Newsletter Quarta Corda
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Quarta Corda Year IX n.1 - february 2006 - Genoa for Paganini - Premio Paganini 2006 - Let me introduce you... Azio Corghi - Pleased to meet you... Syncopations - Q&A Volker Biesenbender - Paganiniana 2005: give youth a chance! - "I voli di Niccolò" by Luca Francesconi - The Paganini for Paganini: Q&A Carla Magnan - After the Premio - Download Quarta Corda Pdf Format (4 Mb) |
Q&A - Volker Biesenbender
Paganini during his time developed an entire set of innovative violin techniques. He was one of the first superstars of public concertizing. Nowadays who can be the next Paganini?
I don't think Paganini developed a new violin-technique conscientiously like a kind of engineer. As a creative artist he found unusual and new ways to enhance his spell on the public, for example it is known that several ladies in his audience periodically fainted when he played. In some way Paganini fulfilled a role that today is covered by other cultural sensations: movie, TV, pop-concerts and so on. At his time it was new and legitimate to "bewitch" people with technical firework.
In our times, where technically everything is possible, I personally would feel somehow out of place to practice for years a fantastic downbow-staccato or fingered octaves: our time needs other dimensions of music if classical music is to stay. Today we have an "astronautic" level in violin-technique, but unfortunately it is more often than not a kind of boringly immaculate, distanced and sterile technique that for fear of wrong notes and bad marks from a jury tends to neglect the only raison d'être of music: To transmit expression and meaning, to "tell a good story". As technically every "white spot on the map' seems to be discovered nowadays, the next Paganini in my eyes is the one who can strike people most with the most personal and lively musical "story-telling".
Which qualities should a soloist (not only related to strings instruments) have?
Paganini used to improvise many of his pieces delivering only a scarce accompaniment (to his pianist or guitarist), so the most important quality of a soloist is in my eyes an improvisatory approach to music that gives any of his interpretations a "here and now" - quality.
Music and competition. Which suggestions will you give to a young musician who is preparing for a competition?
If young people (and their teachers) can regard a violin-competition simply as a joyful game, in which it is not very important to win (and not very often the best wins!); if they see it as just one of many playgrounds to unfold their potential, it can be a very good experience. Competitions in my eyes are by no means the only ticket to start a carrier nowadays, on the contrary, most of the young generation-soloists never seem to have competed in an international competition.
You play in an ensemble and your repertoire is not limited to classical chamber music.
Why?
Today the world is a "global village" with the possibility to hear all the musical styles of all times. So the concept of the traditional "classical musician" seems to me rather outdated. I choose to play also in other styles, because classical music alone could not satisfy my desire to improvise. Classical western music is the only music in the world in which the tradition of improvising today is non-existent. Yet, I discover more and more that classical music is tremendously important for mankind and that we musicians should do everything that we can do to protect it.
Classical music seems to me in real danger today due to the forces that make business with it, so we musicians should develop a kind of "Greenpeace" attitude to preserve its liveliness. Classical music, opera, chamber music, jazz, fusion, world music, hip-hop. People choose the music they would like to listen for generation reasons, fashionable motivations, or the reason why is simply related to the musical education you were grown with?
The music we listen to depends very much on our social background. As also the middle-class is loosing rapidly its connection with classical music and even its capacity to understand it, we all have to make a conscious effort to mediate it anew to the people. Classical music can also be "music for the masses" (as it always has been), but musicians have to develop also a pedagogical attitude about it, to find a way to make their listeners understand.