Courchevel

Last summer, I came back to Europe from Japan, where the heat was over 35℃ in midsummer.

My next trip was to the master's classes in the French Alps, which I visited for the first time. I asked a friend who had already been there, "How are things? How is the weather? Is it hot or cold?" To my surprise, the answer was "It snowed in the mountains yesterday. It is 1850m above sea level." I couldn't imagine how it was. I departed with sweaters and the like. My children stayed at home this time. I felt like summer was already over.

I travelled for 8 hours, changing trains. Travelling by train in France seemed very inconvenient as compared with the efficient Shinkansen system in Japan. Stairs are high. It is already a task to get into a train, bringing a big suitcase and my violin. The suitcase was sizable to cope with a 10-day trip. The compartments were old; I had almost forgotten the existence of such a thing. You could open the windows! It was not as old as SL, but it might bring a taste of nostalgia for those who like old things,. There was neither food, drink nor restaurant. It was cumbersome to change trains. I must be very spoiled by modernization.

As I approached the mountains, the temperature went down. I changed trains three times and each time I put on an additional sweater. I thought that it might be true that there was snow on the mountains. After a long while, I finally arrived at a nearby station. Then I took a taxi for about one hour. I thought I finally arrived at my destination, when I saw a sign for Courchevel, but the car did not stop. The height is 1,350 meters above sea level. The car went on, climbing winding mountainous roads. The gigantic mountainous scenery of the Alps was getting dark, and I felt anxiety not knowing where I was going. I started feeling lonely. At the point of 1,650 meters above sea level, I thought I had arrived, but the car did not stop.
I then remembered that my friend said it was 1,850 meters above sea level. After a while, I finally arrived at Courchevel. I gave a big sigh of relief.

I heard piano sounds from various directions, so I was sure that I had arrived at the right destination. It really was a long journey.

My friend Philippe was giving lessons to the students, because I was arriving late. Philippe Graffin is also a major player in "Ensemble Consonance", and one of the few violinists with whom I often perform together recently. His approach and the way of playing are quite different from mine, but this is one of the merits of "summer master classes". Students must find it stimulating for their practice.

Needless to say, it is only possible because I highly evaluate his music without reservation. Our approaches are different, but our destinations through music are similar. This is an inevitable factor. Students would be confused if they were taught by any teachers just because they are famous. On top of that, the teachers themselves might not try to teach seriously, if they think the students might go elsewhere and play with different styles. These days, I see many students who are shopping around for teachers. When I act as a judge in a contest, there are many participants who have backgrounds with so many teachers, who raise the question of how they manage to take lessons from these teachers at the same period time-wise and place-wise. In most cases these participants do not succeed in winning the first prize, though they may get second or third prize.

Today is a time of excessive information. Choices are far wider than before, but it makes the proper choice even more difficult. There is no general theory about how to choose.
I recommend that students stick to one teacher and to do solid training for several years. Then, one may look for a new teacher, a different world. The act of playing the violin is so complicated when it comes to how to use fingers and bows, and it is not possible to change methods quickly. It is even more so for a student who is in the learning stage. It can be fatal if one hesitates even for a second, thinking "which way I should play?" In short, one makes mistakes because of learning different methods.

Martha Algerich often says, "If one practices 200%, then one may perform 80%". As if oiling the parts of a car carefully, one should train one's body and hands thoroughly.
The stage is a place to deliver a performance. But it is also a place to recognize these dangers. We often say this concert is a practice for the next. This continuity is the essence of a professional musician's life.

Well, how is life in Courchevel? It is a life of teaching, while going up and down the mountains of a height of 1,850 meters. I am walking around the mountains, holding the instrument with labored breath. It might be good for my health, but I had a difficult time adjusting from the heat and humidity of Japan to the cold and dry weather. It is so cold that we need heating in the mornings and evenings, and the humidity is a little less than 20%.
On top of that, taking care of master classes is heavy work for teachers. I give lessons for more than half a day, I need to perform at concerts, and I have to practice for my performances as well.
Besides this, there are midnight conversations with colleagues, fellow teachers and violinists, whom I can't see otherwise. It is of course a pleasure.
Into the night, I talked everyday with Philippe and Michael Hentz, a superb French violinist, about past outstanding violinists such as Thibaud, Enesco, Casals, Veghg, Jannet Novour, and Ida Hendel, who is very active today. We forgot time. I have adored these personalities since I was a student. Partly because of this, I once lived in Paris, and tried to approach the French flavor. However, communication was difficult, and Paris and the French music world were somewhat remote from me. The past few years have been different mainly because I have met Phillipe with whom I can communicate, and I took a breath.
Lousada, whom I play with frequently these days, is a big fan of movies. He possesses many DVDs of old movies and historical performances. He showed me a black and white movie, a nostalgic American one, which contains a scene of Stern playing Humoresque of Dvorak. This piece was the one we performed in Japan only recently.

Michael Hentz is also a friend of Jean-Marc. He came from Alsace and studied at then Leningrad for 7 years. He came to Paris thereafter. His is a bit of apeculiar career. I met him in Paris several times, and we got on well with each other. He is a friend of Ida Hendel. He appeared from Paris at the concert in Rotterdam, which includes Beethoven's Triple concerto performed by gorgeous members of Martha Argerich, Steven Isshiris, and Ida Hendel. Of course we went there, too, from Brussels.

However, the way he teaches is new to me to see and to hear.
We teach in the classrooms in an elementary school, which is surrounded by the great mountains. I can never forget Beethoven's violin concerto, which Michael taught. I was also in a position of teaching, but I witnessed his teaching with a series of surprises and new findings, and felt I had come here to attend this lesson. His way of guiding students was so clear and persuasive, as if Beethoven's music was being born fresh. He insisted on how to listen to sound, not how to hold the bow nor how to play. This was so fresh to me. You need not to force students to play in this way or that way, but let them open their ears and listen to sound. Difficulty in teaching is being solved naturally in such a way.
The issues are how to listen, and how to listen according to different parts.

In an ultimate sense, the same as Philippe's way of playing, what we are seeking is the same, and only our approaches are different.
The three of us had exciting conversations every night. This is also one of the great merits of Courchevel.

Students climbed mountains almost every day on top of their lessons. They talked about how far they went and which mountains they climbed. I could hardly believe what they said because there are no mountains in Belgium. Maybe it was fresh for them and for me, because it was our first experience to attend the event.

Pascal de Voioyon and Don Suk Kan. They were the artistic directors for this festival. They organize the whole event, which consists of three courses lasting almost one month. I was impressed by their energy. Their wives, Ms.Chishima Masako and other people produced various ideas in order to make the running of the festival smooth. These were concerts by students and chamber music among students.
There was always rice at meals, for those who came from Asia, who made up 40% of the students. Rice! There were also almost 50 pianos. It was easy to concentrate on practice. My room was in the middle of 32 piano studios, and I spent a week in the middle of the music of 5 different pieces at the same time. I did not live in the dormitory when I was a student, but it was quite an experience.

After ten days, I went down from the mountains. When I went there, I was worried, with no sense of direction, but on the way back I could afford to look around.

Everything here is large-scale scale. Mountain slopes are large, and the valleys are huge. When we turn to the villages, houses are arranged closely to each other. I feel large scale of the European Alpes as a real and vivid experience. Phillipe said he spent 3 days skiing in the mountains around here, when he was a child. I thought that the scale of life was larger than mine, I felt somewhat shivered inside, and envied his basic physical strength and talent.
I myself fell in love with Happoone once, leaving the violin aside. I saved money for skiing by working at a library. Probably because I stress myself too much, I twisted my ankle on the first day , but I didn't tell anyone about it for 5 days. The end result was that I strained a ligament. When I came back to Tokyo, I could not step down the steps at the railway terminal, and showed my injury to my family. The reason I tried to hide it was simple. If I had told them about it I would certainly be prohibited from skiing. It seemed to be only me who sat in the Toho orchestra with a cast.
What a violinist I am! I still feel nostalgia at "a sunset on the mountains", maybe because I have had such an experience.
Well, I will see you again.