Violinist Robert Traksmann says the violin’s sound has shaped his life

Violinist Robert Traksmann says the sound of the violin has captivated him since childhood. He has spent 27 of his 31 years with the instrument and hopes to continue for the rest of his life, ERR reported in a profile for its programme OP.

Traksmann began learning the violin at the age of four. “It is wrong to say I started playing,” he said. “At first, I walked around with it under my chin, and then I had to take my first steps in the classroom under Tiiu Peäske’s guidance. It was very demanding.”

His father, grandfather and great-uncle all played the violin, so Traksmann grew up surrounded by its sound. His mother told him that when he was a little boy and his father practised, he would say, “Daddy is looking at train cars,” because the notes looked like carriages to him.

When Traksmann was in ninth or tenth grade, his father woke him one morning and asked him to go to Hiiumaa, an island, to perform. The second violinist in his father’s quartet had a sick child and could not come.

“We went and learned it together; between the two of us, it was fine,” Traksmann recalled. “We took the ferry to Hiiumaa, where Arvo Aasma welcomed us warmly and announced us as the Rudolf Tobias first-aid brigade. Then we went straight on stage. It was a fun sink-or-swim adventure.”