Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A concert violinist.
On the island
Eight records
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:46What would be the worst thing about a desert island existence?
Fear of monotony, I I should think.
Presenter asks
5:17Were your parents very musical?
Oh yes. Music was a natural part of life. My father played the piano. Um, enthusiastically, if inaccurately. My mother was at one time A student at the um conservatory in St. Petersburg, which then was headed by Glazonov. But these were parts of general education. This had nothing to do with being musicians. It was to know what was beautiful in in in life and to enjoy it.
Presenter asks
5:48Did you opt for the violin first or did you start piano?
No, no, no, no. I was about six years old. About two years later a friend of mine, living across the street, was playing the violin. Because he was playing I wanted to play the violin. I've continued, he sells insurance.
Presenter asks
6:49The keepsakes
The book
It probably is the best of the Britannicas. and has enough to take up as many years as you would hope to be able to live on a desert island.
The luxury
I should think that the greatest Luxury Would be a refrigerator. We could have ice cubes and some cool air once in a while.
When did you first play outside the United States? [And was that the same year you came to Britain?]
It was nineteen forty nine, the Lucerne Festival, the Mendelssohn Concerto, Charles Minsch conducting. I came to Britain in the fall of that year. This was in the spring, in the summer. And I remember playing what was then called the Celebrity Series circuit that was handled by Harold Holt and I played Owen, Edinburgh, and Newcastle on the Tyne and Glasgow and I remember the grey trains and and and s and sort of various birds of unknown origin that one ate at that time. and grey hotels, railroad hotels, The apprenticeship that I find so important and so necessary. Even to day, when life is perhaps a little easier, And a lot less grimy.
Presenter asks
15:04How much notice do you take of critics?
Oh, very little. You know, um Well, I shouldn't really say this, but Or perhaps I should. First of all, critics cannot make a career or break a career. They can accelerate. or hinder it. But they cannot make it. On the whole, The criticism usually comes after the fact. The fact of an artist's life is not made up of one criticism, or one performance Or one Great passage or one missed passage. It is an accumulation of many years of effort. of ideas, of search. and in effect the concert stage, the concert hall, is a laboratory where he experiments openly. and where he tries from time to time, and if he's at all intelligent, changes from time to time. A critic Can be useful. He can also be. extremely irritating. Um but very few critics have the measure of knowledge. that the artist himself has. and even fewer of them Have the compassion. to sense what an artist is trying to do and place him Within a framework That is individually his, not in competition to someone else. No artist worth his rank today plays against anyone else but himself. Compassion is.
“Fear of monotony, I I should think.”
“I've continued, he sells insurance.”
“I'm now desperately trying to cut back to to a hundred.”
“Violinists come and go. But these violins, once they're gone, they'll never come back.”
“No artist worth his rank today plays against anyone else but himself. Compassion is.”