Shakespeare describes seven ages of man. The life of a musician crosses at least five of these. Mewling infant and ‘sans teeth’ aside, a player’s life takes them from shining-faced schoolboy, sighing lover and quarrelling soldier to wise justice and bespectacled pantaloon.
Fresh muscles and ambition, versus knowledge and understanding
Youth might favour the former of these with fresh muscles and synapses, innocence and ambition, but age makes up for its losses with knowledge, time and understanding. So how do musicians’ perspectives change across these different phases?
In youth, there’s a certain fearlessness. Violinist Leia Zhu is now 17, but was winning competitions by the age of eight and made her London Symphony Orchestra debut at 14. She remembers: ‘I started very young and loved performing. People asked me, “Are you nervous before you go on stage?” but I responded, “What’s that?”
'I didn’t have any nerves, just adrenaline and excitement. One of my first performances, in Newcastle City Hall, was to 2,000 people. I was more worried about what to do after I played – I didn’t know anything about concert etiquette. Do I bow, or leave?’
'You’re a bit cocky'
Edward Dusinberre wrote Beethoven for a Later Age about his experience of joining the well-established Takács Quartet (whom we named as one of the ten best string quartet ensembles of all time) as leader at the tender age of 26. He remembers the audacity: ‘When you’re young, to some extent you don’t realise how difficult it all is.
'You’re a bit cocky. You sign up for things. “Absolutely, let’s record all 15 Schubert quartets in five consecutive days, no problem. Let’s do it.” I wouldn’t do that now, but it’s good to have some of that sense of adventure and raw courage, which is a little uneducated.’
He also looks back at the thrill: ‘What’s wonderful about being young relates to those sensations of wonder and awe when we first discover this extraordinary music. I first learnt the Schubert Quartet in G major in 1996, very early on in the quartet. I was totally daunted, but also in a state of wonderment that something like that existed. As you get older, it’s very important to hang on to those first feelings.’
In his autobiographical My Young Years, pianist Arthur Rubinstein also remembers this excitement about the music itself, as well as the sheer facility. ‘I could play anything after a few readings, though, of course, neglecting many details, especially when they were due to technical problems. It all sounded fine to the innocent listener; only the initiated, my fellow pianists, would discover what was missing.
'As for myself, I was too eager to accumulate as much repertoire as possible to worry about flaws, helped by the generous use of pedals and my innate virtuosity. I was able to get away with murder, figuratively and musically.’
'As you get older, you learn to manage the ups and downs’
Dusinberre describes the emotional extremes of youth. ‘I associate my student life as having the wild highs where I could do absolutely anything and then the big lows where I thought I would never be a professional musician. Similarly, coming off stage, I’d either be completely ecstatic or in the depths of despair. Somehow as you get older, you learn to manage the ups and downs.’
He also learnt how to treat other people: ‘When I joined the quartet I played well, generally, but my rehearsal technique wasn’t great. I was too dogmatic. You have to learn that people are different. Just because I react in a certain way, that’s not how someone else works. Developing empathy and understanding is difficult and it’s something that you have to work at every day.’
One of the special aspects of classical music is how multigenerational it can be, with people of all ages working alongside each other. Andrej Power led the Stockholm Philharmonic at the age of 24 and, ten years on, is now one of the concertmasters of the London Symphony Orchestra. He describes his learning curve: ‘I had zero experience in an orchestra and I was suddenly in a position where I had to tell my colleagues – in many cases two or three decades older than me – how to play.
'I knew they had much more experience than me and had played with amazing conductors. You have to be very respectful, but you can’t be paralysed by that. You have to explore your own ways and believe that what you feel might also be correct. The first thing I played when I sat in the chair was Strauss’s Don Juan and I remember thinking, “Now what do I do?” But you start figuring it out.’
Within orchestras, age doesn't matter
Suzanne Bareau, now mainly retired, began her career with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and led the second violins in Manchester Camerata for many years. Coming into an orchestra post-studies, she says, ‘You’re much less good at listening. In an orchestra, you’ve got to get used to what’s going on around you, hearing the rest of it and putting it together in your mind.’
However, she credits this development more to experience than years on the planet: ‘Within orchestras, age doesn’t matter. It’s lovely to have young colleagues and old colleagues. We’re all equal. There isn’t a higher pay grade if you’re older. That’s quite a leveller. There’s no hierarchy, apart from the leader. You’re all together and if you love music, you want to be the very best you can be.’
Power agrees: ‘If you’ve had a lot of experience in an orchestra, you’re more likely to be able to fit in and listen better, but I don’t think that’s automatic. I’m not sure age has anything to do with it. I remember thinking when I started that experience isn’t everything and that you don’t gain it automatically. It depends on how aware you are and how much you love music.’
Experience and wisdom may be circumstantial, but the physical effects of ageing come to us all. Even in his thirties, Power notices the changes: ‘When I was 18, I felt my hands were made of steel. I could practise eight hours straight without a break and be absolutely fine. Now I can’t do that. I’ve had to adjust certain angles of how I play, because things wear out and you have to adapt. My hands are strong, but not as strong as when I was 18.’
'I’ve never felt I can’t do something, whatever age I am'
In her eighties, Bareau still plays regularly and says, ‘I’ve been very lucky in that I haven’t got any problems with my hands, or arthritis. I probably can’t play as fast as I used to, but I’m not playing regularly with such good players as when I was working. I don’t suppose I ever thought of the ageing process as such. It just happens. I’ve never felt I can’t do something, whatever age I am.’
I was lucky enough to hear both Ivry Gitlis and Ida Haendel play well into their nineties, and although their performances were far from flawless, they were nevertheless special: each kept their individual sounds, and their musical ideas were highly distilled, their musical personalities overcoming their physical frailty. An 86-year-old Nathan Milstein explained this in his autobiography From Russia to the West: ‘A performer who wants to continue in old age must find new opportunities and new paths.
'Working on difficult passages is not enough. You have to find a comfortable approach to the virtuosic passages and you try to express their musical content in a more natural way. Nowadays my improvements and interpretive changes come mostly from the mind, not the fingers. The mind finds a better understanding of a work’s form, adds new colours, new touches, as well as ways to incorporate them.’
The inestimable gift of experience
Looking back in his autobiography, the legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan even goes as far as appreciating the space and time that age and infirmity offer, writing: ‘As a result of this more or less enforced rest, I’ve time to study music and listen to it again. And even time to listen to all my recordings again. In doing so I sense where my own inner harmony with music was disturbed – and I think of ways to restore it, and wish I could record it all again.
'I now know better than I did then how music must sound. I’ve time now to see this for myself, quietly and calmly, time to establish this for myself. I’m bound to see it as a kind of blessing that my physical condition forces me to be highly critical about all that I once did, at a time when there was not time for so much reflection.’
Maybe it’s true, after all, that when it comes to music, age really is just a number. To give the last word to youth itself, Zhu says: ‘I learnt a lot of music when I was young, and even from then until now I have a different understanding of it. That doesn’t mean it’s worse or it’s better; it’s just different. Age shouldn’t define the way you play. Some people mature at a young age and some people mature later.
'I’m excited for the future. Whether I play the same piece today or tomorrow, there’s something different I can try. Who knows in the next five, ten or 50 years where my musicality will bring me and how my artistry will develop? This is a lifelong pursuit. That’s the essence and beauty of music.’
How to make it last: advice for a long career
Musicians should plan for the future when embarking on a performing career, says Takács Quartet leader Edward Dusinberre. But, he admits, ‘It’s hard when you’re 22 to think about the concept of longevity and what you could put in place that would give you a good chance of a long and healthy career.
‘The first thing you need is a tremendous amount of luck, just with health. When you’re 22, you might feel like you don’t need to bother about how you’re using your body. You feel invincible, so you can play the fiddle for four or five hours and your body doesn’t complain. I always encourage students to start good habits now in terms of being thoughtful when they practise.’
But it’s not all about physicality – mental heath plays a part, too. ‘If students suffer with performance anxiety – which we all do – they should talk about it and find strategies to train the brain to focus on stage. I encourage them to think about the bigger picture – to get past next week’s audition, exam, or lesson where they have to play a Paganini caprice. There are many teachers now with a more holistic approach, which is a great improvement on when I was a student.’
