Colin Jacobsen

All right Michael, good to see you.

I do. I, I, uh, remember, you know, I grew up on Long Island, and uh, they had this concerto competition. I, I remember playing Mozart's— Mozart right behind you— Mozart's Fourth Violin Concerto. Um, and Marin Alsop was the music director at the time, you know, who's gone on to do wonderful things, and she was very generous in, after that experience, inviting me back to play again with the Long Island Philharmonic and some of the orchestras she was either directing or guesting with at the time, Charleston Symphony or Eugene Oregon, and um, and uh, so yeah, it it that was, I don't know if I was 11 or 13, some, something around there.

Sure. I mean, well, you know, when one is in school, um, I, well, I was at Juilliard and uh, had the, you know, th- there's a placement office. So, um, there was, my, one of my close, uh, colleagues, Edward Aaron, cellist at the time, we played in a piano trio for many years, and uh, he, uh, he and I would do a, a lot of gigs through the Juilliard placement office, and it was a nice income. But I, and, and you know, you could say that, oh, that time would have been better spent in the practice room or studying something, but actually, I think there was a value to um, music as a part of life, you know? So it was bar mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, and, and I think that um, also the sense of, because you're, you're playing for your colleagues, you're playing for your teacher, you're being critiqued all the time, that actually in those situations life wasn't about you, it wasn't precious. It was, it was about the situation, and you were providing a service, and I, I, I think um, that has some valuable lessons to it. And I think back to like, I, I think Fritz Kreisler and Jacques Thibaud used to play in a cafe situation sometimes, and um, and, and I think uh, that a lot of the early start of The Knights and Brooklyn Rider was in living rooms, was in um, clubs at times or outdoor spaces or playing for kids, and I think in all those situations you are, you take your experiences with you. So, I, I think you try to bring something of the relaxed, informal vibe of those situations to when you are in a, the august Carnegie Hall or at Tanglewood, and vice versa. I think you try to take the intensity of listening and uh, intent from those places when you are wherever you are, when you're, when you're in front of kids or a living room or whatever.

I mean, I'll say, it really depends on the venue, and the presenter, and the audience, and whether we've been there a bunch, um. So, I think that there is a good following, but, but you know, if when we tour in the states to places we haven't gone, sometimes it can be full, sometimes it can't, and really, there's so many factors to that, uh. And I do think it's, it's, it is concerning, you know, the, the coming back after the pandemic, it's, it's uneven, that's my experience. Some, some shows are really packed, um, and in general, people are very happy, those who are in the hall, to be there and be back, and experience live music again. There, there's a, col- there was a collective sense of, I mean, this is the human thing, it's like we take things for granted, and when we came back after that long silence, there was such a, a special feeling, and you, you just never want to lose that, and both amongst musicians and audience. But, I think, you know, for various reasons, the, just the public arena in general feels more fraught, it feels more political, it feels, you know, th- and people are used to the convenience of just working from home or being home, and so, getting people back in the habit of these so-, of, of music as a social activity, which it really is, is um, it's taking time, and, but I, I think, you know, there, i- it's encouraging. It, I think it's just going to take time to heal from all of that.

Oh, nice. [Laughs] Where did you do that?

Maybe it was Jaime Laredo at that point.

They worked together a lot, yeah.

I think Eddie and my brother do share, uh, my, my brother Eric do share a love of cooking. They're both great chefs that I have been the beneficiary of their cooking for many years, so, I think it, that they, the analogy is apt, um. But I think, uh, I don't know, I think, you know, both with Brooklyn Rider and The Knights, I mean, and we're not alone in this, but I think we're trying to find our way with, uh, this great tradition, and how to keep it relevant, and vibrant, and the torch burning in our time, and, and all of that, and so, it's how do you meaningfully connect music from another world or from, you know, from another culture or from the past to what makes sense for us? And luckily, in, you know, just both with Brooklyn Rider and The Knights, it's a special group of people who have a lot of different talents and specialties, you know. They, they're people in The Knights, for instance, who are modern music specialists or baroque specialists or people whose lives straddle the jazz world or who are singer-songwriters, and not all of that will be served up at every meal, but some of it will come in as we, Eric and I are constantly batting back and forth ideas. Um, so, I mean, maybe, you know, one example, more, one recent example is this thing called the Kreutzer Project.

Speaking of the pandemic, uh, we, we were, it's kind of the best-planned project that we've ever done. You know, like in the pop world, often you record the album, you sit on it for a while, you, um, pitch it around, and you then you tour it, and you really have a focus on it. In the classical world, we all want to play that Beethoven symphony or quartet, you know, a 100 times before we commit it to record forever and ever, which, you know, encapsulates some of what's great of classical music in, in that attention to detail, and the tradition, and also what's difficult because it's, in a way, it puts undue pressure and preciousness around something. Um, but, so with the Kreutzer Project, before the pandemic, we got to have a residency at University of Wisconsin, Madison, and, and workshop, perform, and record this whole album. And what it is, is starting with Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, you know, which was originally written for the British violinist of African descent,

um, George Bridgetower, um, who was apparently an amazing virtuoso. So, and he premiered it with Beethoven as the pianist. And then, according to sources, they had a falling out, and Beethoven removed the dedication to George Bridgetower, as he was wont to do.

And, um, and then dedicated it to Rodolphe Kreutzer, the, one of the founding fathers of the French violin school, who,

um, who Beethoven didn't even know personally, who apparently never even played the piece. Uh, but his name is all over this project, and I'll, I'll come back to Kreutzer himself. But, casting it forward, you know, Tolstoy wrote his novella, um, full of passion, jealousy, obsession, um, in which, uh, a husband introduces a, a, a, a violin player, uh, I can't remember if his, if it's the violin player who's his wife or the pianist, but they and, they end up, uh, being introduced by the husband, they play the Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, and it's, it sends the husband into a fit of jealous rage because he thinks this music incites the passions in a way that shouldn't. And, so it's part of Tolstoy's late life moralizing, maybe in a heavy-handed way, but, um.

But there are a lot of good lessons in there. And then Janáček, of course, wrote his Kreutzer Sonata, his first string quartet, inspired by the Tolstoy novella, and sort of by the obsessive ostinati that you find in Beethoven's, uh, Kreutzer Sonata, and, you know, takes little quotes from it, but his music sort of is programmatic, depicting the, the Tolstoy novella. Anyway, what, both with the, the Beethoven, um, has an inscription that says, uh, Quasi come d'un concerto in un stile molto concertante, so, very concerto-like, very, sort of, outwardly virtuosic, the most virtuosic of his sonatas, and

I took that as a, as a leeway to make a full-on violin and orchestra concerto version of, of that piece. Um,

Exactly, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and, uh, you know, did a lot of, uh, well, always have done a lot of study of Beethoven's symphonies and orchestration, whatever, but really dove in, you know, with this piece in mind.

Um, uh, and I did also, I was aware, I have played um, there's a contemporary, contemporary, uh, arrangement of the Kreutzer Sonata for, for cello quintet, um, an anonymous, uh, contemporary of Beethoven had done that for the living rooms consumption. So, I was aware that that had happened as well. Um, but this, my version has winds, and timpani, and all the, all the, uh, stuff. So, then, uh, Janáček, uh, Eric and Mike Atkinson, the horn player, um, in The Knights and composer arranger,

so, yeah, and, and he orchestrated, Eric had ideas that, uh, they collaborated on an arrangement of the Janáček for chamber orchestra, um, thinking that, you know, the quartet is, uh, well, it's such an incredible piece, and certainly that is the version, but I think we thought that it suggests such a wider world of color and sound, um, that looking at the way Janáček, um, orchestrates, and I think at the time Mike had been playing Taras Bulba with the New York Phil, um, he really got into that orchestration. And, you know, for example, the opening of the fourth movement is uh, now like a woodwind and brass chorale, with the solo flute playing the lonesome first violin melody, and it sounds so beautiful, um. So, that, that was, that brought us closer to the present. And then, to bring us fully into the present, we asked, uh, composer Anna Clyne to write a piece in which she, you know, knew that we were working with the Beethoven, the Kreutzer, the Tolstoy, and she wrote a piece called Shorthand, which is, uh, for solo cello and strings, and written for Knights' cellist, Karen Ouzounian. And um, that piece uses a couple of quotes of the Beethoven, but the Shorthand comes from the Tolstoy, it's a quote, "Music is the shorthand of emotion." And um, which I think is a beautiful thing, and, and something I, uh, I remember Debussy talking about how he wanted to get to a place, and this goes back to the immediacy, where music is not describing an emotion or a thing, but it is the thing itself. And uh, um, so Anna wrote this very beautiful piece inspired uh, by quotes of the Beethoven and Janáček, and Tolstoy. And then, going back to Rodolphe Kreutzer, I wrote us a new piece called Kreutzings, um, in which I wanted, you know, Rodolphe, Kreutzer's name is all over this project, but he never even played the Beethoven, you know. Um, so, I thought of, what is the link of, of obsession here? And études, you know, Kreutzer's second, second étude, which all of us violinists uh, slog through with th- their interminable, very bowing variations,

um, has an obsessive quality to it, so, I took, you know, [Sings] and that becomes one kernel of, of the piece that I wrote for us.

You know, so, that, that's a, an example of trying to have um, an umbrella that puts a whole project spanning the past to the present together, spanning a literary and uh, you know, music world, and finding a way.

Yeah, you can find it in those usual, um,

you know, places where, platforms where one finds music. It was put out by Avie Records, uh, late August, and, uh, yeah, we played it around the states a bit, uh, in Baltimore, Ravinia, and at the Clark Institute in Williamstown, but, uh, then we're going, um, in October and November to Europe to do it a bunch, and Ray Chen will be our guest soloist there playing the Beethoven and, uh.

Oh, I mean, it's, you know, the collective of the four individuals that uh, had a long ramp up to being Brooklyn Rider and saying we are a string quartet, you know, uh, in your 20s at, uh, you might be more, um, commitment is a difficult thing to find, but we did. And, uh, I mean, I guess, uh, you know, all of them, uh, well, Eric, my brother, was also the original cellist of Brooklyn Rider, and all four of us had some formative experiences together in Silkroad, so that's one element is just that we, I think, all had our ears opened um, to a wider world through the work with Yo-Yo and all the incredible musicians, some of which we ended up collaborating with, like Kayhan Kalhor has been a mentor and, um, you know, great uh, composer and kamancheh player from Iran. Um, but I think we always wanted to go deep into the tradition, and one, one thing that also brought us together was the love of really old historic recordings, like pre-World War II. And th- the, the quartet tradition as represented by groups like the Capet Quartet or the Arnold Rosé Quartet, um.

And, yeah, exactly. And, um, the sense of how they uh, were, were, you know, they were in touch with many of the composers of our tradition, and yet, you, you watch the page, and you see from our perspective, 100 years later, a sense of be- of finding their way uh, to the heart of the musical matter in a way that's true to what they saw as the spirit of it rather than the letter of it.

I don't know if that makes sense, they, they just—

um, it just feels like uh, a- and the priorities were different. And part of that is just, you know, I, I think it being a different time and not having gone through a century of recorded perfection,

but I think it's also, um, just a different sense of sound and sound's purpose uh, that,

you know, much less vibrato was used, uh, portamenti, uh, connecting things vocally were a big part of the tradition, and

so, that's, that's part of it. And then, there's this element of looking outside of the Western tradition for inspiration, whether that's working, a- and, and often there's a guide for us into that, whether that's a Béla Fleck that we work to, work with in terms of American roots or Joshua Redman in the jazz vein or Kayhan in uh, Persian classical music, and none of those are we professing to be all of a sudden experts in those things, but we're able to be open enough and with great guidance that we can find a, a space for those things to happen.

Yeah, Bush Quartet, absolutely.

Well, we did have a pretty, pretty, uh, good mentor working with that piece. I mean, that was so special because uh, over the years, Yo-Yo and I have done that piece a handful of times, you know, with big symphony orchestras, um, but I think to do that with my close musical family, with my brother conducting, I mean, that was like a lifetime's—

—dreams come true. [Laughs]

I mean, I guess I would hope that we're all together, you, myself, everyone in The Knights, Brooklyn Rider, and people who are coming up in conservatory, we're all contributing to this ecosystem of music making, and you know, I, it's easy to have like golden age nostalgia for a place that you never lived, but, you know, the time of Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Mahler, you know, seems pretty special. The time of Mozart, Beethoven, and I think, you know, what are the conditions and, and it's like people all are pulling their weight and not doing business as usual. So, uh, I, I think now is a weird time of change, but I, I feel like when The Knights and Brooklyn Rider were coming up, not long after 9/11 and all of that, it was also a time of a lot of change and uncertainty in the world. But, in some ways, in that uncertainty, there's room for good new stuff to happen, so, I just hope

that um, we as, you know, the groups I'm involved in and the projects I'm involved in, just keep staying fresh and not taking things for granted. But, I hope that uh, the world, you know, that, that, uh, that this great tradition of music, you know, from Mozart behind you and, and earlier till now keeps, keeps having a space and, and people keep writing great things and audiences keep being vibrant, and it just, it all feels like uh, it's possible and difficult given all the other challenges that are in the world.

Wow, thank you, Michael, and you know, this is great to talk about some of these things, but you know, there are no, uh, there are no simple answers, but everyone's doing the work, and uh, you know, we'll keep pushing on.

Thank you.