Questions & Answers

Q. You were born and brought up in England. How would you describe your upbringing?

R. Pretty much a home counties middle class one! Plenty of Anglicanism, sport, music, literature, trips to London and Cambridge. I certainly never had music as a career rammed down my throat.

Q. What is your earliest musical memory?
R. My dad’s gramophone and my mother singing.

Q. When and why did you take up the violin and do you ever wish you had chosen a different instrument?

R. I’m told that at 5 or 6 I asked to play the violin. My mother’s family has some Gypsy blood in it, which may explain this. No, the violin for me is the instrument. Whatever abstractions or intellectualisms are placed over it, it remains a sensual instrument for both player and listener. This for me is the right order of things!

Q. Many soloists had rather solitary childhoods often at the expense of other interests. Was this the case with you?

R. Absolutely not! Having played the violin in a very unpressured sort of way for ten years or so I made up my mind to make music and the violin my life at a relatively late date. Happily though it coincided with, at sixteen, starting to have a mind of my own.

Q. Were you single-minded in your ambition to become a professional violinist?
R. I knew I had a huge amount of ground to make up at sixteen. Many violinists already have big careers by this time. I simply worked my balls off for every hour that God sent for the next ten years!

Q. Given that you have a great gift how important do you think your teachers were at various stages of your development?

R. Mmmmm…I’m not sure I had a great gift; at least not one that manifested very early or obviously. I had strong feelings about music from the moment I started hearing it but my fingers were all over the place and I felt very uncomfortable with the violin until I started really sorting things out much later. I’m just grateful that I had teachers who valued what I’d got and who kept faith.

Q. Do you think there is a right or wrong way to nurture a “gifted” child?
R. How can it be wrong?! The problem is recognizing that the gift and the child are the same thing. For what it’s worth, I believe, like Gita Sereny, that all children are born good and, I also believe, with special talents and a unique voice. Sometimes this gets lost in trying too hard to ram it into a “violinist” or whatever other designs are hanging about from the adults involved.

Q. Were you competitive as a student? Do you think public competition harms or hinders?

R. It’s not bad to be realistic and admit that the world and the musical one is very competitive. What I don’t agree with is that you can choose between genuinely felt and expressed artistic visions. If you want to choose, you have, in a sense, to narrow the criteria in order to make one thing a success and another a failure. For me the most important thing is the honesty in art, and this I like to think can be “smelt”! Frankly, there’s infinite room in the world for artistic visions that are genuine.

Q. Practise! Has your attitude to it changed over the years?
R. Yes. As I said earlier, there was a time when I simply needed to master the instrument. This was a huge task. Now practise is more a time for getting to know music and giving it the chance to shape me. I don’t hold with the idea that one’s playing is enriched by playing scales after the time when you know that you’ve sorted out the instrument. To me it’s idiotic to hear mature musicians wasting time reinforcing what they already know and can do…

Q. Composers. A huge topic, but can you talk about those that have influenced you, if any; those you love; those you can’t live without; those you can….

R. Mmmmmm. Well I’m married to a composer! If we’re talking about living composers and leave those dead ones be for just a little while, there’s one thing that I’m constantly seeking to do, and that is to heal the gap that has appeared between those who write and those who play. Of course they’ve only become separate categories very recently but it is quite shocking how little real faith exists on both sides these days. I want performers to get to know composers, realize they are there and perhaps go on to play (even commission) some music from those composers they feel something for. The tragedy about many new music commissions is that they are essentially opportunistic in their construction (“Wouldn’t it be good for me/our orchestra etc to get to do the premiere of a new piece by blank…”) and not “I feel this composer has something to say that fires me up and I want to play this music or make sure some more gets written…”.

Q. On the same theme, do you now restrict yourself to a few or try to keep most in your repertoire?

R. Okay, so now I guess we are talking more about the dead ones! I am not a really fast learner, or rather, if I do speed learn something – and sometimes one simply has to – I’m always thinking this is just the beginning! There are some concertos that I have made it my business to know inside out, but this takes time and I find I have to go through all the various stages. I’m never going to have a huge list of pieces that some players have but I suppose people just have different metabolisms for this. What troubles me is the uniformity of most big-career playing now, not because players and teachers haven’t done well in creating marvellous chrome bumpered executants but because everyone is geared up for what I’d call high average playing. In other words how many variables can one eliminate from a performance, and not, how many can one invite in.

Q. You’ve come through the ranks of orchestral player, recitalist, chamber player, leader (concertmaster), and soloist. Do you consider this the best way or would you do it differently if you had your time again?

R. I’m not sure about “ranks”! All those roles have their special difficulties. However I feel that having played in all sorts of positions in all sorts of orchestras as well as in a string quartet I do now have a kind of overview of most situations. Playing as a section 2nd violinist in the London Phil was actually a great place to listen to and observe many artists at close quarters. To watch how people handled the various stresses and strains of concert life and were more or less equal to them. How they reacted to each other etc etc

Q. How do you prepare for a concert?
R. Well, knowing the score inside out helps. Knowing what it feels like to be uncomfortable in the heat of “battle” and not to get knocked off course by that.

Q. Do you have a best/worst on stage memory?
R. I think equal tops would be the premiere of Eleanor Alberga’s concerto in Edinburgh and doing the Britten concerto on less than a day’s notice in Bremen. On both occasions I felt wonderfully buoyed by the expectation and uncertainty of the audience about what was coming. Very gladiatorial! Worst was a duo concert in upstate New York where the piano was totally unplayable. Someone had duped a gullible presenter into having it overhauled and had left it in a state whereby Eleanor had to play fortissimo to make any note sound…. It was farcical. It was a relief that there were only 5 or 6 people who showed up for the concert anyway. So we just played loud music.

Q. Do audiences around the world vary or does the universal voice of music unite them?

R. Enormously. Most mystifying was an audience in China who expected to maintain a low level chatter going through the whole programme. German audiences are very attentive and always leave a little pause before applauding –just long enough for you to start wondering if anyone is going to clap at all.

Q. What, where and with whom would be your dream concert (as soloist)?
R. I think two of the things I have coming up – Elgar concerto in Bremen, Germany, and the Walton in Oxford – are pretty good. Trouble is, my opportunities as a concerto player do not come too easily. I would love to be in a position to tour these concertos with, say, a British orchestra abroad.

Q. Opportunities for solo players are very few, not helped by financial pressures on orchestras often necessitating them to engage a “big name” and fill halls. Do you have any suggestions?

R. Again, my wish is that people would go with their instincts a bit more. The classical music scene is particularly prone to people talking themselves out of what they truly feel about the music they’ve just heard and those playing it.

Q. You are very popular as a speaker, often giving pre concert talks. Is this something you enjoy?

R. Certainly is. It goes down well to make a case for a work and I’d say probably not a bad thing for a performer to articulate a few thoughts about it. Nothing will really take over from the performance itself but a few signposts can be useful for those listening - especially to an unfamiliar piece.

Q. You have a stunning violin. How did you acquire it and has it affected your playing?

R. Yes, I’m very lucky. This violin came to me through various coincidences and with much generosity and philanthropy from one particular individual. I first had the violin on loan; later on I was in a position to buy into it over a period of time. It has affected my self–esteem as a violinist hugely. When I’ve heard others play it in large halls I know that its remarkable character and response do look after me.

Q. I understand you are running your own festival in Langvad? Can you tell us more?

R. Yes, it’s basically a chamber music festival. It is held in a truly unique environment in the far north of Jutland and aims for a mixture of experience. It is finding it’s own way so I don’t want to make too many “mission statements” about it. We have a composer in residence (different every year), pianists and string players, and this year we’ll present three concert programmes. It grows.

Q. You are married to the composer Eleanor Alberga. Does this mean your entire life is filled with music or are there other activities, topics of conversation?

R. I hate the idea of being only a musician! But perhaps that isn’t too far from the truth. I’m obsessed with music and the violin and I love sharing these with Eleanor. There is more to life though. Cricket, which I love, and played a great deal as a youngster; literature (especially poetry) and art, theatre and the cinema. I spent a good deal of my twenties being a rather dour eco-warrior; the trouble was I never felt that I could do anything. I think I realized I was perhaps of more use as a musician.

Q. Would you live in any country other than England?
R. Yes. If conditions were right, no problem. I’m a gypsy really. Mind you, when at one stage it looked as if a move to the USA was a possibility, I did begin to wonder whether I could handle that ubiquitous optimism…a bit of healthy English misanthropy is always very reassuring.

Q. Loving nature and England’s countryside why do you live in London?
R. A performer’s career in music has to be a metropolitan thing practically speaking. And I love London.

Q. Would a holiday ever be without music? If yes, where would you most like to go? And where would you leave your fiddle?

R. Well, having left the fiddle in the safe at Beare’s, a few weeks in Jamaica – and I mean the real Jamaica as only a native can know it and reveal it – is just about perfect. There’d maybe be some cricket to watch in Kingston at Sabina Park followed by some travels into the Blue mountains, the Cockpit country, and some lazy days with a rum punch or two in Port Antonio to finish off.

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