The Bohlen-Pierce system - La Scena Musicale

ON THE COVER VENGEROV
move to Moscow. The school hadn’t granted
him a visa, however, and every few months
they would have to make excuses with police
officers. After three years, his grandfather became
ill and they had to move back to Novosibirsk.
There, he studied with Zakhar Bron, who
also counted Vadim Repin among his pupils.
After Vengerov won the Wieniawski, invitations
to perform in Europe and even Japan
granted him a chance unimaginable for a poor
kid who had grown up in Soviet Siberia: the
ability to see the world. At age fourteen
Vengerov played at the Concertgebouw. A year
later, he not only won the Carl Fesch International
Violin Competition, but the interpretation,
press, and audience prizes. By sixteen he
taught his first masterclass, at the University
of California in Los Angeles.
Vengerov had followed Bron to London and
then Lübeck, Germany, but eventually his
family settled in Israel, where his musical talent
once again propelled him out of a destiny
predestined by his country: a few days into
mandatory military service he was granted an
exemption.
AN IMPORTANT SEED
Seeing his father in the orchestra may have inspired
him to take up the violin, but his
mother’s musical job also made a lasting impression
on Vengerov. “[She] was a choir conductor,”
says Vengerov. “At the age of three I
already visited her rehearsals in Siberia where
she led her beautiful choir of 500 kids—she had
a huge choir. I saw the passion that my mom
had for kids when she was working with them.
I’m sure she has planted an important seed. She
wanted at some point also to become a symphony
conductor but she couldn’t realize her
dream because I was born. I started to play the
violin, so she dedicated a lot of her time to me.”
His professional ‘detour’ as a violinist serves
him well as a conductor: Vengerov speaks of
his knowledge of string instruments as well as
“my way of breathing in music, the phrasing, the
colouring, and all the technical things that I’ve
acquired as a violinist” as key to his developing
skills as a conductor. Having long experienced
conducting from the other side of the
podium, Vengerov has firm ideas about how to
run a rehearsal that flows logically for the musicians.
His ultimate goal as a conductor is to
“be the advocate of this composition, of this
composer. I have to again recreate this work as
if it is the absolute premiere and this work has
never been heard before. With my orchestra I
have to convince the audience that this is the
absolute best composition that was ever written.
At this moment nothing else exists. We
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APRIL 2012
“I THINK EVERY EXPERIENCE THAT I HAVE IN MUSIC, IN LIFE WILL DEFINITELY BENEFIT MY PROFESSION.
I never wanted to lock myself in a small room but always wanted to explore new territories.”
have to be the perfect channel as musicians between
the composer and the audience.”
His mother’s profession also sparked an interest
in teaching and working with children.
Since giving his first masterclass, he has instructed
at various institutions, including at
Saarbrucken. He became a professor there at
only 26 and was so dedicated to teaching that
he sometimes cut his concert schedule down
by almost two thirds. After being appointed a
visiting professor at the Royal Academy of
Music in 2005, Vengerov was named the inaugural
Menuhin Professor of Music there in
February 2012. But what touches a real emotional
chord for him is his global outreach for
children. Vengerov was the first classical musician
to be made a UNICEF ambassador and
he also supports MIGDAL and MIAGI, two
similar programs.
“I’ve been very fortunate to travel where
they’ve never heard a symphony,” says
Vengerov. “I’ve been in Thailand with hill tribe
communities and in Chiang Mai. They had
never heard the orchestra, but they have such
beautiful music. They shared with me their
own handmade instruments. We danced and
we played together. What really struck me was
that in the beginning when I entered a classroom,
say of Ugandan kids who have suffered
the trauma of war–they hardly want to communicate.
But then with music they open their
hearts and we find a way to communicate with
each other through music. Really, music has
no barriers. Where words are not powerful
enough then there comes music.” In 2007
Vengerov received the World Economic
Forum’s Crystal Award for his betterment of
the world through art.
BREAKING BARRIERS
Vengerov breaks down barriers within music
as well. “I think every experience that I have in
music, in life will definitely benefit my profession.
I never wanted to lock myself in a small
room but always wanted to explore new territories,”
he says. Long before the injury and the
more serious pursuit of conducting, Vengerov
had showed interest in deviating from the
straight and narrow classical violin path. In
the late nineties, Vengerov started studying
Baroque violin, and even had the violin he
used as a teenager—which turned out to be a
Landolfi—be remodeled back to its original
Baroque style. In 2000 he toured Europe with
harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock in a sort of
‘styles reversed’ programme, featuring him on
Baroque violin and Pinnock on piano. In 2002,
Vengerov started playing the viola, initially in