I come from a family of professional musicians, and it was always clear that I would do music. Moreover, because my older sister already played the violin, I wanted to do the same under any circumstances. Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?
My mother practised with me very often. When I left the Soviet Union at the age of 13, I finally discovered contemporary music. To me this meant freedom, and became the central mission of my musical life. But I guess nothing is easy in my career. I move forward the only way I know how to. The booklet β which I wrote together with my then 8-year old daughter and my husband β explains music history and my philosophy of interpretation as if to a child.
People perceive me as being at my best in recent and contemporary music, probably because in that repertoire nobody can tell me that I am wrong. But I do not see much difference between old and new music. I can play both well and not so well β and both at the same time. Well, it depends very much on the partners. I love this piece very much and will perform it often, for example with Berlin Philharmonic. What is central to me is the piece, the message. There are too many to name them all.
And then my piano partner, Polina Leschenko, not a musician, but a poet of colours and perfumes, technically on a level with Cziffra or a young Pogorelich.
She likes to practice and to play, she loves music, but everything is just for herself. She is not at all interested in a career, therefore only insiders know her. I try hard to get her out of her ivory tower. When you can play what you like, in the way you like and with whom you like. When you have attained that, you have to stay curious, reinvent yourself and your repertoire all the time to prevent yourself becoming bored or burned out. Gidon Kremer is a model of how to do this.
