Interview with cellist Jiří Bárta

In your opinion and given your experience, what is required to make the interpretation of a musical composition special?

As is often the case, it’s an aggregate of several factors. If we set aside perfect preparation and technical mastery of an instrument and score, a great part of it lies in the musician’s power of artistic expression, in something that forces us to listen with bated breath, even if it isn’t perhaps clear to us why.

Do you think that can be learned? Or passed on?

Of course technique can be learned, as can understanding a composer and constructing a musical phrase. That something extra is between heaven and earth and is very hard to learn.

Petr Nouzovský told me one time how much he enjoys looking back on the lessons he took under you. Do you still teach?

I remember those two years at the Prague Conservatory fondly. I greatly enjoyed working with the young people. That was less the case with other things linked to teaching work that actually had nothing to do with teaching.

You are the initiator, dramaturge and co-founder of the International Chamber Music Festival in Kutná Hora, which soon became a hit with visitors and critics. What was your idea going into it – and how successful have you been in making that a reality?

I fulfilled my dream: to play the repertoire I want with musicians I enjoy playing with. It’s interesting that the line-up hasn’t changed much in those three years. The repertoire respects the rule of clash, meaning popular pieces versus more obscure ones. I often include contemporary compositions. The full halls prove that people enjoy being there.

What’s the ratio of joy and anxiety connected to the festival?

The responsibility grows with every year, and the next one will be the fifth. But the tenet of the festival has been “enjoy the music” and we’re still trying to maintain that approach. Of course, a great deal of the anxiety is on the shoulders of Alena Turková, the festival producer. It’d be hard for me to manage the organisational side, such as fundraising.

You’re a lover of chamber music, a promoter of contemporary music, a discoverer of lesser-known 19th century composers, and a great man for multi-genre projects. Do you plan to keep living such a rich musician’s life? Are variety and change important to you?

Hopefully that diversity is something I’ll be able to stay with. After all, the standard repertoire for solo cello is wonderful, but it’s limited in number.

Tonight you will become Don Quixote. Why did you choose that role?

The orchestra’s indentant, Jan Simon, offered me Bloch’s Schelomo along with Schumann’s concerto but I had promised another Prague orchestra that I would do Bloch this season, so I had the idea of Strauss. I did him several times in the nineties. It’s a wonderful composition and uncommonly demanding, and like Schumman’s concerto it’s seen as rather controversial. Wrongly, in my view.

Is the cello part of Don Quixote played more often by concert orchestra maestros or soloists?

In my experience, by soloists, even though Strauss conceived of it differently. Recordings by all the greats of the cello, from Fournier to Rostropovich to Yo-Yo Ma, bear this out.

On top of that we will, as you’ve mentioned, hear you in Schumann’s concerto. Isn’t that too much for one artist in one evening?

I think it’s just that combination that I like: two completely different pieces in one evening. And it’ll be demanding for everybody, for the conductor, the orchestra, me – and for the public too, that’s for sure.

When did you study Schumann? How often do you go back to him – and how gladly?

I fell in love with the concerto as a boy thanks to Navarra’s recording with the Czech Philharmonic with Karel Ančerl. When I got the chance to study with Navarra in 1987 all I could do was learn the concerto in a few weeks. I was naïve and didn’t realise just how difficult a composition it is. I remember how during a lesson he said in his smoky, old man’s voice: “Young man, Casals first played that concerto s-l-o-w-l-y and without vibrato for a year at home, just for himself!” I felt ashamed and since then I’ve practiced for months, slowly and without vibrato, and not only Schumann.
I then first performed it during my graduation concert at the Academy of Performing Arts with the Prague Symphony Orchestra. A recording of it won the Hammer-Rostropovich prize, so I suppose the work paid off.

In any case during a good rendition of the Schumann concerto the listener takes in a flood of wonderful melodies, and is less often aware of the difficulty of playing it (which is of course is a good thing!). Tell us what are the most delicate, the most demanding aspects of the piece?

It isn’t in Paganini style virtuosity but in the combination of hard to play passages which at the same time have to sound natural and lyrical, in the specific charge of the concerto, a certain melancholy linked to exalted passion.

Let’s turn for a moment to recording. Many artists have already given up on releasing CDs, feeling that it’s futile in the age of burning. What about you? Are you planning a CD?

So far I’ve been lucky. In the last two years I’ve had three CDs come out: an orchestral CD of the music of Foerster, Martinů and Jan Novák, accompanied by the Prague Philharmonia; a project with the Schola Gregoriana Pragensis on Supraphon; and a recital with the pianist Hamish Milne on Hyperion. There’s been no talk of new recordings lately, but I’d like to record Bach’s Suites again after 15 years, perhaps on a baroque cello. This year I’m going to play the whole set again several times, so I’ll see.

Allow me to finish on a personal subject – what has life with children taught you?

I remember the day my daughter was born – I was playing Dvořák’s concerto in Glasgow. I don’t think I’ve ever played it that well, certainly not with such joy! Life gains a new dimension with children. It’s mostly a joy, but sometimes there are worries, which is how it tends to go.

And it is more than symptomatic that you aren’t “keeping up” to some extent (here I’m going by, for instance, the list of concert dates on your website – don’t tell me you stopped in December 2010…). What are your priorities at present?

You’re right, I’ve always neglected my online presentation. Priorities? Health, Ayla, Pepa, Elif, Don Quixote, Tchaikovsky, J. S. Bach, Schumann, Firsova… and again health.