things that are not evident. And that was really our mission, for us to gather together, and not just to get together and play and enjoy, but also to make some kind of research.

AMM You spent considerable time as well studying Mozart’s violin repertoire. What sort of discoveries did you make along the way when you were going through the kind of works that Mozart left us?

MV I must say that I’ve never spent so much time working, and it was not only literally working with the violin and the bow and you know exploring the sounds and learning technique, because the works are very simple. They are not really demanding for the instrument player, not like Paganini. But, and one supposes that Mozart was lazy himself, and he wrote something that could be very affordable for his technique (laughs). But they said, the people during that time, when Mozart played, said that he could have been a fantastic violinist of only he would have practised just a bit. But we’re not talking here just about technique, we are talking about maturity of our young souls to get to the standards of Mozart’s vision and Mozart’s ears, you know, what he could actually hear with his inner body, inner soul. And when I’m talking like this I am talking about the vibrations that we can all produce. It’s not only that we all have to play together in tune, use the same phrasing, use the same vibrato, the same fingering etc, but we have to feel together, and that is what Mozart is. We really achieve this unity and one-ness, and that’s what Mozart really teaches us.

AMM You mentioned earlier, Maxim, that you’ve been conducting the Orchestra from the violin. How are you finding that?

MV That is probably the most challenging and very interesting aspect of working with Orchestra. When you play with a conductor you have the divided attention, between the orchestra players, the conductor, and yourself. Now when I play Mozart – and I really prefer playing this myself without the conductor – and not that this means I don’t like conductors (laughs), not in any way I wanted to say that, because it is sometimes very nice working with a person who is in front of you and not playing an instrument. On the other hand here you have really this undivided attention between everybody and yourself so I teach my young musicians, my young colleagues, to play as if they are soloists but they are holding the second role, they are protecting me, they are supporting. And if they play accompaniment and I play the theme they have to forget that they are playing, they have to really imagine as if they are playing my theme. And that is a very interesting process you know, how to try and to become selfless in what you do. And the opposite I have to do. When I accompany the orchestra I have to become selfless. When I conduct I have to feel every bar, every phrase, of the orchestra. Every fingering that they do, every transition, every breathing, and even though I play completely different music I have to feel what they do, and I have to lead them into that. And that is of course a pure joy.

AMM This project looks like it is going to be taking up most of 2007 for you because you are going on a massive tour, aren’t you. Europe, and you’re going to be in the UK and Japan. Are you keeping fingers in other pies as well, or is this your main focus at the moment?

MV I am lucky to be with Mozart for all this time since 2005, and it seems like we don’t want to let it go (laughs). And, yes we’re doing a lot of concerts, but I’m sure when we’re done with that, and we’ve done with recording we will have had a beautiful memories, but we will never have enough.

 The lovely Maxim Vengerov has been into Classic FM this afternoon (2 Feb 2007). I was interviewing him for The Guest List about his forthcoming new album of Mozart Violin Concertos - Nos. 2 and 4 which he's worked on with a unique youth ensemble called The UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra. Vengerov is currently on a mission to record Mozart's complete works for violin and orchestra and has spent considerable time studying the great composer's violin repertoire. Watch out for live performances of the Concertos in the spring - though you may have to sell a relative to get a ticket.

Maxim was in great form today despite having endured a rather bumpy flight from New York to London overnight - he claimed a cup of finest Classic FM coffee had helped him to perk up. Just as he was leaving, he found himself drawn into a conversation with some of the behind-the-scenes team here who are about to have their first go at speed dating tonight. Now finding themselves one person down, Maxim was invited to make up the numbers. He thought about it for just a moment - and then politely declined.

Probably best.