`A child like Maxim is born but once in a hundred years.”
With those words, uttered by Maxim Vengerov’s first violin teacher when the Russian prodigy was only 5 years old in his native Novosibirsk, his fate was confirmed.
Thirteen years later, the music world has endorsed his teacher’s pronouncement. Vengerov finds himself a young veteran of the international circuit, playing 85 concerts a season, recording for the Teldec label and reaping the kind of critical praise usually granted only to artists many years his senior.
Having scored a successful debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in January, Vengerov is back in town to display another facet of his talent. The violinist will perform a recital of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms sonatas at 8 p.m. Thursday in the Ravinia Festival’s Bennett Hall. He is to make his second appearance with the CSO at Ravinia in August.
It is not just the effortless technique at Vengerov’s command that makes everyone pay attention; it’s his deep emotional commitment to the music and his big Russian style typical of the St. Petersburg school of violin playing. That is a weighty tradition for any 18-year-old to shoulder, but Vengerov exudes the quiet confidence of a virtuoso whose shoulders are broad enough.
The shy young Russian voices the standard artist’s complaints about the itinerant life of a soloist-the constant travel, strange hotels, unfamiliar halls, long separations from family and friends.
“On the other hand,” he observes, “to have the chance to work with and learn from wonderful musicians, this is the way an artist should develop. You see, I’m really at the stage where I want other musicians and critics to advise me when I play something wrong. That way I don’t just cook in my own sauce,” he says with a smile.
A crucial chapter in the prodigy’s development opened in 1984 when he became a pupil of Zakhar Bron, whose students would include another young Russian violin virtuoso, Vadim Repin. Vengerov credits the eminent pedagogue with refining his technique and giving him the musical maturity to match the brilliance of his fiddle playing.
“Probably the most important thing I learned from Bron is that technique is no more than sound and phrasing. Through him I entered the real world of art.”
Bron knew his star pupil was determined to make a big career for himself. But he also realized the violinist would remain largely unknown outside Russia unless Vengerov began spreading his name around.
So Bron steered him into two major competitions, Poland’s Junior Wieniawski Competition and England’s Carl Flesch International Competition. Vengerov emerged from both contests a first-prize winner. And his musical life shifted into overdrive.
The violinist soon was faced with a momentous decision: Should he continue his studies with Bron in Luebeck, Germany (where teacher and student had settled in 1989), or should he follow his parents to Israel, where they were urging him to emigrate with the rest of their 20-member extended family?
The decision was complicated by other factors besides his attachment to his mentor. With his career now in full swing in the West, a Central European base was more useful than one in the Middle East.
Ultimately, Vengerov obeyed the wishes of his parents.
Relocating in Tel Aviv at first proved difficult for Vengerov. But he soon grew to feel right at home in the Israeli city, not least because of the close sense of community that comes from having so many other Soviet-Jewish emigre musicians nearby. Israel provides him with a place for rest, reflection and study, as well as a relatively remote retreat from the hassles of a jet-propelled career.
Vengerov is playing a 1731 Guarneri del Jesu violin until he can afford a Stradivarius. Practicing more than four hours a day he considers a waste of time. “It doesn’t matter how much time you spend with the violin in hand. It’s the brain that’s the main instrument you work with; everything comes from that.”
For someone not yet out of his teens, Vengerov seems remarkably clear-eyed about his career path.
“I may already have reached a high level as a violinist,” he says, “but as a musician I still need to work long and hard my entire life.”
