Vadim Gluzman
Universally recognized among today’s top performing artists, Vadim Gluzman brings to life the glorious violinistic tradition of the 19th and 20th centuries. Gluzman’s luminous performances are heard around the world through live broadcasts and a striking catalogue of award-winning recordings exclusively for BIS Records.
Born in the former Soviet Union in 1973, Gluzman began violin studies at age 7. He studied with Roman Šnē in Latvia and Zakhar Bron in Russia before moving to Israel in 1990, where he became a student of Yair Kless. In the United States, he studied with Arkady Fomin in Dallas and at the Juilliard School with Dorothy DeLay and Masao Kawasaki. Early in his career, Gluzman enjoyed the encouragement and mentorship of Isaac Stern which continued until Stern’s passing in 2001. Now, Gluzman serves as Distinguished Artist in Residence at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and teaches at the Keshet Eilon International Music Center in Israel.
On his latest album, violinist Vadim Gluzman presents Beethoven Violin Concerto op. 61 with the rarely heard cadenzas by Alfred Schnittke written in the 1970s, which create a musical and architectural arc to Schnittke’s Violin Concerto No. 3. Playing the 1690 ex-Leopold Auer Stradivari, Vadim Gluzman is accompanied by his long-standing musical companions, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra under the direction of the charismatic American conductor James Gaffigan.
In celebration of his newest album, we had the opportunity to speak with Vadim to go behind the scenes!
What inspired this recording project, and what do you hope that listeners take away from it?
Some years ago, I came across the extraordinary cadenzas for the Beethoven Concerto written by the great Alfred Schnittke, quoting the history of the most important violin concerti since Beethoven: Brahms, Berg, Bartok and Shostakovich. As a young man I was fascinated with the idea of time travel, reading numerous science fiction books, dreaming about traveling “back to the future”. Schnittke is creating an incredible time bridge, uniting all into one and pointing quite clearly to the Beethoven Concerto as being the root, the source of inspiration, and in a way, a model for generations to come.
The discovery of Schnittke's unique cadenzas and their inclusion in my repertoire gave a spark to the idea of recording the Beethoven Concerto with them and coupling it with Schnittke's Concerto No. 3. Like for Beethoven, clarity of vision and structure has always been of utmost importance for Schnittke in all his compositional periods, and this third concerto is not an exception. Written in a poly-stylistic manner, it is scored for winds and single strings, suggesting (very much like the Beethoven Concerto) a chamber-like intimacy to the music experience.
Beethoven's Violin Concerto is a work that can only be described as perfection itself. It is the ultimate masterpiece, the Mount Everest of violin repertoire. I am humbled by its greatness and always inspired by it!
Both Beethoven and Schnittke, each in his own way, prove to us that music is truly timeless.
What's your earliest musical memory?
I don’t think I will be able to pinpoint one! I was born into a musical family – my father is a clarinetist and conductor, my mother is a musicologist, both of them lifelong educators. Music was constant in our house, be it in recordings (LPs!) that were played for hours and hours every day, my parents giving lessons to their students, attending concerts, or later myself practicing on a one-eighth size violin. A memory of a particular moment springs to mind just now – my father is listening to a recording while studying a score, I am sitting beside (I must be two or three years old at the time), listening to the music with him and drawing a picture on a piece of paper. (Side note – it was immediately apparent that my artistic talents were virtually nonexistent, but as time has shown, music has become my life!)
When did you first know a career in the arts was something you wanted to pursue?
I would say this realization was gradual, first noticing a special electricity and connection with public in one of my early concerts and enjoying that special moment instantly, then being excited about a new piece to learn and discover, and finally realizing that I simply cannot imagine my life without music. I must have been in my late teens by that point.
Looking back on your career and your early lessons, what's one piece of advice you would give to either your younger self or a new student that you wish you learned sooner?
Oh, there is a myriad of things I wish I did earlier or better, learned more in-depth, or simply paid attention to. I would encourage my younger self to study chamber music from the earliest age possible, if only to have the joy of intimate music-making – unfortunately this was not encouraged back in the Soviet Union, but once my family repatriated to Israel (I was 16 at the time), chamber music became a major part of my artistic life. I advise any and every young musician to make sure that music, while being absolutely the focal point of their studies, is not the only art form they are in contact with. Literature, art, cinema, theater, architecture – all are inseparable one from another - enhance our perception, deepen our understanding, and I believe take our music making to a completely new level.