STANDING OUT FROM THE CROWD

In a world that seems to value homogeneous perfection, how do you develop an individual voice on your instrument? Charlotte Gardner speaks to some of today’s top soloists to find out

Patricia Kopatchinskaja, one of today’s most distinctive soloists

Heifetz. Menuhin. Kreisler. Ferras. Huberman. Casals. Rostropovich. If you know your golden age string players, then you’ll know that the musical personality of each of the aforementioned was so very audibly distinctive that were you to hear unlabelled recordings, the chances are that you’d manage to identify correctly who was who. Yet this in turn raises questions about today’s stringplaying landscape. Firstly, whether nowadays players really are less identifiable on a blind hearing, as is often mourned; and if so, then why? And does it matter? If it does matter, how does a 21st- century string player develop a sound that’s all their own, without sounding mannered or forced?

KOPATCHINSKAJA PHOTO ERIC MELZER

It does indeed appear that it’s not just recording aficionados who think today’s players sound more generic. ‘Today’s players are much less recognisable,’ says violinist–conductor Dmitry Sitkovetsky (right). ‘One reason is the competitions. It isn’t that the competitive element wasn’t there in the 19th century – artists such as Paganini would challenge other players to onstage duels, where “winning” depended on the amount of applause received. But it wasn’t competing in the way they compete now, with players having to be acceptable in an array of repertoire to jury members coming from diverse influences.’ He continues: ‘Recordings is another reason. For Kreisler, and really even for Heifetz and Menuhin, to hear somebody else they’d have to go to their concert. Now it’s all on YouTube. Plus, we’re in an era of recording with three hundred takes to clean everything, because there aren’t supposed to be any blemishes. So when young artists record, they’ve been conditioned by a desire both to be perfect and to conform. Meanwhile, many people in the music business have equally been conditioned to expect note-perfect live performance. So everybody’s afraid to step over the line and do something out of the box. Live performance should be dramatically different from a recording, because of the risks one takes, and the reason Heifetz’s recordings are so white-hot is because he recorded them live.’

Cellist Steven Isserlis agrees, albeit with a caveat. ‘I think that 60 years ago there were probably lots of players who weren’t instantly recognisable, but not everybody back then got to make recordings,’ he says. ‘That said, yes, I do think today’s players are less recognisable. There’s probably a lot more imitation, and that would certainly result in a certain conformity, which is a pity. I’m very excited when I hear somebody who I think is saying exactly what they mean, in a way that nobody else could; and I think it’s true that you can’t be a great player (or a great composer) unless you have your own very individual voice.’

ZUKERMAN PHOTO MAY ZIRCUS–L’AUDITORI. ISSERLIS PHOTO JOANNA BERGIN

The good news, though, is that our times aren’t completely bereft of individual voices, and while it’s a job to persuade artists to single out their colleagues, Sitkovetsky nominates Pinchas Zukerman (right). ‘It’s a combination of his particular vibrato, and a connection of the left hand with his wonderful bow arm. He has one of the best bow arms in the business; also a certain intensity that’s different from a Heifetz intensity. The beauty of it! Look up the second movement of his Beethoven Piano Trio op.1 no.1 with Barenboim and du Pré, and listen to his first phrase. His partners are phenomenal, of course, but his contribution in that phrase is something very special.’ Among worthy younger violinists, Sitkovetsky suggests Augustin Hadelich. ‘He has an extraordinarily beautiful, very focused, very refined sound with a lot of energy and intensity behind it.’

Cellist Sol Gabetta nominates violinist Isabelle Faust. ‘I find that it’s in the way a person phrases that I can recognise them, and Isabelle is a violinist who has incredible perception and perfection of focus not only of sound but also of construction and evolution of every phrase from beginning to end.’ She continues: ‘Also there’s Janine Jansen. The sound is so beautiful, so full of love and warmth.’ Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, meanwhile, remembers a violinist we lost only in 2020, Ivry Gitlis, ‘for his “speaking” attack and impertinent sensuality’.

That line-up also serves to illustrate the fact that there’s more than one way to be an individual. ‘There are two sorts of musicians, in the same way that there are two sorts of actors,’ says Isserlis. ‘With a Hollywood star like Humphrey Bogart, you go to him when you want something specific. He can change a bit, but he’s still Bogart and that’s great. Likewise Heifetz, or my great hero, the cellist Daniil Shafran. I suppose they were a bit the same for everything, which perhaps suited some pieces better than others, whereas other musicians change much more between pieces – they are more like character actors, becoming the part they’re playing. I don’t know whether that’s better than a Hollywood star, but I want to be a character actor.’

‘AN INTERESTING PERSON WILL ALWAYS HAVE A UNIQUE DIALOGUE WITH A PIECE AND MAKE YOU CURIOUS TO HEAR IT’

Daniil Shafran, whom Steven Isserlis cites as his ‘great hero’

Whichever is your camp, the advice on how to get there begins with a few don’ts. ‘Being different is good. Trying to be different is bad,’ warns Isserlis. ‘Very often it just sounds affected.’ Kopatchinskaja, meanwhile, believes that it’s a danger to think in terms of ‘sound’ at all. ‘It’s not about the sound, it’s about the piece and the storyteller,’ she says. ‘An interesting person will always have a unique dialogue with a piece, so that everything – sound, articulation, story, vocabulary, timing – will be recognisable and make you curious to hear it.’

Back to Isserlis (right). ‘I think there’s much too much emphasis on beauty of sound now,’ he says. ‘You need to make music talk, not just sing. That was very much Sándor Végh. He was all about truth, really speaking through the music, following the contours and character of each phrase; it didn’t involve making a beautiful lush sound at all times.

Sol Gabetta performing Weinberg’s Cello Concerto at the BBC Proms in 2019. She recommends playing less familiar repertoire to encourage originality

GABETTA PHOTO CHRIS CHRISTODOULOU

The great composers would, I’m sure, not have expected today’s constant intensity. They would have expected storytelling. It seems that simplicity is not always at the heart of today’s teaching, and I think the simplest approach is always the best.’

There’s also the issue of not being aware of the full arsenal of playing technique and how to use it. ‘Most violinists are conditioned to change the bow at either the tip or the frog,’ says Sitkovetsky. ‘But where is that law? Tartini never said that in his The Art of Bowing, and it makes no sense. You can change the bow anywhere. That said, the sound is not only about the bow arm. It also depends on the way you press the string with your left-hand fingers, and your vibrato, and how all that combines. The proof of this is that Menuhin, for perhaps the final third of his life, had all kinds of problems with his bow arm – he had a very hard time keeping it on the string – yet his sound remained.’

Perhaps the greatest danger when it comes to sleepwalking into cultivating a generic sound may be paying insufficient attention to the score. ‘The paradox is that the closer you stick to what’s written in the score, the more individual you will sound,’ says Isserlis. ‘You would think you’d sound more similar to others, but you don’t. So go straight to the composer – and not to the editor, which is why good editions are also so important. It’s then about sincerity. Ask yourself, why am I vibrating there? Why am I taking time there? Do I really mean it, or is it just habit? It’s about playing exactly as you feel, from the heart, not according to what you’ve been told to do, or what other people do.’

‘TO BE ABLE TO PHRASE IN YOUR OWN WAY, YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN YOURSELF’

It is also vital to know the whole score. ‘Most string players think horizontally, when really how to phrase a melody is shaped and conditioned by the vertical – by the bass harmony,’ says Sitkovetsky. ‘If it’s a concerto, your part may be just one of 16 lines, and it’s in the whole score that you’ll find most possibilities of interpretation, and in response to other instruments that you’ll find interesting timbres and ideas.’

Choosing repertoire is another essential factor. Students who learn all the warhorses by cramming may not be doing their best to nurture their originality. ‘To be able to phrase in your own way, you need to believe in yourself,’ explains Gabetta. ‘For some, that will be easier if they’re not comparing themselves with the eight others in the class playing, say, the same Haydn concerto. So, for instance, in place of Haydn I might give one of my students the less famous concerto by the first cellist of Haydn’s orchestra, Antonín Kraft. It’s an amazing piece, and you also learn where Haydn is coming from in terms of the language of the period and its technical difficulties, rather than playing Haydn having never played other Classical concertos.’

Yehudi Menuhin’s sound remained, despite bow arm issues

Mstislav Rostropovich’s sound stayed consistent on different instruments

You should also be keeping an ear out for what your own true repertoire might be. ‘Gidon Kremer (below) is another violinist whose playing I can recognise,’ says Sitkovetsky. ‘There’s a particular laser-like quality to his intensity – athinner sound than that of other players. And he always has a strong opinion about the music, which makes his playing instantly recognisable. There are also certain things he has never played, including the Mendelssohn E minor Concerto. He knows his strengths and weaknesses. Of course, when you’re young you have to try everything, but at some point you have to realise, maybe through audience reaction, what your music is and where you can have an impact. This also makes your playing a lot more focused, rather than you being a jack of all trades.’

Also, don’t be a lone wolf. ‘Play chamber music constantly, and treat concertos as chamber music,’ says Isserlis. ‘Another paradox is that listening to what the other players are doing can make you sound more individual – because you’re responding spontaneously, having a conversation.’ And it’s important to choose your chamber partners with care, warns Gabetta: ‘Some people choose colleagues whose profiles can bring them additional fame, but you need to be very aware of whom you are connecting with, because your development as a musician depends on who you play with.’

‘INSTRUMENTS MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE. OTHERWISE IT’S LIKE A PAINTER WHO HAS CERTAIN COLOURS AND NOT OTHERS’

What is the importance of a string player’s most regular partner, their instrument? ‘Instruments do make a big difference,’ says Isserlis. ‘Otherwise it’s like a painter who has certain colours and not others. I find it hugely helpful to be playing on a Strad; I can think of a colour – and there it is. That said, people can transcend their instruments. Thinking of my two favourite cellists: Pablo Casals played on a Gofriller once believed to be by Bergonzi which is apparently not such a great cello; and while Shafran thought he was playing on an Amati, it may actually have been a German instrument.’

Fritz Kreisler, Harold Bauer, Pablo Casals and Walter Damrosch at Carnegie Hall, New York, March 1917

KREMER PHOTO ANGIE KREMER

For Gabetta, both the instrument and the player can be important. ‘I always think of Rostropovich’s old recordings made in Russia for Melodiya on his Storioni cello. Then he received an incredible Stradivari, but his own sound remained, which itself probably had something of his Storioni, because of the hours he was working on it at the beginning – as I did myself with my Guadagnini, before I was given my Gofriller. You develop a sort of single identity with the instrument, and this is the reason why I don’t like to change too often, because to recreate this identity on a different instrument takes time. I also remember being 16 years old at the Tchaikovsky competition and hearing musicians practising on instruments you almost couldn’t describe as cellos, yet with a quality of sound that meant when I listened from outside the room I assumed they were playing the best instrument in the world. And in fact, practising on an instrument which is perhaps not the best, you probably develop yourself more than you would with a big-name instrument, because big-name instruments have strong personalities, and you need to be very strong yourself towards them. Good modern instruments, meanwhile, are mostly very easy to play, and because of that you can – you need to, even – bring your own sound to them.’

More of an undervalued resource is set-up. ‘We speak a lot about whether or not we have a good instrument,’ says Gabetta, ‘but a lot of the success of the sound and being comfortable with your instrument is about set-up. Even something as simple as being able to trust yourself to move the bridge a bit.’ Isserlis points out the importance of strings. ‘Steel strings do make people sound more similar than gut strings do, because there’s already more uniformity between the four. With gut there’s much more contrast between the four strings, and that spills over into how you work with them.’

Then there’s your own physique. ‘I met Heifetz once,’ remembers Sitkovetsky, ‘and I was very surprised when I found great similarity between the shape of his fingers and mine. They’re long and thin, and taper off towards the tip, which gives you certain advantages up high and in terms of precision of attack. But chords in Bach solo sonatas and partitas are much harder than they are for people such as David Oistrakh, whose fingers were very soft. So you have to get to know your particular physical attributes and work with them.’

That’s a lot of immediately actionable advice. But, as Kopatchinskaja hinted earlier, your own imagination is essential. Sitkovetsky says, ‘I have spent a lot of time looking at a score, hearing it inside me, and it’s then that I know precisely how I want that phrase, what kind of sound I want. Of course, it may take you some time to get to it, but you will; and unless you have that inner sound, you’re looking at the materialisation of an idea that you never had – if you’re just making pretty sounds, they stay generic.’

And for some fortunate musicians, it really is as simple as playing what’s inside you. Violist Gérard Caussé, one of the most audibly distinctive and apparently joy-filled players around, explains: ‘My sound is my own voice coming from my heart, my soul, my feeling, my being. I would say that my model, inside myself, is I play as if I were singing. With my soul. Nothing to do with technical approach! Although I have also had other kinds of “models” whose sounds were very moving to me: my teacher Léon Pascal, and Dino Asciolla and Rudolf Barshai.’

French violist Gérard Caussé

D. ARRANZ

‘I PLAY AS IF I WERE SINGING. WITH MY SOUL. NOTHING TO DO WITH TECHNICAL APPROACH!’

‘There are some players who do have their own approach,’ says Isserlis, ‘but that’s also going to be honed with the years. I think and hope it’s true of myself that I sound different and more individual than I did 30 years ago.’ In fact, the final crucial training element towards sounding like an individual is probably the school of life itself, experiencing everything from visiting art galleries to a broken heart. ‘One of the other reasons why young musicians aren’t as recognisable is simply because very often they’re pushed on to the concert stage too soon,’ says Sitkovetsky. ‘You can’t imagine a ten-year-old film star playing Hamlet. Yet ten- or twelve-year-olds are playing the equivalents in the summits of the string repertoire. When I was 16, I heard a great pianist say that every important performer should possess the time. At that age I hardly possessed my own body, let alone the time! But that concept stuck with me, because at the end of the day, where the interpretation resides is not in the notes – because we all play the same notes, pretty much – but in that ephemeral space between them; and for this you need not only experience, but to know a lot about the arts, and a lot about life, really. You need to tell stories.’