Ahead of the release of her latest album, Speak, Memory, a compilation of works for solo violin by Lera Auerbach, Danish violinist Christine Bernsted shares some insights about her artistic choices and process, getting involved with works by a living composer who keeps drawing her close.
The album shares its title with the memoir of Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov. First published in 1951, the collection of essays dedicated to his wife, Vèra, looks back on life in pre-revolutionary Saint Petersburg after he escaped to America in 1940. Perhaps in association with her own defection from Soviet Russia in 1991, Auerbach recycled the title in 2010 for her violin and piano piece Speak, Memory, previously championed by various violinists, including Hilary Hahn. Featured on the recording in its arrangement for solo violin arrangement, it receives its premiere:
“With a tempo marking of Adagio tragico, it vividly evokes memories of youth as observed from a distance. A short pizzicato upbeat ushers in an intense, lyrical dialogue between two close-knit parts in regular counterpoint. Their exchange, punctuated by more pizzicato, cuts to the purity of a single line, frozen in time as the memories end,” describes Ben Hogwood in the album’s liner notes.
For the album's digital release, Bernsted liaises each track with a set of filmed videos by Elena Belevantseva, visually corresponding to the shifting moods and melodic colors of Auerbach’s works. Produced with great sensitivity, the overarching multi-media effect successfully enhances the imagination’s landscape while demonstrating the particularities of each sound and visual domain.
The decision of the internationally acclaimed artist to create a whole album revealing the pure musical pursuit of the solo violin, unaccompanied by the piano, chamber music, or an orchestral setting, points to a particular vision, which Bernsted finds in the “unique temperament, intensity, and strong drive of Auerbach’s music. The works for solo violin have the unique qualities of both intensity and intimacy with a dark reality as their premise,” she says.
To achieve a fuller sound, solo violin compositions, harking back to the genre's masterpieces by Bach and Vivaldi, often feature technically complex double stops and chords and add virtuoso interest.
To a certain degree, this is also evident in Auerbach’s grand composition Par.ti.ta, initially commissioned by violist Vadim Gluzman in 2007, and Lonely Suite, both recorded by Bernsted in the spring of 2024.
“Particularly interesting to me is that each piece has a complexity, like an illusion in a kaleidoscope, where a mood can quickly develop in an unpredictable direction. It’s never the “easy choice” but always adds “a secret spice.” She explains.
“The compositions Lonely Suite and Par.ti.ta were like compact “bouillon cubes” where you go to the very edge of each feeling. It's always an interesting, convincing statement, and, therefore, super interesting for me as an artist. In the rehearsing/studying process, I used most of the time to enhance and polish my interpretation of those feelings,” she laughs.
“How can I technically achieve and express those characters and feelings best? I explore and test a lot to get to the core of the feelings, e.g., the humor, fury, or boredom, to reflect the titles of each movement. If I change this technical aspect, what does it do to…Experiment with different phrasings and tempi, always with the long horizontal lines in mind.”
The album follows on the heels of Bernsted’s 2023 recording of Auerbach’s 24 Preludes for violin and piano—like Speak, Memory, also released on the Naxos label—with her duo partner, pianist Ramez Mhaanna.
24 Preludes had garnered Bernsted praise for her “unwavering energy and stylistic breadth” (2023 Pizzicato Magazine, Luxembourg) and both performers’ “utmost commitment, technical and artistic brilliance” (2023 Fanfare). Still, passionate curiosity drove the decision to explore Auerbach’s all-at-once powerful and poetic soundscape.
Upon her first encounter, Bernsted was especially taken with the distinctive intimacy and vulnerability of Auerbach’s T’filah, which opens the album. Remarking on the piece’s “sense of timelessness and intensity,” she describes it as the heart of the entire album.
Composed by Auerbach in 1996, T’filah loosely translates as the Hebrew word for prayer/worship, relating to the Soviet-born artist's Jewish roots. To comprehensively portray it in performance, it became imperative for Bernsted to understand that connection:” I listened to the recitation of Jewish prayers. The culture has such a big tradition of words and music that gets under the skin. I tried to read Hebrew prayers, putting the words on top of the musical lines to envision the meaning, playing it like a song,” she describes.
That is an exciting way to stimulate imagination and widen the choice of possible interpretations one wants to express in musical terms. While she uses titles as an initial hook, leaving room for differing interpretations rather than creating statements, as a published author and prizewinning poet, any conceptual connection between text and music is an essential interpretative key element to Auerbach’s music.
Getting close to meaning is essential for Bernsted. To understand the composer’s intentions and realize a version close to the music's original intent for the performance to become convincing. “For sure, it's crucial to have an emotional connection to the music, “ says Bernsted, “but I also need to understand why she composed it that way. “
“I also greatly respect our violinists' tradition coming from the “Golden Age,” many of whom were Jewish,” she adds. Having studied with Prof. Boris Kuschnir in Vienna, I listened to many of them,” mentioning Milstein, Menuhin, and Oistrach.
Many of this generation of iconic classical musicians also emigrated—like Auerbach—from the Soviet Union. " The fact that Auerbach is Jewish [and has been one of the last emigres from the Soviet Union] connects her to that tradition” and, one may add, that musical language embedded in Russian and Jewish cultural history.
What also worked well for Bernsted’s process was that Auerbach, whom she contacted through a mutual friend, gave her “blessing” for the recording and thanked Bernsted for reaching out, saying she was looking forward to hearing the final product. “She was not that attached, trusting me, as a performer, instead of insisting on hearing the music performed in a certain way, beyond what’s written on the page,” explains Bernsted.
That would not have been possible with the traditional classical repertoire of composers of previous music generations. “Also, when I contacted her through the publisher, this time for the premiere of the solo version of Speak, Memory, she was pleased, which was encouraging. I don’t like intimidation. I do the research, but then I can let go and enjoy expressing myself individually, using my colors and personality; that makes for the essential freedom of performance,” she shares.
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