Boris Garlitsky

Q: Tell us about online teaching!

Zoom teaching can be quite a challenge—but not if you get used to it!

With zoom, you are learning to look, not only to listen. You are learning to focus on seeing what is happening, which is quite new for me. Offline, sometimes you can say: Oh, I don’t want to see, I close my eyes, play something! You could say the same while teaching online, but it’s useless. You have to combine seeing and listening.

I wish to say to all young students: to combine the new things you can take from online teaching. Don’t forget the beautiful old tradition, but bring it to online learning, bring it to the future! I think we will survive the pandemic—it will happen! When the pandemic stops, and we go back to our normal behaviour, we will keep all these new things to help us.

Q: Do you see any beauty in online teaching?

Yes, I see very convenient things! First of all, you can dress—just half. And you don’t have to clean your shoes before the lesson! [Panel breaks out in laughter.]

On a serious note, online teaching feels very much like working with a “live” CD—which is better than a studio-produced CD. Recordings are very important to me. I remember my first musical shock when I was 22 or 21. I was in Moscow, and I heard a recording of the Brahms Op. 34 piano quintet by Rubinstein and the Guarneri Quartet. At that time, in Moscow Conservatory, chamber music was a usual part of the music discipline—like music theory, music history, so nothing special. But when I listened to this recording for the first time, and still today, it was a piece of art. I understood that I wanted this, that this was my piece of cake, that this was my way to make music. I see online teaching as a “live” recording, with all the mistakes, with all the noise—a cup of tea on a table, somebody talking and walking—it brings to us a little bit of real-life experience.

Q: Would you like to share your artistic journey?

Somebody at an interview once asked me: You certainly became a famous artist and teacher. Was it a pleasant surprise for you, or have you always been following your plans? And I answered: I'm not a famous musician yet, but I'm trying to be, and I have my time to try.

My musical journey was long, and I’m still travelling.

I started playing the violin when I was six. My mother and father were both violinists—so I didn't ask myself if I would play violin, it came naturally to me. When my father gave me my first small violin, he told me: this is not a toy. He did not want me to play with the violin as a toy! Since then, he taught me up to 2 hours a day for ten years, which, looking back, seems amazing. I had so much respect for him. I was even quite afraid of him—so sometimes, when I wanted a day off, I would ask my mother to ask him if it was possible. And it was always possible. He always gave me the day off. It was not like: if you don’t play, you don’t eat!

What’s interesting is that I seem to have forgotten everything he taught me. If you ask me: what did he tell you? I have no idea. Everything was, sort of, a natural part of my life. But I do think I am saying his words when I teach! So, these were the first ten years, after which I studied with Yankelevich.

Q: And what was working with Yuri Yankelevich like?

When I was at the Moscow Conservatory, the class of Yankelevich was quite amazing—the class concert was absolutely like the closing gala of the best international competition. I remember I started one concert with Beethoven Romance and Paganini Le Streghe. In the first half was Boris Belkin and Mikhail Kopelman; the second half was reserved for Grindenko, Zhislin, Spivakov, Tretiakov—it was always three hours of music!

Q: Then, you became the first leader of the Moscow Virtuosi, Lyon Orchestra, and London Symphony?

I began my career around 1980 as the youngest member of the Moscow Virtuosi and first-prize winner of the Paganini Competition. I actually started from the last stand of the second violins! Step by step I moved up—sometimes we changed around—to the concertmaster seat. At the Moscow Virtuosi, I learnt a lot about chamber music, and it helped me when I moved to France to become the concertmaster of a huge orchestra.

At the beginning, I had zero experience playing larger symphonic works. I remember the first piece I had to learn was Bartok piano concerto no. 1. I put on the recording, tried to follow the first violin part—and got lost immediately within the first 5 bars! I felt desperate, but I pressed on. I took the score and started to work like a sound engineer. I learnt the entire piece—with all its interlocking parts—as a listener rather than a violinist. Violinists, I’m sorry to say this, are slightly deaf and blind; 99% of the time, we know only our own lines.

Q: What made you decide to go into teaching? 

You have to know that I started to teach when I was still in Moscow, so I’ve always been teaching. In 1993, I taught at Lyon Conservatory, and two years later, I was invited to the Paris Conservatory.

I think I’m always changing goals in music. I’ve always wanted to do different things—solo, chamber music, etc. After so many years of leading major orchestras in various countries, under illustrious conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, Colin Davis, and Gennady Rozhdestvensky, I decided to take a break in 2008. With pleasure, I still do some guest leading.

Q: About teaching, by what criteria do you choose a student?

There are many ways to teach, many ways to choose. I don’t accept pupils who consider me as a medicine, somebody who comes for a pill: how to fix this, how to win that. I choose pupils who are committed to work with me over the long term, always with the sincere goal of becoming a better musician.

I want for each pupil to be able to find his or her own place. He or she doesn’t have to win a competition or become a soloist—it could be quartet. For example, the Ebene quartet first violin is my pupil, the Belcea quartet second violin is my pupil, the Köln Radio Orchestra concertmaster is my pupil, I have three pupils in the Berlin Philharmonic. I also have a lot of students who are teaching at universities.

Q: Do you have any advice to help students to get into the best mental and physical condition before a concert or audition?

It would be so wonderful if someone could actually say how to deal with this. I think it’s difficult, and it’s a part of our life. The eight hours before a concert—you cannot imagine how huge the distance is between the morning situation and the evening stage situation. It’s scary, and you’re never sure how to deal with it. Eight hours, seven hours, five hours before the concert: Should you practice or should you sleep? Should you walk or should you do nothing? Just live like you are or like you’ve lived a day before!

The music should help you in performance—that’s why I learn the score so well. When I play a concerto, I don’t just play my own music. I play the score. You have to concentrate on the whole thing, including all the other parts. Don’t play for yourself, don’t imagine you’re alone. It’s a lie. You’re not alone, you have an audience in front of you. Don’t play for Brahms. He’s dead, I’m sorry. Play for your friends and for the audience. Share your experience with them. Sometimes, being nervous comes from narcissism: I’m so good, and I want to show you how good I am. Also—silence is very important. Listen to the silence, it accompanies you. Silence, it helped me when I was vulnerable. Now i’m not, but I still have it—playing in silence.

Q: What if something suddenly goes wrong on stage? How can you come back from it?

It’s terrible! I always say to my pupils—don’t react, don’t make faces. It’s in the past. It’s gone. If you can run ahead of the moment, if you can proceed with the general view, sometimes you wouldn’t even notice what happened. If you notice—try to see the next bar, the next phrase, it could help. Sometimes it can’t help. You have to live with it. It happened.

Q: What is your hobby?

My hobby is running. I used to run marathons, but all marathons are cancelled, and it’s so boring to run in an empty Paris. Maybe I have to switch to biking… Perhaps you could say that my current hobby is learning how to deal with all these online equipment. It’s a technical part of music-making. I didn’t think it was for me—but I started adjusting to the computer, and it became interesting!

Q: You were part of our faculty in 2019. Could you share your experience at our festival? What are you looking forward to this time online?

Definitely, it was an amazing experience, absolutely amazing! First of all, the student level was very high. The audience interest was also wonderful. I would have been happy to stay longer in Singapore. Unfortunately, all of us were so busy then. I could not see a lot of things—just one evening in the centre of Singapore. Next time, I will definitely spend more time exploring the city!

There is a special harmony between artistry and order which makes the Singapore Violin Festival one of my favourites. It is absolutely what I imagine a festival should be: you feel free to be an artist, yet there is a well-organised framework holding things together. And the hall is wonderful! Only sometimes it is too cold in the classroom…

I am looking forward to teaching the wonderful students at your festival online. I will try to give something special from myself and just imagine that I am teaching at your beautiful concert hall. I will imagine—it is just a little bit colder here in Paris right now :)