Hi,

http://www.mv-online.de/aktuelles/politik/politik/748250_Ich_wuerde_Klassik_nie_weglassen.html

Ich würde Klassik nie weglassen“

David Garrett, der hier mit seiner Echo-Statue geigt, ist nicht nur ein brillanter Musiker, sondern gilt auch als schönster Geiger der Gegenwart, was vor allem weibliche Musikfreunde zusätzlich beglückt.
(Foto: dpa)

Garrett: Mein ganzes musikalisches Leben verdanke ich den großen Komponisten, ihre Werke machen 80 Prozent meiner Arbeit aus – im Moment spiele ich das Violinkonzert von Brahms, dann ein Kammermusikprogramm mit Beethoven und Grieg. Bei der Preisverleihung sollte es natürlich etwas aus meiner aktuellen CD „Encore“ sein. Außerdem hatte ich die Chance, ein eigenes Arrangement mit den Münchner Philharmonikern zu spielen: Wer lässt sich das schon entgehen?

BILDERSTRECKE David Garrett auf einem aktuellen Pressefoto.... David Garrett auf einem aktuellen Pressefoto.... David Garrett auf einem aktuellen Pressefoto....

Was werden Sie denn in Münster spielen?

Garrett: Zwei ganz verschiedene Programme: Am 12. November gibt es ein klassisches Recital mit Violine und Klavier, Beethovens letzte Violinsonate wird dabei sein, auch das F.A.E.-Scherzo von Brahms, dann Grieg und Sarasate. Am 16. Januar gibt es eine ganz andere Performance: Ich komme mit meiner Band und einem Orchester, da wird es mal klassisch, mal rockig.

Abwechselnd? Könnte da auch eine Beethoven-Romanze dabei sein? Oder hört man da eher Klassik-Rock?

Garrett: Beides! Ich spiele auch allein mit dem Orchester, zum Beispiel einen Satz aus einem Bach-Konzert, und dann wieder mit der Band oder zusammen.

Mit Pop und Rock hatten Sie aber nicht immer was am Hut?

Garrett: Nein, früher nicht, ich ging ja nicht zur Schule, sondern hatte Privatlehrer. Ich war etwas isoliert und habe nur Klassik gehört. In der Oberstufe kam ich auf ein reguläres Gymnasium, und durch die Mitschüler hat sich eine neue Welt der Musik eröffnet. Und als ich nach New York ging, nahmen mich Leute in Rock- und Jazzkonzerte mit.

Damals hatten Sie ja bereits eine bemerkenswerte Karriere gemacht. Gab’s dann so etwas wie einen Knick?

Garrett: Ganz so würde ich es nicht nennen, aber ich hatte eben sehr früh sehr viel gemacht. Mit dem Erwachsenwerden wollte ich Entscheidungen selber treffen, bis dahin bin ich ja stark gepusht worden. Ich hatte Interesse an anderen Sachen, wollte auch richtig studieren. Und an der New Yorker Juilliard School gibt es eben für alle ein strenges Reglement, da darf man keine Unterrichtsstunde verpassen. So konnte ich in dieser Zeit kaum Konzerte geben.

Heute spielen Sie Filmmusik aus „Fluch der Karibik“, Stücke von Queen und im Moment das Brahms-Konzert. Ist Brahms Ihr Favorit?

Garrett: Im Moment absolut, aber das kann morgen schon wieder anders sein. Das, was ich gerade spiele und woran ich arbeite, ist immer das Schönste für mich – Gott sei Dank.

Hätten Sie Lust, sich über ein paar große Geiger zu äußern?

Garrett: Na klar!

David Oistrach?

Garrett: Großartig, er hatte viel Einfluss auf mein Spiel. Die alte russische Schule, wo alles so sicher sitzt.

Itzhak Perlman, bei dem Sie in New York lernten?

Garrett: Dieser Spielwitz, diese Leichtigkeit! Bei ihm kommt alles intuitiv, ein echter Bauchmusiker. Allerdings: Üben muss der auch.

Anne-Sophie Mutter?

Garrett: Ich habe sie gar nicht so oft gehört. Natürlich, sie ist eine fantastische Geigerin, hat eine tolle Technik. Aber ich bin aus einer anderen Schule, eher die Richtung Oistrach und Perlman.

Und schließlich: „Punk-Geiger“ Nigel Kennedy?

Garrett: Der hat wenig Berührungsängste und richtig Spaß an den Sachen, die er macht. Ich habe großen Respekt vor ihm, er hat die Geige populär gemacht.

Stört es Sie eigentlich, wenn man Sie mit ihm vergleicht?

Garrett: Die Leute meinen es ja meistens als Kompliment: Was Kennedy macht, macht er gut. Ich würde allerdings im Gegensatz zu ihm die Klassik nie weglassen, sie hilft einem auch, mit den Beinen auf dem Boden zu bleiben. Aber wenn Kennedy Klassik spielt, dann zeigt er, dass er ein guter Geiger ist. Vielleicht nicht unbedingt der beste der Welt – aber kein Vergleich etwa mit Vanessa Mae.

Und welche Musiker bewundern sie am meisten?

Garrett: Unter den Dirigenten Wilhelm Furtwängler, bei seinem wunderbaren Stil klingt auch das Langsame nie schleppend. Als Gegenstück Toscanini: diese Präzision, noch stärker als bei Karajan. Und dann natürlich einen Geiger: Jascha Heifetz. Was kann man über den überhaupt noch sagen? So perfekt, selbst wenn er Fehler machte, war es gut: Wenn bei einer schnellen Passage mal drei Sechzehntelnoten fehlten, klang es trotzdem so, als wären die da. Er hat am besten von allen gefaked.

Birgit

I’d love to share an interview with you, which I really like a lot, because it deals with what it should about: Music! It’s from a German magazine called “Ensemble” and I translated it. If you'd like to have the magazine, you can buy it online here and download it, or you go to a shop and buy it I will NOT upload the article here, because of the copyright!

Hopefully I did a good job with my translation, but I think you should - at least - be able to understand  

Ensemble: Mister Garrett, your balance between classical- and rockmusic turned out to be quite successful. What classical projects will follow up?
David Garrett: For Novembre is a purely classical, traditional duo planned, during which Milana Chernyavska will accompany me. We’ll play pieces by Beethoven, Grieg and Sarasate. That’s the next step of my projekt to get young people enthusiastic about classical music. If it will work, I don’t know, but I’m curious about it. Fact is, that people buy tickets, lots of at the moment, and that speaks for the fact that they are open to listen to something like that. And of course that makes me happy.

E: Which standards do you set for the partners you play chamber-music with? And how do you prepare for chamber-music concerts?
DG: I prefer musicians who have their own opinion and make their weight feel on that. Both during the discussion and while playing together. You’d make it yourself to easy only to play from music. You always have to be able to listen to new ideas, to argument and make a compromise. Especially that is the adventure about chamber-music.

E: This year you already played with the pianists Julien Quentin and Daniel Gortler for the given situation in a duo, both are accustomed to an active chamber-music agitation…
DG: Yes. With Daniel I had an experience which reinforced me in my resolution to bring today’s youth closer to this kind of music. We played in Spain and nextdoor there was a suscription-concert (don’t know if that is the proper translation): Arcadi Voldos played at the piano the Second Concert For Piano by Johannes Brahms. I really esteem Arcadi Voldos one of the truly great pianists, which I like to hear myself. Daniel Gortler and I played in a smaller hall. My concert was crowded, the one of Arcadi Voldos was paradoxically almost half empty. And then I knew why I started walking in my path. If you do nothing, then nobody comes and if nobody comes, then there is no one to take pleasure in it. And then why do you do it at all? Of course, for the composer, for the ensemble, for yourself. On the other hand we are responsible for having an audience. It is part of our job to reach people emotionally. When a child starts playing the violin it can not be the general idea that it will have to ask himself: How shall I play in front of people? No one is listening anymore…

E: Milana Chernyavska started with five years taking lessons, you did so with four and a half. Is there nowadays a way to a successful soloist-carreer without serious-sport-like drill?
DG: No, absolutely not.

E: So without child-labour, to express it in an exaggerated way, there is no chance to make it?
DG: Right, because that would be indeed a child-prodigy and I don’t believe in that. I know that from my own experience. I watch what I did in retrospective and they are surprisingly brilliant. But I know on the other hand how hard I worked for that. But if you only see this moment, this 25 minutes during which you stand on the stage, then it doesn’t seem like that to you and people don’t realise it either. But that is also a marketing-strategy, especially with younger kids. It has been like this 250 years ago with Mozart, that’s why they always say: child-prodigy. Whereas a certain amount of talent is of course always the requirement for it.

E: Was there a primal experience which brought you to music?
DG: Not in the sense of an epiphany, somehow it came rather creeping. In a moment, in which I know, I am alone at home and nobody is listening, then I play, simply play and go through things without system. Without thinking about it, simply release music spontaneously out of you. I used and really really loved to do that as a child. Then I lost it for many years, because it was idle and demanding and no fun anymore. It did not come back until my third semester at Juilliard School in New York, since then I was able to release music from within me again, like I did before. Just turn off the lights, dark and then play and play and play. This might sound dumb, but at Juilliard I realised: this could work out again…

E: You play concerts with a huge repertoire. Which personal significance has chamber-music for you?
DG: Chamber-music should be in the centre of every musician, because it’s the foundation to master all other musical challenges. Chamber-music shows, if you are able to do it or not, because it brings to light mercilessly all mistakes and weaknesses. If you are smart, you’ll use the specific demandings of chamber-music to improve your entire repertoire.

E: In Germany there is a strong differentiation between orchestra- and chamber-music. Chamber-music is said to be – under reservation - the “more demanding genre”…
DG: I think it’s important that there are various things, because the more variety a profession offers, the more interesting it is. I know about the prejudice that a full orchestra looks more pompous and fantastic on stage to the audience and that’s why it seems to offer a better sound than a string quartet or a piano trio…

E: I'm a dedicated advocate of chamber-music, almost more than orchestra-music...
DG: …many people nowadays want to get blast away by the sound, because that’s what they are used to from canned music or an mp3 player. They think a symphony orchestra would be more emotional and interesting. I think that’s more of a problem. In that sense chamber-music is more honest. It demands more attention from the audience.

E: How do you as an interpreter experience the difference between orchestra- and chamber-music?
DG: Of course you always have to know what happens around you and you have to be acquainted with the other parts of an orchestra as well as with the chamber-music ensemble. But from that part on it’s pretty much the same. You have to listen to all the different voices around you and answer to them. In the end it doesn’t matter if there are playing two or twenty instruments. Ultimately it’s always about a dialogue.

E: Which kind of chamber-music do you prefer?
DG: I have no particular preference. But I have to say, that I take an exceptional pleasure in playing violin sonatas. As I always play it with other partners, I experience the piece time and again in a different perspective. I think it’s important to change your chamber-music partners, because it keeps your ears awake for the music.

E: You developed a musictheoretic base at Juilliard School. Do musictheory and –interpretation now belong indivisible together for you?
DG: Of course, because the more you’re dealing with, also mentally, the great composers and works, the more you see and hear. In that sense musictheory and –analyse are very important. Especially with Beethoven, who wrote the most brillliant violinconcert ever, you can see how every note, every cadence and phrase is right in their connection. Realising that you hear the piece in a totally different way – better – and you are communicating it, something happens within you and you say: I never heard it like that. With the comprehension also changes the interpretation of a piece…

E: …I think with composers like Johannes Brahms, where music really becomes reflexive and intellectual, there is so much mental work, such a wealth of allusion, for example in the string quartets and –quintets…
DG: …absolutely and I am far away from that, we all are. But this minimum, that you can do, is to rise to the challenge of a piece always new, always listening deeper into the musical score.

E: Many interpreters say: Why burden myself with musictheory, when I can do it…
DG: To burden theoretically means, that afterwards you’ll find the piece much more beautiful. Before it was a sound, the ear filters melodies from the sounds and then it starts to get interesting. If you don’t keep looking for new things, it’ll become boring. But for as long as you are trying to understand a composition always better, you’ll always have fun playing it.

E: Have you concieved the interpretation of a piece through in your head any time?
DG: You never get to an end with that.Who claims to have the perfect interpretation with 21 is mad. And even if somebody says so, hopefully he’ll think differently with 26. What do you life for, if you don’t improve yourself?

E: You dealt with many facets of music at Juilliard...
DG: I did everything, four years musictheory. For example training the sense of hearing, where you have to play two things at once at the piano and then also have to sing another line. Or practicing rhythm: three knock here – two on the other side and all that goes with it…

E: How “difficult” is it nowadays for you as a solo-violinist and a star on stage to integrate into the complicated and personal network of a chamber-music ensemble?
DG: I don’t see any problem with that. Either you are a good musician, or not. I always try to present my whole repertoire on the highest level. When I play with my band I take with the same seriousness, as when I’m giving a concert with a quartet. Why should I handle it any other way? I’d be cheating, if I had different criteria for different kinds of music. That’s not like me.

E: How do you judge the Lockenhaus Kammermusikfestival, which was found at the beginning of the 80s by Gidon Kremer? Enthusiast of chamber-music, who really devote themselves to serious music intensely. Would such a festival be interesting for you?
DG: I’m always a fan of such smaller festivals. Especially because you can invite people, with which you like to talk about music, but also get along well with elsewhere. The whole thing is practically a music-family. You have the opportunity to invite performers or to surround youself with people who have the same musical base as you do. Because I’m living in New York for some years now there was no chance to participate in this festival, but I can imagine it very well. 

E: Gidon Kremer made a great contribution towards the political development. He made known many composers from the former Soviet Union here, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, just to name a few, the musical scenery would be different without him...
DG: …right, I do look up to him for the passion he has for this music. There are very few who bring with them this kind of conviction. Isaac Stern was also someone who really did a lot. Such personalities go beyond the low scale of “I’m a soloist, I want to shine, I want to be famous”. You can’t overestimate such a dedication.

E: Can music nowadays still fulfill such political tasks, like then, when interpreters like Gidon Kremer helped to open up the Iron Curtain?
DG: If you stop believing so, then you have the wrong profession.

E: Do you plan yourself such social activities – catchword Freundeskreis Anne-Sopie Mutter Stiftung e.V., which supports young musicians?
DG: Definitely. In a few years I’ll do such things for sure. At the moment my life is still not balanced. Maybe in two, three years there will be a point of time at which I want to found my own chamber-music-festival or support projects. After all during a chamber-music-festival in summer you are four weeks straight in one city, be it as an intendant or as interpreter.

E: Do you think classical music is being enhanced? Is there a new kind of style at the horizon?
DG: I’m glad I don’t know, otherwise it would be boring. I’m saying straightforward, even though some people might like to kill me for it, that I am a great friend of good film music. John Williams for example. To me they are great things, which are commercial, but that’s what they’ve all been… Even Beethoven was always looking for something new. You have to be able to appeal to people with music and to me that’s what good film music does on all accounts.

E: Could you imagine to work as a composer?
DG: If so, then as a composer for film music. When I watch tv and turn it on “mute”, then often spontaneously music comes up to the pictures within me. Music which reflects the pictures. But when I’m reading a book I can’t imagine something musical. That actually comes along with visual input.

E: Would you like to compose something for a film?
DG: Sure, I’d really really love to. I wouldn’t want to compose something banal. You do have to know, it’s an interesting project. But absolutely, of course. These are the kind of things I’d do with enthusiasm.

E: What will be on your next classical CD?
DG: This year I’m going to record the violinconcert by Mendelssohn with the Staatskapelle Dresden. I would have preferred Brahm, but that was too heavy for them. It’s difficult to do exactly what you want. But there is always a compromise.

E: Do you have any particular wish in view of the recordings?
DG: When it’s about records, I’m still at the beginning. Especially when it comes to chamber-music I don’t want to pronounce something special. There are simply decades, decades…
As an artist you are selfish enough to wish to record everything. [laughs]

E: Thank you for the interview Mister Garrett.

Oh my God!

Snitch, I know this article, it is about 5 pages long. I started translating it, but then give up because it took such a long time!!!

Thank you very much for doing this. It is a great artice!!! The Ensemble magazine is a german magazine of chamber music.

Birgit

Thank you both of you

Snitch, your translation was super.  It made so clear some of the stuff I had been slowly plodding through.  Birgit had given me the flavour and you have added to the experience.

David reveals himself to be a truly great classical musician here. People who are dazzled by his beauty ought to read this - without looking at a picture if that is bearable).  His understanding, his philosophy - it all underpins his excellent playing.

Please keep helping non German speakers to appreciate David in the fullest possible way

lg

Tabbi

XX

Tabitha2:

Please keep helping non German speakers to appreciate David in the fullest possible way

But of course! It really took some time to translate it and I splitted the work, because it was so much, but I'm glad I did it. I really love the article! It contains so many really interesting things no other magazine ever talked about with David, which I can't understand... But maybe it simply takes specialised magazines like "Ensemble" to do that.

It's so interesting to read what he did at Juilliard, for example and of course I really hope that he might get a chance to compose music for a film! After "Encore" there could be some good offers, I hope

 Wow Snitch, thank you for your wonderful work. I have read it in German, but your translation get some things clearer. This is a fantastic article. It shows David as a serious classical musician, concentrating to music and not his good looks and other minor details. I would like to read more articles like this, I hope there are coming many.

Decades to record more... THAT sounds good!

New article at Bild.de.

Star-Geiger David Garrett im BILD.de-Interview Ich steh' drauf, wenn mich Frauen sexy finden

Wo auch immer er auftaucht, herrscht Tuschelalarm: Stargeiger David Garrett (28) hat die Ausstrahlung eines Rockstars und die Sensibilität eines Schmusesängers. Kein Wunder, dass die Frauenwelt seinen Namen nur mit Verzückung in der Stimme ausspricht.

Zurzeit reist der Deutsch-Amerikaner quer durch das Land, um die Werbetrommel für sein aktuelles Album „Encore“ zu rühren. „Ich werde in den nächsten Wochen viel in Deutschland unterwegs sein“, sagt Garrett im Gespräch mit BILD.de. Die Frauen der Republik (und auch einige Männer) wird die Aussicht, einen Blick auf den Geiger werfen zu können, freuen.

Doch kann er diese Aufmerksamkeiten auch erwidern? Im Interview mit BILD.de spricht David Garrett Klartext.

Beziehung: Ja oder Nein?

David Garrett: „Ich bin oft allein unterwegs, jeden Tag in einer anderen Stadt. Da muss ich meine Gefühlen auch schon einmal freien Lauf lassen dürfen.

Frauen sind meine Inspiration, ohne sie würde ich kirre werden. Aber ich bin Single.“

Deutsche oder amerikanische Frauen?

„Ich mache da keine richtigen Unterschiede. Es kommt auf die Person an. Das Schönheitsideal in Amerika ist aber doch schon anders. Mit 25 lassen sich dort manche Botox spritzen. Die wollen alles perfekt haben. Ich denke, ich suche mir eine deutsche Freundin!“

Sexy ist der Musiker aus Aachen, talentiert, reich und beliebt auch. Doch als Jugendlicher stand ihm seine Gabe auch oft im Weg, machte ihm das Leben schwer. „Ich war ein Außenseiter! Für die anderen war ich halt der Geiger, etwas Ungewöhnliches. Meine Kindheit war ziemlich isoliert. Weil ich so viel unterwegs war, nahm ich Privatunterricht. Erst in der Oberschule hatte ich mit Gleichaltrigen zu tun. Später habe ich mich gefragt, warum meine Eltern nicht etwas mehr die Normalität gefördert haben.“

Mit knapp vier Jahren begann Garrett, die Violine zu spielen. Mit Fünf gewann das kleine Wunderkind seinen ersten Preis, mit nur 13 hatte bekam er einen Exklusiv-Vertrag mit der „Deutschen Grammaphon“. Trotz großer Erfolge entschloss sich Garrett, in dem Heimatland seiner Mutter zu studieren und Deutschland den Rücken zu kehren.

„Ich wollte studieren, einfach mal die Schulbank drücken. Ich habe mich nicht gefühlt, als ob ich erwachsen war, auch musikalisch. Ich wollte mit Leuten zusammen sein, die dasselbe wollen wie ich“, sagt Garrett nachdenklich.

Während seines Studiums an der renommierten „Juilliard School“ arbeitete Garrett als Model, doch die Geige gab er nie aus der Hand.

„Ich liebe meine Geige. Zurzeit spiele ich auf meiner Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, die habe ich vor vier Jahren gekauft. Sie ist für 800 000 versichert, Euro nicht Lira (lacht). Die werde ich die nächsten 1 ½ Monate spielen.“

Hilft sein Lieblingsinstrument denn auch, Frauenherzen zu erobern?

„Schaden tut sie nicht. Ich finde es süß, wenn mich Frauen sexy finden. Da steh' ich drauf. Das freut mich immer wieder.

What a contrast !!

David's two sides to his career - the one in the serious chamber music publication, and the other in Bild.

I do hope the two aspects can exist together. At the moment, he is managing to sell sex and the violin at the same time as maintaining a classical career.  I hope it will last.

Tabbi

XX

And another article:

Looks like he is seperated from his girlfriend....poor David.

http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-kurier/print/nachrichten/240128.html

Thankyou for sharing these wonderful articles, how generous you all are to post/translate for us. David is a man of so many facets & such depth, it is fascinating to see the different aspects of his personality & music.

In the press today.

http://www.bunte.de/szene/david-garrett-xxxxxxxxxxxx_aid_7133.html

Hi,

I have no idea if the website is different! Bunte is released every Thursday in Germany, so I will have a look tomorrow and let you know.

Regards

Birgit

 Thankyou very much! I think we probably get it a little later over here.

Giselle

Hi Giselle,

I have looked on the Bunte-Magazine. The article is NOT in there!

Regards

Birgit