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TerryM
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Posts: 402
(5/18/01 12:03:00 pm)
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Seeking Recent
info on Christine Walevska
I have been playing some of my older cello LPs this past week, while
I have been on vacation and have been listening to several recorded
by Christine Walevska (Walewska). She is a fine cellist, but
strangely, little information can be found on the WWW about her.
There is nothing listed in the ICS cellist pages and I have not been
able to access Cello Heaven to see if any biography or links are
listed there. She is portrayed in "The Great Cellists" by Margaret
Campbell as being born in Los Angeles in 1948, studied under
Piatigorsky, developed a successful career and then married and
moved to Argentina and that she, at the time the book was written
(1988), was living in Buenos Aires.
There is not much mention
on the WWW, other than to list some of her recordings that have been
re-issued on CD and some of her older LPs. One interesting site,
posted by a Prof. Fabio Uccelli, has an extensive analysis/review of
the Dvorak Cello Concerto. He states that Walevska's performance is
one of the finest recordings of the work and goes into an extensive
comparison with the recording made by Rostropovitch.
http://www.ing.unipi.it/~d5211/inglese/farewell.html
Another
page posted by Uccelli has a picture of Walewska on it, taken in
1997 at Dvorak's grave or memorial site.
http://www.ing.unipi.it/~d5211/inglese/farewell_intro.html
I
recall someone here, (Nicholas Anderson?) making some comments on
her recordings, some time ago. Does anyone know of her current
activity or recordings?
Terry
Edited by: TerryM
at: 5/18/01
6:15:14 pm
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Paul
Tseng ICS Staff 
Administrator
Posts: 1289
(5/18/01 1:30:10 pm)
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calling Nicholas
Anderson!
Paul Tseng
My Website
Alexander's Photo
Albums
Free Cello
Music!
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Nicholas
Anderson
Registered User
Posts: 66
(5/18/01 11:23:30 pm)
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Re: calling
Nicholas Anderson!
Hi Terry-
I do know a few current things about Christine
Walevska, and am happy to share them, for whatever it's worth.
Actually, I've posted about her on this board on a variety of
occasions, including in a recent thread about Kol Nidrei, and
another one about the Manchester thing that mentioned students of
Piatigorsky. Through an odd chain of circumstances, I've gotten to
know her personally; and I want to say at the outset that the
admiration I've come to have for her playing is not just because of
that friendship. I've known many cellists well, (including some
highly placed ones), who are not necessarily my "cup of tea" as
artists.
It happened this way. In the early 1990's my
brother, a concert pianist, moved to Buenos Aires, and he met her
there through musical circles. He initiated some further
conversations with her, because he and I were both fascinated to
know more about Bolognini, with whom she had studied extensively. By
the mid-1990's, she decided to move back to New York with her
husband, after living in Argentina for 12 years. Around the same
time, I moved to New York from California, and my brother put me in
touch with her. She and I hit it off well, and it's been a very
interesting musical experience for me. I had been well aware of her
since the early 1970's, when all her records hit the stores; but I
had never paid too much attention, which I guess I can only
rationalize by saying that she never moved in *any* of the same
cellistic circles I did - and then her career essentially
disappeared from view.
The reason you haven't been able to
find out much about her is that she's an odd combination of great
self-confidence and a lack of even the slightest interest in
self-promotion. She's an illustrious bundle of contradictions. She
lives on Fifth Ave. among the most influential "movers and shakers,"
and yet is exceptionally informal and accessible. She's been at the
top of the cello profession, and thinks in the most rarefied
artistic terms - and yet is remarkably unconcerned about the nuts
and bolts of the business. That probably had something to do with
her moving to B.A. in the early 1980's, even though it put her "out
of sight and out of mind" of the mainstream classical music world,
particularly the New York musical power establishment. Prior to
that, she had been on the Sol Hurok roster, with only three other
cellists - Rostropovich, Piatigorsky, and Yo-Yo Ma - which gives an
idea of the level at which she was taken seriously at one time, at
least in some places. But she was also very well known in Europe and
throughout South America, and she's maintained a number of those
musical contacts. So, for example, a couple of years ago she played
a series of concerts with Josef Suk in Prague, and was a soloist
with his chamber orchestra there.
I know that also a year or
two ago, she played the Dvorak with an orchestra in California, I
can't remember which one right at the moment. And in 1998, I was
involved with arranging the concert she gave for the New York Cello
Society, which was a cello and piano recital. For me, her playing
has certain very special qualities, and I've come to feel that she
brings some noteworthy artistic dimensions to it that are in a
"world apart" from what is taken for granted as the upper standard
of mainstream respected cello soloists, past and present. It's the
kind of thing that has made me question and re-think a lot of my own
assumptions about the "big name" players. She's now clearly at the
height of her cellistic powers - but is concertizing relatively
little. In today's musical climate, I think it would be quite
intriguing to see what would happen if she were more noticed; but
given her approach to the whole thing, and the way the concert world
works at this point, I'm not holding my breath for that.
The
Bolognini connection is interesting. He wrote, played and recorded
these fiery virtuoso pieces that Piatigorsky, Starker and everyone
else wanted, and he made it clear that he considered Walevska the
only cellist qualified to inherit and perform them; he dedicated
them and left them to her on the condition of a kind of "sacred
trust" that she never give the music to anyone else. She has honored
that, and is still the sole possessor of the scores. She played some
of them for her NY Cello Society concert, and it was ... unique! I
can see what Bolognini meant. It's *really* something worth hearing,
and I feel it's a genuine shame that more people can't.
The
Uccelli situation is another interesting controversy. For quite a
while I've been thinking of trying to get that link posted here, but
haven't gotten around to it. He makes some points that I think are
important to consider, and in fact his treatise would make a good
item for the ICS Library.
Aside from the influence of
Piatigorsky, Bolognini, and also Fournier, her principal teacher was
Maurice Maréchal at the Paris Conservatoire. He was certainly one of
those legends from another era. A distinct French quality can be
heard in her playing, but she definitely brings her own original
artistic voice and vision to it. She recorded the bulk of the
standard cello concerto literature in Europe on the Philips label in
the 1970's.
Anyway, there's a good bit more to it, but by now
you may know more than you wanted to know! One other Cello Chat
contributor who has known her well for a long time is Justin Kagan,
so he might be able to offer another perspective. A cellist who has
known her since childhood is Fred Zlotkin, since they grew up
together in LA - and of course he's a wonderful friendly person with
great resources of information, as well as musicianship! So, I hope
this helps, and I'm glad you brought up this thought-provoking
subject! All the best,
-Nick
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G
M Stucka
Registered User
Posts: 575
(5/19/01 12:13:05 am)
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THANKS to
Nicholas Anderson!
What a wonderful report!! Thanks for taking all the time to write
it up!!
I hope that Ms. Walevska might be amenable to being
interviewed some time. In addition to hearing about Bolognini, I'd
really appreciate learning more about another cellistic hero of
mine, Maurice Marechal.
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Nicholas
Anderson
Registered User
Posts: 67
(5/19/01 2:56:48 am)
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My
pleasure...
Glad you enjoyed it, Gary. Yes, I think such an interview would be
worth working on! That reminds me - she was interviewed for that
series called "The Way They Play," the Applebaum books, and it's
fascinating. In it, she goes through the entire score of Schelomo,
explaining her interpretation, fingerings and bowings, etc., and how
and why she does everything; that's one of the works she recorded,
and is one of her favorites pieces. I don't know which volume of the
series the interview is in, because I just have a photocopy of that
chapter.
Maréchal certainly was wonderful, wasn't he? I have
the LP in which he plays the Debussy Sonata and Lalo Concerto, which
I imagine you have (and more); but Christine has a huge assortment
of other recordings of him, and she also inherited a large portion
of his sheet music collection, with all his personal markings in the
music and so on. I've seen some of it, and it's extremely
interesting.
Anyway, best regards! -Nick
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KeithHall
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User
Posts: 49
(5/19/01 7:04:52
am)
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Walevska
What a very interesting post from Mr. Anderson.
I too am a bit
of a Walevska fan having owned her recordings of the Dvorak and
Bruch for over 20 years. She recorded them with Alexander Gibson who
was the conductor of the orchestra in the city where I grew up.
I
would love to hear her play and I would probably fly over the
Atlantic to do so...........please let me know if she ever has a
recital date Stateside.
This reminds me of a funny story of
when I heard Yo Yo Ma play three times in one week in different
cities around the world. I arranged a business trip so that I could
hear him in London, Hong Kong and Tapei all in a space of a week. I
met him after the Taiwan recital and mentioned that I had been
"following" him around the world that week, he looked at me
strangely for a second.....I thought he was going to call security
like I was some kind of stalker!!! He was a lot of fun to talk
too....a real nice guy.
Keith
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TerryM
Registered User
Posts: 404
(5/19/01 8:16:58 am)
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Thank You
Nicholas!
Thank you for a wonderful reply. I am always eager to hear more
about cellists of this caliber. I have spent many long and enjoyable
hours reading the various biographies of cellists and other
musicians. It is really through these artists that the cello and
musical literature lives and knowing about them and their lives,
their growth and struggles is a very important part of the evolution
of cello and music history. What a wonderful bonus that we have in
the recorded legacy that has been left to us, as well!
It is
so nice to hear that Christine is still playing and very great to
hear, so much, about a person whose playing I have admired for
years. How refreshing that she is not into the self-promotion
aspects of the music business and what a change from the super-hype
of today's "marketplace." That she has survived being at the top of
the music business and yet, still has her musical and artistic
sensibilities so well grounded, speaks very highly of her. Somewhat
sad, however, that she is, as you say, "clearly at the height of her
cellistic powers" and yet does not concertize to any great degree.
I, too, would very much like to hear her play.
I would be
interested to hear more about the Uccelli "controversy" and I think
that both an interview for ICS and a biography of Christine Walevska
on the ICS site would be very appropriate and welcomed.
Thanks again for an insightful (as always)
post.
Terry
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