Latest / Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger / Austrian Pittsburgher

Transcript

Austrian Pittsburgher · Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone and welcome to Q&A.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jay Nordlinger and I'm coming to you today on behalf of
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: the Salzburg Festival Society with whom I've been affiliated for many years.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Our guest today is a repeat guest,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: one of our favorites,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Maestro Manfred Honeck, the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: He has been in Pittsburgh for a long time,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: but he is an Austrian In this summer,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: he has been conducting the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: He himself used to play in this orchestra.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: One of his brothers, Reiner, is a concertmaster of the orchestra.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Maestro Honek,
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Manfred Honek,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: has been conducting an opera of Richard Strauss,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: one of the founders of the Salzburg Festival.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: That opera is Ariadne auf Naxos.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Maestro Honek, what a pleasure to see you, and thank you for joining us today.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasure to talk to you, Jay, again.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's wonderful to hear your voice.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Likewise, likewise.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know the story of Richard Strauss at the end of the war,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: when US soldiers come to his door,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: they knock on his door,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: and he answers something like this,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I am Herr Dr. Richard Strauss, composer of Der Rosenkavalier and Salome.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I myself would have included Elektra.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Which I myself would have boasted of that.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But here's a confession for you.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we make confessions on this show.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I love Richard Strauss.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: I've never been able to love Ariadne auf Naxos.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder whether you do.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me go back a little bit to my first beginning when I got to know
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: the opera Ariadne of Naxos by Richard Strauss.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was playing in the Vienna Philharmonic and as you know
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: the Vienna Philharmonic also played in the Vienna State Opera and here I had
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: the possibility to play this opera and it was my first time I got to know
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: a little bit this is and I thought it was very hard.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Actually,
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: because of this chamber music feeling,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: you mentioned Rosenkavalier,
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: you mentioned Elektra,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Salome might be, and so big operas, you know, with heavy sound.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: But suddenly you find yourself in a solistic way of playing.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this scared me in one way, but also fascinated me.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because this delicatess in playing chamber music,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: which I was used to, was for me quite new with Richard Strauss.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: As you know, Richard Strauss had...
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not composed a lot of chamber music,
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: string quartets or string quintets,
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: not so many, actually really few things you could mention.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: But this opera is a chamber music opera, especially the prologue.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the surprising thing in this opera is that you hear sometimes a sound Like
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: in Rosenkamer, like in Salome, so rich and so overwhelming.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the mastership of Richard Strauss.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: how he could do this instrumentation that he put a lot of winds together and
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: the combination of instruments that he feel a little enormous.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's like feeling a full of 80 people orchestrating in a bit.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you know it was actually fascinating when I worked
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: with this wonderful orchestrator Vienna Philharmonic.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: A
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: viola player showed me the parts what they played out of and it says here my name
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: and my colleague.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually so touching and it was so emotional
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: to see I have played this opera out of this same
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: music they used.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you, this is personal and maybe possibly touchy.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do the players of the Vienna Philharmonic accept you now as Maestro Honeck instead
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: of, oh yeah, Manfred used to play here?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, of course, I left the orchestra in 1991, you know.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a long time ago.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: A long time of the new members.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they were, I must say, so supportive of me, you know.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a very good time and love.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: They love their sound and the way they are playing and so it was actually a joy
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: to come back and I think it was a beautiful music making together you know and one
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: of the things was also beautiful for me because my brother And his partner,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Albina, they were both playing also, still playing these six performances.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a little bit also a family coming together and, you know, it was beautiful for me.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Your parents would have loved it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: They would have loved to be there in the house.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm sure.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Maestro, is it possible to conduct and conduct well a piece you don't really like?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Can you be like a lawyer making the best case for your clients?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, you know, you speak generally, not about Ariadne, isn't it?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, generally.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, generally.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Generally.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, of course,
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: you can conduct pieces which you have to conduct at the moment,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know, whether you laugh or not.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking about if you give a commission of newbies
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: and you never know what comes out,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: you know, and you see the first time the piece and...
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Many times,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: most of the time I speak with the composers,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: got engaged into the piece and I start to love it, you know.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: But it happens very few times where I was not convinced.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: But you do the best.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: You give your heart,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: you try to get out everything,
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: detail in what is hidden in the score and try to get the best
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: way of interpreting
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: the music.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's my job, actually.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you love the music or not, you have to present it, you have to get this to the audience.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: These are things I'm used to with and of course it's always a joy to conduct pieces
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: which you have done often or you discovered or you stand behind and
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: then you will dearly love it or you have a history with it
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: or whatever it is you know of course it's a joy you know
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: but I must also say sometimes I conduct a piece and I'm not so much convinced
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: the first time but the second time when I perform it or the third time Suddenly,
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know, I get a little bit more into it.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know why this happens, you know.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Same with being in the audience.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Same with being a listener.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes a piece grows on you.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very normal.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: We grow.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Every body grows, actually, as we get more older.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have a little bit more experience.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's also a beautiful thing, too.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: When we get more connected with pieces and start to laugh,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: it starts to get in the secret of music.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's an interesting, actually, movement.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder, Manfred Honeck, when you first went to Salzburg, were you a boy?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Were you a student?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Or it was when you were already a member of the Vienna Philharmonic?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: What was your first experience of the Salzburg Festival?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was actually one time driving when I was already substituted
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: in Vienna Philharmonic and I wanted to just make holiday in
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Salzburg.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I got a call in early afternoon.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Manfred, we have an emergency.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: A first violin player got ill.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Could you play this evening?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, of course I can, you know.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was Rosenkavalier and Herbert von Karajan was conducting.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, but, you know, I have to drive home to my car.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I got a ticket.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, I was driving too quick.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was so excited.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I drove home and took out, this time the violin, by the way, not the viola.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I took out the violin and started to warm up and play some passages of
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: the Rosenkavalier to Gut Pripyat.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And immediately he was driving to the Festspielhaus.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And looking on the other,
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: the whole part and practicing a little bit so that I hopefully did a good job.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: But this was my first experience,
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: musical experience in Salzburg.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Rosenkamelier with Vienna Philharmonic and on the baton of Herbert von Karajan.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was a wonderful experience for me.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I'd been there.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Here's an issue in music, Maestro, and I've discussed it with many conductors over the years.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I sometimes wonder whether a conductor has enough authority In the concert hall,
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: in the Opera House.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I would not want to go back to the days of, let's call them podium tyrants.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to go back to the days of George Zell at his harshest,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: or Fritz Reiner, or Artur Rudzinski, or Toscanini.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want that.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: But
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder whether the conductor has enough authority over an orchestra And over
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: the production of an opera.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: A sensitive issue, but you know what I mean, I think.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is an important question,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: because when young conductors are getting some advice,
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I always tell them, have no fear of the orchestra.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's the problem.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as you got on stage, sometimes people think, oh, I have to behave differently.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I said, no, be yourself and ask those things what you have thought about.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the problem sometimes that conductors not...
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Asking for things.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Either they have no idea what they want to have or let the orchestra play
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: and it comes automatically or if they have an idea they have sometimes fear.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I like it very much if you have an idea how the music should sound
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: and how it should be produced and performed in a concert.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have to work on that.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: even if it's a Beethoven fifth symphony or ninth symphony,
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: which they played thousands of times,
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: you have an opinion as a conductor and you should get through your opinion.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sometimes it happened to me,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: you know, that I thought, oh, this moment is so particularly fantastic.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I want to hear it in that way and that I was thinking about for a whole year.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: But then sometimes an orchestral musician offer me even a better version.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Then you have to step back.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I say, this is better.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is better.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's always something to give.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: But generally, it's very important that
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: we try something to give the orchestra.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: They are waiting for that.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm also the same with you.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like this dictatoric style of authority.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: But there is also a very natural authority.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: How does a conductor get this natural authority?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's through your professionality.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: When you know things, when you know the score very good, it's fantastic.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: But you have also to have a talent to tell this in a way that
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: the orchestral musicians take it, that they understand it also.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I would say, sometimes, you know, an example, you can say, oh, play here forte, not fortissimo.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, play here pianissimo, not piano, and like this.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, this is a technical thing, and you see it in the front.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they hear it all the time.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: What about if you say, you have to play this forte like you turn on the light.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make it too bright.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a candlelight.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And not electric light, for example, you know.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So give the musicians a nice image, you know, this kind of thing.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot believe how they change the sound.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: But we have to work on that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: We have to get this...
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And authority through your work ethic and through work,
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: how you know the score and what you want to do with the score, you know.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get a lot of respect.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And with that automatically comes the acceptation actually also.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: People accept and what you're doing.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Maestro, let's leave other cities aside and other orchestras.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: In Pittsburgh, do you have what you regard as enough rehearsal time?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know that the rehearsal time are in America very often a little bit limited.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: But here is the good thing in Pittsburgh, you know, we know each other very good.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's it will be in two years I will be 20 years there and
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: so they know what I'm asking they know what kind of sound I want and
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: the other way is also I know how when I know the players I know what I can expect
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: from them you know so every news is already actually it's
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: a mutual understanding also you know so this in Pittsburgh it's a very I would say
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: a Very lucky situation for me, you know, and it's growing all the time, you know.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, also,
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think I have mentioned it to you also once,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: that I always prepare my own music,
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: not only my score myself, but the music of the musicians.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what they have in front of them...
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's already my bowings and my signs,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: if I change things, they have it already in front of them.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's much easier to get through this
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: amount of rehearsals as usual.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it also depends on, of course, on the repertoire.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: When we do now Shostakovich Fifth Symphony and the Salzburg Festival,
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: We played it quite a lot of times,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: we had also the Grammy and then we had a recording and so most of the people and 90%
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: of the people know the piece,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: the newer ones, of course, they have to get into it, but that's a joy.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And just to remind,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: then they do it even with one rehearsal, you know, it's fantastic how it comes back.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this question of how well the Pittsburghers know you and you know them,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think that your current contract runs through 2033.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that'll be 25 years or so.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And my impression is that's pretty rare these days, such a long tenure.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Ormandy was in Philadelphia for, I think, 44 years.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Mengelberg in Amsterdam for 50 years.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Ravinsky in St. Petersburg or Leningrad for 50 years.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you will have at least, I think, 25.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder in this age of so much fluctuation, I wonder whether that is satisfying to you.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, it is necessary, I think, in our days.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's think in our days and in modern way of living, you know, everything is so quick.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we can press the button and we have already a ticket to Europe and to Asia.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is quick.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: In earlier times, you have to go on a ship to go from Europe to America, you know.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: It took your weeks to go there.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: So everything is quick and with the mobile phones and all the things.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: We are used to have it very quick.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in the music world,
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: you know, I fight a little bit against that, that an orchestra changes.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: The music director every five years.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's not good because I think you should create a sound with the orchestra.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you should create something special.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not enough to have to be only three or four years there or five years.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think you need a longer relationship and then it can something magic come out.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's always better.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not needed to be 50 years.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I must also say one thing,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: if If the relationship with your orchestra would not work,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: then I would never have extended, never.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's always a mutual agreement,
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: and if they love to have me as a music director,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: like they expressed it to me also,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: then I'm happy about,
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: frankly speaking,
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about also to give the possibility orchestra
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: to have another music director also.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the wish came from the orchestra and I was also very touched by that.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to myself,
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to stay with the orchestra and also
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: enjoy the work and continue to enjoy
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: the work,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: so learn the fruits of that,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: you know, what you have given to the orchestra for a long time.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's necessary and I think it's good to do it.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the result always shows that, I think.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I sometimes like to note and discuss differences in audiences around the world.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And in Europe, Europe is a big place, of course, I don't mean to overgeneralize.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Europe goes from Ireland to Moscow, maybe.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I've certainly noticed in Central Europe that That audiences applaud for
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: a relatively long time.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And in my country,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: the United States,
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: audiences tend to applaud briefly, maybe enthusiastically, but briefly.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And in Salzburg, for example, there is one curtain call after another.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder whether our applause here in America, I'm now back at home.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder whether our applause is sometimes insultingly brief.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Actually,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel that because when you end the performance
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: and they immediately stand up,
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: you know, like in Pittsburgh, you know, and they have a lot of energy, you know.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is something what I really think, okay,
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: this is something what they are,
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: they love the performance,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know, and this is You can express this in a different way.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: In America, of course, they have the tradition to do it, but the enthusiasm is here.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's count for me personally.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't ask for 10 curtain calls.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not necessary.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: It can be for two or three.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if the sound of the applause is really great and energetic, that fulfills me personally.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a question of tradition,
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: so it's in Europe,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: they do it in this way and also can be fantastic, enthusiastic, you know, and so on.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't care so much about that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Maestro Honek, I have to laugh at myself.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have to laugh at the way I'm sounding these days because all
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: of my life I've quoted things like the late piano scholar,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: Charles Rosen,
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: who said,
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: the death of classical music is perhaps the oldest tradition of classical music
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: because in every generation people say, well, it's going down, it's going down.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And Gary Grafman,
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: The pianist,
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: when he was the head of the Curtis Institute, gave a speech titled Dead Again.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: So every generation or every two generations,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: the death of classical music is announced or worried.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to laugh at myself because I am really worried about the condition
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: of classical music in America.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: It seems to me that everything is going down and down.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's less music education in the school's People,
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: even well-educated people who have been to our best colleges know nothing
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: about music.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're scarcely familiar with the names Bach, Mozart, Beethoven.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: The basics.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: The Metropolitan Opera has fewer and fewer performances.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: They stage fewer and fewer.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I sound like one of those old people in every generation, people who worry.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I wonder whether there's any justification for this worry.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: How do you see it from your perch, from your vantage point?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean,
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: first of all,
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: we always have to trust that that what we are doing,
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: the performance and the music with which we perform is a fantastic music.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's Bach, Händel, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Bruckner, Strauss.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: 20th century Bernstein-Western story and all these things.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it fantastic, this music?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a treasure we have.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like a jewel.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can sometimes have the jewel hidden somewhere else, you know.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I think this will never go away because it's here and it is too good to be lost.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: we feel that also a little bit,
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: that fewer people sometimes come to the performance.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: The older generation loves Dildibus because they got to know it.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the younger generation, they have not yet got into this world.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And as you said, and you are right with that.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if in school is not taught music anymore.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: How can you go into the performance and have no idea who is Beethoven
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: and have no idea who is Mozart or maybe you heard sometimes the Ode to Troy or so,
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: like sometimes people tell me,
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: oh there's another movement so I wait for them,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: it's only a force movement,
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had to wait a little bit,
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: so to get this beautiful But I am personally not worried because
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: the music is fantastic and it is
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: jewelry and it is somehow where we really can trust
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: in that.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Trust is the word, yes.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can trust that people come back.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: we do things sometimes,
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: when we meet the young people,
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: our musicians are going out to schools and play for them and bringing them
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: the music.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: The teachers are...
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes tell them also about music, what we are doing.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there are a lot of actions.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Nowadays these kind of actions are needed very much because as you said
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: the school doesn't teach any more music in that way.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Private schools they do that, but the public school unfortunately not.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: But we have to find a way to bring this fantastic music to them.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we are aware of that.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you mentioned a while ago conducting and playing very familiar music such
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you have a new recording of Dvorak's New World Symphony.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And along with pieces by Carlos Simon, the contemporary American composer.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking of something Robert Shaw would tell his orchestras.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: He was mainly known as a choral composer, but he conducted orchestral music as well.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: But whatever the music,
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes in the final rehearsal,
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: he would say to the orchestra or to the chorus,
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: if it's a very familiar piece,
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: let's say Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: He would say,
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: remember,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: there are people in the audience who will be hearing it for the first time.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And there will be people in the audience who will be hearing it for the last time.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: So make it good, always good.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder whether,
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that you make certain to approach a very familiar piece like
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: the New World Symphony freshly.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because we can all remember,
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: When we first heard it,
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: let's say we were children or we were youths, how exciting it was.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean,
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: I personally,
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: when I started a score,
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not so thinking about whether the audience comes first time in the concert
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: or last time or so.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about what's about the music.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: What does the composer wants to tell us with the music?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I take it very carefully because I'm 100% convinced and it always shows us the results.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: When you go into the music and try to fulfill the wish of the composer,
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's mostly the best way to convince audits.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if we are on the stage,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: if I am convinced about how to interpret the music,
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: even if it's completely family,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: everybody thinks New World Symphony, you know, we know this, you know.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: But when you go into the music and asking why does he write this harmony?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why does he write this rhythm?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: What is the secret on that?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly you get a result which people who know the symphony are very astonished
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: and surprised sometimes, you know.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And of course those who don't know it Or have it first time,
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: they will be also captivated by this,
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: you know, because they hear something in the orchestra.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And as you know,
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: to hear orchestra live is always fantastic,
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: to have 90 musicians on the stage,
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: you know, what kind of power and what this live character.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's no substitute.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: As much as I'm grateful for recordings and as much as I love recordings,
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: there's nothing like live.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what I always tell people,
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: come to the concerts, because once you have heard this, it's already gone.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's already history.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: CD on the internet,
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: you hear it,
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: you can press the button,
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: you hear it always the same way,
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: but on a concert,
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: you hear it exactly how it's something in the air,
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: you know, and it will not come back anymore.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is the moment.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: In the moment.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Maestro,
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: here at the end,
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: I have just a few more, and I never ask musicians
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: who are your favorite composers.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm more likely to ask, to what composers are you feeling especially close now?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes people offer.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: I remember your colleague,
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Austrian conductor colleague,
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Franz Welser-Must, said, oh, but I do have a favorite composer.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Since I was four or five years old,
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: since my grandmother first played me Schubert, it's always been Schubert.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Others have sort of a private pantheon.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: do you have composers to whom you are feeling especially close,
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: music that is like your medicine in a way?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, to take a medicine you have to be ill, you know.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that people who love music, they will come every time.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, music has also a healing effect.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't misunderstand me.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has music they love.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Mozart's Coronation Mass was the first piece I heard in my life
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: when I was nine years old, an LP.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And my God, I love this so much.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Mozart, of course, you love this.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: We love composition.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: But what is wrong with Beethoven?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: What is wrong with Schubert?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: The fascinating thing is the more white hair I have
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: the more it's shifting also now Mahler you know plays always a big role for me
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: but now Bruckner you know it is something fascinating you can tell with
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: in my age now it's
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm now a bigger Brooklyn fan than it was 40 years ago, I must say.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: These symphonies are prayers in a sense, are they not?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're full of spirituality.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Full of spirituality,
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: but also,
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: that's one of the things in Bruckner's world,
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: people think, oh,
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: he was a fantastic professor,
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: so everything has to be very theoretical,
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know, harmony and contrabount and so on.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he thinks Bruckner was very religious, so everything must be sound like in a church.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Which is always true.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing what most people in Bruckner miss a little bit,
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: that he was a
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: fascinating
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: advocate for Austrian Volksmusik.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was playing himself.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: He played viola and violin in a Windhag trio every weekend he played in a wedding,
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: on a wedding,
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: and he played all these waltzes, polkas, marches, and so he was an expert of that.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you hear that also in the symphonies.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of examples in the symphonies where you can put this connection to
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: the old Austrian tradition in it.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this fascinates me.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, there is spiritualities here.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: And nowadays,
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: when we are in a time where we have in modern times,
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: we are always looking forward for more spiritual,
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: because we have lost that a little bit disconnection, I think, in our modern time.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think, you know, because...
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many things where you feel in Brooklyn's music,
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: there's an honest relationship,
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: an honest longing,
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: like in Gustav Mahler always,
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: a longing to see the eternity,
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: you know, see that's what happens, you know, what is going to be...
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: When I die, you know, that's the big question.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Every composer and every human,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: actually,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have to,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: and you probably have to at all,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: is what happens with us when we are, when we pass away, you know.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: But this answer in music of,
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: in Gustav Mahler and in Anton Bruckner's symphony,
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: in my age, you know, they give me answers.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: I feel something,
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: there is something,
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of pureness and something happens special which you cannot describe.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: I know just what you mean.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: You are an arranger of music, a transcriber of music.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: You've made suites out of operas and so on.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to know, are you a composer of music?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: As we used to say, do you have some things in your drawer?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: These days they might be on a computer.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Do you write music?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: I would like, but I have no time actually.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's the problem.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I know when I start to compose a piece,
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: I need probably half a year off, you know, so to be really concentrated.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can't compose and then go to a rehearsal and And then conduct the Beethoven symphony.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Different music enters your head, maybe.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Some can do this, but I can't do it, unfortunately.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: But arranging this, I like very much.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: So to create something new,
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: create something for the eternity,
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: that's something which I, of course, would like to do.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: And here at the end,
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: I want to ask you finally whether there are pieces you are looking forward
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: to conducting Pieces on your list, so to speak.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you what I mean.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Ricardo Mutti told us in this series of ours for the Salzburg Festival Society,
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: he waited a long time before conducting the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember how old he was.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just guessing.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe in his 40s.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then a very long time for the Mise Solemnis of Beethoven.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe in his 70s.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: And a very long time for Bruckner No.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: 8.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think he was in his 80s when he first got it.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder,
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: are there pieces you have not conducted that are on your list,
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: sort of mountains to climb?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I always wanted to do Mahler 8th symphony.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Which is one of the pieces, of course, with a great cast, you know.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: So-called Symphony of a Thousand, we have a nickname.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Symphony of a Thousand.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I have never done
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: the Matthew Passion by Bach.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's a must.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's a must.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I waited a long time to do St.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: John's Passion, which I did, you know, I think it was around 10 years ago.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: But St. Matthew's Passion, you have to be ready.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I completely agree about the Ricardo Motik feels,
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: you have to be ready for these pieces, you know.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so,
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: so Matthew's Passion is also on my radar as well as Marlow and Eighth Symphony,
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: and these are things I really would like to do.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would like to be in the audience when you do that Mahler and that Matthew.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen,
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: we have been listening to Manfred Honeck,
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: the Austrian maestro who conducts the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jay Nordlinger doing Q&A for the Salzburg Festival Society.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Manfred Honeck, thank you for all you do for music.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for what you do for music.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: We need it.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate you.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Trey, for what you do for music.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful that you do this interview and it's beautiful that you promote music
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: in the world.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so long, everyone.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Till next time.