For me, what happened on Sunday, when we heard Vadim Gluzman play with exquisite sensitivity and persuasiveness, using his bow in ways we did not even know a bow could be used, creating a palate of sounds we did not know a violin—even a Stradivari from 1690—could produce, was nothing short of a miracle.
The miracle was not Vadim’s playing his violin like a god, which is something he does daily, you might say routinely.
The miracle was that he was doing it here, in Fresno, on stage with our young musicians.
Vadim arrived on Friday and almost immediately went to rehearse in the band room with our YPO, working on Beethoven and Bach. The next day, Saturday, he spent the afternoon offering a master class to any of our young violinists who were interested. Four violinists performed for him in what I felt was the best master class I had ever seen, and I have been observing master classes since I was a child, sitting on a garbage can at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, watching Pablo Casals work with the cream of the crop of young cellists of that era.
And then, Saturday evening, Vadim was once again at rehearsal with our YPO musicians. And he stayed on, after rehearsal ended, to work on the Swan Lake solo with concertmaster Benjamin Pegram.
The next day Vadim rehearsed with the YPO again in the morning at Shaghoian Concert Hall, then returned to perform the Bach Double Concerto with Alex Han and Benjamin Pegram, then the Beethoven violin concerto by himself (accompanied by our YPO and Thomas Loewenheim!). This was when we were treated to such refinements and subtleties in his approach to expressing himself on his instrument, especially in those insane 1970s cadenzas by German/Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke, that the violinists among us were…only silly words occur to me—gobsmacked.
We were also treated to this brilliant violinist’s true devotion to teaching and to promoting young musicians. Not only did he play the second violin part in the Bach, with Ben and Alex taking turns with the first violin part, but he also played most of the tutti violin lines (the lines the orchestra violins were playing) in the Beethoven concerto, whenever he had a chance during a break from his solo line.
And then—and then, in the second half of the concert—did you see that guy sitting hidden behind the harps at the back of the violins?
Yes. Vadim performed the entire second half of the concert from inside the orchestra, playing as just another member of the combined YSO/YPO. One of the YSO players reported afterward that he could feel Vadim’s energy pushing him from the back, like a warmth.
And that’s what we all experienced: the warmth of Vadim Gluzman’s humble genius. The warmth of his desire to share his gifts with our young musicians. And the warmth of our sudden access to the key miracle of music as a shared experience. And to that unique aspect of orchestral music, as pointed out by El Sistema founder Jose Antonio Abreu: “The orchestra,” Abreu famously observed, “is the only group that comes together for the sole purpose of agreement.”
Agreed!
Spotted…Vadim Gluzman among the young violinists at our Love Conquers All concert on Sunday February 9, 2020