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GARY HOFFMAN 31
You still play the wonderful Amati that belonged for many years to
Leonard Rose, himself a major interpreter of the Brahms sonatas. Do you
think of himwhen you play this music?
When I started playing that instrument, let’s say for the first year, when no one
knewwhere it came from, music lovers would come up tome after concerts telling
me I reminded them of Leonard Rose and asking me if I had worked with him. And
it’s true, I felt that something in the sonority the cello had acquired did indeed
derive from its long experience with Leonard Rose, or else that the instrument
itself had imposed on Rose some of the specific features of his playing, especially
in the Dvořák Concerto and the works of Brahms. Then that impression gradually
faded, as if the Amati had got used to my playing, I might almost say to my body.
It’s a very grand instrument, in every sense of the term, with very individual, very
contrasted registers. You can’t fault it; it produces a magnificent tone throughout
its compass. Since I’ve had it, it has changed a bit, but it keeps its strong personality.
It sings so naturally, it has all the colours; if there’s something I can’t do, it’s not the
instrument’s fault, it’s mine.