Sanford Baran of KGNU interviewed internationally renowned violinist Vadim Gluzman, performing on the legendary 1690 ex-Leopold Auer Stradivarius. Gluzman, performing at the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder on July 11th and 12th, shares insights into his early musical influences and his career.
Sanford Baran: Today, we are honored to welcome Vadim Gluzman, the internationally renowned violinist, celebrated for his impeccable technique. and deep musicality. Performing on the legendary 1690 ex-Leopold Auer Stradivarius, Luzman brings a unique blend of tradition and innovation to his captivating performances, enchanting audiences worldwide with his artistry. He’s going to be performing at the Colorado Music Festival here in Boulder on Thursday, July 11th and Friday, July 12th. Vadim, thank you so much for being with us.
Vadim Gluzman: My pleasure.
Sanford Baran: To begin, can you tell us about your early musical influences and how you started playing the violin?
Vadim Gluzman: Sure. I spent the first 15 years of my life in a country that does not exist anymore: the Soviet Union. I was born there, in Ukraine, into a family of musicians. Whether I realized it or not, music was attracting my attention from my early days, and then I demanded that I wanted to study music. My parents did everything in their power not to let me do that. But they weren’t successful. At the end, they had to give in. By that point we lived in Riga, the capital of Latvia. And this is where I started studying music, violin, and spent the first 15 years of my life. Since then I’ve studied in Israel, studied in the United States, and yeah, the rest is history.
Sanford Baran: Can you share a memorable moment from your time studying with renowned violinist Arkady Fomin?
Vadim Gluzman: Arkady was basically the person thanks to whom I’m giving this interview to you. If not for him, I don’t know where I would be. I came to study with him in Dallas when I was 19 years old. And it’s one of those moments. I’ve had these conversations with my colleagues, with my friends, and now with my younger colleagues- with my students. We all go through a period of bigger or smaller self-doubt. Mine was quite tremendous. I was ready to change my life course and Mr. Fomin sensed that very well. I guess he could relate to it. He basically told me that he was not going to let me do that. And he did it in such an inspiring way that I had no choice but to follow the light, and I did. I studied for two and a half years in Dallas. During that time, I was named the recipient of the Henryk Szeryng Career Award in 94, and that started my career. Ever since, I’ve been on the road.
Sanford Baran: Thank you, Mr. Fomin.
Vadim Gluzman: Indeed, thank you Mr. Fomin. He passed away about 10 years ago and now, at my festival in Chicago, we have a scholarship fund in his honor. We support young artists in Chicago. There are well over 50 now from around the world. We support them financially, finding performing opportunities for them, providing them with career advice and what not. Many become part of the extended family. It’s wonderful.
Sanford Baran: You play the 1690 ex-Leopold Auer Stradivari. Can you tell us about your relationship with this instrument? And how does performing on such a historic instrument affect your playing and interpretation of music?
Vadim Gluzman: I should mention that I’ve been playing, and I’m fortunate to be playing this instrument for the last 27 years. It’s on loan to me from the Stradivari Society of Chicago. I’ve started there as a recipient. By now, I’m not only a recipient, I’m also an artistic advisor, helping to choose the next generation of recipients. This violin is my voice. It was built in 1690, as you’ve mentioned. The special story of it is that every great fiddle is named after its previous owner. Its most famous owner, of course, since it was built over 300 years ago, was Leopold Auer. A custodian, let’s call it, of this violin. He was the gentleman to whom we are indebted as to creating what we know as Russian violin school. He was a teacher of Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, Mischa Elman, Efrem Zimbalist. The list goes on and on. In 1918, he made his way to the United States. He did not like the Russian Revolution. Go figure. This violin then made its way to one of his assistants in New York. Very shortly after, he sold it to a firm in Philadelphia, where it sat in a vault, which is one of the reasons why it is in such an incredible condition, because it was not used for well over 50 years. A present owner purchased it with the purpose of lending it to musicians and I’ve been a very fortunate recipient ever since 1997.
Sanford Baran: I’m told that there are many fine instrument makers today, and I’m sure you’ve had the opportunity to play modern violins. What would you say the difference is between something like the Auer Strat, and what is being produced by the best luthiers today?
Vadim Gluzman: I do think that we are living in a renaissance of new violin making. There are a number of wonderful, truly fantastic new violin makers. That was not the case even some 30, 40 years ago when I was a student. Finding a good modern instrument was very difficult. There were fewer makers and the quality was not as it is today. Today there are many fine makers. I own a new violin built three years ago in Seattle, and I loaned it to my students. It is now played by a very talented young lady who is in my class at Peabody Conservatory.
If we talk about comparison, first of all, it is not fair. I would have loved, really loved, to find a time machine, go back to 1690, when this violin was built, and to hear how it sounded back then. I can tell you that on my watch for the last 27 years, this violin is unrecognizable. If you compare what it sounds like today to what it sounded when I picked it up first, and by no means I’m implying that I’ve improved it. Of course not , but it has changed. It has changed dramatically. It works both ways. It changed me and I have changed the system.
A simple explanation- it vibrates in a certain way. And after a while of vibrating in one way, it gets used to it. The vibration becomes almost automatic. I’ve experienced it with violins of other performers where I struggled to make it sound the way I wanted, the violin would not play the way I want, it would play the way the previous violinist would sound. It really isn’t a fair comparison, but there’s one I could maybe offer to those of your listeners who enjoy wine. It is like comparing a sensational Californian cab to one of the most important Bordeauxs from 1972, for example. You cannot say that one is better than the other, it’s just completely different ballgames, so to speak. Yeah, wine ages, and with age, it gets certain qualities that were not there from the beginning, and I think it’s fair to say that it applies to great instruments.
Sanford Baran: Here at the Colorado Music Festival, you’re performing Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2. What draws you to this particular concerto, and what do you find most compelling about it?
Vadim Gluzman: Prokofiev is definitely very high on my list of favorites. The list is long, I must say, but still he takes a very high place. Second concerto was written at the same time with arguably the most famous score, Romeo and Juliet, the famous ballet. And even though we do not have confirmation in documents or letters and such, I am absolutely convinced that he is using in the concerto material that he did not use in the ballet. A lot of this music is- first of all, it’s a total love story, and it is absolutely a love story that could have been danced. You will listen to the second movement. If this is not pas de deux, then I don’t know what is. Prokofiev juxtaposes darkness and light with the most incredibly virtuosic, sometimes quite bitter, incredibly active writing, and he manages to put them against each other.
You have to turn and change your character. Within one second, you have to become somebody else. And this is both challenging and incredibly exciting. So to me, that’s the great attraction of that music. The opposites actually attract. The challenge of Prokofiev, besides the incredible contrast of character that I mentioned before – it’s one of those pieces where, of course, there is a soloist and there is an accompaniment body, such as orchestra, but really it is much more than just accompaniment. Orchestra has an incredibly important role, as in every masterpiece. The bigger the masterwork is, the more of a chamber music it really is. The more of a dialogue it becomes between the voices, and you realize that you are only one of many voices. You are never the only shining light. Not at all. And that of course is a challenge with this piece. It depends on all of us on stage, the success of the interpretation. I have to say I’m very much looking forward to the time in Boulder because this is the orchestra that I know well, I’ve played at the festival many times.
I know many of the musicians in the orchestra from other orchestras where they played during the season. And then of course, Peter Oundjian is one of the dearest people in my musical. Now that we are, I dare say, colleagues, every time we go on stage I have a flashback to me, 17 years of age, I think, 18 or 17 in Dallas at the summer festival. And Peter is exactly there. He’s behind my back, except I’m sitting and he’s standing, coaching my chamber group. And we’re talking 1993. This is over 30 years ago. It’s incredibly touching and incredibly inspiring to now share the stage with him for many years as well. We’ve been playing together since very shortly after he started conducting and he’s an amazing musician. We have played Proco second already before, so I can’t wait.
Sanford Baran: You are renowned for your performances of the romantic repertoire, but at the same time, you also have premiered works by several contemporary composers. What excites you about new music, and how do you prepare for the premiere of a new composition?
Vadim Gluzman: How do I explain this? When Prokofiev wrote his concerto in 1936, that was new music. When Tchaikovsky wrote his violin concerto. That was new music. When Beethoven wrote his fifth symphony, this was new. Never heard before, no tradition, no expectation. And I feel that this is to me this is what excites me about playing the new music. I, by the way, would not really call myself a specialist in romantic repertoire. My musical diet does not exclude any styles and directions of music. Classical music, of course. Playing new music from one side is exciting because you are setting a new stepping stone. You are in a way discovering something that has never been. At the same time, it gives me a very different view of music of the past. Exactly through that, this music at one point was new, which means there was no pre-existing expectation. For example, today, we know Beethoven’s piano concerto No. five so well, the Emperor. We’ve heard it so many times and we have certain expectations of what it sounds like. But imagine hearing it for the first time in the hall where it is a communal experience. A live concert is unlike listening to a recording. And this body of people, this little society experiences this music for the first time together with performers on stage.
This is incredibly exciting. It somehow informs me and helps me to look at the “old” music with a fresher eyes. And then, of course, playing new music. How else are we going to discover the next Beethoven if we do not play new pieces? If we do not encourage commission, look for new voices playing new music. It is not just playing old music. It’s playing music and one goes hand in hand with the other. I cannot separate.
Sanford Baran: I’ve sometimes wondered, what would Beethoven think of music by, say, Debussy? Or what would Beethoven think of music that’s being composed today? Would he hate it or embrace it?
Vadim Gluzman: I have to say that this resonates with me very much. I very often think of that. I even think of what Stradivari would think if he heard what we’re playing on that same violin that only could play the music that was written up to 1690. We have had tons of music written ever since that time. I am using cadenza, written by Alfred Schnittke. Which is, of course, a completely different language. In the cadenza for the first movement, he quotes, first of all, from Beethoven himself, from Symphony No. 3, and then he goes on to quote from almost every great violin concerto written since Beethoven. Brahms, Shostakovich, Alban Berg, Béla Bartók. As if pointing at Beethoven, saying, see, this is the root. This is where they all came from. And in this way he is absolutely right, I think. While playing this on stage, I often think to myself, Huh, what would he say? I imagine, in my speculation, that he would be pleased.
Sanford Baran: Vadim, it has been such a pleasure and so interesting to speak with you, and I very much look forward to seeing you in concert at the Colorado Music Festival playing the Prokofiev. Thank you again so much for being with us today.
Vadim Gluzman: Thank you so much.
