Freedom and a certain cheekiness

NZ Herald·

20 Mar, 2015 04:00 PM4 mins to read

Violinist Janine Jansen says New Zealand comes highly recommended. Photo / Harald Hoffman

Dutch violinist is hoping to do more than play music on her first visit

On Friday, Janine Jansen is guest soloist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra for its first Town Hall concert of the year, playing Tchaikovsky. Her husband Daniel Blendulf is conducting. The pair are about to launch three evenings of the Brahms Concerto in Sydney when we chat. The Dutch violinist redefines friendly, her voluble conversation peppered with breezy "ja's" and much use of the epithet "wonderful".

"I've been in Sydney twice before," she says. "The last time was six years ago and it's especially great to be here now with my husband."

Jansen's New Zealand visit next week is her first and, spurred on by her colleagues' praise of our "wonderful nature", they are staying on after their two concerts "to explore the South Island".

After that, she returns to Europe, via Kuala Lumpur and San Francisco, playing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto 10 times on three continents.

Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto is a favourite, and her 2009 recording with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Daniel Harding is one of the best available. Fans of the Russian composer have appreciated it, including his Souvenir d'un lieu cher, arranged for violin and strings by Alexandru Lascae. The concerto has many memories for Jansen, going back to her first performance, with conductor Valery Gergiev.

"It was at a festival and we didn't have much time for rehearsal," she recalls. "Just one run-through, two hours before the concert. I was very nervous but Gergiev was so amazing and it went beautifully."

She made her London debut in 2002, playing Tchaikovsky again with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy. "The conductor was supposed to be Yevgeny Svetlanov but he passed away a couple of months before the concert. Ashkenazy took over and later invited me to so many other places. I debuted in the States with him, playing Cleveland and San Francisco, in Japan and Australia with the Dvorak Concerto in 2009."

The original Philharmonia concert also attracted "many people from the record companies," she adds. "You could say that it all somehow came together."

Jansen has become one of Decca's topline recording artists, although her repertoire does not take too many risks, sticking firmly to the mainstream. Yet familiar works still retain their freshness for this violinist. Tchaikovsky's Concerto is a "great joy, whether I'm doing it for the fifth or hundredth time", she points out.

She singles out its final movement for the way in which it can change so much, depending on the combination of soloist, orchestra and conductor. "It's extremely rhythmical and should always be on the edge," she explains. "However, there is still freedom there and a certain cheekiness. You sense a real unity of purpose between soloist and orchestra, sometimes almost putting each other off and then coming back together again."

The concerto had already come up in our conversation, when Jansen spoke of the delights of chamber music when she was a young violinist in Holland.

Her teacher was always putting ensembles together, she laughs. "For her, it was so important that we listened and reacted to one another; after all, that's what music is all about. It's the same whether you're playing a piano trio, a string quartet or the Tchaikovsky Concerto. Sometimes I talk about the concerto as being like making chamber music, because it requires the same detailed response between the musicians."

I can't resist asking whether she has any personal idols among the great violinists of the past. The name of the late Ginette Neveu comes up, but she finds it "difficult to put her appeal into words. Perhaps there should always be a little bit of a mystery?

"For me, it's always a matter of emotion. As music is all about singing, one should try to come as close to the human voice as possible. It's like reaching right into the soul."