In the Studio with Josef Suk and Vladimir Ashkenazy

BY MARTIN ANDERSON

It all started in a Chinese restaurant in Soho—the one in London, not New York. I was having lunch with Aleš Březina, director of the Bohuslav Martinů Institute in Prague. As you’d expect, we talked about Czech music, and in particular gaps in the recorded repertoire that I might usefully fill with CDs from Toccata Classics, the label I launched in 2005 specifically to release recordings of unknown music. I recently chalked up the 50th release; you can examine the catalog (by ear as well as eye) at toccataclassics.com, where almost everything is a first recording. Aleš and I pinged various ideas around: Kalivoda, Jan Novák, Ostrčil, Jeremiáš. … The name of Josef Suk—the violinist, not the composer—came up in the conversation, I forget in what connection. Suk is a musician whose work I have always esteemed: His EMI recording of the Bach solo sonatas and partitas, issued in 1972, was one of the first boxed sets I acquired with my own money, instead of by dropping hints to well-disposed adults. And no one has come near the classic account of the Brahms sonatas he made with Julius Katchen, released by Decca-London in 1967. But I hadn’t heard much about Suk recently and so asked Aleš how he was. He had officially retired, Aleš told me, but was still appearing in public on special occasions, especially when his presence might help promote his students. “He’s still playing wonderfully well, too, although he is not learning any new repertoire these days.” “Well,” I responded, “there’s hardly any important Czech violin repertoire that he hasn’t already recorded anyway”—and then an idea flashed into my head: “unless he might like to transcribe any of his great-grandfather’s songs.” His great-grandfather, of course, was Antonín Dvořák; his grandfather, the composer Josef Suk, married to Dvořák’s daughter. Suk is also the honorary president of the Prague Spring festival, and since Aleš was going to be seeing him there the following week, he promised to put the idea to him.

At the end of that week, sure enough, I got a text message: “Josef Suk is delighted by your idea to record a selection of songs by Dvořák in an arrangement for violin. Please call him.” I did so rapidly, of course, finding Suk a charming, unassertive man, calm and measured in his conversation. He has a reputation also as an outstanding violist, of course, and I made sure he knew my hope was that he might also transcribe some of the songs for viola. He wasn’t sure about the idea to begin with—but before long I discovered that he was so taken with it that he had had the composer’s own viola restored especially for the recording.

I didn’t presume to suggest which songs he might transcribe, or whether he should cherry-pick or tackle complete sets; the choice had to be his, not least since he needed to decide where a sung melody would work as an instrumental line. So I stood back for a few weeks while he worked his way through the songs and made his choice. During another phone call to discuss the project, he asked if I had a pianist in mind or should he organize someone in Prague? I asked: “Will Ashkenazy do?” There was a pause at the end of the line. “Er, yes, that would be OK!”

Vladimir Ashkenazy has been a friend since 1996. That’s when I began work on the text of a book by Allan Ho and Dmitry Feofanov, Shostakovich Reconsidered —a systematic examination of the veracity of Shostakovich’s memoirs, Testimony —which I, as Toccata Press (toccatapress.com), was going to publish. One of the contributors to the book, the late Ian MacDonald, had suggested that I write to Ashkenazy, since he had made no secret of his enthusiasm for Testimony . But serendipity produced a short-cut. That year I also edited for Gramophone the first of a short-lived series of publications called “Gramophone Explorations,” this initial issue examining the music of all five Nordic and three Baltic countries. So I was sitting in Arlanda airport, outside Stockholm, waiting for a flight to Tallinn where I was going to be doing interviews and research, when by chance Ashkenazy and his wife came up and sat beside me. “Ah,” I said, “I was about to write to you,” and explained why; he then whipped out of his bag an envelope containing an article, recently published in Russian, that he was intending to post to Ian. In it Flora Litvinova recalled Shostakovich telling her he was dictating his memoirs to a young musicologist from Leningrad. This was news—it was the “smoking gun” that confirmed Shostakovich’s collaboration with Solomon Volkov.

Ashkenazy took a strong interest in the progress of the book and eventually contributed the “Overture” that opens it. He also watched the evolution of Toccata Classics from stated ambition to fledgling label, perhaps a little incredulously at first, offering encouragement and his approval of what the label was trying to do. I told him once that what I really needed was a millionaire with deep pockets who approved of what I was trying to do and would be prepared to help fund the label in exchange for the opportunity of rewriting the history of music, at least to some small degree; if Ashkenazy bumped into anyone who might want to help, perhaps he could put in a word in my favor. No, he didn’t know anyone like that, he said—but he would be happy to record for me as a gesture of support. Naturally enough, I was gobsmacked and thrilled in equal measure, and as the Dvořák project began to solidify, I wondered whether he might be willing to partner Josef Suk; he agreed without demur.

With two of the world’s greatest musicians now lined up to record a CD of “new” music by one of its greatest composers, it was then merely a question of finding enough time in Ashkenazy’s schedule. Easier said than done: His every minute seems to be accounted for. Finally, though, he and Suk were able to meet and briefly work together, for the first time ever, as Ashkenazy passed through Prague briefly in August last year, and we were able to set aside three days at the beginning of September.

Meantime, I set about trying to raise funding to help meet the expenses of the recording—in the middle of a recession. Where I even did get answers from potential sponsors, which wasn’t often, they were negative. Eventually, I realized that if the recording was going to happen—and I could not let it not happen—I was going to have to take the strain myself, despite the shaky finances that are the inevitable lot of any small CD label, let alone one that specializes in unknown music; my credit cards are still taking the strain. Czech Airlines gave me a seat to Prague and back, and that was the sum total of the outside support.

The sessions took place on September 6–8, 2009, in the Bohemia Studios in Prague, run by the friendly and efficient figure of Pavel Nikl, a man who understands the tribulations of small labels, since he runs one himself (Bohemia Music, bohemiamusic.cz). The producer was Milan Puklický and the recording engineer Jan Lžičař, both models of quiet efficiency; the final member of the team was the piano-tuner Ivan Sokol, so dedicated to his task that Ashkenazy hardly had to stand up before he sallied out of the control room, tuning devices in hand.

The pattern of the three days was that I would pick up Ashkenazy—or Vova, as everyone calls him—from his hotel in a taxi, have a quick coffee with him and his wife, Dodi, if there was time, and take him to the studio. Josef was always ready, tuned-up and waiting calmly. He had turned 80 three weeks before the sessions but it was obvious from the first few minutes of casual warming-up that his technique was undimmed, and that the wonderful singing style of playing that I knew from those early recordings was still his natural mode of expression.

The first few takes, as always, revealed teething problems, chief of which was that in transcribing the vocal lines of the songs for violin/viola, Josef had left the piano part untouched and Vova, playing with his customary fidelity to the score, was generating the kind of volume that supported the human voice but rather overwhelmed the violin. Some experimentation found the right dynamic level, but it became a running joke for the rest of the day: Every time we went back into the control room after a take, Vova would ask: “Was I too loud?”

The remaining day-and-a-half went by without disruption, from one near-perfect take to another. Suk and Ashkenazy are seasoned professionals if anybody is, of course, and they simply got on with the job. Occasionally problems of balance had to be sorted out, and Vova pointed out one or two passages in the piano part that revealed that Dvořák was a string player, not a pianist; more often, it was a case of trying out different inflexions to see what might be more effective. What was surprising, repeatedly, was just how well Suk’s transcriptions work, how they reveal the essential beauty of Dvořák’s inspiration—often with the simplest of means, a run of three notes and a leap, that sort of thing, but producing one exquisite gem after another. (I would say that, of course: I have a CD to sell. So go to the page for the CD on the Toccata Classics Web site and listen to it for yourself.)

The bill of fare was the Zigeunerlieder , op. 55, the Love Songs , op. 83, and four other songs, including “Leave Me Alone,” the first of the Four Songs, op. 82, which plays an important role in the Cello Concerto; they were played on the violin. The 10 Biblical Songs , op. 99, Josef played on the viola—this was Dvořák’s own instrument—in the second part of the sessions. It’s not one of any outstanding lineage, an Amati or anything like that; it’s the work of an anonymous German from some time in the 19th century. But in Josef’s hands it sounded like the handwork of one of the great luthiers. (I confess that I did pick it up just so I could say I had held Dvořák’s viola.)

On the last day I remembered that Bach box as Josef was ambling into the control room to listen to one of the final takes. When I bought it, I said, “I didn’t imagine I would be working with you here 37 years later.” He greeted this statement of the obvious with the dismissive laugh it deserved.

The blank walls of the Studio Bohemia recording room bore only two large signatures, evidence of earlier activity. One was Rafael Kubelík’s, dating from 1993—if you have the Panton CD Kubelík Conducts Kubelík (81 1264 – 2 931), you can see it on the cover of the booklet, behind Kubelík’s waving arm. The other signature was Josef’s, written during an earlier visit, in November 2008. The recording team insisted that Vova add his, and so he did.

Vova and I left Josef in the studio with one last task to be undertaken: He was going to double-track himself, playing both violin and viola in “Captured,” the penultimate of the 12 Moravian Duets , op. 32, normally for soprano and mezzo. Since the two tracks were brought together after I had left Prague, I was unprepared for the effectiveness of the sudden two-part writing in the last of the 30 tracks on the CD; when I heard it on the first edit, I was both astonished and delighted—it’s like a final dollop of cream on the cake.

With everything in the can, I returned Vova to his hotel and thanked him (Dodi in the meantime, Iceland’s most noteworthy pianist until she went to Moscow to study and met her husband-to-be, had spent the past three days checking the proofs of a biography written about her—in Icelandic, of course). There was nothing left to do but call Aleš Březina and arrange a celebratory drink. And then back home, to prepare everything for the release. The final product exceeds my wildest expectations. But the final judgment, of course, is yours.