Interpreting Musical Dreams

Nicky Swett: When you’re learning a newly-written work, how is your approach to practice and preparation different from when you learn something from the standard repertoire that has been performed and recorded frequently?

Leila Josefowicz: I don’t really differentiate. I take everything that’s written on the page seriously. I see the markings like a map. Then I go deeper into the intent of these markings. What is the gesture, the mood, the feeling, the general spirit of what is on the page? I go from all the clues and the markings and the signs that have been given to me, and I make my interpretation based on those things. It would be no different with Brahms’s Violin Concerto or a Beethoven sonata. In the case of newer music, it’s interesting to have no outer perspective whatsoever on a piece and to really have to think for myself. But I generally don’t love listening to recordings for interpretive ideas. I try to keep my interpretations separate from those that I hear.

Of course, every composer’s mind is different. How they feel music and how they think about music is so personal. I often think that the exact way I was working with a previous piece will work with a new piece I learn. But put a new score in front of me by a different composer, and I find I can’t apply the same ways of learning to that new score. You have to bend to what the composer is asking for. Different sound worlds mean different techniques. Sometimes I scratch my head and I think, “God! Considering the number of years I've been playing the violin and the number of scores I’ve learned, shouldn’t this be obvious now?” No. You have to do all these tiny little micro movements. You have to figure out how to make it work physically. It’s constantly challenging you in ways that you may not expect, and I think that’s really important for growth.

NS: Have you ever had the experience of doing all this independent preparation and practice and discovering, and that when you get to a rehearsal with a composer, your understanding of the meaning and intention behind the markings is quite different from theirs?

LJ: That’s not happened to me exactly. If you look at the clues in the score, if they’re clear, then those are my instructions. I don’t really see something like that happening because if a composer writes something clearly, there should be little room for such a great misinterpretation. But if I show up, and it’s not the way they want, by all means, tell me! Because I’m ready to be flexible and work with people.

NS: This concert features compositions by Sean Shepherd and Charlotte Bray that were written for you. Have you worked with these composers before these commissions, or are these the first pieces they have composed for you?

LJ: Charlotte Bray is writing me a violin concerto, and the premiere is next year. Sean is also writing me one! That was supposed to have been premiered around ten years ago, but it was delayed, which happens sometimes. So technically speaking, these are the first pieces written for me by these composers, but I am more and more versed in their languages as time has gone on.

NS: Sean Shepherd’s piece is a duo for violin and cello, which you will play together with Paul Watkins. String duos are a tricky instrumentation to write for and to play. How does Sean make these forces work in his piece?

LJ: Sean’s piece is called Latticework. When we got the score and started working on it, we discovered it was super intricate, as latticework might imply! Interweaving lines, different textures poking out, and interplay between the two instruments. The coordination of these things is very delicate. There are different textures that he’s playing with, different waves, different lines.

Then there’s a section that’s vocal, choral, almost like Americana, where we’re playing chords together and tuning them and it’s a very simple string texture. There are many different things that he’s trying to incorporate into this piece. Sean’s called this work a monster, and in some ways it is very difficult, so as a joke between the two of us, Paul and I changed the title from Latticework to Let Us Work! I think it’s a very strong piece and it needs two very strong players, much like the Kodály Duo or the Ravel Duo.

NS: What is it about string duos, like those you mentioned by Zoltán Kodály and Maurice Ravel and many others, that makes them so difficult to play?

LJ: In all of these cases, you have two instruments that are being asked to do their maximum. And it’s very exposed, so things have to really fit together and be cohesive. It is a very intimate style of writing. It is also difficult for the composer because the violin and the cello don’t have a percussive element that the piano would add in the case of a violin-piano duo. It’s a question of how to write in a way that is texturally interesting and varied without very contrasting instrumental sounds.

NS: The program ends with more string duos—short pieces for violin and cello by Jörg Widmann. It seems like he embraces the thin, gossamer potential of this set of instruments. How do his pieces fit into the program?

LJ:  They’re quite humorous in many ways, and they are very dance-like. These are super flexible, relatively light pieces that are quite short in length. They’re little extra, fleeting, beautiful things to add on to a concert.

NS: Charlotte Bray’s Mriya for Violin and Piano has a very different atmosphere from the violin-cello duos on the program. How does her piece fit in with the other works?

LJ: Her piece was born at the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. The Ukrainian-language title signifies hope, light, persistence, and resilience. The thing we couldn’t have anticipated is that this war would still be going on years after she wrote it. The piece covers a very difficult topic and it has some darker aspects to it, but also moments of great strength, great inner reserve. There are interesting shimmering aspects that contrast with the darker qualities, and she also uses tremolo, harmonics, and more spectral waves of sound that come between the violin and the piano. There’s a procession in the last movement. I don’t know whether I should categorize it as a military procession or a funeral procession, or whether it’s more like a heartbeat. But there’s something very ritualistic about how the piece ends.

Texturally, I think it is interesting to hear it next to Sean’s piece, because you get different instruments together. You’re going to hear me and Paul playing a string duo, you're going to hear Paul and John playing a work for cello and piano by Mark-Anthony Turnage, and then you're going to hear a violin-piano piece. Between the three of us, it’ll be an intimate and intriguing sound experience.

NS: What have your experiences been like working closely with the composers you commission and whose existing music you play?

LJ: One of my great joys is having consistent communication with a composer. In the case of both Charlotte’s and Sean’s pieces, we discussed the meaning of what they were hoping for and dreaming of since the beginning of the composition process. So that’s all been very clear from the outset.

It’s possible to have a difficult instrumentalist or a difficult composer. I’m actually sad I won’t be able to meet György Ligeti! I hear he was a difficult one. I'm studying his violin concerto right now to play with Esa-Pekka Salonen in the summer. It’s an amazing experience for me because I’ve done so much new music and for some reason it’s not been in my repertoire until now. Difficult composers intrigue me because they are often very unrelenting and unbending. In the case of Ligeti, almost every note is marked in a special way, precisely to not have any ambiguity. Some people are like, “Oh my God, it’s so uptight, it’s so controlling.” Yes, but on the other hand, it eliminates questions for you, it eliminates ambiguity. So that’s good.

Still, as an instrumentalist, I feel that it really is important for composers to be kind to the people who are playing their music. Not being kind to them will not create a better outcome. Certain composers never got that. But they need us! Composers have dreams, they have sound worlds that they need to be delivered by us to all of you out there. To create it, dream it, and be able to write it down is one of the most difficult things a human being can do. But with no one to play it, no one gets to hear it. That’s why composers get very nervous. Because they know they’re in our hands. That’s hard for them. And that would be hard for me if I was a composer! That’s also why I feel necessary. Am I necessary if I’m playing standard repertoire? Sure. I’m contributing to the art form, hopefully with an interesting interpretation, something unique. But I wanted to take this on a whole different level of contributing. So that’s why I’m commissioning new works. To help create an ecosystem of different kinds of creative powers coming together.

Cellist, writer, and music researcher Nicky Swett is a program annotator and editorial contributor at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.