^M00:00:13 >> Anne McLean: Good evening. Welcome. I'm Anne McLean from the library's music division. This is a great crowd. We're so pleased so many of you could come. This is a fantastic quartet. We are very excited to be presenting the remarkable Jerusalem Quartet tonight, truly one of the greats, exceptional quartets. We are looking forward to your concert and welcome. >> Sergei Bresler: We too. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Yeah, we are looking also. >> Anne McLean: We have Alexander Pavlovsky and Sergei Bresler here who are speaking on behalf of the whole quartet, two violinists. You guys are really a presence on major stages worldwide and I know you were in Australia and New Zealand. You have two annual tours to the U.S. I understand. That's unusual, but there's a lot of demand. And of course you have commitments for all the top festivals. This year you are reaching 24 years together, is that right or maybe more? >> Sergei Bresler: Yeah. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Well, you know, after 20 years we stopped counting exactly. No, there are some great conductors that celebrate their 70s or 60s birthday for 9 years and then they start the new celebrations. We are trying not to make, you know, kind of extreme project, but we appreciate our time together. We enjoy. Yeah. Our first concert was in March '95. So our first major concert recorded, so yeah, next March will be our 25th anniversary. Yeah. >> Sergei Bresler: I still have this tape cassette from this concert 25 years ago. Yeah. I cannot listen to it because I don't have the type tape already. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: But I did a couple of years ago and it's actually good. I'm not sure we can play in such a beautiful way today. After so many years we play differently of course. But it was, you know. >> Sergei Bresler: Because that days we studied like one year of three pieces. And now we play really a lot. >> Anne McLean: Okay. And only one player changed in that whole time, right? >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Yeah, that's correct. >> Anne McLean: So that's kind of unusual these days. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Yes. >> Anne McLean: There's musical chairs for many quartets literally. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Oh yeah. >> Anne McLean: And you were the oldest when you came to--you guys really grew up together as teens. >> Sergei Bresler: Yeah, we started actually before '94 in the music school, Jerusalem Music Academy Prayer Division. There's also a Jerusalem Music Center who puts talented kids together to play chamber music. It was under Isaac Stern. He was a patron of this music center. The chamber music department put us together and since then [laughter] we are together until now. >> Anne McLean: I was reading about your work with, was it Avi Abramovitch, and how much you worked for like four or five years together. >> Sergei Bresler: Six. >> Anne McLean: And I wanted to ask you, you know, one of the things that you read about this quartet is that they have a remarkable homogeneity of sound and the unity of attack and purpose and things like this. But from the very beginning, that's been a qualifying factor. Do you think it's because you started out so very young together? And if not, how did you begin to work on this? >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Well, yes. Yes. I think starting such a young age when you still develop your own playing, it's a crucial moment. And I think this is a plus we have from many other groups. It's not only because, you know, kind of we are friends and grew up together, but we really had at first very basic work together with Avi Abramovitch on many major quartet works. And as Sergei already mentioned, you know, those days we had time and we were practicing four times a week for probably three, four hours on maybe two, three pieces in a year, which means every note was, you know, observed from different perspectives and both and he really, really put all his passion and love into chamber music in our group. We were one of his very first successful groups in Israel as well. And of course we were little hooligans then. Yeah, I was the oldest and I think I was 16, so basically between 14 and 16 years old teenagers. Yeah, but somehow it worked and we enjoyed basically our music making and the music itself. The string quartet has probably the widest and the most interesting repertoire from most of the composers. Every composer put his really the top ideas and qualities into quartet writing. So it's a privilege to play string quartets, you know. >> Anne McLean: Did you have any idea then that you might make a career as a quartet at all? Were you thinking like that? >> Sergei Bresler: This probably not, but after one or two years it was kind of wow, we are going to-- >> Alexander Pavlovsky: To make it. >> Sergei Bresler: Yes, really. Because I thought it's something new for me and it's such a great music, different from solo playing. And we actually played a lot of concerts after two years already. We won a Schubert competition in Graz and we prepared lot of program. So it was really serious after just the beginning. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: I also want to add that actually we really have to say thank you for all our private teachers, instrumental teachers, that allowed us in a way to take a lot of time out of our general practice and somehow to understand that this is going to be special and this is important. Because there are many, many, many examples when wonderful young musicians meets together and their teachers just say, "You cannot dedicate such amount of time, you know, doing ensembles. You have to practice, practice, practice, practice. Paganini, Paganini." [Laughter] And somehow all of our teachers understood, of course with the time, that we really need this time, which also develops us. It's, you know, probably the best school to listen to each other is playing chamber music. So that was their also clever understanding and decision. >> Anne McLean: You said in one of the things I was reading that chamber music opens the mind. I love that quote. But you are saying it taught you at a very young point in your life to listen very closely. And this was a foundation for you. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: This is probably the main quality that chamber music every musician needs. And by the way, today there are very big number of wonderful soloists as well, I'm talking about really the top soloists. And you really very quickly hear by their playing if they're also dedicate time to chamber music or not. It's very clear from the after a minute of their playing. >> Sergei Bresler: Also so many young musician playing really seriously and professional string quartets. In our time it wasn't like this. In 90s it was a little bit more than in 60s and 70s, but still it wasn't like a main, main profession for many, many musicians. But now it's people understand, young players understand that this is the music. This is probably the most important music. >> Anne McLean: It's really incredible the growth in the string quartet industry, so to speak. I mean, there are just so many fine and you probably teach them and mentor them all the time these days. Do you have time for teaching though? >> Sergei Bresler: Yeah. I teach a lot in Jerusalem. Actually I became in Jerusalem Music Center when we started, I became the director of the chamber players. I put kids together and I teach them. >> Anne McLean: You know, speaking about young musicians, I know two of you, I think it's Ori, but I'm not sure, maybe it's you, Alexander, work with the Western Eastern Divan Orchestra [inaudible]. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: It's actually our other two members, our cellist and Ori, the viola player. Yeah, they made many years connect--they were connected with the Divan Orchestra and Kyril was teaching their cello section for I think almost a decade. >> Anne McLean: Oh wow. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Oh yeah, from the very beginning I think of this project. >> Anne McLean: So back to just the way you go at things and rehearse together and so on, some of you in the quartet have said the most important thing is for the quartet to have its own voice, but to feel that you're together one instrument with 16 strings. But that's not always one instrument, so many of you. And I was going to ask you, how do you go about working? How do you attack a new piece? How do you think about it? You've done this so many years and yet you have some new things and we're going to get to that in a minute, some really exciting new projects. >> Sergei Bresler: It's difficult to say because so many conversations in one rehearsal. But somehow we achieve some--our main ideas are the same. The sound ideas, the intonation ideas, the style ideas, mostly the same. So somehow we achieve the best of us. ^M00:10:07 >> Anne McLean: Last year you did a wonderful recording with both WC and Ravel and tonight you're playing the Ravel. And of course a lot of people pair these two together. They were written a decade apart and so on. And there are things that unite them like thematic, cyclic development and so on. When you were preparing this recording, what were you thinking about in differentiating them and stylistically? And what are the points of color wise that you like the most? >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Well, first I must mention that Ravel was one of the pieces we played almost from the very beginning. And WC actually to WC we came much later, maybe even 20 years later, which maybe should be the opposite because WC actually wrote the first quartet and of course Ravel has kind of connection or his vision of Ravel quartet as well. You can see it by the movement styles and the general balance of the pieces. They're different, very different quartets. Even they are written very close to each other. I think the very end of 19th Century and very beginning of 20, so there may be 5 or 6 years in between. For my taste, WC had the, in a way, kind of much more German direction of roots of this quartet and it's known that he was very young when he wrote his quartet and he was trying to make his beginning of his career in Paris and there were many, many music clubs. And most of the music, which was played there was Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, so very German culture. And that's also the reason he added Opus 10 to his quartet that it would look like very serious and that's the one Opus, I think, in all of his pieces. Also Opus 10 in G, so it looks very kind of like you open a Beethoven quartet. And indeed in his ideas, there are many, many roots from Beethoven, I think, especially from Beethoven. This is also how he balanced the movements, how he goes from one idea to another idea. A lot of very German middle voices, so if you take out the melody it sounds like sometimes even a Haydn quartet. And Ravel already, for my taste, it has more variety in the tonal qualities and it's, for my taste, it also has much more variety in his writing. And of course about the tunnel vision, you know, it should be. It should be really the palette of colors very wide in both pieces. But I think in Ravel, there's some moment that it's even hard to describe exactly. It's just a moment that you have to catch and it's gone. Yeah. >> Anne McLean: And then you always read about the Gamelan references and our colleague tonight, who's written the notes, says there's also a chance that Ravel was thinking about hearing a group of mandolinists on a street in Paris. Have you heard that one? That was new to me. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: No. I didn't. >> Sergei Bresler: This is very interesting. >> Anne McLean: Interesting color wise. And then there's, if you look in your program tonight, there's a fun quote, and you guys probably know this too. A letter from WC to Ravel. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Yes. >> Anne McLean: It's so funny. But he basically says, don't play it less loudly. Go for it. You know, don't hold back. And he said think of the difference in seniority between a hall that's full and one that's empty. It's only the viola that slightly obscures the others and could perhaps be toned down. Otherwise, don't touch anything and all will be well. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Unbelievable. And he's the teacher and the one who dedicated, Ravel dedicated the quartet to Gabriel Faure. And somehow the Faure was not very excited about this work and the public as well and it was not very successful from the beginning. Of course we always felt that this is really kind of one of the most amazing quartets written and somehow. It's strange because for example when we talk about Beethoven, even at the time of middle quartet, the musicians, even the musicians they said first of all it's extremely difficult. It's not good. The music is not good. This is different times. We are talking about 100 years ago and somehow public did not react in a way that I think it's just proper to react to. This is amazing music from the very first note. >> Anne McLean: Oh yeah. Oh absolutely. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Just kind of taking all of you and you just follow. >> Sergei Bresler: But it's always like that with all these revolutionary works. It has to pass like 40 years and people will love it. In the beginning it's just like nonsense. Let's say the Beethoven last quartets, the middle quartets, also let's say Shostakovich quartets and especially Bartok. Bartok was super modern for his time and really what is this music. But now it's like a classic, really classic and masterpiece. >> Anne McLean: You guys performed the Beethoven's quartets alongside the Bartok quartets. I've never heard of anybody doing that. That's a tremendous energy required for that and a commitment. And you've done, not night after night necessarily, but just to partner the two sets is extraordinary. I was going to ask you too, are you planning something special for the Beethoven year? >> Sergei Bresler: Yeah, we are doing Beethoven cycle, of course. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Yeah. Yeah. >> Sergei Bresler: I think it's probably really special for us, but because we still didn't--we did a lot of cycles, like Shostakovich, Brahms, Bartok, many things, but Beethoven, his cycle is new for us and we're really preparing it. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Yeah, we're working slowly. >> Sergei Bresler: Looking forward. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Today I must say that even from 20, 25 years ago, many things changed. I see today a young quartet, but very good quartet. They start their career from Beethoven cycle. There are few examples. And like wow. I mean, it took us almost 25 years slowly, you know, to build and to understand and to go back to some quartets we played and to look from other perspective and to find the way. So, it is exciting for us. Yeah. >> Sergei Bresler: We feel that we are now mentally really prepared because there are many quartets that we are played already 20 years ago, we play really differently now. All the understanding of the music is different. So I'm glad we are doing it now and not 20 years ago. >> Anne McLean: I want to ask you about Shostakovich too and then maybe some of your new projects. But regarding Shostakovich, I know three of you have Russian backgrounds and one, I think Ori, also has his background a long time ago. Yeah. And you've made comments about how you felt this composer tells your story as well. That's a narrative statement that really touched me. This is kind of a special journey for you, all Shostakovich quartets I believe. >> Sergei Bresler: This kind of music you have to really feel. If you not really understand and feel it, you cannot really play it because it's not technical. It's not extremely difficult. If you not really feel the atmosphere, if you not feel the time and the problematic and all his thoughts, it's impossible to play if you really don't understand this music. And we are lucky that I was born in Ukraine, also Sasha was born in the Ukraine, former Soviet Union. So we knew about this time. We knew about this character of the music. So we feel really lucky to bring it to the public what we feel. >> Anne McLean: And you studied with people who knew him and really have-- >> Sergei Bresler: Yes. Yes. >> Anne McLean: --this tremendous background, which is extraordinary. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Our teacher was telling, he was studying exactly in the Moscow Conservatory with David Oistrakh, our teacher of both of us, Matri Liberman, exactly after the war at the time when Borodin Quartet started to play. And they were really in the same years studying in Moscow. And he said that many times during the lessons with Oistrakh and Shostakovich was opening the door and looking who is, ah, he was very polite and it was very difficult to get something from him. Even they play Shostakovich concerto, he was like, "Beautiful. Beautiful. Great." And actually today we play Quartet Number 3 and this is one of the quartets that, after Beethoven quartet, played it for him for the first time, he was really crying. And they said that it's never happened in their very long friendship that he was so moved by his own music. ^M00:20:02 [ Inaudible comment ] ^M00:20:03 Oh yeah. So tears were coming out of his eyes. >> Anne McLean: And one of you I made a note about the Shostakovich quartets are modern in language, but classical and compact. And that's an interesting thing that I hadn't thought of before. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Well, I think we always talked between ourselves that this is actually the very last classical composer, definitely connected to the Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, more than any other direction. >> Anne McLean: Structurally. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Of course very romantic as well, but the structure, the language, even if you open the score and look at the quartet it looks like-- >> Anne McLean: The way the thematic material-- >> Sergei Bresler: Sometimes it's written like Haydn quartet but the music is so, let's say, sarcastic that you can listen differently. But it's written as a score sometimes really, really classical. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: I remember somebody asked him, I'm not sure who was that, listen Dmitri, there are not so many notes written. Look other composers like Bartok, so complicated. He said, "Not the number of notes important. What is between the notes important." >> Sergei Bresler: [Laughter] Yeah. >> Anne McLean: I like that. I wanted to ask you about this new project you're doing, which is kind of amazing, and I want you to talk. I'm going to just sit back for a moment. Harmonia Mundi is the label that these guys record for. And they have, of course, many just impeccable and stellar recordings. But you have a new venture of Yiddish music, Jewish music between the wars, and particularly songs. And it was a commission, right? That's the part that interests me that you chose to start this project yourself out of nowhere. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Somehow we are recording for Harmonia Mundi for more than decade and half. So I think there are almost 15 or 16 years of recordings with the same label. And we were always, you know, in conversations with them looking for something out of our mainstream. Because in a way, we are very conservative quartet. We are playing Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, WC, Shostakovich. We are not experimental quartet, definitely not. And we were thinking maybe to dedicate one of our albums to Israeli music and there are actually very good variety of modern composers and as well quartets written. And somehow it didn't happen. And then this idea came and our viola player, Ori Kam, actually put a lot of effort that it will happen. He was in touch with the library in Hebrew University in Jerusalem with the lady who is in charge of music department. I don't remember her name. And she said that there's a lot, a lot, a lot, plenty of fantastic music from the Eastern Europe between two wars, so actually first half of 20th Century. Mostly songs with different characters. And she has a lot of materials in the library. That's how it started and of course with the support of Harmonia Mundi, after many discussions, the decision was to have a regiment for a quartet and soprano of number of songs. And we asked Leonid Desyatnikov, which is a wonderful composer and who worked for many, many years with Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica and many other great musicians and he was head of Bolshoi Opera, the great opera of Russia, for a couple of years. And he's amazing arrangement. He makes wonderful arrangements of different music for different ensembles. And we asked him and he was very interested in doing arrangement for us and for soprano. And the result are five songs in Yiddish of course that he arranged wonderfully for us. And we are lucky that this project that we are doing with fantastic Israeli soprano, Hila Baggio, that she's one of the main singers in the Israeli opera. And we are actually in the beginning of this project. We already made the CD. It should be out in a couple of months. And there is a lot of interest of this project. And we added to the songs, music of Schulhoff and Korngold. >> Anne McLean: Korngold interested me too. Talk a little bit about that. The second quartet, right? >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Yes. >> Anne McLean: Yes. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: His music not played much. >> Anne McLean: Yeah. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: But today it feels like it's waking up and lot of attention goes to Korngold as well as it used to be like a decade ago to music of Weinberg. And three of his quartets are very good. I love all of them very different of course with the very solid roots of Europe. >> Sergei Bresler: Viennese. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Viennese roots. And of course his life in America in the second part of his life. And the result, it's wonderful music. Wonderful music. >> Sergei Bresler: It was great experience to study because you can see the Viennese and the Czech a little bit and the Hollywood music. It was so-- >> Alexander Pavlovsky: It's a interesting mixture, yes. >> Sergei Bresler: It was really, really interesting. >> Anne McLean: Exactly. And the notes that are coming out about your recording mention that this music from between the wars had a very strong influence on not only Hollywood, the music industry, and the film industry, which of course Korngold was strongly involved in, but on popular music in the U.S. in general. And that's a fascinating thread to trace through so I'm really looking forward to hearing this recording. It's wonderful. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Yeah. So for us it's, of course, something different and we are enjoying every moment of this. And, as I said, there is a big interest in Europe I think, in the next couple of seasons, around 20 concerts with this project, which is a good number. >> Anne McLean: Really? That's a lot. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: And it grows. Yeah. >> Anne McLean: Yeah. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Big attention to this. >> Anne McLean: Fascinating. Well, you know, we often go on and on in these things and I wanted this time to open it up to your questions because I want to give the artists a little time to warm up on the stage, more than they had a chance to. So there's microphones that'll be coming around. By all means, please ask some questions. Anybody have something? Okay a couple in here. ^M00:27:37 ^M00:27:42 >> Two questions, first of all do any of you play as soloists too or only in the group, in your quartet? And the second question, as an amateur I hardly play anything, I'm just curious how you say your music has changed, playing the same piece has changed over the years. Could you give us some idea of how it's changed and how you've reinterpreted music? >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Well, you see if you're talking for example about Beethoven quartets, when you play one of his pieces, then you learn the second one, and the third one, and with the time you play 16 pieces of the same composer and you understand actually his development, his connections to the past and to the future, and just, you know, like it's a book. When you start to read the book and you go on and on, you understand more the language of the writer. I think it's about the same story. You just see different examples and you, "Ah, if I remember, that happened, you know, playing last quartet. Ah, this is interesting. This idea came actually 40 years ago to him. Yeah." So these kind of elements, so with time it's like you add, add, add, and your knowledge and your view on certain things are different. Of course, and also of course the experience that you get playing on the stage and, you know, experience looking at the scores different when you are 16 years old or when you are 26 and 36 and 46. Yeah. In music, I think there is no point that you, "Ah, okay now I am professor. Yes, I know." It's endless progress. It's learning progress. >> Sergei Bresler: In another 20 years we will play differently I'm sure. Probably better, probably less, but never know. And the first question of course we are playing a little bit solo, but mostly we play chamber music, quartet and these things. ^M00:30:01 >> I was just wondering, during the years when you were forming your quartet, were there certain working string quartets or recordings or specific performances that really inspired you to form your string quartet? >> Sergei Bresler: There was. In 90s there was three or four main really big stars string quartets recordings like Amadeus Quartet, Alban Berg Quartet, [Inaudible] Quartet, and [Inaudible] Quartet, and I don't remember. Probably more of course. But they were the most important for us. So we listen a lot for the recordings. And then of course we studied with probably all of them, members of the Amadeus Quartet and members of the Alban Berg Quartet and [Inaudible] Quartet. There are a lot in the Jerusalem Music Center. They were teaching. And of course Isaac Stern. We had good teachers actually. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: You know, nobody could say no to Isaac Stern. [Laughter] So he brought all the really great musicians to Jerusalem Music Center and it was 900 meters away from the school and we had the luxury. We didn't have to travel. They just come to us. >> I wanted to ask about the Erwin Schulhoff piece, which one you're recording and is there other music that you have an interest in doing from that composer? >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Well, we recorded the five pieces that he wrote for string quartet, which is like a little collection of different music around the world. It has a tango and it has a serenade and it has Alla Czeca dance. So it's kind of, you know, traveling, actually what we are doing most of the time. And it's really kind of joy to play this music. Of course it's not maybe so philosophical music as his other quartets and other music, but it somehow for this collection of songs and together with Korngold it kind of make a good combination we felt. So that was the idea. >> Any interest in doing his other work? >> Alexander Pavlovsky: Oh yes. Yes. With the time. You know, the repertoire of string quartet is so big and so great that definitely one life is not enough to play probably 50% of it. Two lives, probably also not enough but we are trying. From the very beginning I think of our quartet we tried to make a balance with the reparatory. So we tried to cover from the very early Haydn quartets to the modern music of our days and somehow slowly, slowly built the collection. ^M00:32:56 ^M00:33:01 >> Anne McLean: Anyone else? ^M00:33:02 ^M00:33:06 No? You're very quiet. Okay. Great. Well, then we will probably wrap up just now I think because I want to give them a chance to be on the stage. Thank you so much. >> Sergei Bresler: Thank you very much. >> Alexander Pavlovsky: It's a pleasure. Thank you. >> Anne McLean: Alexander, Sergei. ^M00:33:19 [ Applause ]