Page 22 - The Strad (February 2020)

Life lessons

Christian Poltéra

Having the space to breathe is important
in more ways than one, says the Swiss cellist

ere are good and bad
things about the speed
the world moves at today.
On the one hand, we didn’t
have the internet when
I was a student, so we didn’t have access
to YouTube videos of people like Pierre
Fournier and Emanuel Feuermann. You
can now watch and learn from these so
easily and I would probably have become
addicted if we had them at the time.
On the other, we expect people to
get things done so much more quickly.
It probably makes me sound like a
dinosaur, but there’s so much pressure
now to create a name, an image and a
story for yourself in an incredibly limited full steam ahead, not for just 30 or 60
period of time. Every few weeks, big minutes a week but a whole lot more.
labels sign new players and drop old We expect ere was chamber music, too, and every
ones who haven’t made them money Õ ÊÕ¼ ˅ãÊ ¢ ã year she would organise a summer school
with their €rst couple of discs – even the with students from other countries.
most talented young people are busy ã¨«Ã¢Ü Êà Meeting kids from places like South
trying to get the most followers on social Africa, Finland and the US as a twelve-
media. No matter how good someone is, ÜÊ˅Âè ¨ ÂÊØ year-old was so exciting, and it gave us
you can hear in their playing and see in a network of friends and colleagues
their body language whether they’re on ×è« ¹¼ú ÃÊô to draw on as we got older. Not many
stage to impress someone, rather than people are lucky enough to be guided by
serving the music €rst. someone like Nancy from the €rst time
I’m very lucky not to €nd myself in they pick up their instrument.
this situation. For example, I’ve been a real luxury nowadays – I can wait until
talking with my label about recording something is truly ready rather than I met Isaac Stern when I was about
the Beethoven sonatas for maybe seven feeling pressure to get it done in a short twelve years old and sat next to him at
years, but I still haven’t done it. at’s space of time. a dinner after I had played a short piece
in a charity concert. We didn’t have much
I took up the cello because I heard
in the way of a conversation but I recall
MAIN PHOTO NEDA NAVAEE. BOTTOM PHOTO DANIEL VASS soon also became mine, was Nancy the reason I remember this is because of
him telling me to listen to good singers
another boy playing it and fell in love
with the sound. His teacher, who
and copy what they did. I don’t know if
who he was or what he said, but I do
Chumachenco, who had moved from
know that he was right. If you teach a
the US to Switzerland with her husband,
the violinist Nicolas Chumachenco.
child to sing a tune they’ll never give it the
She studied at the Curtis Institute with
wrong shape or put the emphasis
in the wrong place. Just breathing
Leonard Rose and came to Zurich with
right makes your playing so much
a very non-provincial approach. Nancy
Poltéra performing in 2005
you were a talented student she would go
INTERVIEW BY TOM STEWART
22 THE STRAD FEBRUARY 2020 expected a lot right from day one, and if more natural and free. www.thestrad.com