LDV42

28 BLOCH | ELGAR Did you work on Schelomo with Starker? He recorded a magnificent version with Zubin Mehta. A little bit, yes, but I already knew the piece. I mainly worked on the Elgar Concerto with him. That was fascinating, because he had met John Barbirolli in London. Starker was a very young man, and before being the great conductor he became Barbirolli had been a cellist. Starker didn’t fully understand this strange score; he played him the Concerto and Barbirolli explained all the psychological nuances, the expressive accents that go to make up its relatively secretive language. He passed this direct link on to me, and it gives you a different conception of the work. I don’t know if Starker knew Bloch, but for my part I met Bloch’s daughter several times: she came to hear me when I played From Jewish Life . Knowing her had a positive effect onme: I felt as if I was somehow in a communion of spirit with Bloch himself. Human proximity is very important; it’s one key to finding your way into a work. The cello writing in Schelomo is very unusual: this recitative style seems to be fairly unique. It’s also found, in a less pronounced form, in From Jewish Life . That’s a work I played when I was still very young, and since I’m Jewish myself, this music was as it were in the air around me. Over the years I’ve acquired the feeling of being somehow at home in this style, and so I wasn’t surprised by Schelomo , even if it’s a work that poses many more issues in terms of technique. You have to take into account the importance of the orchestra, the blend of timbres, the way all this fits together, how you can manage to make the instrument sound in the face of such luxuriant orchestration.