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Jan Talich: I don't feel any compulsion to take stock.

Article Excerpt
Every meeting with the violinist Jan Talich brings romantic ideals about the music profession firmly back to earth. This experienced musician knows what it means to lead an orchestra and a quartet, to make solo performances and to teach and raise funds--all in conditions that hardly make things easy for professional musicians. But as he himself says, you mustn't let it all get on top of you. The leader of the Talich Quartet and conductor of the Talich Chamber Orchestra inherited strong musical genes, but his character constantly compels him to expand his horizons.

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You are the bearer of a famous name, since it's well known that your father the musician Jan Talich was the nephew of the conductor Vaclav Talich. What are your roots on your mother's side?

My mother is a violinist, who had me very young--while she was still at the conservatory. She would go to classes with Nora Grumlikova and leave the porter, Mr. Houdek, to mind the pram--and that same Mr. Houdek was still there fifteen years later when I attended the conservatory. My paternal grandmother started me off on the violin; she was an excellent violinist. She came from Pilsen and married Grandfather Talich, the conductor's brother. She also played solo, and taught after moving to Prague. When she died my mother took over teaching me the violin--my father was always away.

Did you ever have the urge to defy the "family inheritance" and do something quite different with your life?

Certainly. I wasn't a child who would have wanted to practice on his own initiative. Today I no longer remember why, but I wanted to devote myself to mathematics, I enjoyed it. But the moment I entered the conservatory, where these subjects weren't taught, it went right out of my head. The whole time I wanted to study philosophy or aesthetics--I felt that my education was deficient in that respect. And in my view it's not a good thing that the conservatory is so one-sided. Compare it with Moscow where the graduates are versatile; every instrumentalist has to know how to play the piano...