Cellist Julian Steckel Photo: Marco Borggreve
At the age of three, Julian Steckel already knew he wanted to play the cello.
The instrument might have towered over him, but a violin (his parents' preference) just wouldn't do.
The young Steckel, who was already getting into scrapes climbing trees and falling out of them, understood he needed an instrument that could withstand his robust ways.
Speaking to RNZ Concert host Bryan Crump ahead of a concert with the Auckland Philharmonia, Steckel says that as a child, his boundless energy came into conflict with his parents' initial instrument choice for him.
"I was raised in a musical family ... but no one played the cello, but there was a cello in the household just standing there and – I don't know – I just liked it. Maybe it didn't feel as fragile as a violin, and I was a very wild boy."
With a cello under his command, Steckel felt he could put all his energy into playing the instrument without having to worry about breaking it.
Not that Steckel treats his cello like Pete Townsend treated his guitar. There's plenty of finesse in his work, but there's also plenty of energy. Have a look at how he takes on this work by Kodály.
As his playing has matured, Steckel says he relies more on his "inner self" when deciding how to approach a piece.
Even the experience of becoming the father of two little girls has informed his response to the music written on the page in front of him.
For Steckel, playing well is about finding the balance between being true to his artistic instincts and the wishes of the composer.
His concert with the Auckland Philharmonia will see him playing a piece by an artist who had to struggle more than most to have his true voice heard: Shostakovich's Second Cello Concerto.
Written for his friend Mstislav Rostopovich in 1966, Shostakovich created the piece as the Soviet thaw of the post-Stalin years was transforming into the mire of a new Brezhnev-lead bureaucracy, while the composer himself was beginning to struggle with declining health.
Shostakovich's Second Cello Concerto is overshadowed by its better-known predecessor, but Steckel thinks the composer's second effort is just as compelling.
"What did you think of my last piece, boys?" Shostakovich, with his cellist friend Rostropovich (left). The great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter is on the right. Photo: RIA Novosti archive, image #478141, Commons:RIA Novosti
"It's very dark, it's kind of more thoughtful than the first one."
Steckel particularly likes the little in-joke Shostakovich shared with Rostopovich in the Second Concerto, in which he quotes a street song from Odessa Bubliki, kupitye, bubliki (Buy My Bread Rolls). A reference, perhaps, to the Soviet Union's notorious shortages of basic groceries.
Crump asked Steckel whether he studies the life and times of a composer whose music he's playing, or does he just rely on his response to the music he sees written in the score?
Steckel says a bit of homework on the man and his world is essential.
"As an interpreter, you have to know about all these things ... but that goes for every kind of music ... it's just with Shostakovich these circumstances were so extreme."
So does playing music from a dark time effect Steckel's own mood?
"When I go on stage, it's like switching on a certain mode ... I guess it maybe feels like being an actor ... and slowly after the last note, and when the concert is finished, you are kind of shaking it off, but with this kind of music, yes it can make a very deep and long lasting impression. You can't just undress from this music."
Which means after he's played Shostakovich's Second Cello Concerto, the first thing Steckel is likely to do is head to the bar for a well-earned beer.
We think Dmitri would have approved.
Passion and Mystery
Julian Steckel (cello), Auckland Philharmonia, Giordano Bellincampi (conductor)
7.30pm, Thursday 15 February, Auckland Town Hall
Broadcast live on RNZ Concert
