Vasily Vasilievich Bezekirsky (1835-1919)

He played cards with Wieniawski. He was friends with Bulgakov, who adored Glinka’s Romances. He was at Tolstoy’s house when Laub and Rubinstein played the Kreutzer Sonata. He saw Joachim and Sivori and Sarasate play live. He played a Maggini that once belonged to Vieuxtemps. He played chamber music in private with Clara Schumann and with Liszt. Who was this person?

As part of my ongoing research, I’ve been looking into the life and career of Russian violinist Vasily Vasilievich Bezekirsky. He studied with Léonard and, at Joachim's suggestion, Kömpel (a student of Spohr) – which made him a Russian/Franco-Belgian/German school amalgam. He was a soloist and composer in his own right and spent most of his career as leader of the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra.

Bezekirsky withheld his memoirs from publication for years because he feared the persecution of censorship. Now translated into English, they offer a glimpse into the fascinating if restrictive world of Russian musical life in the second half of the 19c – a world where it was not uncommon for more than one solo violinist to appear on the same program.

He relates how, at a concert in 1852, Wieniawski played the first half and Neruda the second and, when she got an ovation and flowers from Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski “suddenly appeared again on the stage with his violin and loudly demanded that he wished to demonstrate his superiority over Neruda.” (OMG)

In 1867 Voronezh, Bezekirsky played the first half of a concert, Apollinaire Konstki the second, then they played duets.

In 1872 Moscow, Joachim performed Spohr’s 2 Violin Duo with Laub. Around the same time, Bezekirsky performed Alard's Concerto for 2 Violins with Sarasate.

All this is making me think harder about the nature of soloism and the role of rivalry and competition in defining musical identity.

Guarneri del Gesù... perfection!!!

OK, so after 48+ hours of what I can only describe as withdrawal symptoms, I went and played a 1734 Guarneri del Gesù that once belonged to Daniel Guillet of the Beaux Arts Trio... the closest thing to perfection I am likely to experience in my lifetime. Don't get me wrong, I felt like I'd tasted heaven with the Strad earlier this week. But this violin was... everything you could wish for and then some. No wonder it has a price tag of $4 million. I played Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Schoenberg, Mozart, Beethoven, Korngold, Barber, Brahms, Bach (lots of Bach)... even Gilles Apap's Mozart 3 cadenza, and this violin just lapped everything up. I looked at my watch and 90 minutes had passed. I was in disbelief. I also tried a 1732 Strad that gave me an appreciation of the Golden Period Strads and a couple of Bergonzis (one of which reminded me of the Long model Strad I played earlier). I also played Christophe Landon's brand new copy of the dreamy del Gesù--raw but full of exciting potential. So, in the interests of full disclosure: 1) I was allowed to take photos (which I will upload soon) and 2) when i started playing the Guarneri I had to stop every few seconds because I could not stop saying "OH my GOD." Today is a day to be glad I practise every day. And my new ambition (pending lottery draws)? To play every Strad and Guarneri in existence.

Note for my friends and students: you know how you go through life giving yourself grades? An A for this, a B+ for that. Well, this violin was perfection. It was an A++ experience all round. I feel privileged that my lifetime coincided with this violin's, and hope that you all get to feel something like this somehow, someday.

I played a Strad today!

I woke up this morning and thought to myself, "I'm going to play a Strad today." And I did! What I wasn't counting on was that it would play me as well.

So, I went along to the luthier's shop and was allowed to play for about 20 minutes. They left me in a small hall and put the violin on the desk. It was a beautiful long model Strad from the early 1690s. And no, I wasn't allowed to take pictures :(

I started playing Bach and this weird thing happened--as I placed my fingertips on the strings, it was like the violin was giving back to me. I'm telling you, that thing had a life of its own. It was like riding a wild horse. My vibrato was bouncing back into my body with mysterious force, through my fingertips and into my arm.

Then I tried some Tchaikovsky and the sound just brightened up. This violin likes Tchaikovsky. It likes Wieniawski and Paganini, Ravel and Barber. It likes sharp keys. It didn't like Beethoven or Brahms so much. Mozart, some. I would guess it has been well loved by a violinist who specializes in virtuoso showpieces.

My friend who was listening pointed out that I could use less bow pressure and she was right. The less I did, the more the violin opened up. On some notes the resonance was so rich the notes kept ringing long after I'd stopped bowing, even without vibrato.

It wasn't 10 times better than my 1990 violin (which I love, by the way). Or 100 times. It was about 10,000 times better.

There were no weak spots, no wolf notes; it had power on the G string and way up on the E string. Chords just went "ping!"--I hardly had to do anything.

On the question of aura, it really is true what they say. Playing this violin was like dancing with a person who has their own inclination and taste, style and personality, and who has been dancing really really well for 300+ years.

The luthier was kind of secretive about its provenance, history, and value --all he would say was that it belonged to a Tchaikovsky Competition winner within the last 20 years--because it is apparently up for sale. I'm off to buy a lottery ticket.

"Violin Porn"

"Violin porn" is not my coinage.

John Marchese writes about it in his book to describe collectors, dealers, and violinists when they talk over-enthusiastically about curves and f-holes ( _The Violin Maker: Finding a Centuries-Old Tradition in a Brooklyn Workshop_ (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), p. 107).

It works kind of like food porn, I guess. Multi-pixalated shots of gateaux chocolat, close-ups of Strads (Le Messie is in the photo to the right): you get the picture.

Or how about this:

"[The]... capaciousness of the chest, combined with the proportions of thickness of the back and belly, from whence results the sound produced by the vibrations of the air under the action of the bow, which sets the sonorous body in motion."

That was François-Joseph Fétis writing in 1861 on the qualities that distinguish Stradivaris from other instruments. So how come nobody ever called the Gender Studies Police on him?

The Height of Violin Nerddom

The controversy continues over the authenticity of the 1716 "Messiah" Strad, said to be a fake by former MET Museum curator Stewart Pollens.

http://soundpostonline.com/archive/fall2000/page17.html

Long story short: there is a break in the succession of ownership of this violin, allowing time for a switch job; the date of the wood is contested; its internal features do not match early 19c descriptions by experts.

Pollens has supposedly become an outcast among violin luthiers for his claim, revisited in his 2010 book _Stradivari_. His reliance on dendrochronology (tree ring dating) led the editor of the above website to dub the controversy "tree ring circus."

And I thought *I* was a violin nerd...

We'll probably never know if it's the real deal. If it were up to me I'd start by playing all the world's known Strads then test it against them. That will cost time and money--another one for the "grant proposal" pile.

Vadim Gluzman, Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 (Carnegie Hall, January 30, 2011)

People say Vadim Gluzman’s playing is “big” and reminiscent of David Oistrakh—for sure, he has more power coursing through his pinky than many others have in all their fingers combined. There is an unmistakable intensity to his sound, too. But his playing offers so much more: the tone he draws out of his 1690 ex-Leopold Auer Stradivari is to die for—the high notes of the second movement glittered. I could not hear any weak link in his playing. It’s as if he took all the best elements of his training with Zakhar Bron, Yair Kless, and Dorothy DeLay and then crystallized them. Now 37, he is a true artist.

Performing with the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Gluzman did double duty as soloist and conductor—and admirably so. Still, I couldn’t help wishing for a separate conductor to help create the dynamic friction between orchestra and soloist that is needed to lift both up. The excitement of some of the tempo changes and dramatic shifts in mood, especially in the first movement, got lost in the interest of safety of ensemble.

For an encore, Gluzman played Ysaÿe’s Obsession -- super fast, clean, not fussy, and always stylish.