Ahead of the 2019 Grammy Awards on 10 February, Intermusica spoke to James Ehnes about his recording of Aaron Jay Kernis’ Violin Concerto, which has earned two Grammy nominations (Best Classical Instrumental Solo Award and Best Contemporary Classical Composition).
The Concerto, written specifically for Ehnes, was commissioned by the Toronto, Seattle, Dallas and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras and the recording (featuring a live performance by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra with conductor Ludovic Morlot) was released last year by Onyx Classics.
Your friendship with Aaron Jay Kernis began after you asked him to write a piece for you over a decade ago. How has your friendship developed over the years and how did the Concerto come about?
The Proms got in touch in 2006 and said they wanted to commission a new piece for violin and piano. When you have something like this dropped on you unexpectedly, you want to make sure it’s the right choice and I wanted to make sure that this opportunity was not wasted. I had played some of Kernis’ chamber music before but because it was such short notice – it was around 6 months before the performance date – I thought there was little chance he’d say yes.
The way he responded was an interesting glimpse into his compositional process: ‘I’m glad you wrote to me because I have this violin and piano piece rattling around in my head and it needs to come out.’ One of the pieces of his that I had played before, Air, is very lyrical and beautiful and for the most part quite sparse so I guess I was expecting something like that. But instead, I got Two Movements with Bells that was significantly longer and much more complex. You never know what you’re going to get and I ended up with a major piece that I think is a really important addition to the repertoire.
A long wait
We didn’t actually meet in person until after the premiere but we became good friends through that process and before long we started talking about the idea of a concerto. Neither of us was sure how this was going to happen, but we thought if we talked about it enough, then it would happen! It took about 10 years but some of the orchestras that I am close with decided to take part in the commission. I think when these things happen there has to be a certain amount of serendipity.
‘Stroke of luck’
The recording happened by a stroke of luck. The Seattle Symphony Orchestra record their performances for radio broadcast and they have an excellent in-house producer and engineer. We realised they had taped the concert and it sounded pretty good! I think live recordings are at their best when they capture something of the immediacy of an occasion. There is one spot in the last movement when all hell breaks loose and I’m playing just about as many notes as I can along with a drum set (the drummer just happens to be an old friend). If we had performed it multiple times for a recording in a studio setting it would probably have been fine but I’m not sure we would have got that performance.
There was a lot of conversation about whether we edit out the applause or keep it in but I’m glad we kept it in because the piece needs to be experienced live and I think we managed to capture the feeling of being part of a performance.
What was the process of composing the work like? Were you involved at all?
I generally try to keep out of the way with commissions. The commission itself is the vote of confidence for the composer to do what they need to do. Everyone has a different attitude towards this but I have a suspicion that the more a performer is involved, the more there is a danger of the piece getting watered down and the ideas getting somehow corrupted. From a strictly technical sense, it’s always tempting to confuse something that is inconvenient with something that is impossible. There is a lot of stuff in the Kernis that is highly inconvenient! When he was sending me drafts there were times where I thought 'this can’t be done'! But rather than writing to him about it, I decided to stick with it and try to find a solution.
Adding to our 'bag of tricks'
If you look back historically, most of the great iconic violin concertos were thought to be unplayable when they were first written just because they were different. Think of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto for example. I can understand why an established violinist in his day, seeing it for the first time, would feel that it was impossible because there were things in there that hadn’t been done before. But now, the Tchaikovsky Concerto has furthered instrumental violin technique and it’s become part of our standard bag of tricks. If I can allow composers to find their own sounds, even though it might involve some inconvenient technical things, maybe it will play a part in furthering the development of violinist techniques.
How does Kernis do this in his concerto?
He is a tonal composer, yet his music can be highly chromatic and there is a density to his writing that requires very unusual shapes in the left hand. He also takes full advantage of the range of the instrument so I had to find solutions to new intervallic patterns and chords. And then there are passages that are just extremely fast! It has to become almost a reflex than an actual planned attack.
Extra effort
There were some bowing issues that needed to be figured out – things that on first glance you think ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get around this’ and certain things that cannot be learned slowly because the bowing technique has to work at a particular speed. There was a lot of detail – big leaps, fingers all on top of one another – but for a good reason as he creates sounds and textures that you don’t hear otherwise. What frustrates me is new music that finds really complicated ways to say something that we have heard a million times; but if one feels that extra effort is needed to communicate something that hasn’t been said before then I think that is really worthwhile.
Kernis wrote this Concerto for you – are there any moments in the work where you can see why he wrote it with you in mind?
I think more importantly, the piece is really him. There were a few things, for example the piece is really hard and I thought ‘I’m really flattered, Aaron, that you think I can play this!' I was curious as to whether he would have written this for a violinist he didn’t know. I don’t think he was really aware of how difficult the piece is. He was writing a concerto after all, a display piece, so there’s a certain amount of virtuosity that is implied in the genre but I think what's more important is that he wrote a piece that is very him.
Learning a new language
There were passages where, at the start of the learning process, I wasn’t sure what I was saying. It felt like I had learnt a language where I could speak the words but didn’t know the meaning of them. I remember playing it with him on the piano and admitting this to him and he said to me: ‘You’ll get there! You’re on the right path’. Then there were moments throughout the learning process and, even through that first performance in Toronto, when all of a sudden, clouds would part and it would be like – so that’s what’s that is about! It was a little stressful to have that feeling so close to the first performance! And yet it’s so rewarding when it all comes together.
You’ve performed the Concerto in the US, Berlin and Melbourne in the past couple of years; how have audiences received the piece when you’ve performed it live?
It gets a strong response from the audience because it’s an event – a kind of spectacle – it’s the type of piece where people come away feeling that they really want to hear the piece again. It works on an immediate level as there are such colourful textures and sounds and virtuosity, beauty and excitement but there is quite a bit going on with form and structure that I think is rewarded by repeated listening.
'Planting a seed'
I think of a composer like Benjamin Britten because often when I hear a piece by him for the first time I really need to go away and think about it. It plants a seed that grows over time. and I get a lot of comments like that with the Kernis – that people like it and want to spend more time with it.
Do you have anyone else in mind to write a work for you?
It’s nice that through my work with the Seattle Chamber Music Society we get to commission a new work every year. We’re premiering a piano quintet by Sebastian Currier this summer which I’m excited about.
There are a lot of composers around and these things can happen in unexpected ways. But before I move on to the next commission, I just want to make sure that I do everything I can to widen the reach of this piece which I feel is an important addition to the repertoire, and to which many people have dedicated a lot of time and commitment. Right now I think we’re in that fun stage with the Kernis of – what’s next?!
Update: Ehnes' recording received GRAMMYs for both Best Classical Instrumental Solo Award and Best Contemporary Classical Composition at the 61st Awards.
