Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Violinist who won BBC Young Musician of the Year, received an MBE, and had chart-topping album sales
On the island
Eight records
Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65 (3rd movement)
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky
The first is probably the darkest and the heaviest of all the pieces of music I've chosen. It's by Shostakovich. It's from his eighth symphony. It was written in 1943. His life story is so terrifying and of course that comes out in his music.
Marietta's Lied (from Die tote Stadt)
We're going to hear an aria performed by an amazing singer, René Fleming, one of my very, very favourite sopranos. The aria Marietta's lead is from an opera Dietotstaden written by Korn Gold.
Piano Trio No. 7 in B-flat major, Op. 97, 'Archduke' (3rd movement)
Nicola Benedetti, Leonard Elschenbruch and Alexei Grynyuk
This third movement provided me with one of the moments on stage where I was entirely over overwhelmed and overcome with emotion.
John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins
She has a a natural way of singing and phrasing that classical musicians can only really dream of. I mean, what we do is is so controlled and so complex, sometimes we find it difficult to get back to that natural place.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti
This really is just a choice of a piece that I think is one of the greatest ever to be written. It's by Wagner. It's the prelude to his immense composition Tristan and Isolde. I've cried listening to this piece of music many times.
Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19 (3rd movement: Andante)
Leonard Elschenbruch and Alexei Grynyuk
This third movement is absolutely heartbreaking. It's a a theme and a tune to die for.
All Rise (12th movement: I Am (Don't Run From Me))
Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen
The whole progression of the piece is our journey through life from when we're born to when we get to the stage eventually and this is the twelfth movement of accepting who we are and sort of the ultimate place to reach is to realize how much we all are together and how much we are one complex entity as a whole human race.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, 'Choral' (Ode to Joy)Favourite
New York Philharmonic and Juilliard Chorus, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
We're back to Beethoven. This is the the last couple of minutes of of Ode to Joy. I think this, along with Winter Marsalis's All Rise, just gives hope in the face of all kinds of adversity.
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:53When you are playing, you are... concentrating, not thinking?
I'm trying not to think. I'm desperately trying not to think. The minute your thoughts start to formulate, they can distract you. If you imagine you're on stage for maybe between 25 to 45 minutes and you constantly have the lead part, the solo part, always technically very challenging... the minute you start thinking, it can be the beginning of the end. So I just try to stay in the moment and actually have as much of a spiritual experience as I possibly can.
Presenter asks
10:59Why did you start [playing the violin]?
My older sister, Stephanie, she saw somebody play when she was about four years old... and she said to my mum, I want to play the violin. She fell in love with the sound, with the look, with everything about the instrument. Four years later, when I was old enough to also begin, my mum agreed to allow us both to start. It was very much a case of I would do anything my older sister did. I worshipped the ground she walked on and still do, and uh just followed in her footsteps.
Presenter asks
19:52As you were growing up, did you notice the sacrifices? When you couldn't make a birthday party or you couldn't go and do the things that other teenage girls were doing, did that matter to you?
The keepsakes
The book
Nelson Mandela
I am thinking that Nelson Mandela obviously has been in everybody's minds recently, and I read many times, a long walk to freedom when I was maybe about 15 or 16, and made all kinds of notes in that book, and I've lost it. So, I think not only for its unbelievable inspirational qualities that would, I'm sure, help me on my desert island, but also sort of to recapture the memories of reading it those years ago, I think that's what I would choose.
The luxury
Her violin and its case with sheet music
obviously my violin … if I can have the violin in its case and could I squeeze in a few pieces of sheet music in the case … they are all within there.
I I definitely there was a few times, you know, tears not being able to go to a birthday party. But I also remember actually once when I was maybe about eight or nine years old being given the choice and being distraught by choosing to practise. But I did choose to practise, that's the point. And um even then, on a subliminal level, I was beginning to understand that there is more to young life than just having fun.
Presenter asks
22:39Can you describe what that amount of attention [after winning BBC Young Musician of the Year] is like? How did it feel at the moment?
I had left Yuhudi Menu in school so I was just king of my own schedule and the Young Musician of the Year final happened and I think the next day my photo was on the front page of The Times and a practically full concert diary materialised within a very, very short space of time. So by the age of 17, 18 I was going through a very tough time for me... I think once I counted w one of those years was a hundred and ten or something, which... was just it was actually far too much for that age and for the stage that I was at of my my violinistic development I actually wasn't ready for that.
Presenter asks
23:46How did you know it was too much at the time? What happened?
I knew I wasn't fulfilling my potential at all. I knew I was going onstage underprepared, extremely nervous, worrying about all sorts of. I was trying to make sense of why am I here? Why do I have all this opportunity? Why do I do I deserve it? That's constantly how I was feeling during that sort of year or two.
“I would say that I'm consistently so grateful for the life I have. I get to interact with some of the greatest minds that have ever lived through pieces of music, through staring at those scores. I'm constantly getting an insight into some of the world's greatest creations. So that is an honour and a privilege that I never take for granted.”
“I'm a crusader for classical music, because I just want other people to experience that.”
“I have so much in my in my mind of what I would like to sound like and what I want to be and I would say most of the time I fall short of that, but it is what has continued my improvement.”