Twenty years
is a long time. Twenty years is two whole decades, enough time for
entire political movements—not to mention clothing styles, dance
fads, musical trends, wars, and technological revolutions—to
come and go and be replaced a dozen times over. In 20 years, 700,800
people could consecutively experience their full 15 minutes of fame.
And, of course, over 20 years, the average human being grows from
a child into an adult. That latter point, simply put—or perhaps
not so simply, it turns out—is what the last 20 years have meant
to the renowned violinist known as Midori.
Born in Osaka,
Japan, Midori first burned a hole onto the international radar screen
following her sensational debut at age 11 on New Year's Eve of 1982.
The particulars of that celebrated debut—the concert at the New
York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta wielding the baton, and a flawless
performance of the Paganini Concerto—have since passed into modern
musical legend, each detail memorized by thousands of violinists,
music aficionados, critics, and starry-eyed young violin students
around the world.
A protegé
of the late violin teacher Dorothy DeLay at Juilliard School of Music,
Midori emerged as a major musical force inspiring a veritable parade
of meticulously groomed violinists-in-training. For years, the phrase,
"Really, she's the next Midori!" was a kind of mantra among
music teachers.
The Midori
phenomenon was pushed up a notch in 1986 when she broke not one, but
two violin strings during a performance with the Boston Symphony at
the Tanglewood Music Center, under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.
Calm and composed through it all, Midori ended up playing three different
violins in that one piece of music, never making a single mistake.
The story of that performance became legend before the concert was
even over.
That was
more than 15 years ago.
Today, while
Midori admits that her remarkable initial fame did bring along some
invaluable opportunities—fueled, in part, by her earliest identity
as a Child Prodigy (capital C, capital P)—she's quite ready to
finally say goodbye to her wunderkind image. Yet, nearly every time
she's covered in a newspaper or magazine (this one included, it seems),
considerable reference is made to her youthful beginnings.
"Yes.
The term 'child prodigy' is a label put onto a particular person by
society," she says. "Society has a hard time letting go
of the image of the precious little prodigy."
Since the
beginning, this particular CP has gone on to record dozens of CDs,
has appeared in concert before literally millions of people around
the globe, and has performed with a vast roster of musicians, including
the music world's most dazzling superstars from Leonard Bernstein
to Isaac Stern to Yo-Yo Ma. She is now 30 years old and touring in
celebration of the 20th anniversary of her professional debut. The
anniversary coincides with the release of several new CDs on Sony
Classical, including a new recordingÑwith longtime collaborator, pianist
Robert McDonald—of violin sonatas by the French composers Saint-Saëns,
Debussy, and Poulenc.
Surviving
Success
Indeed, over
the last half of her career, Midori has continued to make remarkable
music, growing up—and striking out—beneath a mountain of
Everest-high expectations so overwhelming it might have crippled other
musicians.
Several years
ago, surprising her public—and herself—she decided to attend
college, and went on to earn a bachelor's degree, majoring in psychology
and gender studies at the Gallatin School of New York University,
where she graduated magna cum laude. She is now pursuing her master's
degree, and in 2001—as if she had the spare time—became
a teacher, joining the violin faculty at the Manhattan School of Music.
Thoughtful
and philosophical, Midori has endured and matured over these last
20 years, gracefully grappling with the pressure of impossible expectations,
finally allowing herself the freedom to explore a world of disparate
enthusiasms. This newfound freedom led to a difficult crossroads,
a turning point where Midori allowed herself—and you might want
to brace yourself—to seriously consider giving up music entirely.
To hear Midori
talk, though, none of it has been half as dramatic as it sounds. "When
I look back," she says, "I do sometimes think I've gone
through a lot of difficult changes in my life. But if I think more
deeply, I realize that none of my changes have been especially major.
Everything that's happened to me is pretty normal in the course of
a person."
Normal? Few
30 year olds have tasted the kind of experiences that Midori has known
over the years. Still, Midori insists that her life has been basically
run-of-the-mill. Urged to point out the most significant personal
highlights of her 20-year career, Midori deftly dodges the question.
"I don't think about it in those terms," she says, "though
people do like to find 'highlights' in a person's life. My life is
a continuum. It's had its ups and downs, and sometimes they seemed
major—as they were happening—but when I look back, all those
ups and downs seem . . . just very neutral.
They all
become, in a way, just some things that happened to me once."
When Midori
does look back on the personal continuum of her career, she usually
views it all with a sense of fondness, and also with sadness. "Life
is bittersweet," she says. "As time passes, I recognize
how much everything is bittersweet." Asked if that's a good thing
for an artist, or for any human being, she replies, "Why wouldn't
it be? We may wish, at times, for a life that is all sweet and never
bitter, but I don't think it works that way.
"The
thing is," she continues, "people often ask me, 'If you
had your life to do over again, how would you have done it differently?'
But if I did do anything differently, I wouldn't be me. I am the result
of everything that's happened to me, the result of every experience
of my life. If I went back and exchanged them for different experiences—that
would be a different me.
"I can't
be me without all the experiences I've had, both the bitter and the
sweet."
In conversation,
Midori—supremely articulate and polite—seems to have perfected
the art of appearing candid and forthcoming while remaining a bit
vague. For example, while she won't admit to having become a better
musician over the years, she will allow as to being a different musician.
To make her point, Midori draws a distinction between learning—as
a musician, as a person—and progress.
"Learning
is just development," she says. "When you talk about learning,
people think you mean that you have to be becoming better. But how
do you define better? As my life evolves and unfolds, I gain experiences,
and because I'm completely involved when I play my music, all those
experiences go into that music. So, to be honest, yes, there's a change
in my music, because I'm different every day. I'm different every
minute.
"So
I've developed," she says, with a laugh, "but I wouldn't
necessarily call it progress."
Perhaps not,
but others would. Critics have even begun to suggest that Midori's
performances have taken on a rich new vitality and energy over the
last few years, revealing a sense of lyricism and personality that
was, perhaps, sometimes absent amidst the strict, interpretation-free
specificity of her early playing. For all the technical genius and
lack of mannerism that contributed to her initial renown, it seems
that a fresh blast of artistic freedom—you could even call it
passion—has invaded Midori's music of late.
Does Midori
herself recognize a significant change in her performance style, some
slight tectonic shift in her relationship to the music? "It's
very difficult to separate my life from my music," she says.
"Whatever genius people are seeing in my music, it's a reflection
of how I'm changing as a person. If I'm changing in my music, it's
a sign that I'm changing in my person, too."
Asked what
specific personal changes those might be, Midori pauses several seconds
before replying, "I don't take anything for granted anymore.
My curiosity is increased. My passion for learning, for accumulating
knowledge, for acquiring new ways of thinking, that is all increased
in me. And, in a larger perspective, I do feel more comfortable with
myself."
There is
another short pause, quickly broken by a gentle peal of self-teasing
laughter, laughter that is only prolonged when Midori is asked to
describe exactly how someone—and we're all taking notes here—becomes
more comfortable with themselves.
"Oh,
sometimes I think it's just aging," she says. "At some point,
you just grow up. But you don't have a formula for growing up. It's
not like, 'OK, if I follow this pattern, if I take these steps, I'll
grow up.' "Growing up just happens. It's normal."
Reborn
Resolve
There is
one subject that Midori is not at all vague about: college. Attending
college, she is convinced, had a profound impact on her music, in
part because she went not as a musician, but as a student. "I
think it's had a tremendous effect,' she says. "I went to college
not knowing what I was going to do. For me, psychology was as remote
a course of study as one could get. Gender studies was even further
out there. I'd never even heard the term 'gender studies' until I
started school. I didn't go to school specifically to study those
subjects. It's just what I ended up doing."
Once Midori
found her collegiate calling, however, she threw herself into her
work, eager to expand her knowledge of the world. In so doing, she
discovered a side of herself she'd never known. One of her newfound
interests was an offshoot of a lifelong one: her desire to help young
people. Since 1992, when she established a foundation bringing musical
opportunities to kids in public schools (see "Celebrating
10 years of Midori & Friends"), Midori has dedicated much
of her time and energy to children. In college, that devotion was
channeled into her studies. Midori is now working on her master's
thesis, a research paper dealing with children and physical pain.
"I'd like to be able to explain pain to children," she says.
As part of
her research, Midori has been indulging in another new passion: the
reading of children's literature. That's one more gift that Midori
gained from going to college. "In college," she says, "I
gained a lot of confidence in myself, as a person. I learned that
I was able to do well in areas that people didn't expect me to do
well in.
"And,"
she tosses out, "it was important for me to go through the process
of wondering whether I should go on to grad school or whether I should
continue to pursue a career in music at all."
It's true.
Midori gave considerable thought to pursuing a different path from
the one she'd started way back at Juilliard in Dorothy DeLay's violin
studio. Among other possibilities, she dabbled with the notion of
a career in psychology. When she ultimately decided to continue her
music—with her scholarly investigations remaining satisfactorily
on the side—it was among the most difficult, and empowering moments
of her life. "Coming to terms with that—coming to the conclusion
that yes, indeed, I would be pursuing a career in music—that
was a life-changing moment," she says. "Until that moment,
music was something I had by default. Yes, I liked it tremendously.
I enjoyed performing. But it was just . . . I'd been doing it all
my life. But at that moment, music became something that I chose."
Perhaps it's
that reborn resolve that critics are seeing when they describe Midori's
playing as revitalized, refreshed, and newly interpretive. Midori,
true to form, won't say as much, but she does admit that her decision
has been good for her personally.
"It's
given me increased motivation," she says, "increased energy
to pursue my career. I've discovered what music really means to me,
and I've gained a sense of what I want to do with my music."
Discovering
herself, explains Midori, is not unlike returning to a beloved-but-difficult
old piece of music, much like the Poulenc sonatas that inspired her
new CD.
"When
you return to a piece of music," she says, "essentially,
you are rediscovering your relationship to the music. So as you evolve—as
a person, as a musician—you're constantly finding new things."
That, certainly,
must be a sign of progress? Midori laughs at the suggestion—and
avoids answering the question.
"This
thing that some people call progress," she says, "and what
I call development—it's always in motion. It's always going somewhere,
though it may not be always going forward. That's what life is for
me. I'm not always going forward. Sometimes I go sideways. Sometimes
I go backwards.
"But
I'm always in motion."
SELECTED
DISCOGRAPHY
Here's a
sampling of Midori's recorded oeuvre on Sony Classics, the label she
has worked with since the beginning of her career.
French
Violin Sonatas. The music of Saint-Saëns, Debussy, and Poulenc.
With Robert McDonald, piano.
Mozart:
Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat Major, KV. 364/320d; Concerto in
D Major, KV. Anh. 56 (315f). 8948. This 2001 disc features Midori
with violist Nobuku Imai on the Sinfonia Concertante, plus a reconstruction
of the Concerto in D Major for violin, piano, and orchestra played
and conducted by Christoph Eschenbach with the NDR Sinfonieorchester.
Tchaikovsky,
Shostakovich: Violin Concertos. 68338. Released in 1998, this
album documents live concert recordings with Claudio Abbado and the
Berlin Philharmonic in March 1995 and December 1997.
Elgar
and Franck Violin Sonatas. 63331. Midori collaborates with pianist
Robert McDonald on this 1997 release.
Sibelius:
Violin Concerto; Bruch: Scottish Fantasy. 58967. This 1994 recording
features Zubin Mehta and the Israeli Philharmonic.
Photo
of Midori by Dan Borris.
