Great young violinist with a great old violin
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You never know when a chance invitation is going to create a career-defining moment — leading to a sublime Stradivarius.
For the young Canadian violinist James Ehnes, that chance invitation came 10 years ago, when he was an 18-year-old fledgling player who came to the Seattle Chamber Music Society's Summer Festival in North Seattle.
Ehnes (pronounced "Ennis"), who will be heard Thursday through Sunday in the Mendelssohn Concerto with the Seattle Symphony, is now a regular and popular visitor to Seattle stages. Back then, however, he was a virtual unknown — one of many fine discoveries made by the festival's artistic director, Toby Saks.
"Toby took a chance on me," reflects Ehnes, "and that made a huge difference. That festival has been a wonderful home to me and has allowed me to make some great musical connections."
Among those is his friendship with David Fulton, recently dubbed the "world's greatest violin collector" by Money magazine. Fulton, a Northwest resident, heard Ehnes play and was impressed by his talent. Ehnes' violin, however, was clearly not making the most of Ehnes' tone and technique.
"A Stradivarius was on the market," Ehnes says, "and it was an instrument I really, really wanted. I tried many avenues of sponsorship to acquire it, but everything fell through."
Fulton, who occasionally loans irreplaceable instruments from his collection to deserving players, decided to purchase the instrument, a 1715 violin called the "Marsick" Stradivarius, for Ehnes' use in a long-term loan. The instrument is "from the heart of Stradivarius' Golden Period," Fulton explains, referring to the famous violinmaker's finest years (beginning in approximately 1700).
Fulton has loaned violins to some of the world's great players, and he calls Ehnes "one of the finest violinists on the planet. He ranks in the top half-dozen of the best players today. I think his recordings show the same insight and depth of (David) Oistrakh (a legendary Russian violinist, 1908-1974)." The Marsick Strad, interestingly, was once played by Oistrakh.
Ehnes says, "I can't tell you how important that violin is to me. It allows me to do everything that I want to do, both in terms of technique and sound. There's another aspect, too: People hear that I am playing a Golden Period Strad, and they think, 'He must be pretty good.' David has made a tremendous difference in my career and my life."
A number of recent recordings also are spurring Ehnes' career forward: solo Bach sonatas, Bruch concertos, virtuoso works of Kreisler and a recent Dvorak/Janacek/Smetana disc will soon be supplemented by a recording of newly unearthed Hummel concertos (from manuscripts in the British Museum).
Born in Brandon, Manitoba, Ehnes says he was lucky in having a musical family (his father teaches trumpet; his mother is a former ballet dancer).
"It was natural for me to consider music as a career," says the violinist, who began studies on his instrument before his fifth birthday. He also studied the piano and plays well enough to make recordings of ensemble literature. For several years, he abandoned the piano after what he calls "a rotten experience," when he was chided by a judge at a piano competition for not focusing on the violin when there were so many pianists competing for attention. Now, however, Ehnes is revisiting the keyboard repertoire, which he calls "so vast and so interesting."
His international career is expanding; this year, in addition to American concerts with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Ehnes has performances in Malaysia, Spain, Scotland, Italy, Luxembourg, Ireland, Canada, Switzerland and Japan.
Ehnes' Seattle performances feature a work he describes as "the perfect concerto," the Mendelssohn.
"I never tire of it," Ehnes says; "I could play it every day."
Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com
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