violinist Alena Baeva

Violinist Alena Baeva finds room for improvisation, freedom, and radical ideas about sound in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. In this interview, our soloist of the Beethovenfest 2025 Opening Concert talks about her refugee experience, her mentor Rostropovich, and her approach to Beethoven.

1. What relationship do you have to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto – can it’s towering legacy intimidate? 

This piece has somewhat a superior quality to all other concertos, regardless of whether you play it or listen to it. It is like a majestic mountain: it intimidates from the distance, but the closer you are and the more you listen to it, the more inviting it becomes. Its structure is clear and solid, the melodies are genuinely simple, and, interestingly enough, the violin’s role is mostly improvising around the lines, like a bird’s fly. 

In Beethoven’s time, performers hat a huge amount of freedom. Soloists would normally use their fantasy and taste to embellish fermatas, vary the tempi, apply some changes when repeating, etc. In short, make it more personal and improvisatory. Today, quite opposite norms have established themselves: Violinists aspire to a loud, penetrating sound with lots of rich vibrato by default. It is unusual to digress from a stable tempo and from the literal adherence to notation. These standards have been semi-set in stone for a large part of the last century, thanks to the coinciding rise of the recording industry. 

However, I want to make use of the amazing opportunity this concerto offers for delivering a truly live and unique performance of with the spirit of urgent discovery. Also, I love to include Beethoven’s own cadenzas for each movement, which he wrote for his own piano arrangement of the concerto. They sound completely modern and crazy! Indeed, who writes a cadenza with timpani and an out-of-the-blue March section in the middle of it? I think this reminds us once again that Beethoven was seeking extremes and did not adhere to strict rules. I can not wait to playing it in Bonn with the brilliant Aurora Orchestra and Nicholas Collon.

2. If you would not have become a violinist – what else would you have chosen?

Ah, that’s an easy one – I would be a doctor. Since adolescence, genetics, surgery, and microbiology particularly fascinated me. Recently I visited the Surgeon’s hall Museum in Edinburg, where I saw a banner which showed how many years one has to study to become a surgeon. This was the moment I understood that probably now it is a bit too late to start.

3. You are from Kyrgyzstan and today live in Luxembourg. How different is living in these two countries? How did you adapt?

I was changing my home country every five years when I was little, but now I live in Luxembourg for the longest I ever lived in one place, so it finally feels like a home. My family fled a civil war in my native town Osh, Kyrgyzstan. We moved to Kazakhstan and later to Moscow, where I studied. All these places felt quite different to Luxembourg, where different nationalities and ethnicities are welcome and respected, which I appreciate.

4. One of your most important mentors was the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. How did you meet him and how did he shape your musicianship?

Rostropovich has shaped my musicianship already by his recordings. As a teenager during my school years in Moscow, I was supported by the Rostropovich foundation. We had regular concerts to which the Maestro would come to listen. I think I played a Poulenc Sonata when he first heard me. We used to meet at such concerts and talk about music. Then he proposed to me to study in Paris. He placed me with a guest family in Chartres, friends of Rostropovich, and I studyied with Boris Garlitsky. Sometimes I had lessons and meetings with Rostropovich, while in Paris. Some of the things he demanded from my playing I still try to pursue. What a radiant visionary he was, giving his contagious energy and joy to the world!

5. Our festival motto 2025 is »Alles ultra«. What are you ultra in?

Courage for the unknown. Passion. Connection. Beethoven!