Classical CRB App Content

Nathan Cole and Steven Ansell describe their collaboration, from blending their sounds to aligning their interpretations, in Mozart's Sinfonia concertante.

TRANSCRIPT (lightly edited for clarity):

Brian McCreath I’m Brian McCreath from CRB, and I’m here with Nathan Cole and Steven Ansell, Concertmaster and Principal Violist of the Boston Symphony, respectively. Nathan and Steven, thank you for a little of your time today. I really appreciate it.

Nathan Cole Of course.

Steven Ansell Happy to do it.

Brian McCreath You are the two soloists for Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante. I’m so curious about this piece because it’s one of the pinnacles of Mozart’s music, at least in the public mind. It just feels like something everybody loves. But we don’t want to take it for granted as just something you can toss off when you show up at Symphony Hall for the concerts that week.

Nathan Cole [laughs] That’s very funny.

Brian McCreath So let me ask you first about the process of how you approach this as a duo. Is it a piece that rewards discussion and close rehearsal? Or is there a sense that Mozart wrote it so well that it kind of falls into place by itself?

Steven Ansell Wing it! [laughter] That’s a very good question. As with any Mozart piece, it seems quite simple. There are not so many notes, the harmonies are mostly kind of standard. But funny enough, Mozart is such great music that you really have to work on it. And there are a lot of things in the violin part, in the viola part—we have freedom, but we’re playing the same music. So we probably have to talk a lot about articulations and where we’re going to put slurs and just character in general and how we’d like it to go.

Brian McCreath Nathan, tell me about your perspective on it and especially as the Concertmaster who’s relatively recently arrived, you’ve now been working with Steven for a while. Does your work in the orchestra and your chemistry there help inform how you’re going to approach this piece?

Nathan Cole For sure, and I’m grateful also for our time 
so far playing together in the Boston Symphony Chamber
 Players, because that’s really the most like what we’ll be 
doing as the two soloists. It’s a funny thing to have a double concerto where two solo lines, two concerto soloists, have to fit together as chamber music. I recently re-watched one of my favorite video recordings of this piece, by people that had undoubtedly played together a lot, and in the very first phrase there were a whole bunch of details that were just not done the same way, not together. I had never noticed that before but now what I’m thinking Steve and I are going to have to talk about this, that, and the other.

Steven Ansell We’ll see. A lot of times it’s best not to talk about it. Because after all, it’s a song without words, and I think Nathan and I will communicate very easily and well without saying that much.

Brian McCreath Would you like to play a little of the opening right now for us?

Steven Ansell Sure, we’ve rehearsed it extensively. [laughs] The first thing I was going to say is that one of our goals was to get together about a month before the concert to get an idea of how we’ll work together and what we’re going to do. And so, believe it or not, today was going to be our first rehearsal together.

Brian McCreath So this is the first rehearsal?

Steven Ansell There you go.

[MUSIC]

Brian McCreath What strikes me listening to you play, in these very nascent moments of your collaboration on this piece, is that, even with two very similar instruments, playing in octaves, you’re still searching or a common blend of sound. And you’re looking for a color; you’re developing a color before our very ears. And so, with this instrument you’re playing, Nathan, and that specific instrument you’re playing, Steven, tell me more about how you calibrate your ears and what that does to the way you play, the tension on your fingers or the bow to find that blend that you ultimately want to find.

Nathan Cole Well, now I’m never going to be able to do it again. {laughs] Our first entrance, we are playing in octaves, and in those cases, it works better for me to 
fit into Steve’s sound generally than the other way around. Because I mean, the viola’s going to make more sound.

Steven Ansell The funny thing is that when I’m playing it, I’d love to provide a great base for the violin sound, but the fact is that in his register, he’s still going to be more brilliant than the viola. What I try to do is blend into his sound. So, he’s trying to blend into my sound, I’m trying to blend into his sound. And actually, I thought it sounded pretty good.

Brian McCreath [laughs] Excellent. Nathan, tell me about what this piece does, how it’s built, what you have to do in comparison to the five violin concertos for solo violin that Mozart wrote.

Nathan Cole Well, the biggest difference is that I have another soloist to either—as we were talking about—blend with, or sort of push against, which is really fun. And I want to say, too, the best collaborations, I think, happen when two people come into a piece with really strong ideas. Do we discuss this and that before we play? If you try to approach music like this that way, you can box yourself in before you even get started. I think it’s always better to bring two strong viewpoints together. Hopefully they’re not completely dissimilar, but then that gives a basis for discussion and playing around. You know, in this piece as opposed to the violin concertos, it’s more obvious to me the difference in registers. If I play a line and then Steve plays it, they naturally are going to have different characters. In the violin concertos, that same sort of thing happens, but I have to create it myself and become the different voices.

Brian McCreath Is it technically in the same ballpark in terms of just getting around the instrument? Is it very similar in that way to the violin concertos?

Nathan Cole It is, although the key of E-flat is not as friendly as the keys of the three most popular Mozart violin concertos, G, D, and A. Those are all open strings. Speaking as a violinist, I will admit, it’s easy for us to creep sharp, sharp, sharp in a flat key like E-flat. So it’s good to be grounded.

Brian McCreath Go back to your work together in the Chamber Players and why that’s important for 
a collaboration like this. What is the process of playing with your colleagues in chamber music in that setting in terms of developing the language, developing the communication that’s necessary to play any music together?

Steven Ansell The more that you play different repertoire together – like a Brahms piano quartet and this piece by Carlos Simon and we play all sorts of different repertoire and –

Nathan Cole We played Mozart in the key of E-flat.

Steven Ansell Yes, in the key of E-flat, the string trio. The more you play together the more you sort of rub shoulders musically speaking, and there’s a sense of communication that develops.

Nathan Cole I think there’s the general understanding of what work style someone prefers. Is someone super fussy and they want everything tied up with a ribbon? That’s
 not Steve. I don’t think it’s me either. So, it’s good to know that and to be comfortable with that going in. Then there are just the small details that players would notice. You know, if we’re going to start something, this is what I’m used to looking at, this is what I’m used to hearing. And even extending to, okay, when the pressure’s on, what way does someone tend to lean? And then you’re ready for that. And it’s just, performance is more exciting. That means you don’t have to work everything out in advance because you can leave some things to the moment, knowing what tendencies someone may have.

Steven Ansell Right. Exactly. And that’s really good, actually. It’s really good to be able to be a little bit spontaneous. And I also wanted to mention that aside from the great joy and excitement that Mozart brings to the first movement, even though there’s a little bit of tragedy in G minor in the development [plays excerpt], the slow movement he wrote just after his mother had passed away is just one of those genius movements that takes your breath away. And then the presto that follows, he’s, you know, “well, life has to go on and I’m going to enjoy it.” It’s just so joyous. So, you have these big contrasts in feeling in the piece, and it’s fantastic. It’s just such a great, great piece.

Brian McCreath It sounds like you never get tired of playing it.

Steven Ansell Never.