What could have happened for Maxim Vengerov to disappear from the Barcelona scene for three decades? “Nothing, I can’t be everywhere. Although I have to tell him that I love the city, its architecture and, well, this concert hall [of the Palau de la Música Catalana] is a marvel. In addition, I live in Monaco, which means I’m six hours away by car”, explains the famous judeorus violinist to La Vanguardia.
There is no excuse, then. The BCN Clàssics series has brought the Barcelona audience back together tomorrow (8pm) with a recital of sonatas for violin and piano by Clara and Robert Schumann, Brahms, Prokófiev and the Maltese contemporary Alexey Shor.
Born in the USSR, Vengerov (Novossibirsk, 1974) was one of the children who went to Germany for glasnost, in a student exchange facilitated by the Schleswig-Holstein festival in Lübeck. “There were German children who came to Russia, can you believe it? It was probably more interesting for us. The fact is that when he was there the Berlin Wall fell and the two Germanys were reunified. I kept my Soviet citizenship but when the new Russian State was created I no longer got my passport, I continued in the West and lived in many places, until I went to Monaco, attracted by the Mediterranean, the climate and the proximity to Italy. In addition, it is easy to travel from Nice, you are connected to the big capitals without having to live there.”
A child prodigy of musical parents, at the age of ten Vengerov was already recording records and winning international competitions thanks to the learning he had with great teachers such as Galina Turchaninova and Zakhar Bron, whom he would later meet again in Lübeck. He comes from the Russian school, in a direct line with Shostakovich or Prokofiev… “Not many of my colleagues have had the privilege of studying and playing with Rostropovich, or of being on stage with great conductors… Maazel , Barenboim… This experience is part of my DNA as a musician and I can share it with the public”.
In Barcelona he will play, with Roustem Saitkoulov on the piano, a first part focused on “this triangle of mind-blowing musicians: Clara, revolutionary in her time, independent woman, eight children and a career… -he recalls-. When Brahms arrived, he intervened for the good and bad things in the couple.”
How does Vengerov still dance with the piano, if the violin is such a different starting point?
“It is a complex combination, because the violin is lyrical, an imitation of the voice, and the piano has a percussive nature, and they must meet. But the great conflict is for the benefit of the music, it forces them to complement each other. I always say that in the piano and violin duet, the lead of the piano, which provides harmony and rhythmic structure vertically, makes the violin feel like a caged animal, like the role of the woman in a dance couple. That’s why I play differently with each pianist: they have an idea of ??the character. However, the violin is the one who leads the orchestra and the chamber music, so I also exchange the roles”.
Vengerov has now made the foray into the digital market with the Idagio platform. “I want my recordings from the last ten years to be available, accessible from my website as digital downloads with great sound quality. I love it, it allows me to have contact with the public, without intermediaries. I hope to record a lot in the future. In fact, since I was ten I’ve been releasing one or two records every year!”
