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| Photo: Maxim Reider |
PH: Mr. Sinkovsky, do you come from a musical family?
Dmitry Sinkovsky: Yes...well...I would put it this way: my parents were not
professional musicians, but at that time in the Soviet Union, all people (my
father was an engineer) received musical education at music schools. So, it was
my parents who gave me my first solfege lessons. My grandmother, however, was a
professor of Harmony at the Moscow State Conservatory.
PH: So you started with violin lessons at age five. Were you expected to go
on to play the Romantic repertoire, etc?
DS: Oh yes. This was the typical classical way of education. In our Moscow
music education, everyone was treated as a soloist, playing Tchaikovsky,
Sibelius, Shostakovich, winning the Tchaikovsky Competition and things like that.
Of course, this was the tradition, but, at a certain moment, I decided to find
my own way.
PH: It must be quite pioneering to become an early music performer in
Russia.
DS: To call us pioneers would be something of an exaggeration, because the
much earlier generation, that of Alexei Lubimov (b.1944), did the real
pioneering job. We are the second- or even the third wave of Russian early
music players. But I am not a typical Russian early music performer. Neither is
Grigorii Krotenko (here playing with La Voce Strumentale), a fabulous musician,
who plays double bass, viola da gamba, other instruments; he also conducts his own
orchestra and performs contemporary music, as well. We are all musicians who
adore early music, coming from a strong early music background.
PH: Is early music your main focus?
DS: No. I also play modern violin.
PH: And the other players in your ensemble?
DS: We are not conservative early music performers who ignore the rest of
the world. For example, I am staying on in Israel for the next ten days to
perform with a dramatic theatre: it is a play in Russian about two Russian
poets - Marina Tsvetaeva and Boris Pasternak and the love triangle with Rainer
Maria Rilke. It’s a love story through the horrors of Soviet Communism. I am
actually participating as an actor in it, a third actor who controls their
emotions, who plays the violin and sings and acts a bit with them. At one
stage, I appear in the play as Rilke and I sing for Marina. It’s very, very
special. The performance includes music of Honegger, Bartok, Ysaÿe,
Shostakovich, Penderecki (totally contemporary) and one piece by Bach. But the
play is nothing to do with early music in general.
PH: Would you say a few words about La Voce Strumentale?
DS: Sure. This group was created in order to perform- and specialize in
Baroque music, but we also recently recorded a CD of contemporary music written
for us by Sergey Akhunov, a Russian composer quite popular now I
hope the disc will be issued in 2019. So, the ensemble is developing not only
in the direction of “orthodox” early music, but it plays contemporary music on
gut strings.
PH: Where do you personally stand regarding the Historically Performed
Music movement?
DS: I would say it is developing a lot, now moving in the direction of
perfection...which is good, which is very nice, but we have to be very careful
with that; the “beauty of imperfection” is also a good phrase I often use. To
me, the meaning of beauty is not only a golden, perfect column which must be a
specific shape; it can also be wooden and irregular with different shapes.
Beauty can be barbaric and wild or it can be sophisticated. That’s my vision on
music. My vision on music is colour and emotion and emotion before all. It
starts with the dream/emotion and the perfection behind them follows. We need
to use technique to support the emotion. This is my concept of music-making in
general.
PH: Your engagement in early music was much prompted by Baroque violinist
Marie Leonhardt.
DS: Yes. I discussed the early music scene with Marie Leonhard, who
was one of my teachers. She told me that in every country early music is
different. The Russian approach, of course, goes a bit more for perfection and
is a little more compact and serious. But this is also somewhat a cliché as
nowadays, with globalization and Internet, I no longer believe there remains
any typical national school. People are born in one country, study in another,
then live somewhere else; they collect all the different influences on the way.
This also applies to Russia now...there is no longer a “typical” Russian style
of performance. That they can’t play Bach and Handel, only Tchaikovsky because
it is “in their blood”, I don’t believe any more. It has become quite mixed.
PH: Do you join opera companies to sing in Baroque operas?
DS: Yes, yes, sure. Last year I did two: the title role in Handel’s “Lucio
Cornelio Silla” conducted by Dorothy Berlinger (who is also a recorder player)
together with a very international cast of good singers - Anna Dennis, Kerl
Fuge, Stefanie True and others. The other was Vivaldi’s “Orlando Furioso”, in
which I sang the role of Ruggiero. But I am not making my sole focus on an
opera career. Am trying to keep a balance between conducting projects and as a
violinist and singer, without going too much in any one direction.
PH: Do you teach?
DS: Yes. I have a few students. I still have my teaching position in
Moscow, but only three students at the moment. I can’t take on more as it is
simply impossible with all the travel I do.
PH: Do you compose?
DS: Oh well...not really. It would be interesting to do this. It is
something I keep in my mind, but it is a project that is “zipped” for the time
being. I am happy with what I am doing now and where I am and there is still
much to develop in my current activities.
PH: Do you edit music publications.
DS: No. I haven’t till now.
PH: When it’s not music, what interests you?
DS: I have to say that everything in my life is connected to music. I am
interested in looking at violins and old instruments. I love wine...but this is
also connected to music and all the arts. Oh... but there is another
interest: I am starting to fly small ‘planes. My teacher is in the United
States, where I very am often as conductor-in residence of the Seattle
Symphony. So that’s my hobby!
PH: Maestro Sinkovsky, this has been most interesting and enlightening.
Many thanks for your time!
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