Interview with violinist Ivan Ženatý
For violinists at the start of their career, Paganini’s compositions are a stimulating challenge full of potential pitfalls, a repertoire that they have to want to take on. The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra soloist Ivan Ženatý is a widely respected musician, a thoughtful and refined artist who is, of course, in a completely different situation. What has drawn him to Paganini’s Concerto in B minor?
In our ground down world one can often meet with the prejudice that Paganini’s virtuosity conceals his depth. Instead of understanding and empathy, we find reductive judgement. On Czech Radio, for instance, there’s a programme in which music critics award marks to recordings like pupils in school, from A to E. So sometimes the wonderfully colourful history of music is flattened down into one class record, which is filled in in an exemplary fashion, even though it has nothing to do with reality. However, Paganini fascinated all of his great contemporaries and successors – Rossini, Schumann, Berlioz, Liszt. Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Szymanowski composed variations on his themes… His music is remarkably inventive and contains that indescribable Italian melody which expands it and makes it dreamlike. It contains the theatricality of opera and elsewhere moving intimacy. And it’s always honest and engrossing! That’s what “my” Paganini should be like, too.
Where does Paganini’s uniqueness lie? In what way is his legacy alive and inspiring to you?
In two ways. First, Niccolò Paganini was a melodic genius and the themes at least of his first two concertos and his first opus, Caprice No. 24, became what we today call a “hit”. Second, he changed violin technique in a revolutionary manner. Like nobody before or since! What’s more, Paganini was a genuine obsessed romantic artist for whom music was the most important quality in the world.
Let’s talk briefly about your work at the Carla Maria von Weber School of Music in Dresden. I’d like to ask, professor, when you “allow” your students at Paganini’s virtuoso pieces?
Whenever anybody new comes they receive absolute freedom in terms of expression and choice of repertoire. Alongside they get a three-part instruction: scales, Bach and Paganini. Today, tomorrow, every day, for the rest of their lives!
Are you satisfied with your class in Dresden?
The Dresden Hochschule has given me a lot, professionally and personally. When you’re rejected at home, you value every kind word, even in a foreign language. Nevertheless, this year I got an offer I couldn’t refuse, and from the summer I will be a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music, which is one of the world’s most prestigious schools. It warms my heart that students are moving from Dresden to the U.S. with me…
At the same time you still work very hard on your own artistic path. How many concerts do you have in a year?
This season it’s 75.
Of all those coming up which do you regard as special?
I regard them all as special. In media terms, the most interesting are with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jiří Bělohlávek on 21 May as part of the Prague Spring, and on 3 December at Carnegie Hall in New York.
What are the fixed points in your life at present?
The biggest joy for me during my visits home is my children: Jan, Juraj, Emma and Jakub.
In a previous interview you confessed to a love of literature and a desire to engage in it creatively. Will we be able to read a book of yours soon?
Yes, I’d like that very much! It’s a bit of a struggle with time in that respect. But I would like to return to intensive writing next season, while I’m flying between America and Europe.
