HIS OWN PATH

At the age of 40, German–American violinist David Garrett is a bona fide crossover star, in non-Covid times playing regularly to thousands at sold-out arena shows. But, as he tells Charlotte Smith, he has no intention of deserting his classical roots

David Garrett performs with his orchestra and band during his Unlimited tour of Germany in May 2019

UWE MÜLLER

David Garrett’s career, as we know it, began at the Juilliard School. At first glance, there’s nothing odd in this assertion. Most professional classical performers consider their conservatoire years to be of utmost importance – a chance to meet and collaborate with musical peers, to learn from esteemed educators and to begin to make their mark in a competitive field. But Garrett had already signed to Deutsche Grammophon (DG) at the age of 13, making him the prestigious label’s youngest ever recording artist. He had recorded Paganini’s 24 Caprices for the label aged 15, and toured as a violin soloist with world-ranking orchestras and conductors since making his stage debut as a child prodigy with the Hamburg Philharmonic a few days before his eleventh birthday. So, putting a glittering career on hold in order to join the class of Itzhak Perlman at the New York institution in his late teens felt for many of his supporters like a step backwards.

‘I stopped playing concerts for four years while studying, and, of course, not everybody took that the right way,’ he explains. ‘My dad was absolutely against the decision. He had his arguments, and the older I become, the more I understand them. But in the end, it was good that I didn’t listen, as my life was meant to take that road.’

For some time, Garrett had been plagued by feelings of inadequacy. ‘I had played a lot of concerts until I was 16 or 17, and I thought I was a good violinist, but not a great musician,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t very skilled at reading orchestral scores, and I didn’t properly understand harmony and counterpoint. When I was standing next to a conductor, I always felt that I wasn’t entirely understanding him when he went into detail about the music, and that made me feel uncomfortable.’

On stage with guitarist Franck van der Heijden

MAIN PHOTO HELEN DARES. CIRCLE PHOTO PRIVATE / WEIGOLD & BÖHM

‘I HAD TO FIND MY SELF-ESTEEM AGAIN. THAT MEANT PRACTISING, OF COURSE, BUT ALSO LEARNING ABOUT MUSIC’

The recognition of his musical shortcomings coincided with the teen’s growing awareness of the very great responsibility that had been placed on his young shoulders. ‘In my early career, when I was still a kid, I enjoyed performing and making music.

But as I reac hed 14, 15 and 16 I stopped enjoying being on stage. I started experiencing stage fright and nervousness. When you’re very young, you don’t question anything. You start to become a business, you begin to realise that you are responsible for that success. That sense of responsibility hit me perform because you know how to – and there is no voice inside crying out that you must play brilliantly. But as you become older, and there are record companies and promoters, and things hard at the time, and I started to perform not for myself but to serve the expectations of others.’

Garrett aged 4

The key for Garrett was Juilliard, and a double major in performance and composition that served to fill the gaps in his wider musical knowledge. ‘Honestly, when I enrolled, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to play the violin any more,’ he reveals.

‘I had to find my self-esteem again, and that could only be regained with knowledge. That meant practising, of course, but also learning about music.’

Today, Garrett’s professional persona seems light years away from the solemn, clean-cut teenager who recorded Mozart violin concertos with Claudio Abbado and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for the Yellow Label in 1995.

With his long blonde locks, chunky skull-themed jewellery and numerous tattoos, the 40-year-old fits more the cliché of a 90s rock star than the admittedly limited, but generally accepted, idea of a ‘serious’ classical musician. Indeed, for well over a decade Garrett has dedicated much of his time to developing himself as the ultimate crossover star – playing his arrangements of pop and film tunes, plus his own compositions, to thousands at sold-out arena shows with his orchestra and band, and releasing a string of top-selling albums such as Explosive, Rock Revolution, Unlimited – Greatest Hits and Alive – My Soundtrack (his most recent recording of music from films) for his army of fans. To date, he has sold more than three million albums, and has even flirted with screen stardom, playing the role of Paganini in the 2013 film The Devil’s Violinist, for which he also recorded and composed the score together with Franck van der Heijden.

Yet Garrett has in no way turned his back on his classical roots. He has continued to release acclaimed core albums for Decca and DG every few years, among them the concertos of Brahms, Bruch and Beethoven, and to perform classical concerts, thereby maintaining the admiration and respect of the classical industry and making himself a particularly intriguing artist. The heart of this dichotomy, again, goes back to Juilliard.

Performing with the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta in 2013

ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC PHOTO SHAI SKIFF / EDEL BOOKS. CIRCLE PHOTO CHRISTOPH KÖSTLIN

‘Some of the inspiration for entering the crossover market came from my studies in New York,’ he says. ‘There was so much collaboration between the different divisions. I remember lots of dance crews at Juilliard were looking for classical instrumentalists to provide music for their recitals. I would ask what kind of music they wanted, and they would suggest the Eagles or AC/DC or Michael Jackson, so I began to experiment and improvise around a lot of pop tunes and quickly realised how much young people loved this approach – many of them hadn’t realised this was possible on a classical instrument. I had so much fun doing it, as it gave me the opportunity to use my composition skills, and I thought, “Why not give this a shot professionally?” It would also give me the chance to entice young audiences into classical music.’

Of course, the move from student life to world-famous musician was not an easy one, particularly as a result of Garrett’s four years away from the limelight. During that time, the concert offers had dried up and his management had abandoned him. Only through perseverance, playing small private concerts for little or no fee, did he slowly come back to the attention of the industry. But, as in his decision to embrace student life, those around him were hesitant to accept his crossover ambitions once he had regained his public profile.

I wonder if a degree of snobbery from the classical industry was at the heart of this resistance? Garrett is refreshingly honest: ‘In some ways, the snobbery surrounding crossover is right, because for many years it was the escape plan for less than first-class musicians. So, people began to generalise about it, which is understandable as that’s human nature; it became accepted that if you’re a crossover artist you can’t also be a classical musician and vice versa. But I do believe this attitude is changing. Especially during the past ten or twenty years, increasing numbers of outstanding young musicians have experimented with crossover.’

GARRETT ON HIS INSTRUMENTS

I use my 1716 ‘Adolf Busch’ Stradivari mostly for classical performances and recordings. I also bought an early Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ from 1728 a few years ago, which I now enjoy playing almost as much as the Strad. It has a slightly more powerful sound, which works especially well for the big violin concertos. Then I have a 1735 Santo Serafin from Venice, which is more an instrument to be used in smaller settings and for chamber music. It doesn’t have as much volume, nor the quality of the Strad and ‘del Gesù’, but it’s still very beautiful and its Venetian varnish is absolutely magical.

I have a couple of practice instruments as well: in the morning I usually play etudes and scales on my Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. I remember watching a documentary as a kid, about Jascha Heifetz, in which he talked about his Carlo Tononi practice instrument. Only once he had warmed up on the Tononi did he take out his good violin – which I always found to be an extremely respectful attitude towards an instrument. Obviously, it’s a huge luxury to be able do this, but since I have the opportunity to play two fantastic Cremonese instruments I feel that they deserve the best possible treatment.

For crossover I have a different instrument again: a French violin from the Vuillaume school. During my crossover performances there’s a microphone so close to my violin that there’s no need to play an especially loud instrument – and even if I did, the sound would come across as a little ‘choked’. Also, there are so many pyrotechnics during my shows that my classical heart would be very worried about playing a hugely valuable Strad under such circumstances! It’s not even about the money; it’s more that the instrument, with its unique history, is irreplaceable.

Garrett and his Vuillaume violin

In recent years I have started using electric violins very occasionally. I did an arrangement of Prince’s Purple Rain with a big improvisational middle section as a tribute in the year that he died. Prince was a fantastic jazz guitarist and a real genius, so when it came to that section I thought I should pick up the electric violin in his honour. Of course, electric instruments have their limits, but for special occasions when everything becomes bombastic, I think it makes sense musically to use them. Still, nuance, breathing, vibrato – all the things I love about playing the violin – are not possible on an electric instrument. It has a different soul from the acoustic violin, but it’s not my soulmate.

‘THERE ALWAYS NEEDS TO BE A SENSE OF ARTISTRY. EVEN IF YOU’RE ARRANGING METALLICA OR IRON MAIDEN, THERE NEEDS TO BE A SENSE OF CLASSICAL CULTURE’

Part of the reason for this change in attitude is surely down to Garrett himself, and his determination to produce musically sophisticated arrangements of great pop tunes that sit well on his classical violin. ‘The worst thing you can do when making an arrangement is simply to take the melody and write it down for your instrument,’ he explains. ‘Each instrument has its own soul – its own sound and intent.

Therefore you can’t just create a melody from a vocal line. This is where musical instinct comes in: you should preserve a sense of the melody and then feel where to deviate from it, so that it’s still recognisable to your audience. Unfortunately, there are quite a few examples of bad or lazy covers. But there always needs to be a sense of artistry. Even if you’re arranging Metallica or Iron Maiden, there needs to be a sense of classical culture.’

Adopting this attitude, Garrett says, ensures there is no pop tune that can’t work in an arrangement for classical instruments. Rather, it’s a matter of scratching beneath the surface to find the song’s origins. He cites Aerosmith’s Walk This Way, which he arranged for his Rock Symphonies album, as a good example. ‘There’s very little melody in that song, so you have to think instead about the groove, which is rhythm and blues-based – plus there’s a connection to the US fiddle playing of Irish immigrants. It’s important, as well, to address the issue of balance with the orchestra, as it’s so easy for the violin to be swallowed up. In my shows, the balance between symphony orchestra and electric band can also be difficult to get right.’

Garrett’s interest in all aspects of arranging can be seen in his 2019 Best of Violin sheet music volume for Schott, featuring 16 of his interpretations of works by composers and artists ranging from Beethoven and Paganini to Justin Timberlake and Led Zeppelin. While the inclusion of his personal fingerings is great news for violinists, it’s in fact the piano accompaniments that most excited Garrett about the project. ‘For the solo parts, I simply had to note my fingerings and maybe rewrite a few things to make them more sensible for young musicians,’ he explains. ‘But the really fun part was taking our big orchestrations from the stage shows and reducing them to their essence in the piano reductions with my frequent collaborator, pianist and producer John Haywood.’

GARRETT’S TEACHERS

I met Ida Haendel when I was about 10 or 11 years old. The way she talked about music and played the violin was fascinating. She never wanted to be called a teacher, yet she was a wonderful inspiration for me. We didn’t really have lessons as such. She told me, ‘I respect you as a violinist and can only show you what I do.’ So it was more like two musicians getting together and sharing their ideas about fingerings, phrasing and so on. After I turned 14 I still played for her, but we met less often, as my life became busier.

Itzhak Perlman was my teacher at Juilliard for four years. He’s super funny, kind and never harsh with his criticism.

With Ida Haendel: ‘a wonderful inspiration’

His approach is to go back to the score and to question musical decisions: ‘Why am I doing this glissando, vibrato or fi ngering?’ The answer to these questions should never be: ‘Because I always have.’ He wants his students to fi nd their own sound and interpretation, but always to question it fi rst. He had a very small class of only four people in my fi rst year: Giora Schmidt, Arnaud Sussmann, Ilya Gringolts and me.

There were never more than six or seven people in the class until I graduated. This meant that I saw Perlman once or twice a week for lessons, and at weekends we all went to his house where there was a big meal prepared.

With Itzhak Perlman in 1990

Everybody would share their stories, including Perlman, and we could ask him questions. After food, everyone would play a little something and we discussed the performances. There was competition, as there always is, but there was also a great sense of positivity.

While negative competition can choke you, positive competition makes you better – and Perlman always had the right balance. He knew that people were looking left and right, but he made sure that everybody was also looking at themselves.

Garrett aged 11

In Garrett’s shows balancing solo violin with orchestra and electric band requires great finesse

WIOLA JANOSCHEK

Clearly, it’s in endeavours such as these that Garrett’s compositional background comes into its own, and indeed, he has composed original tracks for several of his albums. Yet he sees little difference between the disciplines of composing and arranging. ‘To be quite honest, I think if you know how to arrange pieces well, you also know how to write music from scratch,’ he says. ‘Of course, as a composer you must have a talent for melody and harmonic progression, but I’ve always thought it’s a bit arrogant to assume that arranging is a lesser skill. Arranging can, in fact, be much harder than writing your own music, because there is always comparison with the original, and if you don’t live up to that you will come in for a lot of criticism!’

So how has Garrett coped with the Covid-19 pandemic? This period of forced separation from the stage is surely difficult for an artist so accustomed to performing for large audiences. His Unlimited tour, originally scheduled for 2020, is currently planned for summer and autumn of 2021, with the subsequent tour for his Alive album, itself recorded at the beginning of Europe’s first lockdowns in February and March 2020, following fairly seamlessly in 2022.

‘Over the last 20 years I have become very used to travelling and having musical adventures,’ he says. ‘Therefore, 2020 has been like a sabbatical – not from music, of course, but from performing.’ A herniated disc in 2018, the culmination of many years of ignoring the signs of discomfort, has prevented Garrett from turning to intense practise to fill the hours. ‘There’s nothing more I can do than my two to three hours of practice a day – after that time, my concentration drops,’ he continues.

‘I also learnt from my injury that my body needs breaks. As a younger performer I was extremely ambitious, going to Juilliard and mixing with great violinists, so I started practising more and more. I’d begin, let’s say, at 11am and went through until 4 or 5pm in very long and intense sessions. This led to a lot of tension and positioning problems, starting in my twenties and getting steadily worse, so that around 36 or 37 my fingers started getting numb. I really urge all young musicians to listen to their body. Sometimes, when you’re young and a little bit stupid, you don’t pay attention; but each person is different – some violinists are able to practise for eight hours per day and never have problems, and others might practise for only one hour and still experience difficulties.’

‘I REALLY URGE ALL YOUNG MUSICIANS TO LISTEN TO THEIR BODY. SOMETIMES, WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG AND A LITTLE BIT STUPID, YOU DON’T PAY ATTENTION TO THE WARNING SIGNS’

It’s fortuitous, then, that Garrett is able to keep himself busy with numerous other projects, among them a second volume of his sheet music arrangements for Schott and a new classical album for Deutsche Grammophon, due for release in 2022 – a project, he reveals, that will also feature his own arrangements, though its repertoire, for now, remains a closely guarded secret. ‘I like to maintain a little bit of suspense for my supporters,’ he says. ‘But I can tell you it will be a classical record with a few twists. I’m a huge fan of Fritz Kreisler – he’s my hero; so if, like him, I can include an arrangement which will add something personal to a beautiful track, I will definitely take the opportunity.’

For the moment, any plans beyond this are eclipsed by the current pandemic. ‘My biggest dream right now is the one I share with the whole planet – I want a sense of normality and to be able to perform again,’ he says. ‘And really, my career is not important, as I have made my livelihood and I’m fine. On the other hand, there are so many young musicians on the verge of a career who are unable to perform. Of course, there are digital opportunities and social media, but that’s in no way the same thing. So, what I want at this moment is for musicians to be musicians again.’ Here, as in so many areas of his popular career, Garrett has captured the mood of our times.