Back in the States
Since I moved back to my hometown Berlin in February 2001 this will be the longest stretch I will spend here. I arrived yesterday afternoon in Fort Worth, rehearsing for the concert in New York on the 26th, and now I am sitting at the airport in Charlotte on my way to New York, where I lived for seven years and where my son Janos was born almost nine years ago. Only for 24 hours did I stay in Forth Worth, just two rehearsals for the two pieces I will be performing at the Carnegie Hall Debut of the Fort Worth Symphony, the fiddler-player of the Brahms Double Augustin Hadelich and my own.
Happy New Year to Everybody :)
Well, time passes far too quickly - I thought I had two long, beautiful weeks off after this recording session in London (that's when I wrote the last blog), and yes, it has been two weeks, but they weren't long at all, passed so quickly with all that celebrating, family gathering, playing games and putting order in the apartment. Being the member of a huge family also brings so much diversion that time is flying by; I have four siblings, two of them have their own family with two respectively three children and rather wonderful partners - it's a joy spending time with them, but sometimes I wished I would be bored more often in order for time to stand still and not rush forward constantly. But the days are just too full. Anyway, Happy New Year to everybody who stops by and reads this!
Recording in London and my own inefficiencies...
I have no idea why I have been silent for such a long time; it is definitely not because I had too much to do, rather the opposite; since my last official concerts of 2007 end of November in Neuss (a recital with Markus Becker) and Bratislava (Elgar with the Bratislava Philharmonic under Alexander Rahbari) I wasn’t very busy. Actually a very welcome break in the schedule since I had to prepare and learn half of the repertoire for the next cd production which takes place right now here in London at Henry Wood Hall. But somehow this “break” of almost two weeks passed quicker than anything else, and since I hadn’t been home for a longer stretch there were many things to take care of, not talking of trying to be a father for once, practising the piano with Janos, working on his school work and just playing games. We had even bought a basketball ring and hung it as high as possible in his room (yes, Berlin ceilings are very high, so we have almost the official heighth in his room which means we can play real basketball games J).
Conductor - Soloist
The advantage of being a soloist is that we don’t have be away from home for as long as a conductor for the same amount of concerts. When I did my little Hamburg-Göttingen-commute the other day I was gone from home for five days, in which I had five rehearsals and three concerts with two different orchestras, conductors and pieces. Both of the conductors worked for at least the same time each. Why? Very easy: They have to work with the orchestra more or less from scratch, sometimes three, four days of rehearsals, while I come sometimes just the day before the concert for the first rehearsal, play in the morning of the concert a dress rehearsal, concert at night, and, if it ain’t too far from home, I might even drive back after the concert.
Conducting Composer No.2 - Matthias Pintscher
Since I am have not really played that many contemporary concertos in my life (from living composers I mean, and that would be six or seven, I guess) it was quite an experience to work with two of the most famous ones within two weeks. After John Adams 10 days ago with the Brittencellosymphony in London I now got my first concerto written in this millenium under my belt, conducted by the composer himself, Matthias Pintscher. I must admit I was rather stressed out the last three weeks leading towards this collaboration because I remembered him as very picky from the time when I premiered his "Janusgesicht" for viola and cello a couple of years ago.
Genius at work - Simon Rattle
Just got back from a concert of the Berlin Philharmonic under their chief conductor Simon Rattle, and I am still in awe about one of the greatest performances I have ever heard in my life. The orchestra sounded absolutely amazing, and what Rattle did with the two pieces ("Seht die Sonne" by Magnus Lindberg and 9th symphony of Mahler) was so deep, honest and absolutely breathtaking that I am still beaming, even though I should be dead tired myself after a very long day. Backstage I had the chance to talk to him right after he came off stage; what a modest man - he must have felt that he had done something very special, but all he did was praising his orchestra and the composers. Young and very talented conductor Vladimir Jurowski told me a little later, that he thought that this was the greatest performance of any Mahler he had ever heard. In German we call this a "Sternstunde".
Working with a legend - John Adams
After trying to learn and memorize these two awfully difficult concerti by Benjamin Britten and Matthias Pintscher last week in Sweden while trying to spend some quality time with my parents, my sister and our children (well, her daughters and my son!), I am finally in action again, trying to prove that my brain is still as capable as I want it to be - well, dream on, the rehearsals for the Britten weren't exactly brilliant from my part...
Open Your Eyes...
Even though I should be in bed since about one hour, I suddenly felt the urge of starting this silly computer of mine (which I have avoided in the past 10 days!) to take care of some serious business like answering e-mails, paying bills, checking reviews and reading the new blog entries - thanks for them, by the way! Before turning this addiction underneath my fingertips off I decided to write a quick conclusion after these rather exhausting past two weeks with 8 concerts in four cities and two continents, playing a solorecital, Shostakovich 2nd concerto as well as Rococo, Dvorakconcerto and Dvoraks Silent woods while practising as much as possible new stuff.
Close Call
Do I already regret having committed myself to fly in between rather tiring concerts to Montreal for a solo recital? Well, last night I played the first of two concerts in Leipzig (Rococo Variations with the Gewandhaus and Dmitri Kitaenko), and even though it went quite well, I would call that concert a close call. I tried to be as discinplined as I could during the trip to and from Canada, sleeping as much as feasible, and upon my arrival in Leipzig, inspite of having to practice like a maniac, I also got some good night sleep. But still, last night while playing the Rococo Variations, I felt physically very challenged, especially my right hand and arm didn’t feel in control, and throughout the piece I was afraid that I wouldn’t make it through the last variation.
Adrenalin junky
It is 3 am, I just finished packing my suitcase and can't even think about sleeping since the performance a couple of hours ago of the Second Shostakovich Concerto was rather disturbing for me. My 8-year old son Janos said of the second movement, that it was scary - and so was more or less the whole concerto. I felt incredibly sad while playing - don't know if it was the music itself, my pitiful playing or the presence of my poor ailing mother in the first row (must have been the first time she ever sat so close).
German Interview before concert in Reutlingen
Sorry, I really liked these questions of a young journalist in Reutlingen, a little city South of Stuttgart. He sent them to me by e-mail and I answered them - I thought he was going to edit them or something, but no, he just printed the entire answers like that without changing a word; I was quite impressed, but too lazy to translate them. By the way: in spite of the jet-lag I played rather good Rococo Variations after 18 hours of travelling straight from Texas to Reutlingen. Yes, sometimes it works, but one has to be careful. Voila, the interview:
Discipline
While sitting in the lounge of the Chicago O'Hare airport I have some time to think about the past few days in Fort Worth. I was playing three times the Brahms Double Concerto together with Augustin Hadelich, the Fort Worth Symphony and their chief conductor Miguel Hardt-Bedoya. And except the last performance which took place this afternoon I was not really happy with myself, which was even more regrettable since the orchestra and especially Augustin played real well.
Back to work!
For the first time ever I took four weeks off playing the cello, and I must admit I could have got used to it - - I spent a heavenly time on the gorgeous island of Mauritius together with Janos, it was so good, that I really have a hard time getting into the working mode again. After three weeks of water-skiing, diving (we did our Advanced Open Water Exam, which doesn’t mean anything but that we are allowed to dive up to 30m), wind-surfing, snorkeling, sailing, katamaraning, para-sailing, reading, eating wonderful food and sleeping a whole lot I could just continue doing this for at least another month!
Thoughts about Shostakovich and interpretation in Mauritius...
What is a good interpretation? I made some conflicting statements in the past few years in this direction: on the one hand I demand to understand what the composer had in mind when he wrote the music down. I am on the other hand not at all satisfied when I only play what is written in the music, especially since I know from living composers that they expect us musicians to do something more personal than that with their works. This doesn’t mean one should ignore the composers instructions in general, but we have to make them our own so that at the end we can make our own statement with it. But there is a third, more serious problem: listening habits and traditions of interpretation which developed by the consumation of recordings, especially so-called reference recordings.
Season Over!
Over the past few months I had built up so much respect for August 2nd, the day I had to play in three different churches (in three different little cities in the North of Germany) all the Bachsuites. Since I had only played the last three suites in concert I was very nervous about doing them all, especially since I am not really convinced about how Bach should be done. And now it's over!
Recharging Batteries while Sight-Seeing and Sailing
After the last concert in Italy “Poggi del Sasso“ on July 17th I could have almost locked my cello up until end of August if it wasn’t for this one concert on August 2nd at the festival in Hitzacker, where I have to play in three concerts all Bachsuites plus a Reger-Suite as part of a workshop at noon. Why did I agree to this single date in the middle of the school summer holidays?
Lazy Cellist?
Yes, I am very sorry (for not writing in such a long time), and no, I have not been lazy, rather the opposite. Since my last blog entry about a month ago I have been so incredibly busy trying to cope with all the tasks that there was absolutely no time to take care of anything else. What did I do?
Too Many Different Repertoires
For me the most difficult task is to be constantly playing different repertoires. As a musician I believe it is rather healthy not to be playing always the same pieces - it keeps you fresh, keeps you on your toes and keeps you working. But the situation I am experiencing these days isn’t ideal either. Concertos aren’t even the problem, they are rather short (Shostakovich No.1 yesterday took about 25 minutes, I guess), I have played most of them often enough, so this isn’t my main concern.
Compromise - Negotiating: Collaboration in Music
How do you negotiate the tricky subject of “your” versus “the conductors” interpretation of a piece? Do you find you “give in” to some views and then wished you hadn’t?
Only a dead (or old) conductor is a good conductor ?
My father is an orchestra musician, plays since 41 years in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Their principal conductors have always been among the best in the world: he experienced Karajan, Abbado, Rattle. But also the guest conductors are normally the créme de la créme, especially since the orchestra hand-picks them; and still, I grew up with listening to his complaints about conductors which probably made me decide against wanting to become one, even though I think this would have been my destiny; already as a little boy I went to orchestra concerts and operas with the score in my hands.