Two
years into the Philadelphia Orchestra’s residency
at the city’s resplendent Kimmel Center, and
just a few months into Christoph Eschenbach’s
tenure as music director, I talked with the
maestro in his comfortable studio behind the
center’s Verizon Hall. I found a man very
much at ease in his new role, thanks partly
to two decades of American experience: "With
eleven years in Houston, and nine in Ravinia,
I learned very much about the American system–about
how organizations like orchestras work, and
the role of a music director. It’s a totally
different role that he plays here than in
European orchestras, which are state-, city-,
or region-subsidized. And it’s of course an
enormous benefit for me, at the Philadelphia
Orchestra, to have learned, not to be a newcomer
to doing organization, not having to learn
the basics and all the implications which
are combined in this job. I swim actually
in the same water, and I’m not scared by things,
and I’m not surprised by things, not overwhelmed
by things."
The
"things" in question frequently
include seeing and greeting, for example,
a hundred sponsors at the end of a concert.
"I’m absolutely used to that, and I like
to speak to people. I like the idea that the
music director is very much involved in fund-raising–explaining
to the possible donor why it’s a joy
to give money to the organization, and why
it’s a joy to support music, and why
it’s important for the future that music keeps
this thing alive."
During
his first season, Eschenbach has already begun
an extended five-year festival setting all
the major works of Mahler in the context of
his forerunners and followers, and has also
paid special attention to the music of Messiaen.
Next season, the focus will be particularly
on Dvorák, and also on a group of what
are billed as "Great Late Works."
Who and what, I wondered, might follow in
the coming years?
"Well,
of course, there are many things which one
can focus on. It’s a little bit premature
to talk about them, because we are just exploring
several ideas, and also questioning these
ideas, if they are really good, and how one
sells them well, and how one deals with it–ourselves
and also the audiences. But I like the idea
that, apart from offering a variety of repertoire
in all senses, once or twice in the season
we focus on one theme." After next season’s
"Great Late Works," what about a
concentration of "Great Early Works,"
such as perhaps the Shostakovich First Symphony?
"Why not?" Eschenbach replied–"I
certainly had this idea in mind. Not next
year, but I will do it certainly one year,
because that’s enormously interesting. We
won’t do the Shostakovich symphony, because
it was just done; but if you realize, for
example, that the theme of the last movement
of the ‘Jupiter’ is already there in the first
symphony of Mozart! There are pieces like
Mahler’s Klagende Lied, where you hear
already the quotes, or pre-quotes, from the
Lied von der Erde, and the Second Symphony,
the Third, and the Fourth. And your Shostakovich
is an example of a genius piece, not to forget
about the Beethoven First Symphony. And there
are not just symphonies–there are attempts,
overtures, some Mozart pieces that could be
included."
Asked
whether any marketing pressures had helped
to determine the relatively standard list
of works included in next season’s "Focus
on Dvorák"–the Seventh, Eighth,
and Ninth symphonies are scheduled, but none
of the less well known earlier ones–the maestro
was emphatic: "No, this was purely an
artistic choice. We didn’t want to do too
much Dvorák–we wanted to do Dvorák,
and around Dvorák–Janácek, Martinu,
and others." Had there nevertheless,
I asked, been any pressure from the management
for the music director to draw in his horns
a little bit with regard to programming unfamiliar
repertoire? "No. The answer is definitely
no. Next season looks a little bit more conservative
than this season, but that’s not because of
restrictions. On the contrary, we will continue
to do new things. It’s the duty of every art
institution to get the audience at least informed
of what is written, what is painted, what
is danced. The museums do it, the theaters
do it. 80 per cent of the pieces in theaters
are new pieces. 80 per cent of the pieces
in musical organizations are old pieces, and
we have to find a balance. It’s only a bit
of a lazy tradition that new music has fallen
into the background. I don’t want to torture
people, of course, with new music who don’t
want to be confronted with it. But I want
at least to give them 15 minutes or 20 minutes,
or ten minutes, of information on what’s being
written today. And these ten minutes, even
if they don’t like the piece, shouldn’t be
considered as wasted time. It’s like, you
know, reading interesting articles in newspapers,
with an opinion maybe which you don’t like–or
maybe that’s not such a good example right
now! Or a novel, or whatever. But yes, you
have to be up to date. People may say, as
you’ve told me that they sometimes do, that
they want to come to a concert and relax and
have the nice music wash over them. But if
you have, say, the Beethoven Fifth on the
program–this is the most aggressive, uncomfortable
piece ever written, in my opinion, and it’s
not for relaxation. And you have many of those
classical pieces which are really not to relax,
in which you look for a spiritual enrichment
of the audience. Let’s take Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony–‘Ah, wonderful, great, the Ode to
Joy’–but before that, the first movement ends
with a funeral march, and the scherzo is the
wildest thing on earth–it’s hell; then there’s
a divine slow movement, of course, which is
very, very sophisticated. Then come these
very long preparations for the Ode. So it’s
also a journey like in a Mahler symphony,
like in a Brahms symphony, and a bit of a
journey into the new land, but it’s not considered
as torture."
I told
Eschenbach the story of what happened back
in the 1980s, in the time of Riccardo Muti’s
music directorship, when the concert performance
of an avant-garde piece had the audience fleeing
the hall in droves–the avant-garde piece in
question being Debussy’s Pelléas
et Mélisande, composed more than
80 years earlier.
"No,
really? But this has I think another reason.
I’m very much for concert performances of
opera, but there are some which are really
difficult. I find this with Pelléas
et Mélisande, because it is intended
to have a certain somnambulance in the language,
and everything is parlando, there’s
never an aria. If it’s seen on stage, in a
beautiful production, with all the mystery
and all the images around, then it really
works. But that work I would never schedule
in concert." Unlike, perhaps, Gluck’s
Orfeo, an essentially abstract "opera
of the soul," which the orchestra did
in concert with great success, also in the
1980s?
"Absolutely.
There are some operas I have in mind. I tell
you the ones which I would certainly stay
away from–the Da Ponte operas by Mozart, and
even Zauberflöte–these are just
so theatrical. Nevertheless, I have done Così
fan tutte in concert, two times, with
very much success. On one occasion we compressed
all the recitatives, and did the action with
a kabuki actor; another time Alfonso, the
initiator of the action, had the role of commentator."
How about Die Entführung? "That’s
also a nice idea. Another one of Mozart’s
which works really well, which I have done,
is Idomeneo. It’s one of the best."
We touched
also on the subject of commissioning new works.
Would this continue, and would the program
be American or international? "International.
It’s in the making." One per year, I
wondered? "Oh, no, no–more. We’ll do
co-commissions, so that it is not too expensive–and
the works get more performances that way."
One
question I put with some hesitation was whether
Eschenbach was planning to do anything to
improve what seems to me the poor quality
of the orchestra’s program notes these days
(hesitation, because I was the annotator between
1984 and 1992, and my comment might reasonably
be ascribed to sour grapes or professional
jealousy). "I must admit frankly,"
he said, "that this is a point to which
I haven’t paid enough attention yet, but it’s
good that you tell me, because of course it’s
important. We have had two or three discussions
about it already, to change it–but now comes
the work, how to change it."
With
regard to the orchestra’s future viewed in
general terms, Eschenbach’s comment was: "Well,
as I’ve often said, quality has no limits,
perfection has always another horizon to discover.
This orchestra is on the highest level an
orchestra can be, so it’s a question of balancing
out the different registers, of also getting
it still used to this hall. I’m happy with
the way that’s progressing, but the acoustical
team is still here, we are still working with
them. [The acoustician, Russell Johnson, had
said at the outset that it would take a minimum
of three years to adjust the acoustics for
the best possible results.] Probably with
all halls it’s like that. I remember the first
year of the Berlin Philharmonic hall. It was
a disaster, until they put in reflecting panels,
and now it’s one of the best halls. It takes
time. With us, at this point, I think there’s
so much improvement, now it’s really just
fine-tuning, and I’m very happy actually.
This hall is so beautiful, so warm.
"The
whole Kimmel Center complex, too, is very
impressive." I commented that it had
fundamentally changed the set-up of the city’s
musical life. "Yes, and it helps the
restaurants around. And not only chic restaurants,
but also restaurants for young people. I see
also more young people at the concerts, and
we will be working now, together with our
education committee, much harder to raise
what I call the invisible curtain, between
the stage and the audience, and to get different
people into the hall. I’ll be going to more
schools. I have an appointment with Settlement
School [Philadelphia’s leading community music
school] in March or April. I’ll be going also
to the universities, to get them more interested
in what we are doing, to tell them that we
are open for them–that they shouldn’t have
any fear of taking that step over the line
into Verizon Hall."
Was
there any plan to have a composer in residence
again, as the orchestra did in the 1990s?
"Well, we thought about it. It has its
advantages. It has also the disadvantage that
one is very fixed on works by this composer,
because one has to occupy him with work. And
of course by now I know the international
composing scene extremely well, and I’m not
so dependent on advice." Did this mean
that the orchestra would not be seeking a
successor to Simon Woods, its artistic administrator
for several years, who is leaving to become
the executive director of the New Jersey Symphony?
"Oh, I don’t refuse the presence of an
artistic administrator. Much more comes out
of conversation, from the give and take of
ideas, than from solitude." The artistic
administrator’s function, after all, is like
that of a midwife–his role is to facilitate
the creativity of others. That, I told Eschenbach,
was why, when I held a similar post with a
Dutch orchestra, I adopted Shakespeare’s "I
am not only witty in myself, but the cause
that wit is in other men" as my motto.
"That’s wonderful," he said: "One
idea stimulates the next."
It seems
clear that, whatever problems it may have
to cope with (and there are many in the current
economic circumstances of the arts in the
US), the Philadelphia Orchestra is entering
on a period when there will certainly be no
shortage of ideas in the house. For further
insight into what the new music director has
to offer, readers may like to look at his
web site: www.christoph-eschenbach.com.
Bernard Jacobson
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