Interview with Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja can hardly keep the excitement out of her voice as she prepares to reprise her 2007 role as guest director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. ‘I love this orchestra!’ she exclaims, and before I can ask why: 'They are dazzling, inspiring, uninhibited, and I am so happy - and honoured - to be coming back. Together they make a wonderful, big orchestral sound, but each player has something to say. Everyone wants to touch the audience in such a personal way. It is like... the perfect chamber music, but on a larger scale; I have never experienced anything like it.'
That outstanding musicianship, combined with a hearty appetite for the spontaneous and unexpected, certainly makes the ACO an ideal fit for Kopatchniskaja’s own unique approach to music-making. The 33-year-old Moldovan fiddler has been making waves with her uninhibited performance style - which includes playing barefoot, if she feels like it - and captivating audiences along the way with her mercurial ‘wildcat’ spirit. So what has she got in store for the ACO this year?
‘First of all, I feel that folklore is my blood, and contemporary music is my air,’ she explains. ‘So I wanted to contain both of those ‘existential’ elements in the same evening. Then the classical music is my skeleton. I think we need all these elements: the animalistic music of folklore, the modern music for inspiration and fantasy, the classical to be the architecture and hold it all together.’
With that guiding principle in mind, Kopatchniskaja has settled on an intriguing programme that juxtaposes the likes of Haydn and Vivaldi with Transylvanian Dances by Veress; a new piece by Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin; a transcription for strings of the German Magnificat by 17th-century master Heinrich Schutz; and, as its centrepiece, an Australian premiere of the second violin concerto of contemporary Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian, about which Kopatchinskaja is particularly enthusiastic.
‘I believe very strongly that Mansurian’s music merits a wider audience,’ she says. ‘I am honored to be presenting this concerto to Australia for the first time. It is very different to what we think of as contemporary music, which can be so complicated it is hard to really touch people. This concerto is deeply serious, but easily understood. It is tonal, and it comes from the heart. There is no unnecessary intellectual complexity, just a true and moving sense of the human being.’
This strikes me as a good description of Kopatchinskaja, too. Talking to her, what abounds is her keen sense of humanity, in all its nuance, and her instinctive appreciation of the unique power of music to express that. Certain elements of her chosen programme - the Schutz and Mansurian in particular - evoke a sense of contemplation, of gravity, time, sadness. (The ghost of Brahms connecting these two works - Schutz was a major influence and Mansurian calls his concerto ‘Four Serious Songs’ in direct homage - reflect what Kopatchinskaja says are 'intuitive musical coincidences'; she believes that ‘all music is connected in some way’.) The rest of the programmme, meanwhile, is leavened by radiant optimism, and sheer fun. 'You know, Haydn says life is serious enough,’ she points out, with a chuckle. ‘We have to bring some happiness. It is not fair to the audience to play only sad music!’
Hence the beguiling energies of Veress’ Transylvanian Dances, which, as Kopatchinskaja reminds me, course through her Moldovan blood. 'All folklore all over the world has something in common with the way people speak to each other: it goes beyond language’, she insists. ‘The music is made by simple people for simple people, but it is so meaningful in content.' Then there is Haydn’s violin concerto in G, whose ‘perfect structure’ Kopatchinskaja believes is ‘good for concerts, like architecture’; the Kats-Chernin piece ‘Zoom and Zip’, which Kopatchniskaja describes as ‘a lot of fun’; and Vivaldi’s violin concerto ‘The Storm at Sea’, whose title makes Kopatchinskaja laugh. 'You know, the Australians must know more about the sea than I do,’ she confesses. ‘I cannot even swim!’
Something tells me Australian audiences will forgive her lack of prowess in the water given her dexterity and passion in the concert hall. She received a rapturous reception here in 2007, and has since garnered ever more critical acclaim - not to mention an affectionate moniker, ‘PatKop’ - around the world. But the ‘wildcat’ label has had other consequences, about which Kopatchinskaja is cautious.
‘I am very afraid of expectations,’ she admits. ‘I don't like people to think of me as, you know, the ‘barefoot gypsy’ and that’s it. I want to lose myself in every note; every style is a new adventure for me; a new discovery. I do have a strong spirit, of course, but if I feel there are expectations, I want to kill them!’
When I counter this with the idea that, in the face of dwindling audiences, classical music could do with a spirit such as hers; and that if her reputation brings new people to the music in expectation of something more ‘exciting’ than straightforward classical music as purveyed by the majority of soloists and ensembles elsewhere, that has to be a good thing, she agrees. 'Of course, every classical musician has a responsibility in these times. But if I should be more important than the music...’ she trails off, then adds, quietly: ‘No, that is not what I want at all.’
To this end Kopatchinskaja will not be drawn on whether she has any visual tricks up her sleeve for the ACO tour (going barefoot, bursting yellow balloons, eating apples on stage, that sort of thing). 'I don't know,' she laughs. 'We'll have to see...’ Suddenly she is serious again. ‘In some ways I feel I am unteachable, I always have to find my own way, with my own mistakes. I don't feel so much the heavy weight of tradition; I'm not in a corset! I use the tradition to find the inspiration of creation. It's not a cage.’
This appreciation of tradition without being hampered by it brings us back to the approach of Richard Togenetti and the ACO, and why she is so thrilled to be working with them once again. (‘Not just working!’ she corrects me. ‘We are like a family on tour, we even cook together!’)
‘Every time, we play differently. I need that. I need to be able to... provoke the ensemble. But they are able to play with complete spontaneity and respond to anything I ask them to do. They are always together, completely flexible, yet never losing themselves. It is a miracle that Richard created. They are not a normal orchestra!’
And she should know. Having performed with the likes of the Vienna Philharmonic, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia, Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France and many, many more, would she say that the ACO is among the best?
Kopatchinskaja goes one step further.
‘I would say the ACO is absolutely the best ensemble in the whole world,’ she declares. ‘Australia should be extremely proud.’
Clemency Burton-Hill