Intervista

PLAYNG BEYOND PERFECTION
Viktoria Mullova has spent years breaking away from the Russian virtuoso training. New strings and a new outlook make all the difference, she tells Richard Wigmore

Viktoria Mullova - `Vika' to her friends - has been busy reinvent¬ing herself of late. Last year the violinist whose impassive plat¬form demeanour and coolly
beautiful publicity shots spawned the nickname `The Ice Maiden' challenged preconceptions with her disc of jazz and blues improvisations, `Through the Looking Glass'. Now the one¬time winner of the Wieniawski, Tchaikovsky and Sibelius competitions, renowned for her powerful, technically flawless performances of the Romantic warhorses, has abandoned metal for gut, and Tchaikovsky and Paganini for Bach and Mozart. All the while her playing has become more relaxed and spontaneous, con¬tinuing a process of personal and musical liberation that began with her famous defection from Russia to the West in 1983.
`In the pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union there seemed absolutely no light - it was the worst kind of police state. And artistically you felt oppressed by the cult of monolithic perfection. Just as one careless word could cost you your liberty, so one false note in a performance could damage your chances of succeeding as an artist. So it was partly fear, in a society paralysed by fear, that made me perfect my technique to a point where I felt that nothing could go wrong. Another factor was the sense of duty inbred into Russians. I was no infant prodigy, and practising was always a drudge for me. But from the moment my parents forced a vio¬lin into my hands I was determined to please them, to be a good girl and not let them dówn. All the hard work was worth it when they praised me - but I was never in love with either the instrument or the music.'
As a teenager at the Moscow Conservatory Mullova trained, officially at least, with the great Leonid Kogan. `In fact, I had very few lessons with him, though I learnt a lot from listening to his recordings. He was. always on tour, and my main instruction was from his assistant, Volodar Bronin. I was always terri¬fied of Kogan - that Russian fear thing again! On the occasions when he did teach students he was very superior and hyper-critical, and could easily damage a player's confidence.' Success in the Conservatory's coveted Tchaikovsky competition in 1982 brought Mullova international fame but little prospect of an international career. `It was all very depressing. Things carried on much as before, with occasional concerto dates - the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius - but hardly any chance to travel abroad. There was one trip to Norway, with the usual minders who moni¬tored your every move. By then I had decided l had to defect. And during a tour of Finland in 1983 I escaped with my boyfriend - who was actually a conductor but had managed to fool the KGB into thinking he was my accompanist - over the border to Sweden. After hiding for two days we found refuge in the Ameri embassy, which had been closed over the. weekend of the Fourth of July.'
Mullova's defection - one of the last hi profile escapes from the doomed Soviet Unio - made front-page news, as did her subseq liaison with Claudio Abbado, by whom she has an 11-year-old son, Misha. The relationship with Abbado, which she is still reluctant to talk about, broke up in acrimony while she was pregnant. She moved from Vienna to London where she had a second child, Katia, now a seven, by Alan Brind, a player in the European Community Youth Orchestra. Then she met and married cellist Matthew Barley, by whom she has another daughter, four-year-old Nadia. When we met in London during August both daughters were constantly darting in and out, revelling in the building-site chaos of their new house in Holland Park. `Family is now central thing in my life, even more than music and the children are my passion. In fact, each year I promise to myself that I'll reduce my concert schedule. Motherhood has given me a totally new perspective, showing me what’s important and what isn't. Even when I go on foreign trips I try and take at least one of the children with me as often as possible. What is the point of staying in a hotel room missing them when you could be having fun together
Mullova's “Ice Maiden” image will seem absurd to anyone who has heard her play recently, let alone met her. And even those critics who once accused her of glacial austerity have conceded a new flexibility and warmth in her playing When I first came to the West I was true to my Russian training and looked total perfection, clarity and bow control. Now spontaneity, risk-taking and communciation with the audience are far more important. Here I owe so much to Matthew, with his experience of contemporary music and jazz. He has encouraged more freedom in my playing, and working with him and people like the pianist Julian Joseph on the "Through the Looking Glass" album was a revelation.'
This spirit of openness and exploration, a world away from the tradition in which Mullova grew up, has been a crucial factor in her recent conversion to the “authentic” cause. `If you'd told me 20 years ago that I'd one day be playing exclusively on gut strings, I'd have stared at you in disbelief. Gut strings were completely unknown in Russia. And if you'd suggested that the time would come when I preferred performing Mozart to Tchaikovsky I'd have thought you were mad! I started play¬ing Mozart as a teenager in Moscow, but I never actually liked him. He seemed doll-like on the one hand - you know, the Dresden china image - and mechanical and military on the other. His harmonies were too simple, his textures not rich enough. But of course we had to endure this old-fashioned, serious Russian style of playing Mozart, exemplified by David Oistrakh. Phrases were all molto sostenuto and lasted about four pages; there was no lightness or variety of touch.
`My attitude to Mozart began to change when I started to work with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment a few years ago. But by then I'd also been playing a lot of Bach, both the solo partitas and sonatas, and the concertos with my own chamber group. In practice sessions with the bassoonist Marco Postinghel I developed a lighter, more improvisatory approach to Bach - very different from the aggressive Russian style, with constant heavy vibrato. My 1995 recording of the concertos, with the instruments playing one to a part, is still a favourite - even the children enjoy it!'
Mullova's initial flirtation with gut strings, in 1997, was fraught with difficulties. `I had to remodel my technique entirely. But the biggest problem was intonation. As I had perfect pitch, I couldn't work out whether I was playing in tune or not. The following year, when I did a concert with the OAE in Harrogate, things began to improve; and by the time I made the Mozart concerto recording in 2001, I felt completely comfortable playing on gut, and even enjoyed directing the orchestra, which at first scared me. But by this time I'd completely lost my perfect pitch!
`You know, there were times in the 1990s when I found myself disliking the sound of the violin - too hard, too metallic. But as I played more and more with gut strings on my 1723 Stradivari, I came to love their beautiful, subtle colours, so much warmer and more human than metal. It was a challenge evolving a com¬pletely new technique, with varied, less automatically applied vibrato and different bow pressure. But with gut strings, a lighter, Classical bow and a bouncier style of articulation Mozart has cone alive in a way I would never have expected from my experiences of him Russia. There's so much humour and playfulness in his concertos, as well as passion, wonderful dialogues between soloist and orchestra in movements like the finales Nos 3 and 4. 1 still find the first movement No 5 dull, which is why I haven't included the work on the CD. But I love the freshness simplicity of No 1, with its beautiful aria slow movement. My favourite, though, is No 3, especially the slow movement. In traditional sostenuto performances this is easily romanticised and sentimentalised. But we take it more lightly and flowingly, using vibrato selectively on certain notes and phrasing with those small nuances which come more naturally with the Classical bow.'
Such is the lure of gut strings for Mullova that she now uses them for all her la repertoire too. 'I recently recorded Beethoven and Mendelssohn concertos with John Eliot Gardiner. Those sessions were an amazing, exciting experience, forcing me to reconsider things I'd taken for granted all my life. Under Gardiner's influence I completely rethought phrases I used to play at a solid forte, in the Romantic tradition. Some of the tempos, too, were very different from what I'd been accustomed to. The slow movement of the Beethoven was far faster: two- rather than four-in-a-bar - still tender, but more intimate, less sentiment. Then we ignored the 19th-century tradition in the development of the first movement, where the music often falls asleep.
The Mendelssohn slow movement, too, is sentimental at a more flowing, two-in-a bar ¬tempo where in any case the composer's bowings are impossible at the traditional slow speed. In contrast, we take the finale slower than usual, and it becomes more gentle and whimsical, with less of that Paganini-like brilliance you usually hear.
“Playing the Mendelssohn on gut scared me at first, especially all those high-lying passages where if you press too much the strings will squeak. But after playing it at this year's Proms and recording it I'm now more copnfident; and I'm now relearning the Brahms on gut strings, to perform during 2004. Gut suits the folksong purity of the Adagio specially well. Perhaps I'll do the Sibelius on gut one day, too. And I'm interested in learning the Schumann, a fascinating, strangely introverted work which is one of the major Romantic concertos I've never played. But I shan't be looking at the Tchaikovsky again - I've played it once too often and am now sick of it!”
Despite the success of `Through the Looking Glass', there is no follow-up CD of that ilk in sight, though Mullova is plotting future concerts with her husband's group, where she hopes to reach beyond her usual “classical' audience. Another passion is chamber music, both with her own Mullova Ensemble and in collaboration with pianists Piotr Anderszewski and Katia Labèque. Again, though, recording projects are proving elusive in today's commercial climate. “Piotr and I proposed the Beethoven sonatas, but Philips said only the Spring and the Kreutzer would sell. And they turned down the suggestion that the Mullova Ensemble record the Schubert Octet, so we did it privately and sold 30,000 copies to an Italian magazine. Perhaps that's the sort of thing we should be looking at in future.”
One bait Mullova hopes Philips will take - despite contractual problems - is a disc of Baroque concertos with the flamboyant young Italian group Il Giardino Armonico. “I've just played Vivaldi concertos in concert with them and for once I couldn't wait to go on stage - usually I'm paralysed with nerves. Their playing of this repertoire is unique, so fiery and theatrical it makes you want to dance. They sound as if they're recreating this old music on the spot.
“As well as Vivaldi there's a huge, rich repertoire of 17th- and l8th-century Italian concertos, many by names I've never heard of, that I'd love to explore. Italian Baroque music is totally different from Bach - more extrovert and emotionally direct, if you like, and very exciting. Playing Vivaldi with Il Giardino Armonico has been as liberating as doing "Through the Looking Glass", and both experiences have changed me and my relationship to the music I perform. That whole Soviet cult of perfection now seems even more misplaced. What really matters in music-making is the courage to be free.'

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

BACH Sonatas and Partitas - selection
Philips 434 075-2PH (6/94)
'Mullova comes as a breath of fresh air: her playing is as close to technical perfection as makes no difference ... her dance movements are light on their feet (helped by her quickness in bowing through chords) and her nuancing of tone and volume is full of subtlety - warmly expressive but with no trace of romanticism'

BACH Violin Concertos
Mullova Ensemble
Philips © 446 675-2PH (8/96)
'Most people, I'm sure, will enjoy the vigour and litheness of the playing, and the bright, appealing tone of the solo violin and oboe'

Bartok Violin Concerto No 2 STRAVÌNSKY Violin Concerto
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen Philips ® 456 542-2PH (5/98)
'Mullova's playing is committed and intense'

BRAHMS Violin Concerto
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Claudio Abbado Philips OO 438 998-2PH (11/94) 'Mullova's is a commanding performance, pure and true throughout, made the more compelling by the spontaneous expressiveness that goes with a live performance'

BRAHMS Violin Sonatas
Piotr Anderszewski
Philips OO 446 709-2PH (5/97)
'Mullova and Anderszewski give a wonderful impression of having thought through every detail of their interpretations. I was impressed, not just by the way they do everything Brahms asks for, but by their evident personal involvement in the music'

MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto; Concerto for Violin and Strings
Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Neville Mariner
Philips OO 432 077-2PH (5/91)
'Viktoria Mullova's account is second to none'

PAGANINI Violin Concerto No 1 VIEUXTEMPS Violin Concerto No 5 Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Neville Marriner
Philips 0 422 332-2PH (10/89)
'With Mullova - who, we were told, has been playing the 1Vieuxtemps] work since she was 12(!).- there is an immediate air of authority: as expected in a work designed for a star player, she dominates the scene ... and she brings a. level of great intensity to her cantilena in the Adagio'

PROKOFIEV Violin Sonata No 2
RAVEL Violin Sonata STRAVINSKY Divertimento Bruno Canino
Philips O 426 254-2PH (8/90)
'What a musicianly violinist Viktoria Mullova is'

SIBELIUS Violin Concerto
TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto
Boston Symphony Orchestra / Seiji Ozawa Philips ® 464 741-2PM (1/878)
'Mullova's performance is not overly warm, yet it would be entirely wrong to call it ungenerous; rather, the feeling released through the notes is darker, sterner, and ultimately more invigorating'