(Continued from page 4)
Interviewer: You finally have a permanent instrument, a Zygmuntowicz?
Jenson: I went to see Yo-Yo Ma, who was playing in Baltimore a couple years ago, and I talked to him over the years about the problem of finding an instrument, and he said "you should go see Samuel Zygmuntowicz, who is in Brooklyn, and listen to his violins," and so Mr. Zygmuntowicz made me this instrument, and for the first year it was a real struggle, kind of tough to play. It requires a lot of bow-arm pressure, just to get a big sound and to let the violin vibrate more freely. So now, I've had this instrument for almost three years, and I'm very pleased. I'm so happy to have my own instrument; I don't have to be afraid somebody's going to call me and say that it's time to give it back, or that I won't know what I'm going to play on next week. It's such an incredible feeling to know that that violin is there, and will be there next year, and five years from now.
Interviewer: As the editor of both the Sibelius and Ormandy Web Pages, I'd like to talk about your recording of the Sibelius Concerto, with Ormandy and the Philadelphia. Hearing it, even today, I think: Here's someone who understands Sibelius (and Sibelius is an enigma in himself anyway) as far as how he composed. Your performance is virtuoso in the sense that, it sounds impossible, yet your performance is quite integral with the orchestra, which to me is quite Sibelian in the sense that Sibelius composed for the strings, using the other instruments for tonal coloring. I've had that recording for about fifteen years now, and your performance still sounds immediate, very heartfelt.
Jenson: Thank you. You know, when you mentioned that, it makes me think of when I was a kid, I was in love with the recording of Oistrakh playing the Sibelius, and I listened to it so many times that my mother thought it wasn't good for me, she thought, well you know, "she's becoming totally obsessed." So, she hid the record; it was probably for a year or something, every second I was listening to Oistrakh playing the Sibelius.
Interviewer: What was it like performing and recording with Eugene Ormandy?
Jenson: Oh,
very easy, very easy. The Philadelphia Orchestra obviously had built
up a rapport with him after so many years, so he didn't have to do very
much with his conducting to get the orchestra to totally respond to what
he wanted -- he got an immediate response. I think that he was incredibly
supportive -- when we were performing at Carnegie Hall, and I played a
certain passage, he turned 
to
me and whispered to me, "that was so beautiful." And then there was
a fun thing in the last movement of the Sibelius Concerto, after the first
section where I played a repeat sign, and I would come back with a run;
there's a second run -- there are two runs that are exactly the same and
he suggested that I do the second one up the g-string, and I did it that
way during the concert, and he was beaming. He was so responsive.
It was very easy, very very easy.
Interviewer: What musical pieces outside of the violinist's repertoire do you admire. For example, if I were interviewing a pianist and I asked, "what violin concertos do you like?"
Jenson: I love so many things.... I love the singing of Carlos Gardel, who is an Argentinean singer from the 1930s and 40s. I listen to him all the time, he's such a great artist, such a great artist. Of course I like Astor Piazzola as well. I just love his music, some of the earlier recordings were just simply written for the violin, piano, percussion and bandoneon -- just brilliant. I love other things, for different reasons, of course Gorecki, the Symphony No. 3. It's such an incredible piece. It expresses emotions that don't have any redemption, it seems to me. So few composers are willing to explore those emotions which are not popular.
