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| György Pauk |
After your farewell concert two years ago, you said that you would finally have time to listen to all of the recordings that were piling up in your home, some of them still unpacked. Are there any unpacked ones left?
Yes, quite a few and not only CDs. I have a huge amount of old records, operas, symphonies, with great conductors, great orchestras, and I still have not had time to listen to them. The thing is that I still teach at the Music Academy in London and I am also doing other things besides music.
Do you still do sports?
Indeed I do, and I am angry at myself that I had no time for it in Budapest. One needs to do sports. I regularly go to a gym in London to work out, and now I can go three times a week.
Since you retired from the stage, do you have time for things you were unable to do before? Like travelling around with your wife?
Yes, within a few days, we will leave for Saint Petersburg with another couple we are friends with. We have been planning this trip for a long time, but there was no time before. They say it will be cold, but that's fine, since we are planning to spend lots of time in various museums. I also spend more time with my grandchildren these days, at least with the small ones, because they still let me do it. The big ones, aged 13 and 15, prefer to spend time with their friends rather than with grandparents.
Your children grew up seeing their father practicing, rehearsing and playing concerts. They were living with music, yet they did not choose it as a career. What professions have they entered?
They do very different things that I do, but they are both very musical and love music. My son works as a lawyer for a large bank and my daughter is involved in organising events.
What's happening these days with your famous Massart Stradivari violin?
The Massart Stradivari is resting, sleeping in the safe of a bank. I have not seen it since the farewell concert two years ago. I have another, very nice violin, which is ideal for teaching. You do not need a Stradivari for that.
You always said that a musical instrument needs to be used otherwise it loses its voice.
But not forever. If I took it out again and started playing on it, the old sound would very nicely come back within two or three weeks. It comforts me to know that it's held in a safe where nothing bad can happen to it and cannot get damaged. And my children will inherit it.
While you were playing concerts, you would practice several hours a day. Is it possible to stop that overnight?
Yes, it is. You cannot play the violin without practice and had I stayed on the road, I would have to spend five-six hours on practice every day. I do not want to do that anymore. In the old days, every morning I would rush to my room and started practicing the scales but today I can just comfortably walk to the computer and read the papers.
As far as I can tell, you have taken the change quite well.
I prepared for it. I often listen to music, teach and hold master classes, so I stayed with music and that's what's most important. You cannot let go of music. And I still practice sometimes, I need to move my fingers even if I do not play in front of audiences. I need it for teaching and for the master classes, which are sometimes held in front of an audience. So, I still do practice a little.
At the farewell concert two years ago, you played Bartók's 2nd violin concerto.
Did you ponder for a long time what to chose or was it an immediate decision?
The choice was evident because it was my big number all through my life. What's more, Iván Fischer and the Festival Orchestra also insisted on it. So we were completely in agreement. I have not played the piece in front of an audience since but I have been teaching it. You know, that's very different. To stand with an orchestra in front of an audience is not the same as to play for two minutes. It is especially different in a mechanical sense, since the fingers get lazy if they are not exercised and the older one gets, the more attention needs to be paid to this.
You keep travelling around the world and hearing hundreds of violin players. What is your experience, are they getting technically better and better?
Technically they do but not musically. Playing the violin and on the whole, playing music, has very much moved to Asia. If you look at conservatories or competitions you will see that 70 percent of the participants are from China, Japan and Korea. Europeans hardly play music and those in Asia are very diligent, practicing six or eight hours a day, which children here are not be able to do. I for instance pick the students for myself and there are currently seven in my class at the academy in London, three of them are Chinese. It's also interesting that there are fewer and fewer boys playing because they tend to choose other careers. As a result, I am surrounded by girls. I recently went to Japan and was the member of a jury that listened to sixty or seventy violinist, including fifty girls.
So your experience shows that young musicians are technically very good but not musically. What's missing from them?
Perhaps I should say that they do not play according to my taste. I believe I am a rather forward-thinking person who has never stopped learning - one should never do that, since music itself is also always developing - but I have my principles. I am for instance not at all impressed by the high speed or loud volume that somebody can demonstrate while playing. As my teacher, dear old Leo Weiner would say, you must look beyond the notes. Children today - with very few exceptions - do not understand this. The education we received at the music academy in my time also covered a whole lot of music history. I knew the entire life work of composers because that is also relevant when you perform their works. I often went to the opera and still do because for instance to be able to play a Mozart violin concerto, one must also know his operas. That's what I miss in today's children, so I often send my students to the opera. The other important thing is that I make them sing. Singing, breathing and phrasing are the most natural forms of making music. They can usually sing very nicely whatever I ask them to perform. And after that, I say, now you play it. Singing is very important.
During auditions, they say you can select within minutes whoever you find interesting.
Yes, but these things are impossible to explain. I listen to players one after the other and they are all very good. And then someone comes along, starts playing or even just tuning, and all of a sudden, something happens. A sparkle. Electricity. The walls are shaken. The soul. It's impossible to explain. Then I feel that perhaps somebody up above, perhaps God, has blessed this player. And this comes through immediately, even if they are very nervous, because the human voice, what I expect and like, is there. But these are rare occasions. Most of them concentrate on playing loud and at a fast speed.
A few years ago, you said in an interview that one of your great dreams is to conduct Mozart's twenty-seven piano concertos. You have not given that up, have you?
I won't manage that anymore. Not that I have given up on it but I am not going after it, either. You know, I adore Mozart's piano concertos and I know them all. But I do not want to appear in front of an audience, I've had enough of that. Perhaps I will conduct them at home once.
Interviewer: Gabriella Bokor / Source: fidelio
