Viktoria Mullova sits across
from me at the large wooden table in the kitchen of her home, a recently
built house in a neighborhood not far from London's famous Notting Hill.
Mullova is slim, tanned, and elegant; long bangs frame her face, giving
her a youthful look. She speaks English with a soft Russian accent.
As we talk, she neatly groups and regroups a tiny pile of crumbs on
the table. There's a certain guardedness about her, though I see her
visibly relax later when her husband, the British cellist Matthew Barley,
enters the room.
The reason for the wariness
may be that, as she claims, she's so often misrepresented in the press.
She warns me before we begin the interview: "Sometimes people print
the things they think are true and then they go to the Internet and
find the things which are not true and they just reprint them. That's
quite annoying."
But the basic facts of her
life and career do lend themselves to myth-making.
A product of the rigorous
Central Music School in Moscow and the Moscow Conservatory (she was
a student of Leonid Kogan), Mullova won the Sibelius Competition in
Helsinki in 1980 and took the gold medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition
in 1982. The following year she defected from the Soviet Union in a
headline-grabbing incident that involved her then-boyfriend, a conductor,
masquerading as her accompanist on a foreign tour that culminated in
a confused Fourth of July weekend as the couple remained in hiding,
waiting for the American embassy in Sweden to open the following Monday.
A subsequent relationship with conductor Claudio Abbado, the father
of her son Misha, now 12, provided more fodder for media gossip. A daughter,
Katia, now eight, was the product of a relationship with violinist Alan
Brind. But today, Viktoria Mullova—"Vika" to friends—seems
cozily settled with Barley and her children, who include her and Barley's
daughter Nadia, age five.
But the interest in Mullova's
personal life has never completely overshadowed the attention she receives
for her extraordinary violin playing, which combines awe-inspiring technical
perfection with emotional intensity. She creates a pure, unforced sound
with apparent ease.
"Musicians ought to
study her bow arm and shoulder for a lesson in how to play smoothly,"
one orchestral player told me.
Some music journalists seem
to be a little smitten with her. Admitting that he has always found
her mesmerizing, The Guardian's Tim Ashley found Mullova in person
to be "beautiful and charismatic, radiating a serenity that contrasts
strongly with the emotional density of her playing." Another writer
praised "the burnished tone, seamless phrasing, matchless control
of Viktoria Mullova. A more perfectly formed performance [of the Brahms
Concerto] would be hard to imagine," while Hilary Finch in The
Times of London said of Mullova's recital with pianist Katia Labèque,
"[the Ravel Sonata's] central, blues-inspired movement found a
soul mate in the equipoise of Mullova's vibrant physicality and cool
wit."
Cool is a word one sees
again and again in reference to Mullova. But behind that calm, competent
exterior there's a restless musician who is eager to try something new,
which may be why, in the last six years, she has become active in the
early authentic-music scene. She plays on gut strings with Baroque and
Classical bows, and gives recitals of unaccompanied Bach on a Baroque
violin setup. She performs orchestral works with her own Mullova Ensemble
and with the noted British period-instrument group, the Orchestra of
the Age of Enlightenment, touring with them in Japan last fall (she
played and conducted the Mozart concertos). And she recently recorded
the Mendelssohn and Beethoven concertos with conductor John Eliot Gardner
and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique.
Some have been suspicious
of her motives for venturing into this territory, unkindly suggesting
that such steps outside the mainstream have been made to increase her
marketability. Indeed, she's one of a handful of female players that
includes Anne-Sophie Mutter and Kyung Wha-Chung who have been able to
sustain high-profile careers when many other major fiddlers are without
recording contracts. The demands of motherhood—or perhaps it's
just ageism or sexism in an era when youthful glamour acts like Vanessa
Mae command so much attention—have left some female star performers
professionally stranded after the age of 30.
Mullova, born in 1959, seems
unlikely to relinquish her position at the top. She has retained a steady,
if not particularly prolific, recording relationship with her label,
Philips.
Mullova says she was drawn
to the period-instrument world by the "fantastic, vast repertoire"
of early music and her admiration for certain authentic instrument ensembles.
"What I really like about great Baroque groups is that they don't
follow the rules very much," she says. "There's lots of fantasy,
imagination in it. It's very exhilarating."
Mullova was particularly
impressed with Il Giardino Armonico, a period-instrument band based
in Italy that's led by recorder player Giovanni Antonini, a "wonderful
musician whom I respect enormously." She jumped at the chance to
play with them two years ago and will be recording Vivaldi with them
in the near future.
But for a violinist schooled
in the hard-driving Russian style, performing in the authentic style
must require a complete shift in thinking, I suggest. Mullova agrees.
"It's like playing a different instrument. I mean, my technique
is completely different," she says. "I realized that all the
things I learned about intonation when I was a child—like you have
to always correct your intonation with the open strings—are completely
irrelevant now, because there is no perfect intonation, itdoesn't exist.
It depends on the tonalities and the harmonies."
For Mullova, the most important
element in the period-instrument setup is the bow. Her explorations
with a Baroque bow for Bach are a case in point. "In a way it's
easier to articulate, much easier [with a Baroque bow], because Bach
composed for that kind of bow originally, so it makes much more sense.
I wouldn't be able to play Bach now with a normal bow, because it would
just be too difficult. The things I wanted to create with this music,
it would not be possible to do it with the normal bow."
Of course, gut strings are
part of the equation, along with a lower tuning. For Baroque music,
she plays at A = 415. "It's really fantastic because it opens up
the sound and is really rich. I like that very much. 415 is my favorite."
Playing at 415 and then 430 for Mozart has caused Mullova to lose her
perfect pitch.
Interestingly, Mullova plays
all her repertoire on the same instrument, the 1723 "Julius Falk"
Stradivari, meaning she has to restring from metal to gut as her performance
schedule demands. She's had the Strad since 1985. "It's really
strong," she says. "Even with gut strings it carries the sound
very well." Sometimes, though, the switchover can be tricky. "Next
week I'm going to practice Brahms on gut strings, because I'm playing
with Il Giardino Armonico, and one day later I play the Brahms Concerto
with a normal orchestra, so I have to practice it somehow, but without
changing strings. So it will be interesting to try to play Brahms—which
was composed for gut strings. It's very healthy to study it like that
and then I could also do it on metal strings."
She's seemingly relaxed
about the usual authentic-instrument player obsessions such as vibrato.
"When I play with a group like Il Giardino Armonico, it comes naturally.
There are certain things you just don't do, and you try to match their
sound and how they do it. The type of attack is different. The elbow
position is completely different and the movement of the right arm is
different."
Mullova knows that just
changing setups won't instantly make someone an expert Baroque violinist.
"You have to really learn how to play this music and it takes time
because it has to sink in and get into your blood. The way you breathe,
the way you articulate. . . . Breathing is very important in how you
play this music."
"I think Vika's greatest
genius is for learning," says her husband. "It's absolutely
wonderful. It's like when the kids come home from school having learned
something new. And that's why she's able to assimilate so much new information
and actually work it into her playing and make much more radical changes
than a lot of other people can do in similar circumstances, where the
weight of their habits would hold them back." Mullova adds, "It's
a great feeling when you learn something new. And you don't have to
make a big effort to do it. It's just . . . having your ears open all
the time."
Listening to Mullova's enthusiasm,
I again pick up on that restlessness in her personality. She would probably
not have been satisfied with playing only the big Romantic warhorses
for the rest of her career. "Sometimes music is kind of dead,"
she says. "It becomes dead for me to hear certain pieces played
again in the same way, the big traditions. It's kind of boring. I get
bored very easily." Barley chirps in quickly, "I can certify
to that!"
I ask Mullova how her new
approach to playing compares to what she was taught in Moscow. "The
training was to win the competition, that was basically it," she
explains. "You didn't play any challenging music [or] any contemporary
repertoire. It was just all toward winning the competition and starting
a new career. It's a very narrow road." She went back earlier this
year to perform a recital and to give master classes at the Moscow Conservatory.
The students were intrigued by her Baroque playing. "They aren't
used to hearing these things," she says, adding that she may go
play Bach there in the near future. "They'll probably be shocked,"
she laughs.
Despite her new passion
for period playing, she's still to be found performing the big concertos
on a standard instrument setup. In August 2003, for example, she was
the soloist in the Sibelius Concerto with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie
Bremen under Daniel Harding. Unfortunately, the concert, part of the
Proms season, took place in London's acoustically awkward Royal Albert
Hall on one of the hottest days of the year.
"When the hot weather
started ten days before the concert, and it was announced on the radio
that it would be even hotter, I said, 'My god, how am I going to survive!'"
recalls Mullova. On the day of the concert, the heat exceeded expectations,
but she now seems sanguine about the experience. "It's difficult
physically for the fingers. The fingerboard becomes really difficult
to manage," she says.
From an audience point of
view, Mullova looked uncomfortable and evidently struggled a bit with
tuning and projection, but she nonetheless gave a captivating performance.
Reviewing the concert in the Daily Telegraph, Geoffrey Norris
wrote that her playing "had the purity of spring water, a brilliance
of technique and, in the Sibelius concerto's slow movement, a palpable
soul."
Mullova took another step
outside the conventional classical boundaries when she began collaborating
with her husband and his jazz band, Between the Notes, featuring cello,
saxophone, electric guitar, piano, and percussion. Her debut with the
band came at the Spitz, an East London club. "It was a very relaxed
atmosphere and it was really fun," she remembers. They've made
an album called Through the Looking Glass, which includes arrangements
of songs by the Bee Gees, the Beatles, Duke Ellington, and Weather Report.
I ask her if she improvises
with the group. "No, I tried a little, but I gave up," she
says, a bit ruefully. Barley retorts, "She could, she could improvise
so well, but she's too scared!"
Considering her hectic performance
schedule, it's somewhat startling to find out that Mullova will be taking
a sabbatical for seven months, beginning in June. The banter between
husband and wife becomes particularly lively when this subject is raised.
"Vika has not had a
break since she was four, literally, and for a lot of years, when she
was young, she was playing 365 days of the year, nonstop," explains
Barley.
"Yeah, practice, practice,
practice," interjects Mullova.
But didn't giving birth
three times slow her down at all? "She took a few weeks off for
each baby and went straight back in," says Barley.
"Breast-feeding and
playing," she jokes.
What will she do with all
that unscheduled time? "Travel with the kids," replies Mullova.
"Listen to lots of
violin CDs," utters Barley at the same time.
"No way!" says
Mullova, mock-horrified.
Will she practice? "I
haven't decided. I probably won't practice, but I might."
Barley interjects, "I've
decided she's not practicing!"
Mullova says, "I might
just touch the violin occasionally. . . ."
This teasing interchange
is charming, but as I leave the house, I realize that Viktoria Mullova
never completely let down her guard during our interview. Perhaps, in
her playing, she also communicates a sense of holding something back,
of never quite revealing everything. Perhaps that enigmatic quality
is what makes her such an intriguing violinist.
Selected Discography
Beethoven and Mendelssohn
Violin Concertos (Philips, 473 872-2). With Orchestre Révolutionnaire
et Romantique/John Eliot Gardiner; 2003
Mozart: Violin Concertos
Nos. 1, 3-4 (Philips, 470 292). With Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment;
2002
Through the Looking Glass
(Philips, 464 184-2). With Matthew Barley and Between the Notes; 2000
Bartók and Stravinsky
Violin Concertos (Philips, 456 542-2). With Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra/Esa-Pekka Salonen; 1997
Brahms Violin Sonatas
(Philips, 446 709-2). With pianist Piotr Anderszewski; 1997
What Mullova Plays
Since 1985, Viktoria Mullova
has played the 1723 "Julius Falk" Stradivari. She uses a Baroque
bow by a modern maker, a Dodd for Classical repertoire, and a Voirin
for other repertoire.
