Q: Maxim, you’ve got a new record out – all Mozart – tell us a little bit about that and why you decided to do that.

M: Since a very early age I have been playing Mozart – since maybe five and a half when I took up my first adagio and played, when I was five and a half.
I played many times Mozart concertos but never actually thought of recording this and so therefore the opportunity came, one and a half years ago, that I can work with the UBS Verbier Chamber Orchestra, that we can gather and spend substantial amount of time on exploring in depth the works of Mozart and recording them, recording all 5 concertos.

Q: Would I be right in saying that Mozart isn’t a big part of the Russian tradition?

M: I think it would be a little bit wrong to say that because I’ve been raised with the recordings of David Oistrakh, that played marvellously Mozart in his way. But, you know, the times have been changing how Mozart was played since the kind of the romantic times in the beginning of the 20th century - we hear all the great violinists showing off, Oistrakh included, famous Jascha Heifetz – but now I think comes the right time to try and to actually look into Mozart and to – not to reinvent but kind of refresh your views on this.
And I think Mozart can never be too old-fashioned, so it can always be fresh. The only thing what is needed is really a closer look and a very personal attachment to his music.
That’s what we did when I gather with the Chamber Orchestra to do that.

Q: It looks so simple on the page, doesn’t it, Mozart’s music? I mean there’s so few notes compared to the great romantic concertos – that must make it more difficult in a way.

M: I think it’s a greatest challenge when you have, for instance, Concerto no. 2 that consists of a very simple line of the violin solo and just one or two lines of the orchestra, first and second violin section. And it proves that Mozart was really genius, creating with a few chords most miraculous music that gives us such enormous satisfaction.
The music has developed since very early stages; since early Baroque, Renaissance, then it went to Classicism, Romantic, Post-Romantic and Neo-Classical music. And now we have the most sophisticated music of our 21st century: electric music, electronic equipment. There’s so many possibilities.
But when we listen to Mozart’s music, that gives us a real great sense of what a human soul is and all this equipment is not necessary to prove that the human heart, and what we feel, is the most important.

Q: Which of those 5 concertos is your favourite?

M: It is very hard to say what is my favourite because Mozart has come through a journey in his way of completing 5 concertos.
From the very first one to the fifth there is enormous professional growth of the Master. He became really Master with these pieces. He deliberately wanted to write one after another, just to try his skills in this genre. And there is a famous letter of Leopold Mozart to his son Wolfgang saying that when I heard you play the fifth concerto, finally you got a tear out of my eye. So that really proves that, you know, not only technically he has mastered his way of writing but also he has achieved very incredible emotional growth in his writing.
The five concertos still belong to the post-Baroque style – it was really, they were written under already the falling of the Baroque and what is very interesting is that after Mozart completed these works he came to Mannheim and he has seen this incredible orchestra that was quite revolutionary for this time: fifty players were playing and they made enormous range of nuances, from the tiniest pianissimo to the gigantic fortissimo. Mozart was truly amazed by that.
Also during that time many composers tried to make a kind of a melange between the concerto and the symphony. What does it mean? It means the concerto – is from Italian, it means battle, a battle between the soloist and the orchestra. These five concertos, in other words, are telling us this is the violinist and the orchestra is trying to compete and trying to prove themselves that they are, at least no less! (he laughs)

The later works, what he has written for violin and viola – we are talking here about Mozart’s Symphony Concertante – belong to the new era because many different composers were trying themselves in this genre; as I said, a melange between the concerto and the symphony. Symphony is symphony for the orchestra with the soloist integrating – and that’s the beauty of it. So in the Symphony Concertante the soloists are not any more the bosses - if you want to say it like this – they have to accompany a lot of times. And only when they are given a chance they say OK, here we can lead you.

Q: So, like first among equals rather than

M: Yes, exactly!

Q: You’ve recorded these with the UBS Verbier Orchestra, which is a youth orchestra – but it is a very, very good one, isn’t it? I mean what is your relationship with them and how did it start?

M: It was very interesting to work with them on this project because the youngest player, at that time when we started, was only 17 – and the oldest was myself, 31! (he laughs) And Mozart has written this works when he was about 18/19 when he wrote the concertos and when he wrote the Concertante he was a bit older, only a few years older. So it made perfect sense – and I think, I hope and think, Mozart would have approved of this collaboration.
I think this collaboration was wonderful because we could really take the time to explore and really study. We are all young souls; we were very hungry to explore the depth of Mozart. You know, Mozart you can analyse and accept and listen to in many different layers – that’s the beauty of this genius.
The first level is a very common level when we just enjoy. We don’t know much about music but we still receive enormous fulfilment from the sounds and the energy and enlightenment of the sound and his energy that he has transcended through the music.
The second level is when we connoisseurs – or we aim to be one! – we go into the details, we get to know the structure of the building. It is like getting to know the big castle: getting to the root, to its foundations, to see from what it really consist.
Once you have passed through this stage you close the book – and then the beauty starts. Then Mozart tells us again, now I can be your teacher.
Before one has done this job one cannot actually go and understand fully Mozart’s potential.

Q: Do you find that you’ve been influenced by people who play period instruments, about how you approach his music?

M: Absolutely. It was really helpful to have the influence from my wonderful friend Trevor Pinnock, who has influenced me and inspired me to play, to take up the period instrument. I have played only for two and a half years, studying it quite seriously; because, you know, really taking it step by step.

Q: Just tell people who don’t know what the main differences are. I mean the strings are different to begin with, aren’t they?

M: The style of violin playing as such and also the style of the sounds and the colours has been really modified throughout the years. Also, within this, has modified also the concert halls. For instance, in the 16th/17th centuries the music was performed in small courtyards, in wonderful beautiful salons with a different acoustic; whereas now we can stand in the glorious Albert Hall filled with 6,000 people – so we have to quite produce a different kind of sound in order to be heard.
And so the music has also evolved. Now we have the greatest music of the, as I say, the electric music; even going back to the end of the century, the music of Shostakovich.
I think Mozart, if he had heard this, he would say well, I still have the time to grow! (he laughs) Because the range of the possibilities, of the technology, has improved enormously – so the possibilities of human beings have been stretched throughout the years.
So when we talk about the style of playing the violin at the time of Mozart, we can only of course speculate because there isn’t a demo recording and a video which we can actually see!
But we have the wonderful book, The School of Leopold Mozart: how to hold the bow, how to hold the violin, how to make the phrasing, how to make the embellishment and ornamentation – and this is the living proof that is our only, probably only guide and only reference.
The most interesting thing is, when I studied the Baroque and I played the Baroque instrument, I have noticed that I have to use less and less of my body muscles and let the instrument play. You’re not allowed to force the instrument; you should not use too much vibrato because it would simply kill the string, it would start really forcing.
Secondly in the salons, in the very vibrant salons that this music was played at that time, you really didn’t need so much vibrato. You would let the instrument vibrate almost by itself and then you would make the vibrato and this vibrations with the right hand, accelerating and diminishing the sound in the speed of the bow – that was the beauty.
The beauty is also in the body language: how you would use – you would hold the instrument more closer to yourself and less physical than we hold it now for works like Shostakovich or Tchaikovsky.
So the experience of learning the period instrument helped me enormously to work with the Chamber Orchestra of Verbier, to let them know the sense and to become one with them because you could just imagine if I would play my way and I would play a different way, it would just not work, it would not be convincing.
So we took really the time to study with one another and I was myself also learning and taking steps with them. And so lucky I was with these young people, my younger colleagues – I was only their inspirator, nothing more. But the only teacher was, for us, was Mozart.

Q: That’s really tremendous. I wish you well with everything – thank you very much Maxim.

M: Thank you, thank you.