Summer Holidays - Recharging Batteries
Another long period of silence from my part, I am very sorry, but I had nothing to say, I am afraid. Oh yes, I had enough time, but I was in a phase were I didn’t feel the need to write nor to express myself. What did I do? Oh, not too much, I think I needed some time to recharge my batteries, be at home, talk with my little family, read, cook, see movies, practise a bit, do some home improvement work – just being lazy and snuggly in my nest.
China - Country of Food!
When my manager asked me last year if I wanted to play again with two orchestras in China I immediately agreed without knowing repertoire nor orchestra. Please, don’t judge nor blame me, but I agree to locations when I know that I will be fed well – and in China you can eat gloriously well. It is a different story to anything I have experienced in any Chinese restaurant in the rest of the world. Even the food in the “China Towns” of famous city as New York or San Francisco don’t come close to the quality and variety in China itself. And if I have a chance to travel here comfortably, stay in a nice hotel and play some concerts, even get paid for the spending some time in food-heaven, then who cares what piece I have to play?! I just got back from the most delicious dinner in wonderful company, sitting outside right at a lake, tons of Chinese around us (local food, not hotel food, is superior!), temperature to perfection (maybe 25 Celsius with low humidity, slight breeze) and the food to die for.What did I have? OK, let’s see, the main dish was fish-head (oh, I forgot to say that I am not afraid to eat anything, as long as it doesn’t move anymore…), and the sites were a phantastic eggplant-garlic mix, black-goat-pepper-dish and some beans, all in the Hunan style, which is not quite as spicy as Szechuan, but in the same direction. What could be better than great food and interesting conversations? Music? Mh, maybe… depends on what…Â That brings me to the piece I had to learn extra for my trip to China. I actually had forgotten about coming here, until I wanted to update my calendar about four months ago. It was over a weekend, and since I couldn’t reach my management, I searched the schedule of China Philharmonic and Guangzhou Symphony and did indeed find myself. May 16 and 23, playing – – the Largo by Penderecki.
Haydn D and the poor cellists who have to play it...
After two very tiring weeks in Sydney and Melbourne I am on my way back home for 24 hours before I jump off to Stuttgart to perform another Haydn D Major with the Stuttgart Philharmonic there. Australia is a very beautiful country indeed with lovely people living in it, and as I mentioned before, the orchestras play on the highest level of excellence. The tiring aspect of it all was that I started far too late to re-learn the Celloconcerto by Mathias Pintscher, which I had to perform (only once) in Melbourne at the Malt House. They are running there two very special weeks of modern music in front of a highly enthusiast and knowledgable audience, and I had another go at that devilishly difficult but very good Pintscher Concerto. But since I always function best with deadlines, I waited until I arrived in Sydney where I played four times the charming but dangerous Saint-Saens Concerto and practised in between the Pintscher – thus not seeing hardly anything from this famous city, except the Opera House, every day, inside out, since the orchestra plays and rehearses there.
Live Stream from Australia
In a couple of hours I am going to play my debut with the Sydney Symphony in the probably most photographed concert hall in the world, the Sydney Opera. Yes, the famous landmark right at the water front, and it does look even more spectacular in real live – and it is huge! I didn’t know that inside this beautiful architecture there is a full opera house plus a concert hall which seats 2700 people, home to the really excellent Sydney Symphony, and I can’t wait to play the fragile but gorgeous 1st Saint-Saens Concerto there tonight (well, concert starts at 8 pm here, which is 12 pm Berlin time, or 6 am NYC, and there is a Bizet-Symphony first) – acoustics in rehearsal were excellent, but it can be always a surprise with people filling the hall.
Dvorak in Utah and Madrid
Yes, I made it finally to Utah after all the trouble with visas and ticket changes – and I was rewarded with the most gorgeous skiing weather you could imagine! My son János came with me and we skied every single day; I was a bit jealous because he got to do it the whole day while I had to dash in and out of Park City into Salt Lake City to rehearse the Dvorak with the Utah Symphony under their chief conductor Keith Lockhart but I must admit that in spite of all the fatherly envy I enjoyed my time with this courageous orchestra which played two beautiful concerts – for free! They donated their salary for the sake of keeping the organisation going, and they really put their pride into the two performances which included two of the great pieces of the last 100 years: Dvorak Cello concerto and Strauss Heroes Life. And while knowing Keith for 15 years now.
Visa Trouble
In Mid-February I wrote about my little greencard-theft-desaster and the ensuing trip from hell to the US Consulate in Frankfurt, almost missing my flight etc… Now I seem to be bound to go through exactly the same once more: The greencard, which I “earned” by being married to a Puerto Rican lady with a US passport (well, all Puerto Ricans carry a US passport) was about to expire in September anyway, and since I don’t spend enough days in the US and the center of my life is right now in Berlin, I decided not to attempt to apply for a prolongation but to give it up.
Correction
I would like to apologize for having completely misunderstood and misrepresented the following facts: my manager had informed me that the Cleveland Orchestra changed the program for June 2010 and that they weren’t going to need me anymore to perform the Concerto by Matthias Pintscher. I assumed by having recently read articles about how the financial crisis affects US orchestras that this must have something to do with budget cuts of the Cleveland orchestra. This is completely wrong, and neither has the Cleveland orchestra laid off anybody.
Financial Crisis
One hour ago I was affected for the first time by the financial crisis, but first a little update on what I have been doing since my last scribbling:
After an enjoyable Elgarconcerto in Bonn two weeks ago with Stefan Blunier, a wonderfully original conductor, and his newly acquired orchestra I had a whole week at home to take care of some paper- and office-work while spending some quality time with wife and family. Right now I am sitting in the plane flying me home from Valencia (via Zurich) where I played another Haydn D Major concerto with the local orchestra and the 78 year-old Günther Herbig. In the second half I took the opportunity to join the orchestra in a very gripping and emotional performance of Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony, 80 min of intense music-making. I was in awe by the energy this old gentleman projected into the orchestra which played their hearts out for him. Great energy, good amount of wide hair and not too many wrinkles, I thought he was about 60 years old when I met him at first, discovering only later through wikipedia his real age.
Father and Soloist
Often I am being asked in interviews how difficult it is to combine the life of an egotistical soloist with having a family (somehow this subject sounds familiar – I must have written about it already; if so, please forgive me for repeating myself!). Last week I lived the perfect example of how easy it can be to combine the two pleasures; my ex- wife attended a seminar in Los Angeles and our son János who had just switched schools refused to stay alone in Berlin during my trip to Oslo (he could have stayed with my father or my sister). The solution was far too tempting for me to turn down: He had to come with me to Oslo. During school time. Why not? He took massive amounts of homework with him, his laptop with online-work to do, and by experiencing a new city the loss of missing three schooldays would be within the limits. We had done it once for a much longer trip to Vancouver and it worked beautifully, but this time was even better. He is ten years old now and a wonderful travel companion, witty, warm and very supportive, strangely enough. He loves music and didn’t mind me practising next to him while doing his homework or playing Fifa 09 and chess on his PSP (this is some Sony playconsole, for those who don’t have 10-year-old children) and practising the piano during my rehearsals. And it was wonderful of having at least one loved one for my debut with the Oslo Philharmonic at my side. The afternoon after the first rehearsal we had some rather philosophical conversations about love, life and especially death (he is fascinated by this, also women start to be more interesting for him than a few months ago – he doesn’t understand them or at least not the ones he knows), studied a bit and then – only free evening of the stay there – we went to the movies to see Pink Panther.
Birmingham, AL - Birmingham, UK
Maybe it is nothing to be especially proud of, but I had a laugh when I realized a couple of months ago that I was going to play within four days with the two resident orchestras of the cities of Birmingham in Alabama as well as the “original” one in the UK. Pure coincidence, I promise, I had nothing to do with it. With both orchestras I have played before, obviously the one in England having the higher profile, but I must admit the Alabama Symphony did also quite a wonderful job with their energetic young British conductor (and pianist) Justin Brown.I just finished playing the second and last concert in Birmingham, UK, with the CBSO and their new chief conductor, Andris Nelsons, and it was maybe the most fulfilling Dvorak concerto I played so far. I met Andris three years ago – we did a tour together with the German Youth Orchestra to Venezuela, playing Haydn C Major and a modern piece which we both didn’t care much about, but still I could tell what a major talent was growing there. In the meantime he has grown even more, as musician and conductor, is 30 years old now, and I have never come across a musician with more intensity and passion. Already in rehearsal he wets his entire shirt after 5 minutes with his own sweat, but every move, every gesture has a direct reason and musical effect, there is no showmanship whatsoever in his demeanour, rather the opposite.
Bad luck - bad travel...
Starting at around 9:30 pm this past Saturday my little streak of bad luck started with me taking a rare run on our treadmill. The only way I can be convinced to run on a thing like that is to watch some TV at the same time. There is no TV in the room with the treadmill, but a ladder, on which I genius-like placed my beautiful Macbook (the silver Apple-laptop) to watch some Seinfeld. 15 minutes into the show some vibration of my feet hammering this running-machine made the ladder tremble and my poor little Mac fell down, screen broken. I don’t mind being unlucky, but if it’s because of my own stupidity, I have a hard time forgiving myself.The next morning, Sunday, Feb 15, I took the train to Giessen, a small town about one hour North-East of Frankfurt, for a so-called “soloist’s portrait” before having to play both Saint-Saens concertion Tuesday. I arrived there at 2 pm, warmed up at one of the dressing rooms until the conductor Carlos Spierer, and old friend of mine and the “host” of this portrait, picked me up shortly before 3 pm. Both of us were rather distracted about the public conversation we had to lead that both of us didn’t really realize that we left the door of this room open. My brand-new blackberry laid openly on one of the desks, backpack and suitcase as well as the cello case with substitute bow in another corner of that room.
Two very good questions of an Australian interviewer
Why do I write the blog?
I felt that we classical musicians have the tendencies to hide in our little ivory tower, expecting to play concerts which are attended by attentive audiences, but not wanting to deal with the audience directly. For me my blog is actually meant to reach people (I don’t know if it does) who are not really hooked to classical music (yet) and who may need a more personal approach to be drawn into it. By knowing a bit what’s going on in the mind of a traveling musician whom one might have seen on stage once or twice I hoped it could break down a bit the barrier and the distance between listener and performer.
Vibrato - Little Vibrato - No vibrato ???
Sitting in trains allows me to write a bit about my performances I am playing these days. Besides quite a range in repertoire (between Jan 13 and Feb 25 I am playing the concerti by Dutilleux, Strauss, Schumann, Lalo, Haydn D, Saint-Saens No.1+2, Beethoven Triple and Dvorak) I have the rare pleasure of working during the next few days together with one of the the specialist of “authentic baroque-music-playing”, Ton Koopman – on the Haydn Concerto in D Major.But first I would like to write about my experience playing in Helsinki last week, the city which is the cradle of so many wonderful conductors and musicians of today. Yes, I was more nervous than normally, because somehow my respect for these Finns is very high. Two days before travelling north I attended the concert of one of Finnland’s finest, Sakari Oramo conducting Berlin Phil, and his Schumann 2nd Symphony was really one of the most gripping and moving peformances of any Schumann Symphony I have heard so far. The “Sturm und Drang”, which is so omni-present in his music came out beautifully without him overdoing it. In Hannu Lintu I had a similarly intense conductor for the Schumann Concerto in Helsinki and even though I haven’t dared to listen to the live-broadcast yet I felt that it was one of the better performances I have given of that piece.
Operation Valkyrie
I just got back home after my very first movie premier, and I must admit I was more touched by it than I thought I would. It was the European Premier of the Operation Valkyrie, the Stauffenberg movie which is just coming out, controversial here in Germany because Tom Cruise isn’t much loved because of his scientology membership or however you want to call this. We received our tickets from friends of whom we had acquired our new apartment, an actor’s couple. He, Christian Berkel, is acting in that film, and since we are hoping to doing some projects together (reading-playing) it was a great chance for me to see his work for the very first time.
Dutilleux and Don Quixotte with the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne
On January 31 2005, the 6th birthday of my son Janos, I had the craziest jump-in of my life. At 6 pm on Jan 30 I received a phone call from the Gürzenich Orchestra if I could play the Lalo Concerto at 11 am the next morning. At this moment I had just returned from the ski slopes back to the hotel in Austria, where I spent some days of skiing holidays with my son. I hadn’t played the Lalo for about two years, but since it was one of the first concertos I had ever learned I was confident enough to agree to the gig.
Messiaen in Lisbon, Birmginham and London-Debut in Poland
When I look at all the works I have played so far for cello – be it solo, with piano or with orchestra – I might be tempted to state that the cello repertoire is not that small, but if I just have a tiny little look at the piano rep I must admit that we have nothing in comparison. This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the great French composer Olivier Messiaen, and while the pianists are in full combat-mode (2h15 minutes of “Vingt regards” for piano solo, or the 80 min Turangalila-Symphony, which is more or less a piano concerto, just to name a few) we cellists have practically nothing. Nothing? Well, there is the heavenly beautiful “Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps” for piano, violin, cello and clarinet, and since my friend and piano-partner Steven Osborne is one of the top Messiaen players (well, not only top for Messiaen) I am lucky enough to have been able to play this 50-min piece a couple of times this year, among others last week in Lisbon, Birminham and London’s Wigmore Hall.
Time flies, and some cellist is getting lazier and lazier
Actually I wanted to write at least a little bit of something after last week’s Brahms Double in Berlin with the RSB, again Marek Janowski and lovely Arabella Steinbacher, especially since it is always very meaning- and also stressfull and special for me to play in my hometown, in “my” hall, the Berliner Philharmonie in which I have heard so many unbelievable concerts, seen the greatest players and conductors, in short: where I received my musical training, at least partly.Thinking of the musicians I have had a chance to hear in there, just to name a few of the real good, dead ones: Vladimir Horowitz, Claudio Arrau (he even kissed me on my forehead :)), Emil Gilels, Pierre Fournier, Paul Tortelier, obviously Mstislav Rostropovich, conductors like H.v.Karajan, Jochum, Giulini and so many others – sooo lucky having grown up in this amazing city with wonderful orchestras performing more or less 10 concerts each week.
Dvorak in Boston
What a privilege to be able to play one of the great concertos of all times in one of the most gorgeous halls in the world, Boston Symphony Hall! I played here already three years ago, but I was far too nervous to actually enjoy and live the moment – tonight I was much more at ease, and it felt really special. Actually, today we even had two concerts; the dress rehearsal was an open one, and when I got to the hall at 9 am to practice I saw already many people streaming towards the hall. I got scared, thought, that maybe the rehearsal didn’t start at 10:30 but at 9:30. But no, it was just the free seating which made people come really easy so that could grab the best seat in the house. At 10:30 the house was packed and we didn’t “rehearse” but played a full-powered performance for this lovely audience. I am not a big complainer, but I had moments when I wished I could just stay home and enjoy my life. Tonight was one of the moments which reimbursed me for all the trouble this profession (or calling) brings with it. Playing Dvorak Concerto with Boston Symphony under a conductor like Marek Janowski (for me one of the great living conductors) just pays off anything, and at least on stage the Symphony Hall sounds better than all other halls I have played in – the cello plays more or less on its own. Audience wonderful, very attentive and apreciative at the end, and I must admit, I am really sad that already a third of my time in Boston is over :(
Paris: City of Love and the Arts
Actually I wanted to write this text on my way from Paris to Cologne in the train, but sitting together in the TGV (train grand vitesse = French superfast train) next to my good friend and pianist Steven Osborne prohibited me to do anything else but talking to him about life, love and music – which means this text had to wait until my next journey, which was obviously not the drive in a rent-a-car from Cologne to Berlin the night after our concert in Siegburg, but now, a day later, on my flight from Berlin via Frankfurt to Boston (long live the online-checkin: I am sitting in the exit-row with endless leg-space – no seat in front of me!)..
Alban in Antwerpen with Steven Osborne - New CD Release
Last night Steven and me played the devilishly difficult Sonata by Charles-Valentin Alkan for the first time in public, a small but very attentive audience in Antwerp, Belgium, since having recorded it last December in London for Hyperion. It was pure coincidence that the cd had just been released last week; the original release date was supposed to be end of November, and nobody had told us about the change of dates – lucky move, since people always prefer buying the piece they just have heard.It was a bit of a tour de force: I arrived after a nine hour train ride the day before the concert in Antwerp in order to rehearse with Steven. We worked very well and intense, but I realized that I needed quite a lot of work on my own part, which meant, tons of practising on the day of the concert – not really my favorite thing to do, but I had to many memory lapsuses during the rehearsal and didn’t feel completely on top of my game.