(Hristo Kardjiev)
Classical Notes / Profile – by William
Charlton-Perkins
Then, now, and looking ahead.
Hristo Kardjiev, until recently the concert
master of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra, recalls a life spent occupying the
front desk of orchestras he has worked with, and looks to the future…
Silence is golden. Chances are you’ll find
yourself fielding those three words as an unequivocal response if you canvas
the opinions of a group of professional musicians – particularly those who teach,
or earn their livelihood as members of an orchestra – about the joys of
listening to music as a leisure pastime.
I muted this point while chatting to Hristo
Kardjiev over coffee last week. In corroboration, the recently-retired concert
master of the KZN Philharmonic recalled an incident when the orchestra was on
tour. Their bus driver had just begun piping what he thought would be
appropriate music over the bus’s sound system, when he was barraged with
requests from his passengers to desist.
“We listen differently to the way an
audience does. It’s a core part of the job,” Kardjiev explained. Working with an
ongoing string of visiting conductors from season to season certainly brings its
own challenges for orchestral players, who constantly have to strive to realise
the requirements of the man on the podium that week.
“While preparing a piece for a performance,
a good conductor knows how to find four of five key pressure points, and work
on those with his players. Everything else then falls into place. But good
conductors are rare.”
Looking back over the past 22 years and
more during which he’s occupied the KZNPO’s first desk, Kardjiev feels there
have been relatively few outstanding guest conductors, compared to the wealth
of fine soloists the orchestra has hosted. He says the stand-out among
conductors he’s played under in Durban is Zubin Mehta, who visited our shores for
the inaugural concert of the orchestra’s now longstanding World Symphony Series.
Kardjiev was born in Bulgaria in 1948 and
graduated with distinction from the Bulgarian Music Academy in Sofia before
specialising in Weimar in Germany with a Master’s degree in Music.
For 20 years, he was the concert master of
the National Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, also pursuing a career as a soloist
and teacher, while travelling extensively abroad. While in his early 20’s, he
played under the legendary Herbert von Karajan. Other international luminaries he
has worked with include the likes of Shostakovich, Maazel, Oistrakh and
Ashkenazy.
Since emigrating to South Africa in 1990 to
take up his post with the KZN Philharmonic, Kardjiev’s collaborations with
international soloists and conductors has continued unabated with the guest
artists the orchestra has hosted.
“A major beacon during my years with the
KZNPO was certainly the Orchestra’s invitation to perform alongside the London
Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre in London as a joint celebration of
South Africa’s 10th anniversary of democracy, the KZNPO’s 20th anniversary and
the LSO’s centenary.”
Back on home turf, Kardjiev cites the visit
to Durban of the renowned Israeli violinist, Pinchas Zuckerman, as another memorable
experience, punctuated by a triumphant performance of Beethoven’s Violin
Concerto in which Zukerman doubled as soloist and conductor.
Kardjiev himself has made the occasional
transition from playing to conducting, with performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Handel’s Messiah under his belt.
When I asked him how he rates the
challenges of conducting as opposed to those of playing an instrument, he
mischievously quoted the great Russian cellist-turned-conductor, Dmitri
Rostropovich, whose tongue-in-cheek response to a similar question after an
early career appearance on the podium was: “No-one ever told me how easy it
would be.”
How does Kardjiev see his future panning
out, now that he is free of the rigours of managing the weekly roster of
orchestral players and similar duties as concert master of an orchestra?
“Right now, I’m weighing up my options. There
is always a shortage of good string players out there, particularly young
orchestral recruits. So teaching is certainly something I’d like to continue
doing.”
Kardjiev already has a successful career
teaching violin at Durban Girls College and at Embury College, also privately. I
commented that practicing musicians do not always make good teachers. Does Kardjiev
have a particular approach to working with his violin pupils? “I agree with the
principles of the Suzuki method, which sets out to establish the confidence of
very young players from the outset.”
“And there is much to be learned from the
dictum of the late Dorothy Lelay, for many years the doyenne of violin teaching
at New York’s Juilliard School. She held that the secret to successful teaching
lies in knowing what not to say to a pupil. Their self-esteem and confidence
can so easily be broken down, to the detriment of their development.”
Teaching aside, how else does Mr Kardjiev
contemplate enjoying the time that is now open to him? As with many musicians I
know, he admits to a nurturing a creative bent for cooking. So, who knows, perhaps
a Hristo Kardjiev Cook Book is in the offing.
However things turn out, scores of concert-goers
accustomed to his presence on the KZNPO stage will wish him well. - William
Charlton-Perkins
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