BOOKS

A Life in Music: Memories of 80 years with the violin György Pauk

248PP ISBN 9781527293229 GP PUBLICATIONS £15

Throughout his long career, Hungarian violinist György Pauk has enjoyed a glowing reputation, not only as an acclaimed virtuoso soloist but also as an outstanding chamber musician. On disc he demonstrates an extraordinary ability to immerse himself in a composer’s unique sound world, without any sense of distracting interpretative intervention. In this important regard, he can be viewed as the last great exponent of the modern Hungarian school of playing (including Hubay, Szigeti and Székely), whose origins can be traced back to Joseph Joachim. Indeed, Pauk sees himself, in ‘a pedagogical sense’ as ‘Joachim’s great-grandson’.

The nobility, humanity and sonic allure of Pauk’s playing developed out of his childhood years. Tragically he lost both his parents in the Holocaust and spent the remainder of the war with his grandmother in the Budapest Ghetto, from which his overriding memory is being painfully hungry. So powerful was the impact of near-starvation that, until his formal retirement from the concert stage, Pauk invariably packed ‘some fruit, cheese or biscuits’ in with his concert gear, just in case. Yet it was music that ultimately pulled him through leading to his enrolment at the Liszt Academy at the tender age of 13. Here his principal influences were his professor, Ede Zathureczky, who had played concerts with Bartók and had intimate knowledge of his violin works; Leó Weiner, a remarkable pedagogue whose other students included Georg Solti, Antal Doráti, János Starker and Laszlo Varga; and Zoltán Kodály, whose uncompromising regime was based around his insistence that one should aspire to know ‘everything’. Of the various violinists Pauk heard ‘live’ at this time, two stood out that one can fascinatingly detect as influences on his playing every bit as powerful as his day-to-day teachers: David Oistrakh and Christian Ferras.

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The 1950s were pivotal for Pauk in establishing his international reputation. Wins at the Paganini and Jacques Thibaud competitions, marriage to Zsuzsa Mautner and a liberating spell working in the Netherlands led to contact with Yehudi Menuhin, who suggested he move to Britain. In 1961 Pauk settled in London and never looked back, taking British citizenship in 1967.

The rest, as they say, is history, yet Pauk’s recollections are so astute and insightful, and told with such warmth and charm, that one is irresistibly drawn into the narrative. Unusually for a performing musician, Pauk has a writing style that elicits the same generosity of spirit and love of life as his actual playing. Highlights abound, including his enduring contact with distinguished British orchestra leaders Rodney Friend and Béla Dékány, having himself been offered the leadership of the LSO quite early on – and turning it down! Everywhere, Pauk’s light touch is evident, especially when recalling some of the funnier experiences of concert life, such as trying to locate the lavatory in his suite at Harewood House and close to desperation eventually locating it, disguised as a ‘beautifully carved armchair’.

György Pauk performing at the summer festival in

Aspen, Colorado

The chapter on tours to South Africa, Australasia, South America, Hong Kong, Japan, the US and Japan is worth the price of admission alone. Another delightful touch is the 20-page appendix with recollections and reflections by family, friends, professional colleagues and former students, which affectionately confirms Pauk’s status as one of the most gifted and widely admired musicians of his generation.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

Rethinking Social Action Through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools Geoffrey Baker

476PP ISBN 9781800641266 OPEN BOOK PUBLISHERS £26.95

Such is Geoffrey Baker’s infamy in the international El Sistema community that rebuttals, disavowals, and boycotts of his book on the Venezuelan youth orchestra system were in discussion well before its publication in 2014. El Sistema: impeccably researched yet withering critique of an entity many considered beyond reproach. Despite being well-written and insightful, the book was unremittingly negative in style, and Baker’s relentless denunciation of even minor aspects of Sistema prompted legitimate questions concerning the author’s objectivity.

Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth was an

GEOFFREY BAKER

Readers seeking guidance found condemnation; those looking for inspiration, discouragement.

In this context, his latest book Rethinking Social Action Through Music can be considered both sequel and course correction for author and audience. Moving beyond national generalisations, Baker engages in a detailed exploration of the evolution of socio-musical outreach work in Colombia’s second largest city, within the Network of Music Schools (known more simply as the Red, the Spanish word for ‘network’). The narrative is far more relevant than its narrow geographic scope might suggest: readers with history in this field will recognise how challenges, paradoxes, questions and ensuing tensions in Medellín echo in similar projects worldwide. Readers without that history will be introduced to the ubiquitous philosophical, pedagogical and operational challenges of the work through Baker’s accurate and illuminating account.

Even a partial litany of the issues confronted by the Red illustrates the dizzying range of considerations concomitant with Social Action Through Music (SATM), a phrase that itself encompasses objectives so vast, multifaceted and multifarious that the primary struggle is to identify which goals, if any, are achievable through music. The social idealism of programme leadership is contrasted by the disinterest, if not outright resistance, of conservatoire-trained music instructors to new pedagogies. All parties grapple with the popular myth that technical excellence in written Western European traditions is proof positive of social impact, when it is frequently achieved through manifestly anti-social means. Indigenous, popular and classical traditions, and their disparate media, teaching methods and objectives, compete for time with each other and with instruction in citizenship and social responsibility in a zero-sum game. The heresy inevitably drawn from these debates is unflinchingly confronted: is music even necessary? SATM is inescapably complex, and Baker unravels critical intricacies with detail and clarity. His focus on specific challenges in Medellín diffracts into a broad spectrum of inquiry probing the mechanics, possibilities and pitfalls of the sector.

Just as spectra defy clean divisions, the inherent interconnection of many concepts produces overlap between chapters as key ideas are explored from multiple angles. A sense of revisitation prevails throughout, but this is a consequence of grappling with complexity, not a failure of organisation. If there were a shortcoming to Baker’s work, it is his embrace of the trope that the string-based orchestra is utterly unsuited to pro-social activity, with contrasting ideas barely elevated above a footnote. The counterargument is Baker’s own point that the adoption of different genres or media beyond the classical does not automatically confer any social benefit. In a book about possibility, his orchestral myopia is surprising.

An outdoor rehearsal at the Alfonso López School of Music in Medellín

Comparisons between Colombia and Venezuela, and Baker’s separate volumes on the two, are inevitable.

Baker’s discussion of the Red is considerably more constructive, inviting speculation of what might have been had Sistema in Venezuela evolved through team discourse, not founder fiat; if ‘getting it right’ were viewed as a cycle of listening, learning and unflinching self-examination, not a fait accompli after assembling an orchestra. The inquiry is ruthlessly honest, but not needlessly so: the account of the work in Medellín is appreciative yet objective, bolstered by an informed exploration that gives it international relevance. Worth mentioning is that unlike its predecessor, this volume is available in multiple e-formats without charge. This degree of accessibility for a book of this quality is surprising, but also fitting, given that it succeeds precisely where its precursor fell short, offering guidance, insight and even inspiration.

JONATHAN GOVIAS