Prior Group - Russia - New Zealand - Новая Зеландия - Россия

17 Feb 2010, The West Australian -  The world famous Borodin Quartet to perform in 10 New Zealand  cities (6-19 March) and Australia - It’s a long way from Perth to Russia — you can tell by the delay on the phone line. The thickly accented voice of viola player Igor Naidin sounds dimly down the line asking me to try calling again. It isn’t any clearer a second time and he grumbles but we persist. Naidin is a member of the esteemed Borodin Quartet, the oldest string quartet in the world, named after Alexander Borodin, the first Russian composer to master the quartet genre.

The original line-up of musicians formed in 1945 and worked with Dmitri Shostakovich on each of his quartets. Their recordings are considered by many as the definitive interpretation of the Russian master’s works.

Naidin, who joined the group in 1996, is the third viola player. Like all the Borodin members, Naidin was a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory and was coached by members of the Borodin Quartet so that he feels like he was “brought up” by them.

“I have been busy with the string quartet formation all my life,” the 40-year-old says in a thick accent, the words barely distinguishable. “At the age of 13 my sister and I formed a quartet with two other pupils. I got carried away with the idea and loved playing as a quartet.”

He doesn’t quite hear my next question about surviving the quartet’s punishing international touring schedule, which includes concerts in Australia and New Zealand this month, but he gets the rough idea.

“You should be deeply in love with the string quartet formation in order to live the life of the string quartet because it requires so many hours of rehearsal,” he says. “We rehearse every day. We have a saying in Russia that you must ‘feel the elbow’; you must be in contact with the music and with each other.”

He helpfully looks the Russian phrase up in the dictionary to find a better translation: comradeship. I get the gist of it. There are no shortcuts to developing the famed Borodin Quartet symphonic sound or their uncanny ability to phrase cohesively. It takes years of daily rehearsal.

Naidin says he is so busy he hasn’t had time to have his own family. “I was 26 when I joined the quartet and I am still free to find my second half.”
Perhaps he is married to the quartet? He laughs. “No, I wouldn’t say it that way, because it sounds like I am not free to find my other half. And Australian women are so charming.”

He may not be married to the group but Naidin believes he and colleagues Ruben Aharonian (first violin), Andrei Abramenkov (violin) and Vladimir Balshin are closer-knit than most families.

He says the group works democratically. “There is no communist influence on our democracy,” he jokes. Seriously though, he insists that throughout its history the Soviet regime never influenced the quartet from a musical point of view.

“We are just performers; there is no ideology as performers. Shostakovich, yes, had ideology, but performers are not a problem.”

Shostakovich is famous for his rocky relationship with Russia’s politburo. His quartets serve as a kind of private diary of the composer’s experiences of World War II, Stalinist terror and the Cold War. The Fourth and Thirteenth quartets are on the program for the Perth concert, alongside Borodin’s Second Quartet.

“We are trying to present the best of Russian repertoire to Australian audiences,” Naidin says. “Borodin was always in a healthy, positive mood. He was enjoying life, he was a very kind human being and his music is like that.”

He resorts to the dictionary: “Good humoured — he was a good-humoured guy.”

More information on Part of the Quartet's Chamber Music New Zealand tour of Borodin Quartet in Wellington, Nelson, Dunedin, Christchurch, Invercargill, Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Napier, New Plymouth on their web-site: http://www.borodinquartet.com/concerts.php