An interview with Laura van der Heijden

Why did you decide to wait a while after winning BBC Young Musician before recording? There was quite a lot of expectation for me to start recording immediately after the competition, but I feel that recording is such a special and specific thing – the CD is around forever. I felt I needed to develop as a cellist, and I wanted to find a programme that really meant something to me. That’s what has happened. I feel very passionately about the music on this disc.

What is the appeal of Russian music in particular for you?

I started studying with the Russian cellist Leonid Gorokhov when I was 11, and my teacher before that was Marina Logie, whose father was an amazing Romanian-russian cellist, so perhaps I feel close to Russian culture because of my teachers. I’m very interested in Russian literature because it’s so intense and colourful, and I’ve been learning Russian for five years. Then there’s the Russian school of playing: Daniil Shafran is my ideal cellist. So I don’t know if this was building up in my soul, or if there’s something about Russian music that draws me in. How did you adapt to the recording process?

It was intense, but I was lucky enough to work with the Russian pianist Petr Limonov who has done so many recordings and was very supportive. He has a huge amount of knowledge about this repertoire. Another thing I love about working with him is that we quite often disagree. I find disagreements lead to a much deeper and more thorough interpretation of a work. It’s healthy and interesting.