When Leila Josefowicz appears on the platform of the Barbican, in London,
later this week, she hopes that she will be recognised as a musician rather than
as a model.
'I am an artist of sound. I don't want to sound pompous, but I'm always going to be a violinist first. I want people to understand that.' And as long as people don't describe her as fragrant, she'll be happy.
The 27-year-old Canadian spent a year as the face of Chanel's
Allure perfume, an experience which she found very different from
the world of violin-playing, even at her international level. But
Chanel's description of the perfume fits her like one of the fashion
house's tailored suits: 'Allure is, of necessity, both simple and
natural.'
'The whole campaign was built around the allure not of the supermodel,' she says, 'but of the fresh young face. They wanted something different.' Chanel, more accustomed to celebrities like Nicole Kidman or Kate Moss, treated her very specially.
As a violinist more used to slogging round the world, waiting endlessly in airport queues, checking laboriously in and out of hotels, Josefowicz was, she says, 'treated like royalty'. On photo-shoots, which she loved, she was flown to and from New York, where she lives, on Concorde.
'I like perfume but only in small doses,' she confesses. If the right opportunity to be associated with another product arose, she'd give it serious consideration. But it would have to be less sensational, and she'd prefer to be some sort of ambassador for music education, perhaps, rather than to focus on another beauty product. She'd be a good ambassador, with her engaging personality and confident manner.
Her Anglo-Polish parents were scientists, though her father does
play the guitar, and they started their daughter on the Suzuki
method of learning the violin. Fortunately, her teachers were more
flexible than most, she reckons. 'The system can be restricting, too
bound by rules about holding the violin, placing the bow,
manoeuvring your arm,' she carries on, 'and I was no good playing in
those ways because it's not my natural style.'
Josefowicz played Bruch's First Violin Concerto with a local orchestra when she was just eight, and by the age of 10 was introduced to television audiences by Lucille Ball, playing in a tribute to Bob Hope. Six years later she made her acclaimed debut at Carnegie Hall, and was quickly signed up by Philips Classics. Since then she's forged partnerships with some of today's most interesting musicians, including Oliver Knussen — whose Violin Concerto she's made very much her own.
'I gave the first performances in Norway and Holland with Ollie. I figure out very quickly what works for me. If music doesn't speak to me, I'll never, ever play it. But just one hearing and I know whether or not I want to take up a piece. I heard a recording of Pinkie [Pinchas Zukerman] playing the Knussen and I said to myself 'That's it, I'm going to learn that music."
She's also a fan and friend of the Californian minimalist John
Adams, the most frequently performed American composer. His Violin
Concerto, which she played at the Barbican in 2002, may have made
her sweat but her experience of getting inside his music opened
windows onto a different world.
'With something new, it's very daunting because it's completely unknown territory. But you have the composer to help and in the case of John it became real fun.' More importantly, it made her rethink much of her approach to the standard repertoire. 'You can't ask the composer — they're all dead — so you have to take the music apart and examine every chord, rhythm, gesture and ask yourself, 'what did he mean, where is it going?' Once you've done that, and only then, when the music's really under your fingers, can you begin to take a few risks, play with greater freedom.'
Now she's preparing Adams's latest violin work, The Dharma at Big Sur, which mixes Eastern influences with West Coast styles and ideas. 'I'm quite familiar with the kind of jazz sounds and the improvisation that John has written in, or rather not written in, and I feel strangely liberated playing this kind of stuff.'
It's written for a six-string electric violin, a Violectra, that Josefowicz had made to her own specifications in Birmingham, its shape identical to the fabulous Guarneri 'del Gesù' instrument she plays.
Although her instrument has 'del Gesù' papers, identifying it as being from the workshop of the most celebrated member of the Cremona instrument-making family, its provenance puzzles dealers all over the world, a fact which delights Josefowicz. 'People want to put everyone and everything into categories, and label them, but you can't!'
She had been without a violin for about six months, trying this one and that, before someone put her in touch with an elderly lady with a violin. Josefowicz tried it and knew it was the one for her. It is bequeathed to Classical Action, to raise money for HIV/AIDS, so Josefowicz will either have to give it up or buy it from the charity when the inevitable eventually happens to her elderly benefactress.
As the audience at the Last Night of the Proms in 2003 will
remember, Josefowicz is a gifted communicator, a musician with no
airs or graces. Unfazed by the media spotlight on this high-profile
concert, Josefowicz gave dazzling accounts of Saint-Saëns's
Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso and the Meditation from Massenet's Thaïs before a packed Albert Hall, watched by millions on television
worldwide. The concert was later produced on CD by Warner Classics,
with whom Josefowicz has now formed an alliance, encouraged by the
company's attitude to her ideas for repertoire. Her latest recital
recording is a typically eclectic, even peculiar, mix of old and new
repertoire for violin and piano.
'Recital programmes are generally so unimaginative,' she muses, 'but I thought very hard about what pieces I wanted to play, and in what order. This is my favourite recital programme to date, and I am ecstatic that Warner let me record Messiaen, Beethoven, Brahms and Ravel, along with a couple of contemporary items.
'The pieces may be very different but I think they go well together and have a lot in common. Although I have thought about every little sound and every minute detail, it still has to sound as natural and spontaneous as possible, as though I'm improvising the whole recital.'
This programme brings together an early scherzo by Brahms and
Beethoven's last sonata for violin and piano, with Ravel's bluesy
Sonata, which appeals hugely to Josefowicz for its jazz
characteristic and jaunty imitation of a banjo. But it's the new
pieces which she's currently touring around Europe and America and
introducing on her CD that thrill her most, being what she
enthusiastically calls, 'fascinating, challenging and fresh'.
Laughing Unlearnt, by the Finnish Esa-Pekka Salonen, is a set of variations in which the composer imagines the performer as a serious clown trying to help listeners connect with the emotions they have lost. 'It's dramatic and also a bit manic,' laughs Josefowicz. 'The pieces I play are generally a reflection of me as a person as well as a player, and this reflects my personality as a performer. I always try to imagine that I have forgotten how to laugh and how to remember to laugh again.'
She's had quite a bit of practice at doing that in real life. Her separation and divorce, after a short marriage to the conductor Kristjan Järvi, left her uncertain and unsettled. But unpacking Beethoven's Violin Concerto helped, as did devoting herself to their son, Lukas, now five.
'It's hard to come home after concerts, after giving everything. When you come back to an empty house, you can feel awfully abandoned. Lukas is beautiful and inspiring and demanding which keeps me really busy. In fact it's more relaxing on tour because you can sleep long unbroken nights, read, rest, practise, have a longer dinner — all the things you can't do while attending to a young child's needs.'
But now, she says, 'I'm very happy in my personal life, which
makes things a lot easier and better. It hasn't always been the
case,' she adds a little ruefully, 'but right now I'm doing real
well!' She finds practising is a useful form of meditation, and
playing the violin as she does also keeps her fit. 'There are many
kinds of violin players. My style is very athletic,' she says. 'I
feel as if I'm transferring energy all the way from my feet up to my
hands. I like to run and I've also been doing a kick-boxing course,
which is fun because it's just so incredibly aggressive. When my
brain is tired from too much thinking and looking at small black
dots on manuscript, I like to do something just for my body.'
The advertising catchline of Allure is 'difficult to define, impossible to resist' " 'No more top, middle and bass notes,' it continues. 'Allure dispenses with these traditional notions to embrace a multi-faceted approach.' It couldn't be a more appropriate definition of Josefowicz.
'Leila Josefowicz in Recital', a
two-CD set featuring music by Messian, Beethoven, Salonen, Grey and Ravel, is
out now on Warner Classics. Josefowicz plays the Barbican, London EC2 ([+44]
0845 120 7550) on Saturday [23 April]; the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and
Drama, Glasgow ([+44] 0141 353 8000) on 6 May; and Queen's Hall, Edinburgh
([+44] 0131 668 2019) on 7 May
