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SUPRAPHON Press Release April 2012

SUPRAPHON a.s., Palackého 1, 112 99 Praha 1, Czech Republic, www.supraphon.com Tel: +420-221 966 609 Fax: +420-221 966 631 E-mail: [email protected]

IVAN ŽENATÝ – BENDA IS MORE INTERESTING THAN VIVALDI

The acclaimed violinist Ivan Ženatý has recorded four František Benda concertos for Supraphon and has recently accepted an offer to teach at a prestigious American school. Soon he will be moving from Dresden to Cleveland, Ohio, on the southern shore of Lake Erie. You recorded František Benda’s violin concertos in Prague together with selected musicians from the Prague Philharmonia. Why did you decide to explore this composer’s works in particular? The first reason was pragmatic. The project was commissioned by Supraphon, a label that focuses on Czech titles, and it has become increasingly difficult to find something new in this repertoire segment. Yet I wasn’t allured to make a recording of something only because it was Czech. The actual quality of the music was crucial. Coincidentally, at the time I had discovered at the Landesbibliothek in Dresden the sheet music of four František Benda concertos, which had yet to be explored and played by anyone in modern history. When I was wading through the non-scored music, I found it remarkable and thought that I could make a great contrast to the post-Romantic 18th-century Czech interpretational tradition. I

hope that it will appeal to the listener as virtuosic, informed and, in the most positive sense of the word, entertaining too. Did you also have to be a musicologist in the preparatory process? I have never had such ambitions. Naturally, I had to find my way to these Benda compositions. And in this regard I was extremely fortunate to have top-notch consultants: my Dresden colleagues John Holloway, who is one of the leading connoisseurs of Baroque violin works, and the harpsichordist Ludger Rémy, who was excited by Benda’s music and gave me invaluable advice when it comes to ornamentation and articulation. I wanted the recording to not only be virtuosic but also historically informed. We are living in a schizophrenic era. On the one hand, we still have ringing in our ears and hearts the great Romantic interpreters of the past century who play Bach in a certain specific manner, while on the other there is the by now fairly long tradition of so-called authentic interpretation. The differences between how Baroque is played in, say, Moscow, sentimentally keeping David Oistrakh in mind or, to a certain extent, in Prague, the United States, Germany and London are enormous, and these people seem unable to communicate together. What is it that makes Benda’s music so extraordinary? It reminded me of the best Vivaldi passages. In technical terms, it contains things that surpass the most difficult places in Le quattro staggioni and rank up there with any technique of that era. I must admit I feel a bit ashamed that I had no inkling as to how great a virtuoso Benda was. It would appear that he was the best violinist in the then German lands, if not Europe as a whole. We recorded the concertos in the smallest possible line-up, that is, one person per part, with the harpsichord, whose part is very important, having a marked participation in the overall sound. Each of us played for himself and the colleagues also brought new suggestions.



Cadenzas are part of the concerto form. What is it like in the case of Benda? Naturally, I discussed this matter with Professor Rémy too, because I had to write them down, or at least draw up a plan of how to improvise them. He told me that a cadenza should not exceed two or three breaths of a phrase and that it should be harmonically extravagant, which corresponds both to the period and the composer. When I was working in detail with the score, I realised that Benda loves applying seventh skips, which he doesn’t amplify, how immensely audacious he is in the treatment of melody. (Today, we would say “modern”, even though Beethoven and other composers were far more modern than many of our contemporaries.) That took me by surprise. I don’t know whether Benda was influenced by “Czech melody”, whether he absorbed it in Germany or when studying Italian scores... What do you think will be the further fate of Benda’s violin concertos? For my part, I have decided not to stop with the recording but to play them in public too, perhaps as soon as in 2013. Of course, only the responses to the concertos will show what their future will be like. When I was recording Schulhoff or Foerster, I knew that something was exceptional and something was period standard. I do consider Benda’s concertos to be of a higher quality than his sonatas, and I believe that they may intrigue 21st-century listeners too.

The fortes of your delivery include sensitively differentiated tone and an impeccable sense of style. What, in stylistic terms, is important for interpretation of music? I have been fundamentally aided by my work in Germany. Frankly speaking, although my entire Prague period was vital for studying the violin and music, I did not attach nearly as much significance to style as they do in German schools. It’s true that in the past the great virtuosos would virtually play everything in the same way. When you listen to Jascha Heifetz, with all respect to his genius there is no stylistic difference between his Lalo, Bach and

Mozart, but already after two bars you recognise that it is Heifetz who is playing. Yet that era is long gone. Music is far more interesting when we are able to separate that which was in the 20th, 19th and 18th centuries, when we deal with the volume of tone, vibrato, bowing, ornamentation, manner of articulation, the degree of expressivity... Could you say a few words about your new engagement in the USA? What does teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Music mean to you personally? The Cleveland Institute of Music is undoubtedly one of the most prestigious music academies of its type in the world. This I can confirm after leading two master classes there this year and last. The CIM management offered me a professorship from this summer on. It’s an offer I simply couldn’t refuse. Could you tell us more about this institution and compare it with the Hochschule für Musik in Dresden? The Cleveland Institute of Music was founded in 1920 with the composer Ernst Bloch as director. It is a school with an illustrious tradition yet one that at the same time takes pride in being flexible. All the decisions taken are based on personal responsibility. This is probably the greatest difference when compared to the German bureaucracy, functional but hypertrophied over the years. The CIM is a private institution. Although I am aware of the sensitivity of the issue of “tuition fees” in my country, I must say that students who know that every single minute they spend with me must be paid for respond in an essentially different manner to those who consider the state education system a matter of course within the social system itself.



Besides teaching, one of the other things awaiting you this year is a recital at Carnegie Hall in New York... I consider Carnegie Hall to be the most famous concert venue in the world and I would like to dedicate my December performance to the memory of my great teacher, Josef Suk. Written for: Harmonie 2012/04; author: Luboš Stehlík For further details, please visit: www.supraphon.com www.ivanzenaty.com

For press enquiries, please contact: Linda Hrůzová SUPRAPHON a.s. Tel: +420 221 966 609 [email protected] SU 4064-2

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