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Interviewer: By emotions that have no redemption, do you mean that there's no resolution to the music?
Jenson: Right. I don't think that there is, in my opinion -- my humble opinion. With his symphony, I feel that there is no hope given. It's sharing the emotions, for instance, of a parent losing a child, which is an emotion you cannot experience unless you've already experienced it -- and he has been able to share these intensely desperate emotions, so that we can all understand and feel them. Not to make a general comment, but women tend to feel some of these emotions more, because they experience childbirth, and can be very connected with their children and I think that for Gorecki to be able to write this and share this with more of humanity -- not just mothers who have gone through great sorrow losing children -- it isn't even like losing a parent. I lost my father and I was intensely affected for several years by that great loss, and still he was an older man; he had lived a life. I could never imagine losing a child, who is just in the beginning of life and hasn't lived and experienced life fully. [On the issue of "hope"], My husband disagrees with me, because he feels that there is some sort of hopefulness at the end of the symphony. In my opinion, it's an acceptance that there is good and bad in life. It is impossible to hope that the world will change to the extent that the bad "will go away!" (laughs) In the end of the symphony, there is no false hope for great peace and love that will be save humanity. I don't see that there.
Interviewer: Rather like Sibelius' Fourth Symphony. People walk around, and say "I don't get it." They're unwilling to accept the great and unrelenting stoicism that's in it. There is no "happy ending" to it. Does that make it any less worthy? I don't think so.
Jenson: No, I don't either. Another interesting piece is Brahms' Second Sonata in A for Violin and Piano. For me, the whole sonata is unrequited love. Beautiful love is expressed in each movement, and yet, each movement ends quite abruptly, without tremendous resolution.
Interviewer: Are you considering recording any time soon?
Jenson: I don't know how soon I'd really like to record. Just now, this year, maybe in the last few months or so, my violin has stopped changing dramatically every couple of months. For the first year, I was just breaking it in and finding its voice. So, I feel like I'm just starting to settle into the violin now. I'd like to start recording, but as I said, I've been waiting so long to finally have a violin I'd like to record on.
Interviewer: Thank you for giving me the time to talk with you.
Jenson: You're
welcome; thank you.
