Cellist Steven Isserlis Celebrates Schumann

Georgia Rowe on January 5, 2010
Acclaimed for his “physical, sensual relationship” with his instrument, British cellist Steven Isserlis is an artist who combines brilliant technique with innate feeling. His 2009 appearance with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra was one of the year’s highlights on the Bay Area music scene; this month, he returns under the auspices of San Francisco Performances in a duo recital with Russian pianist Kirill Gerstein. The program, Jan. 10 at Herbst Theatre, includes the Cello Sonatas of Britten and Rachmaninov, as well as Isserlis’ own arrangement of Schumann’s Violin Sonata No. 3.

I was lucky enough to hear you playing Haydn with Philharmonia Baroque earlier this year. It was a wonderful performance.

It was such fun. I really enjoy that orchestra, and Nic McGegan.

In this program, you’ll be appearing with Kirill Gerstein. Can you say a little about your collaboration with him?

It actually happened by mistake. I was playing in Schloss-Elmau, near Munich. They wanted me to play with a pianist named Kirill Gerstein. I knew I’d met a young musician called “Kirill” at the Verbier Festival, and he seemed very nice. When we turned up, he said I gave him a very strange look, and that was because he wasn’t the person I was thinking of at all! But then we got to be friends, and I really like him. That was about six years ago. He’s very intelligent, a very serious musician, and also very witty.

You’ll be playing your own arrangement of Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto No. 3. What can you tell us about it?

It’s a very rarely played piece. A lot of violinists think that Schumann wrote only two violin sonatas. This is his last major surviving work. He wrote it at the end of October 1853, and then early in 1854 he went to the asylum. So it’s a very important piece, and I think it’s a wonderful piece. It’s very challenging, for players and audiences. He’s definitely getting into new directions. In a way, it’s strictly classical forms, and yet it’s stretching them, pushing out the sides of the box. It’s extreme emotion, in an emotional way, and sort of in a formal way, and also in the instrumental writing — very, very virtuoso, especially at the end of the piece. It’s like a huge celebration. I’m very committed to this sonata, and I’m always trying to get my violinist friends to play it. But very few do. That’s why I feel justified to play it on cello. It’s a labor of love. It’s really the most difficult piece I play with piano, technically.

For people who do know it, what will they hear in this arrangement that they have perhaps not heard before?

Schumann in his writing for violin can write very low, almost as if he wanted it to be a cello. I think it does make sense to play it on the cello, because what sounds low on the violin sounds the right register on the cello. I think maybe the cello can bring a certain strength to the piece. Schumann loved the cello. He played the cello. But more important than the instrument is that most people will not have heard the piece, and I just hope they love it. I think it is a masterpiece.

This is the 200th anniversary year for Schumann. Beyond this particular piece, what does his music mean to you?

It means a lot to me. I’m semiobsessed with him, and have been for years. I did a television film about Schumann, I’ve written two evenings of words and music about him. I’ve done two discs of his music. He’s very important to my life. I think he’s one of the most attractive figures in the history of music. Of course, he’s a tragic story, but a wonderful man. And the music — I think he’s the composer who gets the closest to the music of dreams. He’s steeped in classicism, but at the same time, totally free, which is an amazing mixture.

One thing I observed in your performance of the Haydn was that feeling of freedom — a wonderful sense of improvisation, in the best sense of the word. Is that a goal for you when you’re preparing repertoire?

Freedom, yes. One has to be on top of a piece enough that one can have that freedom. So you’re not worrying about technique or shape, you have that in your mind and fingers, so you can sort of create and play and listen. I’ve said before — it’s sort of a sound bite, but I think it’s true — that technique is the freedom to listen.

In general, what is your process when preparing repertoire for performance? How do you develop your own interpretation?

I do a little work at the piano to get to know a new score. Basic analysis is very important — knowing the shape of the piece, the structure. That’s the most important thing: knowing how it’s constructed.

This program also includes sonatas by Britten and Rachmaninov. Can you say a little about those pieces and how they fit with the Schumann?

Britten loved Schumann. His last recording as a conductor was Scenes From [Goethe’s] Faust. So I think Britten and Schumann go very well together. This is Britten’s only mature piece called Sonata. Like Schumann, he’s writing a classical sonata and at the same time stretching it, and also stretching the instrument. The Rachmaninov [Sonata] is a very different world; you could call it more backward-looking. It was written in 1901. It’s a masterpiece, and I have a very personal connection with it. It was written for a cellist called Anatoliy Brandukov, who was a friend of Tchaikovsky’s. One of the first pianists to play it with Brandukov was my grandfather, [composer-pianist] Julian Isserlis. There was a change of dynamics that Rachmaninov told Brandukov to do. Brandukov told my grandfather, my grandfather told my grandmother, and when I was about 10 or 11, my grandmother learned it and played it with me. So she passed it on to me.

You’ve also played music written by your grandfather. What was his legacy to you?

I don’t remember him playing very much. He was very ill by the time I remember him. But I’m very proud that he studied with [Sergei] Taneev, who was Tchaikovsky’s favorite student. Just hearing that my grandfather knew Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, all those people — I find that exciting, and also very sad. My grandmother once showed me letters to my grandfather from Casals and Glazunov, when I was very young, but those letters are all gone. We don’t know where they are; they must have been thrown away. But I like the connection.

You’re also the author of children’s books. How did that begin?

I wanted a book about music for my son, and I couldn’t find the sort of thing I really wanted — sort of humorous, but accurate. So I decided to do it myself. I tried to stick to the facts as much as I could, which is sort of difficult, as any historian will tell you. I went to many sources, checked and rechecked them. And yet so many funny things happened in the lives of all the great composers, I was able to write what I hope are humorous books that are educational, as well, to introduce children to these composers as friends.

I know you’re friends with Paul McCartney, and a big fan of the Beatles. Do you have a favorite Beatles song?

I like “I’m Only Sleeping” because it reminds me of my son. There are so many. I like the ballads: “Here, There, and Everywhere,” ”Here Comes the Sun,” “Got to Get You Into My Life,” and “It’s Only Love,” to name a few.