归档 | 纽约时报 on Vladimir Spivakov
震惊了。此人卡耐基首秀拉恰空时被抗议者泼了一身红油漆。
听了他1975年的柴小协被迷倒了，贵气，凛丽，清傲。
而且长得也好帅啊（怒下五张碟）（我就不信没有高清内页）
Spivakov - A Modest Master
By John Rockwell
- Jan. 28, 1979
See the article in its original context from January 28, 1979, Section D, Page 19
At his New York debut in 1975, Vladimir Spivakov, the Russian violinist, received glowing reviews; since then, following his annual recitals and orches- tra appearances in this country, those reviews have glowed even brighter. The Times has called him “an extraordinary artist” who has “no superiors” among violinists in the world today. The New York Daily News said his playing was “godlike,” creating “sounds perhaps no other living violinist has ever before successfully attempted.” For the San Francisco Chronicle, he can be “justly compared to Heifetz,” and the Chicago Tribune said that “not since David Oistrakh's first appearance here has there been such a supercharged debut. He has everything.”
This season Mr. Spivakov is making his most extensive United States tour so far, one that includes debuts with four major orchestras - the New York Philharmonic three weeks ago (although he had already played with the orchestra in 1976 during its Russian tour), plus the Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Dallas ensembles - and a return engagement with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition, he will give recitals at Carnegie Hall tomorrow night, in Washington at the Library of Congress Friday (his recital debut in that city) and at Brooklyn College's Whitman Hall next Sunday.
With all of this - and given the fact that most music‐lovers won't yet have heard him, since he has only recently begun to make records - one might expect a flashily Romantic violinist. But although Mr. Spivakov does play such Romantic vehicles as the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, which he performed with the Cleveland Orchestra this past week, he has always seemed first of all a refined and aristocratic artist. His playing is not only extraordinarily persuasive, even exhilarating on a purely technical level, but bespeaks a refined and probing musical mind.
An instance of that mind at work came with his choice of concerto for his Philharmonic debut. Instead of an obvious display piece, Mr. Spivakov picked the Haydn Concerto in C (Hob. VIIa : 1). The work certainly gave listeners ample indication of his skills and taste, but it was hardly a typical choice for a debut.
“Remember how Odysseus came home to Penelope,” said Mr. Spivakov with a shy smile, seated in the board room of his management, Columbia Artists (he spoke partly in German and partly through a Russian translator, since his English is rudimentary). “He simply came into the room and sit down modestly at the table. In general, I don't like to play something that's big, grand type of thing at first. wanted to introduce myself modestly and simply - especially since I had played this piece with the orchestra already in Leningrad.”
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Mr. Spivakov's recital program for tomorrow night - which he has already offered at Moscow's Russian Winter Festival earlier this season gives further indication of the venturesomeness of his mind. The recital begins with a Mozart Sonata (K. 380) and goes on with the Brahms Third Sonata (“I'd played the first two here, so I thought it would be nice to do the Third”). After the intermission comes proof of Mr. Spivakov's firm interest and commitment to 20th‐century music; Hindemith's Sonata in E, a contemporary piece called “Mirror in Mirror” by the Soviet composer, Arvo pärt, and the chamber version of Prokofiev's “Overture on Hebrew Themes,” with five members of the New York Philharmonic.
Mr. Spivakov describes Mr. Pärt as an individualist on the Soviet scene with strong religious undercurrents, and says that the music for this piece recalls the ringing of bells. The Prokofiev, which might seem an unpopular theme in present‐day Russia, gives an indication of Mr. Spivakov's abiding love for chamber music, and of his willingness to experiment with instrumental combinations outside the ordinary; in an earlier recital here he offered transcription by himself and his long-
“I don't necessarily believe one should play everything, but I feel should know all of it, that I should learn it all. Partly that's why I've started to conduct, too.”
The choice of the Prokofiev piece suggests, indirectly, the other reason Mr. Spivakov is known here, apart from his playing. In November of 1976 his Carnegie Recital was the site of one of the most aggressive of the protests staged by American Jewish militants against the Soviet Union and its treat- ment of its Jewish citizens. During Mr. Spivakov's performance of Schubert's Sonata in A minor, a man ran down the aisle shouting "remember the Soviet Jews" in Russian. Halfway through the next piece, Bach's solo Chaconne in D minor, another man threw a paint bomb at the violinist, splattering him with red paint.
Mr. Spivakov kept on playing with seeming aplomb, and was rewarded with redoubled cheers at the end. But a troubled look crosses his face when the subject comes up in conversation. “I try not to think of it,” he says. “It's still very difficult for me to perform in New York; it makes me even more nervous.”
The irony of all of this is that Mr. Spivakov is himself Jewish. He was born on Sept. 12, 1944 in the Urals, but his engineer father (who is now dead) and his pianist mother moved back to Leningrad when the war was over. The young Spivakov studied with a pupil of Leopold Auer and another teacher in Leningrad, and was also an avid student of painting. At the age of 13 he won a prestigious contest meant for musicians 16 and older, and thereafter he attended the Moscow Conservatory.
From the mid‐60's to the early 70's Mr. Spivakov entered a number of international competitions, but placed second or third in most of them, and today says simply that he “hates” the very notion of such events. His international career began in 1973 with engagements in Vienna and London, and has built steadily since. Today he lives in Moscow, where his mother and sister also reside, and he remarks in passing that he hopes one day all three of them can visit the United States.
It isn't just his solo career that's burgeoning. His conducting is proceeding apace, too, with engagements not only to conduct such pieces as the Mozart violin concertos when he himself Is playing (he's recording all of them for EMI), but such pure conductor vehicles as symphonies by Mozart (at the Edinburgh Festival) and others. He has engagements forthcoming to conduct the Dresden Staatskapelle and the Leningrad Philharmonic, among other orchestras.
But his purest passion remains chamber music, which he performs regularly at home, especially with members of the renowned Borodin Quartet, in a wide variety of repertory. “I love that,” he says with a smile. “It is the best time for me.”
As his success grows, the inevitable problems of a hectic travel schedule and the pressures of fame have begun to intrude. He tries, he says, to make “windows” in his schedule, and during the summer he takes an annual twoand-one-half-week period in which he doesn't touch the violin at all. But for the rest of the year, the work is continuous.
“In general, life is very difficult,” he says soberly. “For me right now everythng is happening so fast. I don't have time to look ahead, and suddenly I'm on the other side of the world. I'm not totally convinced Solomon could have written his songs if he had had to fly the Concorde.” ■
