FANFARE MAGAZINE ON HELEN’S RECORDINGS!
“One imagines that with music so familiar, there wasnt the necessity of a six-week crash course to learn the notes, as with the Jacob. Yes, but the recording session for the Bach was three days, which is insane, so we did one suite every three hours. But I knew going into it that that was going to be the situation, so I gave thirty concerts beforehand and took nine months to really study it. I never have the luxury of doing that, so I made time to do it. So it became something that started to feel natural, almost automatic, embedded in my brain, to play these pieces and to speak through them. Part of it is because its a solo endeavor, so youre not playing chamber music, youre not having to allow the horn to come through or making sure that you fly about the strings. This is all about you from the minute you walk into the studio to the minute you leave, and you have to be sure you have something to say and are true to the music; thats the most important thing. It was a training for me as a player, as well. Did she emerge from the experience changed? No question of it. To be able to play all six Suites in successionthats an undertaking, thats a challenge, and nowhere in life do you ever do that, play three hours straight. Nowhere do you have the luxury of doing that. But when you go into the recording studio and have to do that, you have to really understand every note. You know that there will be people who will sit there with the score and pore over every note; why did she do this, why did she do that? It has to be something that has great meaning; it cant be inconsequential. So you go into it incredibly focused, and the architecture from the beginning of the prelude to the end of the prelude, from the beginning of the suite to the end of the suite, the First Suite through to the Sixth Suite, must mean something. For me, as a violist, thats like going to the greatest school possible.”
-Martin Anderson, Fnafare Magazine
