Come Fly With me:

By Jeremy Caplan
May 12, 1998

When he jumped off a Swiss mountain in an effort to play his
multimilliondollar Stradavarius violin while hang gliding recently, Maxim
Vengerov was less concerned with his airspeed than with the steadiness of his
bow. His hang-gliding skill, though, leaves room for improvement. "I almost
made the Guinness Book of World Records,' he said of his Swiss attempt, "but
unfortunately, strong winds blew away my violin bow"

At 23, Vengerov is already one of the most sought-after classical soloists on
the planet. When grounded, he is classical music's answer to Elvis, a
dazzling draw at the world's greatest concert halls. After a recent tour of
Japan, he has landed in New York for three local concerts. On Thursday, he
will play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with James Levine and the
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; Friday, he will perform a Lincoln Center
recital; and on Monday, he will offer another recital in Princeton. On
Saturday, his day off, Vengerov could choose to do anything: relax,
celebrate, or even head home to Amsterdam to play his favorite game,
billiards. Instead, he will venture off to New York's Third Street Music
School Settlement, where he will fiddle alongside six-year-olds and smooth
out the scratches in their serenades. As the youngest envoy for UNICEF and
its only classical music representative, Vengerov has spent much of his free
time this year helping children across the world escape the devastation of
war through music. "In Bosnia recently, q I met a child whose father was
killed in front of his eyes," Vengerov recalled recently, "and he could no
longer speak. But music is a great means of communication, and we spoke
through song" Vengerov has played with the world's top symphonies and
recorded several bestselling albums. Next year, with the Chicago Symphony, he
will unveil the first composition written especially for him, Concerto
Cantabile by Rodion Shchedrin. Somehow, though, he has retained a sense of
modesty and perspective. "In Novosibirsk, Siberia, where I grew up, life
wasn't too beautiful," Vengerov recalls. "I played wearing gloves and a fur
coat, but even in the freezing cold, music was a great relief for me."
In 1990, Vengerov emigrated from Siberia and settled temporarily in Israel
with his family. Because of his age and physique, the Israeli army considered
enlisting him as a parachutist. "In the army, I did a little bit of
everything: running, jumping, and smoking," he says with a laugh. "When I was
four, my father said I could be a great weight lifter because I had strong
legs, and my mom said I was a good swimmer because she threw me in the water
and saw that I was a good sportsman. But life turned me in a different
direction."

In the footsteps of Nathan Milstein, Mischa Elman, and Jascha Heifetz, all
students of the great Russian pedagogue Leopold Auer, Vengerov has inerhited
a rich legacy of Soviet violin playing. Since David Oistrakh first captured
the attention of international audiences in the 1940s, with performances of
both Shostakovich violin concertos, Russian violinists have found success on
the American stage. Venergov, who emigated too late to have met Heifetz
before his death in 1985, was given Heifetz's bow three years ago in a
symbolic changing of the guard. "We're both perfectionists," he muses. "It's
in my nature: my name is Maxim, as in maximalist."

For anyone who has seen him at work, that effort is apparent: Vengerov
performs nearly everything by heart and often with his eyes closed, seemingly
dreaming his music. "When I'm on stage, I forget everything and the power of
the music takes over: it directs me in certain ways, sometimes slower,
sometimes faster. I'm just an instrument enjoying whatever comes out" But
even he has off nights. During an appearance in the Tanglewood Music Shed
last summer, he lit into the Brahms concerto with an uncharacteristically
pressed sound. Asked about the concert, Vengerov said that bugs had driven
him crazy. "Mosquitoes are the thing I hate the most. It was unbearable."
"It may seem odd," he says, "but the more wonderful a conductor, the more
rehearsals you need. With [Mstislav] Rostropovich I prefer to have at least
three rehearsals, so I can grasp the weight of the piece and feel close to
the conductor. Our relationship is priceless. He has shared with me the
tradition of Prokofiev and Shostakovich as the greatest 20th-century
composers."

As the torchbearer of the Russian violin tradition, Vengerov reveres
accomplished composers but also great Russian writers like Pushkin and
Chekhov. "I try to find time to read on airplanes"' he says, "but usually I
end up sleeping" Does he long for more free time? "I tried an experiment
once," he says. " I took a month and a half off. I just went with friends to
play pool, to bars and cinemas. For two or three days it was great. On the
fourth day, I felt like it was time for some action. Work keeps me alive.
Music lets me fly."