The Art of Interpretation

February 22, 2006 at 4:33 AM

Just got an amazing recording and I laugh.

Isaac Stern and Alex Zakin playing Prokofieff Sonatas. The F Minor Sonata is a real challenge in many ways and it's funny listening to Stern - so "matter of fact", yet really interesting choices in fingerings, bowings (particularly what sounds like ricochet in the last movement). All incredibly convincing playing.

Is that what we strive for?

Why I laugh - that sonata has been floating around me since 1996, when two people at Rice played it on graduate recitals. Have since then listened to Pierre Amoyal, Gidon Kremer, and Isaac Stern - of course very curious now and wanting to hear more interpretations, especially Berl Senofsky's.

The mark of a true artist is that - being convincing. Every one of these fiddle players I've mentioned plays differently and the pianists are all different, yet there's something magical in each performance. The thought "Of COURSE it should sound that way" combined with "...but that's the only violinist that can make it sound like that".

While we have to be true to the score, we also have to be ourselves, our emotional, analytical, violinistic selves. A challenge, a journey - a joy.

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