A Thinking Tenor

Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger · Sep 3, 2025 · 1h 3m · transcript

Julian Prégardien is a tenor from Germany—despite his French-looking name. On his father’s side, he is Belgian, Italian, and Dutch. “A true European,” he says, a real mixture. One of his ancestors is Sweelinck, an important composer in pre-Bach days.

I talked with Prégardien at the Salzburg Festival, while conducting interviews for the Salzburg Festival Society. He was singing Mozart at the festival. And in this sit-down, I open with a question about Mozart.

Prégardien is fascinating on this composer, as on several others. I will paraphrase:

I think the challenge that comes with singing…