An Unlikely Enigma
It’s obvious that Siem relishes the limelight, whether that be accompanying ballerinas, duetting with Bryan Adams or appearing in various brooding guises in culturally savvy fashion magazines. Though keen to portray himself otherwise, he seems acutely aware of - if not overly preoccupied by- his sultry, Byronic looks, and even recently signed up with Select Model Management ‘to help support his career as a violinist’.
Despite this occasional foray into the glossy surface sheen of celebrity – and his propensity to undo a couple more shirt buttons than is generally considered polite – Siem is adamant that he barely gives a moment of thought to his personal ‘look’ as a performer. It is not a product of craft, he insists, but simple happenstance. ‘It is not a carefully prepared style at all. It’s just how I am. You have to take care to look smart, out of respect for the music, but then of course you go on stage and start sweating and look like a mess.’
I’m not sure I’m completely convinced – mainly as it was Siem’s aggressive sweating that prompted my mother’s James-Dean-induced eulogy in the first place – but he seems earnest enough. And when we get to the next logical question, his diffidence increases further.
‘Groupies? No, I don’t think I have any, not specifically. I did a big tour called the Night of the Proms before Christmas, in keeping with my virtuoso dramatic thing, in Belgium, Holland and Germany, and I played to half a million people – but they weren’t really groupies. I did get people who seemed enthusiastic, though, which was very positive.’
YouTube tells a different story. The first clip I click on shows Siem fending off the giggling advancements of an enraptured group of young ladies while backstage on his ‘big tour’. Half a dozen or so clips later and it’s clear he’s far more like his suave Les Lutins character than he would like to appear. ‘Could Charlie be any foxier?’ proclaims one eager commentator on the short film of his appearance in Cuba, while another chirps her breathless agreement: ‘He is SO gorgeous!’
Siem’s reluctance to tout his Casanova credentials stems, perhaps, from a fear of seeming superficial. Virtuosity, after all, is for some little more than an embrace of style over substance; an easy pleaser for audiences seeking a classical quick hit. And for all his David Garret-esque posturing, Siem is far from being some one-dimensional poster boy. He may play a mean caprice – and he does, often – but the range and subtlety of his touch on his 1735 Guarneri del Gesu d’Egville violin, played formerly by Yehudi Menuhin, is undeniable. His first record, an album of Elgar and Grieg violin sonatas released by Challenge Classics in 2008, received glowing reviews from critics; and his rendition of Jules Massenet’s Meditation with the Bergen Philharmonic is truly mesmerizing.
And why, after all, can an artist not be profound and playful at the same time? Beautiful music need not be staid and austere. During one of his many forays down music’s memory lane, Siem unearths an anecdote about Mozart from an era when classical concerts were lively, edgy affairs, without compromising on integrity. ‘Nowadays, this whole culture between movements – when you should clap, when to react – is a shame. After Mozart played one of his piano concertos, he wrote a letter to his father about it and said everyone went wild after he played one particular five-bar passage, like in a rock concert. He said they even demanded he play just that bit again after he finished.
‘It was the Germanic tradition that encouraged silence and reverence, like looking at music through a glass box. It’s like going to the British Museum and seeing what music was like a million years ago, But what is so great about music is that it’s not an artifact from an Egyptian tomb; it’s alive as soon as you get people who are living now playing it.’
Music has always been Siem’s priority, and it is this single-mindedness that’s propelled him to the top tier of his profession by the age of 25. Already he has played with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic and the Israel Camerata. He’s performed at the Royal Albert Hall and at Carnegie Hall, twice. He has a second album of virtuoso pieces due to be released by Warner Classics and Jazz in the UK in March, and has a third album, ‘perhaps on Polish repertoire, perhaps involving some Bruch,’ on the way later in the year.
He’s played recitals for Salman Rushdie and Susan Sarandon and mingled with the likes of Lenny Kravitz, Elle Macpherson and Jude Law. Since graduation, he’s barely taken a breath – and his packed schedule of 2011 tours includes the Sundance Film Festival in Salt Lake City. Utah.
So what else is there on this youngster’s career agenda? Not much, it seems – unless you count recording every piece of violin music ever written. ‘I want to record Bruch, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, everything – the Mozart concertos, Bach concertos, the solo Bach. It’s a huge amount, you can’t do all of it, but at least you can have a good chunk of it down.’
It’s a crazy ambition, but if anyone can do it, I have a feeling Siem may well be the man. And if not? Well, he could always just continue cultivating his following via those pheromonally-fuelled Paganini routines. The crowds will swoon, I’m sure. Especially when they hear about that machine gun.
