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26 BRAHMS_ CELLO SONATAS
With whom did you work on them?
First of all withmy teacher in Chicago; we started with the Sonata in Eminor. Then
the whole family moved to Florida, and at that time there wasn’t a cello teacher of
a sufficiently high standard in that part of the state. So between the ages of fifteen
and seventeen I worked at my instrument by myself.
Was Brahms on your programme of study at that time?
Oh, everything was on the programme! Since I was working alone, I explored
an enormous amount of music, and I was free to choose. After that I went to
Bloomington, and for five years I studied with János Starker; of course, the Brahms
sonatas were on the syllabus there too. But what you learn with your teacher is
one thing, lifelong frequentation of the works is another, and what the partners
you perform them with bring you is something else again. I frequently played
these two works with a pianist who was particularly dear to me, David Golub,
who unfortunately died in October 2000; I learnt a lot from him. In the end, you
no longer knowwhere you got such and such an idea or impulse. From yourself, or
from your partner? It’s simply the music that take shape as you play it; all of that is
determinedby awholebundleof experiences that timehas stratified, and its origins
become blurred. The important thing is that it should determine a conviction as to
the interpretation of the work.