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Christine Walevska: The Passion of Musical Communion

(Interview by Pierre-E. Barbier)

Being a Cellist and a Woman

Everything about this young, tall, and slender woman, an image of sincere integrity, is a subject of astonishment! For music lovers sensitive to the singing of the cello, it is enough to know that Christine Walevska’s style is built on an innate sense of improvisation, where expression takes precedence over technical demonstration—a striking quality in any work, known or unknown. This gives the score a new, spontaneous, lyrical character, where the nervous tension of the cello does not appear through the cold respect for the spirit of the score. The modern cello school is not without purism, often prioritizing technique to the detriment of sensitivity, having lost the memory of those "character" interpreters such as Casals, Feuermann, or Piatigorsky... With Walevska, minor works by Tchaikovsky, Glière, Martinů... find their true dimension, her cello becoming by turns a harp, a cymbalom... singing and human...

Tour Coverage

Female cellists who have reached the zenith of international soloists, known to all, are extremely rare: Raya Garbousova, and a few years ago, Zara Nelsova, Reine Flachot... and Jacqueline Du Pré, who, due to a relentless and painful illness, has retired from the international scene after asserting herself with the brilliance of a Pablo Casals.

At the mention of these names, which would make many others pale with jealousy, Christine Walevska only evokes common memories, the evenings spent with Rostropovich in Yugoslavia, with Starker... showing the admiration and friendship she holds for them. For Christine Walevska is not the prisoner of any chapel. She is always available, immediately accepting to play with and for those who love her for who she is. Her only aesthetic joy is to share it with others. Sensitive, easily bruised, she nonetheless remains conscious of her responsibility as an interpreter, a bridge between the music she loves to live and that she wants to make others love, for audiences as diverse as those at Town Hall in New York, the students of the Halle aux Grains in Toulouse, or the residents of the shantytowns of Lima. To all of them, she communicates an inner flame—natural, imbued with simplicity and enthusiasm.

For the Love of a Father...

PB: But how can you, in such a spirit of apostleship, lead a career that is as exhausting and artificial as that of meetings, planes, or concerts? For me, these are two moments where "the current doesn't pass," where it is a choice between worldliness or fatigue. How can you stay true to this generosity towards your father for whom you have been playing since forever?

CW: I only want to remember the positive moments, those where "the current passes," whether in friendly gatherings or concerts. Because I owe this generosity to my father, for whom I have been playing since and for always.

PB: Was your father a musician?

CW: Better than a musician! Because my education and my joy of living come from him. I hold for him a true veneration. Yes, I even left my hotel in Munich, when my mother called me to say he had gone blind one night in November 1966. I took the first plane for Los Angeles and left the stage immediately. I stayed by his side, forgetting already three years of an essentially German career. During those difficult years, he had promised to come to Germany to support me, to come see me after every concert, the truth. And above all, I would have known for whom I was playing, and for what reason I was so far from my own, imposing myself upon musicians, conductors, and audiences whose reflexes, joys, and worries I did not yet discern.

Today, nearly ten years after his death, I am doing nothing but keeping the promise I made to my father: "to play with all my passion so that I am capable of making people love the music I love, making an audience vibrate to pull them out of their ugliness, their weaknesses, their lack of love."

PB: With such a passion for the beautiful and the true, how did you impose yourself on your masters, first of all, and then on your audience?

CW: Yes, it is a perpetual search for confidence, not naive or primary, but a deep, shared, lived knowledge of a message that one transmits.

PB: And your training? Gregor Piatigorsky didn’t say that he found himself in you, taking you in as a student, a very rare occurrence in the career of the great musician who has just passed away?

CW: Yes, my training, I owe it to my father, to Piatigorsky, who revealed to me other things by insisting on our common, Russo-American traditions. It was he who sent me to the Conservatoire de Paris, to Maurice Maréchal’s class.

...And a Certain Tenderness for France

PB: Wasn’t it Maréchal who said to you, after your competition prize: "Christine, forget everything I’ve told you; if, in Beethoven's sonata, you suddenly feel like playing like... do what seems right to you at the moment!" I believe such advice was not only rare but incredible coming from Maréchal, a rigorous man for whom Beethoven was a God!

CW: Yes, I owe it to Maurice Maréchal for having learned the technique of the French school after the cello school, incomparable since Duport! I have effectively contracted a debt toward France that I would like to repay in my own way. Yes, my father wrote to General de Gaulle to thank France for the free education I had received. Your President replied with a handwritten letter. How do you think I could thank your country, which is a bit mine too? I am so happy every time I can play and stay here.

PB: The French school of cello is still as vibrant, and the musical and pedagogical testament of Maurice Maréchal continues...

CW: Do you believe that one day the Paris Conservatoire would call upon my services, allowing me, in an obviously free capacity, to return what your country taught me?

PB: I hope such a wish will be granted, but I am sure, by the way, that our young virtuosos to come would be largely your debtors!

Unstructured Music

PB: But what are your projects?

CW: I have just recorded for Phonogram the Vivaldi Concertos with Kurt Redel. I was able, with this great flutist and German conductor, to restore the accentuation, the style of ornamentation proper to this magnificent Baroque music, stripping away, I hope, the traces left by the catastrophic 19th century on its scores and its particular rhythm. I am also planning to record an album of "encores," of encores for you, where I could pay tribute to Piatigorsky and introduce parts of Boldonini, including the six South American pieces, sublimely for the cello, and the vivacity of an authentic folklore, but where the inventions of a Kodály or a Stravinsky are also present.

PB: Through your temperament itself, does today’s music limit your thirst for sensitive, immediate communication?

CW: I admit that I want to deeply understand what I play. That’s why I don’t play the literature of the 20th century, other than Prokofiev, Khachaturian... and Martinů, whose planes often fly far from our recent encounters. The technique I use makes me focus on the modern school, illustrated by masters of the class of János Starker or Siegfried Palm. Every time you listen to an interpreter for the second time, I know who is playing. But when you hear the Ysang Yun Concerto, can the interpreter feel immediately concerned, forced to impose a work where the message is more for the mind than for the senses?

PB: I believe nonetheless that there are first-rate performers who are dedicated to contemporary music. Siegfried Palm plays the role of a catalyst: he has provoked the creation of works that composers of today would not have dared or succeeded in if Palm had not been there to assure them they would be played. I persist in believing that a work like the Haffter Concerto would take on a new dimension under your bow!

CW: Perhaps! Mais, for the moment, I would like to play the Martinů Concertino.

PB: Will you make a career in sonatas, with a pianist like Claudio Arrau, who writes with all the admiration he has for you?

CW: I give recitals with piano, like the one you heard in Prague in May 1974. In America, I call upon an immense musician, based in Venezuela, Martín Imaz, with whom I get along spontaneously. During a tour in Japan, I saw tears streaming down Imaz’s face, so much was he moved by the music. If I were to play in Paris, I know many pianist friends who would allow me to produce myself. Music in the chamber is not lacking for me, but I love it just as much for the interest I take in playing with others as for its audience, which is often more restricted.

PB: In conclusion, does this passionate solo career allow you to keep your enthusiasm?

CW: Yes, if I had the impression of being understood, even if the sometimes artificial character of musical life does not tarnish an exciting profession, when you have the impression that you have brought something! At the moment, I am anxious, worried... I had to change cellos; the Carlo Bergonzi you heard in Haydn, Schumann, and Saint-Saëns was stolen from my New York apartment, as well as all my father's bows, except one, which by chance bore the stamp of Napoleon I...

PB: Does this tension inhabit you every time you go to give a concert?

CW: Yes, but it's part of my profession.

Christine Walevska, a female cellist with a temperament both generous and mystical facing the realism of today's world, returns to her new instrument.

Other Reviews

 

The lovely looking superb cellist Christine Walevska proved herself to be in the highest level of knowledge and finesse of the style (Boccherini). Her success was acknowledged with stormy applause.

Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung

 

The sonority of her notes is beautiful and polished; her musicality is innate; her technique is the product of a natural ability cultivated to the highest degree. She knows how to govern a generous temperament with intensity and elegance simultaneously harmonizing the most noble cavata with dramatic eloquence whenever necessary. 
–Ricardo Turro, La Razon, Buenos Aires

In the Concertgebouw, Christine Walevska proved to be nothing less than a revelation. A magnificent musician, the flowing melodious charm of her inner-propelled playing was laced with an intensity which not only spurred the orchestra and conductor to excellent performance, but also held the public under her spell. 
–Het Parool, Amsterdam

A strikingly talented artist. Her tone was as smoothly gracious as that of an ensemble. Her style was strongly expressive. 
–Raymond Ericson, The New York Times

“Walevska’s Cello Ignites Pair of Haydn Concertos” 
Something beautiful has happened to the cello. Her name is Christine Walevska. This American cellist is one of the joys of music making today, and in the realm of her own instrument there are few active performers who can even approach her art. 
–Lawrence B. Johnson, Milwaukee Sentinel

It requires a Paganini-like virtuosity to bring it off (Chopin), and that Miss Walevska undoubtedly has. She ripped thru the piece with a zest that I have rarely heard equaled by anyone on the concert stage. 
–Jacob Siskind, the Gazette, Montreal

She parallels on the cello the singular persuasiveness of Fritz Kreisler on the violin. 
–Los Angeles Herald-Examiner

“Extraordinary Sonority of Christine Walevska”
…sensational cellist, her interpretation of the Dvorak was perfect, her virtuosity is of the very first order. 
–El Heraldo, Mexico City

“Fascinating Playing by Christine Walevska” 
Her tone was extraordinarily beautiful, engrossing from start to finish. Her playing was captivating. Visually her playing is of the utmost simplicity, the trademark of her performance. 
–Twentsche Courant, The Hague

“An Alternative To Rostropovich” 
Christine Walevska’s technique is stupendous. She plays with long singing phrases and noble tone. 
–Reinhard Beuth, Die Welt

“Die Walevska ist ein Phanomen auf dem Cello” 
Walevska was a real sensation. She played with such deep musicality and transporting impetus that her audience applauded frantically….the aggressive vivacity of her playing and the unfolding of such powerful musical energies constituted a unique event. A real triumph. 
–Landeszeitung, Hannover

…one of the warmest standing ovations we have ever seen in our media. She obtains a sonority with her admirable bow technique that exalts. Instead of producing sound, sang with a deep and emotive sentiment. Something that escapes the common. This is an artist who will touch the world with that art, which she controls in such and elevated way. The most exquisite poetry of the music seems to incarnate her. 
–Papel Literario, Caracas

It may be that it is unfair to other cellists to be as lovely to look at as is Christine Walevska, but that is their misfortune and our luck. She plays her richly toned instrument with lyricism, tenderness and grace, and the entire concert ended an evening of ripe cello artistry. 
–Edmund C. Wilkes, The Japan Times, Tokyo

This woman has much presence and allure. She plays the cello admirably and the tableau is perfect. In these works of Vivaldi and Couperin she proves exquisite qualities off sound and musicality. 
–Claude Pascal, Le Figaro, Paris

Also as a superstar on the podium, the soloist with the Dortmund Philharmonic, Christine Walevska played the Boccherini Cello Concerto without the disturbance of traditional routine and virtuosic mannerism, but in an ideal togetherness with the orchestra of distinguished Chamber music making. A brilliant solo cello encore followed thunderous applause. 
–Ruhr-Nachricten

“Brilliant Playing by Christine Walevska” 
… she enjoyed a huge and well-deserved success with the Schumann Concerto, playing superbly in matchless fashion, technically flawless, and with temperamental abandon. This concerto is avers to virtuoso display, because the only valid performance must be based on purely poetic concepts. This was clearly the aim of this great artist. In the truest sense of the word, she held the audience spellbound from the first note to the last. 
–De Rotterdammer

… she displayed an inordinately high degree of both technical skill and interpretive stylishness. Her tone was remarkably rich in the lower register and unusually full in the upper; and her phrasing was superb. 
–Roy M. Close, the Minneapolis Star

Skrowaczewski’s guest artist, Christine Walevska...played with a big tone, technique to burn and plenty of temperament. 
–St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minnesota

She tore into the bristling fireworks of the piece with immense spirit. Such compositions by definition, seek to exploit all the technical razzle-dazzle of an instrument. Miss Walevska met every challenge with ease. 
–Paul Hume, Washington Post

Despite her youth Christine Walevska is among the world’s greatest artists. Her playing transports us. We no longer carry life’s weights: this is interior flight, the soul’s rejoicing, language of love…She is a unique cellist, “irrepertible”. 
–Leopoldo Chiappo, La Prensa, Lima, Peru

Hats off to Christine Walevska…her intonation and rhythmic articulation are unerring, and her tone is warm without ever becoming soupy and self-indulgent…I found her playing full of warmth and strength in the best sense of the word. 
–David Hall, Stereo Review

“Cellist, Philharmonic Superb” 
The young woman on the stage “could have been Miss America” someone in the audience remarked last night. But if Miss Walevska possessed physical attractions, they were surpassed by her musical performance. Walevska with superb backing from Zinman, captured all the romanticism of Dvorak, projecting the passion without ever overdoing it, lending poetic touches and, in the long coda of the finale, making it sound as though she and the composer were trying to describe heaven. 
–George H. Kimball, The Times Union, Rochester

Quite directly this is one of the top cello recordings in the catalogue. Miss Walevska has an extraordinary sensibility to expressive content, yet she never forces the point. There are elegance and dignity at every turn. Her passion is one of inner longings, not overt displays of emotive exaggerations. To this add a singing tone, variety of color and total technical control. 
–Heuwell Tircuit, San Francisco Chronicle

Miss Walevska’s playing of the Prokofiev is thrilling. She gives it a wonderful and luxurious performance. A marvelously gifted artist. I love her playing. 
–Enos E. Shupp, The New Records

“Evening filled With Joy in the Concert Hall” 
Walevska’s cello tone is sensuously song-like of rich quality. She was the great surprise of the evening, and artist we want to her more of. 
–Lief Aare, Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm

In the Dvorak, the wide lyric passages became unusual experiences through the grand and luscious sound she produces on her beautiful instrument. Summarizing we must say rarely did we hear the concerto played with such intensity and power of expression. 
–Runschau am Rhein, Bonn

… Revealing interpretation … finesse, power and virtuosity. A beautiful discovery. 
–Paris Match

Walevska who conquered the Santiago public on previous visits, continue to confirm her exceptional talents: stupendous facility, beautiful and convincing phrasing, sonorous, graceful and sensitive expressivity. 
–El Mercurio, Santiago de Chile

Walevska’s cello tone was unfailingly rich and warm, the pitch was right on the button even in tricky passages and she had a broad range of color and spirit with which to vary her interpretations. The recital of this first class artist was a pleasure from every standpoint. 
–Allen Hughes, The New York Times

It is rare for a critic to feel the icy fingers of an instrumentalist’s playing on his spine, but I did when listening to this recording of the Schumann and Shelomo by Christine Walevska. The effect of being moved deeply is in a way an icy experience…There is that masterful technique of hers that leaves nothing to be desired; there is that marvelous bow arm; there is that pure, warm, melting tone that can bite and cut when needed. There is a creamy caressing in here tone and yet there is an unforced inner intensity that few instrumentalists can muster. The romantic Schumann Concerto engages her extraordinary elegance of projection, besides her virtuosity. And her playing of the elegiac parts is so full of heart and dignity that you get the shivers listening to them. 
–Boris Nelson, president of American Critics Association

“Cellist Creates Furor With The Rotterdam Philharmonic” 
The big event of the final evening Philharmonic concert in De Doelen was the appearance of cellist Christine Walevska. She is a thorough artist with a wholly individual approach to the cello. She plays with unexcelled tone and sincere musical dedication. Each musical idea becomes through her a magnificent thrill and sublime inspiration. Schumann’s Concerto she played with deeply moving temperament, wholly controlled, and in exemplary collaboration with the Rotterdam Philharmonic under Fournet. 
–Rotterdam Het Parool

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