Stephen Kovacevich
So Stephen K has left us – such a shock. True, he’d been increasingly frail in recent years, and his friends had been concerned about him; but still – he was so utterly unchanged in terms of personality that the possibility of him dying just didn’t occur to us. Nor to him, I’m pretty sure. My last email from him – in response to a message from me on his birthday (10 days before his death) in which I reiterated how much I’d enjoyed our previous visit, read cheerily: ‘Please come soon again….tomorrow out of hospital….hip replacement…..from 23rd visitable!!!xxx’
Stephen was a fascinating character – full of contradictions: a Hampstead intellectual who never lost his Californian accent and mellifluous speech; a musician full of self-doubt and insecurity who nevertheless had complete confidence in his own opinions; in some ways a loner, who despite this loved company and was an incredibly entertaining raconteur and wit. His stories were wonderful. My two favourites: once he was on tour with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in winter, playing in some horribly cold venues. At one of these the orchestra and he arrived late, for some reason, and had to start the concert almost immediately. Stephen was waiting in the wings as the orchestra prepared to go onstage. A violinist eyed him somewhat curiously. ‘Aren’t you going to wear some trousers?’ she asked. Stephen looked down: he was wearing the black leggings he’d taken to sporting for extra warmth, and had, in his haste, mistaken them for black trousers. Extreme embarrassment narrowly averted…Another story had him in a hotel somewhere, being awoken in the middle of the night by the strong feeling that there was someone in the room with him. He switched on the light – and there indeed was a man looming over him. The thought flashed into Stephen’s mind: ‘I need a guard dog’ – and, without realising what he was doing, he started to bark madly! The man fled…
Conversations with Stephen were invariably fascinating. To start with, he was a walking slice of recent musical history; he recalled one of the greatest conversations of his life – over several hours – being with Glenn Gould. Two of the most deeply meaningful relationships of his life were with Jacqueline du Pré and Martha Argerich (with the latter he had a daughter, the film director Stephanie Argerich; he also had three other children, and many grandchildren). More recently, he had a strong influence over the younger generation (including Yuja Wang); he was a marvellously original teacher. I introduced him to my partner, the violinist Irène Duval, and she went to his place to play to him with a pianist friend. ‘You play like a married couple – try to sound more like lovers,’ he advised them. Always keen to help the young musicians, he later invited Irène to play the Brahms G major sonata with him at his 85th birthday concert at the Wigmore Hall – a great experience for her. The last time Irène and I visited him, we took Chinese food from his favourite restaurant (Singapore Garden) to his flat. At first, it was a bit depressing – he seemed so weak, and quite sad; but as the evening wore on, he brightened considerably, and his conversation was as sparkling as ever, if not more so. Some of his opinions had us pondering for weeks afterwards – eg his criticism of Carlos Kleiber’s recording of Brahms 4: “I miss the shadows.’ It was a very special night.
Farewell, Stephen. Your multitude of friends will all miss you horribly. You were utterly unique, both as artist and human being – and uniquely loveable.
