James Ehnes (violin) and Andrew Armstrong (piano) will be performing as part of the Camerata Musica series at Peterhouse Theatre on Tuesday 20th February 2024.
DC: Have you been to Cambridge before?
JE: I've never been to Cambridge. I'm obviously looking forward to the concert, but I'm also really looking forward to seeing this legendary place and spending some time there. That should be a treat. On Wednesday, we head over to Oxford, so I'll probably leave reasonably early, but my family is with me on this trip and they’re very excited to see Cambridge and get lost in the centre for a few hours.
After sharing sightseeing suggestions, we turned our attention to the concert which will comprise two canonical warhorses (Bach’s Partita in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004, and Shostakovich’s Sonata in G, Op. 134).
DC: Is this a new program or is this a pairing that you've played before?
JE: It's actually a program that we came up with specifically for Cambridge. It's slightly different than the program that we are currently touring with and that we played last night [Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States] which is a little bit more of a variety show. In dealing with the presenters at Cambridge, we concluded that a better program for their audience would be one that focuses on these two monumental pieces. I'm very much looking forward to it because I think that it's going to be an experience. Both of these pieces are quite powerful in their own ways and the Shostakovich is a piece that really needs to be experienced live.
DC: Why do you highlight the Shostakovich as particularly needing to be heard live? The Bach partita contains many dances, and while you wouldn’t dance to the Chaconne it’s an undeniable stalwart. Why do we need to hear the Shostakovich live, rather than a recording?
JE: The entire second movement is, is just, I mean, raucous to the point of violence! But a lot of the outer movements explore real stillness and silence, and there's a sort of mention of time that I think is similar to the Chaconne. Time does kind of stop, right? It takes as long as it takes. I think the most successful performances of the Shostakovich are hypnotising, mesmerising, and that kind of atmosphere is quite difficult to reproduce in a recording. The right live circumstances can be special for an audience to collectively share in that kind of experience.
DC: What you say about the structure of the Shostakovich mirroring the structure of the Chaconne is really interesting; the latter has those moments of stability, tranquillity, especially toward the end, that certainly diverge from its earlier frenetic climaxes.
JE: Yes, and the last movement of the Shostakovich is this massive Passacaglia; I don't want to say ‘similarities’, as the pieces are not similar, but there is a formal structural element that they share.
DC: Absolutely. To what extent would you say that your interpretation of the Bach is informed by those resonances with the Shostakovich? Or is there someone, a previous recording, a series of recordings, upon which you’ve maybe modelled your interpretation?
JE: To be honest, I don't think that way. I've been playing the Bach for 35 years. It would be someone else's opinion as to whether it sounds like anyone else or not. There are so many great violinists of the past that have been inspirations to me, but as this is a piece I've lived with for so long now I play it the way I think it needs to go, the way that that story goes to me, and the way that I feel I need to tell it. It kind of is what it is.
DC: A pastiche of influence and experience.
JE: I think that when you get to a real level of comfort, and I'm sure you'd agree as a fellow professional, that it doesn't become a matter of Interpretive choice, but it becomes what you understand the story to be. You need to tell it in the way that comes across most effectively. From a sort of objective point of view, you've got to look at certain interpretive choices but they're part of a whole. I think the thing that's really fascinating about playing these large-scale Bach pieces as wholes is that they take on these kind of architectural qualities when you're playing them in a performance, so that the way the room sounds, the way you've shaped something earlier in the piece, will have an effect on the way things are when they come back. So I think it's best to treat each performance sort of as its own. You tell that story as it needs to be told at that time and place.
DC: That's the beauty of liveness. The decisions which perhaps couldn't have been made in any other context, other than in that room, at that time, with those specific audience members, responding in their certain way.
The audience will be in for a treat. It’s a wonderful program, and in-keeping with the kind of programs that Camerata Musica have their artists perform – rarely a chocolate box variety show of pieces, rather a couple of large solo or chamber works. This separates the series from others, those where you feel you’ve got to have some Bach, you need to have some Beethoven, and you have to perform a jazzy encore, just to show that you're a little bit, uh, frivolous, you know?
JE: Certainly. It’s nice being able to work with presenters who understand this. I've not been there before and I appreciate that in putting this program together that there was that collaborative aspect, because the series knows its audience and, in a bigger sense, what they are trying to do with their series. It’s impossible for me, as an outsider, to come in and understand what the series have been doing over many seasons, and, so, the collaborative aspect of putting the program together, that's wonderful!
James Ehnes (violin) and Andrew Armstrong (piano) will be performing as part of the Camerata Musica series at Peterhouse Theatre on Tuesday 20th February 2024. The Camerata Musica series provides free tickets for students.
DC: Have you been to Cambridge before?
JE: I've never been to Cambridge. I'm obviously looking forward to the concert, but I'm also really looking forward to seeing this legendary place and spending some time there. That should be a treat. On Wednesday, we head over to Oxford, so I'll probably leave reasonably early, but my family is with me on this trip and they’re very excited to see Cambridge and get lost in the centre for a few hours.
After sharing sightseeing suggestions, we turned our attention to the concert which will comprise two canonical warhorses (Bach’s Partita in D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004, and Shostakovich’s Sonata in G, Op. 134).
DC: Is this a new program or is this a pairing that you've played before?
JE: It's actually a program that we came up with specifically for Cambridge. It's slightly different than the program that we are currently touring with and that we played last night [Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States] which is a little bit more of a variety show. In dealing with the presenters at Cambridge, we concluded that a better program for their audience would be one that focuses on these two monumental pieces. I'm very much looking forward to it because I think that it's going to be an experience. Both of these pieces are quite powerful in their own ways and the Shostakovich is a piece that really needs to be experienced live.
DC: Why do you highlight the Shostakovich as particularly needing to be heard live? The Bach partita contains many dances, and while you wouldn’t dance to the Chaconne it’s an undeniable stalwart. Why do we need to hear the Shostakovich live, rather than a recording?
JE: The entire second movement is, is just, I mean, raucous to the point of violence! But a lot of the outer movements explore real stillness and silence, and there's a sort of mention of time that I think is similar to the Chaconne. Time does kind of stop, right? It takes as long as it takes. I think the most successful performances of the Shostakovich are hypnotising, mesmerising, and that kind of atmosphere is quite difficult to reproduce in a recording. The right live circumstances can be special for an audience to collectively share in that kind of experience.
DC: What you say about the structure of the Shostakovich mirroring the structure of the Chaconne is really interesting; the latter has those moments of stability, tranquillity, especially toward the end, that certainly diverge from its earlier frenetic climaxes.
JE: Yes, and the last movement of the Shostakovich is this massive Passacaglia; I don't want to say ‘similarities’, as the pieces are not similar, but there is a formal structural element that they share.
DC: Absolutely. To what extent would you say that your interpretation of the Bach is informed by those resonances with the Shostakovich? Or is there someone, a previous recording, a series of recordings, upon which you’ve maybe modelled your interpretation?
JE: To be honest, I don't think that way. I've been playing the Bach for 35 years. It would be someone else's opinion as to whether it sounds like anyone else or not. There are so many great violinists of the past that have been inspirations to me, but as this is a piece I've lived with for so long now I play it the way I think it needs to go, the way that that story goes to me, and the way that I feel I need to tell it. It kind of is what it is.
DC: A pastiche of influence and experience.
JE: I think that when you get to a real level of comfort, and I'm sure you'd agree as a fellow professional, that it doesn't become a matter of Interpretive choice, but it becomes what you understand the story to be. You need to tell it in the way that comes across most effectively. From a sort of objective point of view, you've got to look at certain interpretive choices but they're part of a whole. I think the thing that's really fascinating about playing these large-scale Bach pieces as wholes is that they take on these kind of architectural qualities when you're playing them in a performance, so that the way the room sounds, the way you've shaped something earlier in the piece, will have an effect on the way things are when they come back. So I think it's best to treat each performance sort of as its own. You tell that story as it needs to be told at that time and place.
DC: That's the beauty of liveness. The decisions which perhaps couldn't have been made in any other context, other than in that room, at that time, with those specific audience members, responding in their certain way.
The audience will be in for a treat. It’s a wonderful program, and in-keeping with the kind of programs that Camerata Musica have their artists perform – rarely a chocolate box variety show of pieces, rather a couple of large solo or chamber works. This separates the series from others, those where you feel you’ve got to have some Bach, you need to have some Beethoven, and you have to perform a jazzy encore, just to show that you're a little bit, uh, frivolous, you know?
JE: Certainly. It’s nice being able to work with presenters who understand this. I've not been there before and I appreciate that in putting this program together that there was that collaborative aspect, because the series knows its audience and, in a bigger sense, what they are trying to do with their series. It’s impossible for me, as an outsider, to come in and understand what the series have been doing over many seasons, and, so, the collaborative aspect of putting the program together, that's wonderful!
James Ehnes (violin) and Andrew Armstrong (piano) will be performing as part of the Camerata Musica series at Peterhouse Theatre on Tuesday 20th February 2024. The Camerata Musica series provides free tickets for students.