[February 13th, 2015]
Dinuk Wijeratne: So I’m here with Bernhard, February 13th 2015.
B: Friday the 13th!
D: Friday the 13th – very auspicious! So Bernhard, seeing as we were randomly talking about Karajan earlier, is it true that you have Karajan’s baton?!
BG: [nods] I still have it.
DW: What’s the story behind that?
BG: It’s quite simple. I was in Berlin with the ‘RIAS’ radio orchestra I believe, and I think I broke my own baton, so I asked the orchestra and people during the break if they have a spare baton, but it to had to have such a cork.
DW: Which year is this?
BG: …’82?
DW: Oh so Karajan was still alive?
BG: Ja, I said “Oh here’s one” and I took it and they said “Oh, but that’s Karajan’s baton!” I said “But he’s not coming here anymore”. It was a long long time before he became of the director of the Philharmonic orchestra. So I just took it!
DW: Great story.
BG: And it’s very heavy. I have it here. It’s almost unbreakable.
DW: It’s a funny story, because I know he’s not your favourite conductor so you obviously don’t believe in good luck charms!
BG: Ha! No, but it always impresses people, this baton.
CINEMA
DW: Oh yes! Ok, so I have lots of different things to ask you, in no particular order. When I first met you, I remember that I was very surprised to discover how passionate you are about cinema. I soon discovered, when I spent time with you and [your wife] Shirley, that you’ve probably watched every film I ever could think of…and the two of you still watch lots of movies! What has this passion brought to your music-making, if anything?
BG: [sighs] Oh, that is very…I’ve never asked myself that, and I’ve never been asked by anybody, this question.
DW: Certainly through my composition I think about film in terms of ‘architecture’ and ‘dramatic sense’, so I wonder – does it affect your interpretations?
BG: Mmm…no I would say that the emotional content is for me the most important thing. I think first about this, before the structure. But whether film would influence my making music…hmm, I’ve never thought about this. I can’t actually…
DW: I’m sure it does.
BG: I’m sure it does actually.
DW: I’m sure it does on some unconscious level. Maybe in terms of narrative or characterization or pace or suspense…because you speak intelligently about film. Especially the films that you like; some of your favourite films.
BG: Oh….I’m sorry that I don’t have an answer to that. Maybe you are right, but I don’t really know how it works.
DW: Could you speak about your favourite films? You like Bergman, don’t you?
BG: Bergman, Woody Allen…many films which are about human relations. Because that is also where actors really show their skills. Ach, I think for an action film you don’t really need these. But if there is no technology then you have actually only a face or body of that actor that makes the story. That’s interesting. It’s not that I don’t actually enjoy a film where you see unbelievable animation…Jurassic Park of course is mind blowing…but it has nothing to do with acting. But Woody Allen for example….he’s very comprehensive about human nature. From funny to very touching. From grotesque to bizarre, sometimes…different limits. But that’s life…
DW: You don’t find it too negative?
BG: No.
DW: I mean I adore the masterpieces like Annie Hall, but I find lately that all of his films are either talking about infidelity or contemplating death.
BG: [laughs] Ja, but not negative in a Bergman way. In Allen there is humour in almost all of the films. And there are some where you can see that he admires Bergman very much.
DW: Bergman was a huge hero of his, yes.
BG: I can understand this. What I cannot understand is the Marx brothers. I find they are disgusting and boring and childish and dumb, and I can’t stand this! But in Allen for example the humour is the opposite.
DW: Have you seen Night at the Opera? It’s a Marx brothers film where there this one magical scene where they play piano and harp to entertain a bunch of children…and it’s a very moving moment in an otherwise silly film. There’s pin drop silence when Harpo is playing this piece on a harp, and the kids are just enthralled. It’s just for a few minutes but, ah, the magic of cinema! And then [snaps] it’s just gone.
BG: Well you have to distinguish between a ridiculous story or ridiculous acting. I mean, Jerry Louis films are ridiculous but there are scenes where you can see that he is an absolute genius. I always think: why the hell couldn’t he get this as a unit? That the story and the film content are on the same level. But instead you get a shock! It’s a huge disturbance.
DW: Yes I think about that a lot in terms of art. There’s the content, and then there’s how it’s executed. And so it might be interesting now to bring it back to music. There must be many pieces that have good content but unfortunately they haven’t been executed well. Does anything come to mind? Any near-misses?! I think maybe there were composers who weren’t able to orchestrate well at a time in their lives where they nevertheless had some great ideas.
BG: What comes to my mind are some Beethoven pieces. For example he has an Oratorio – Christus am Ölberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives) – which has great story but ach [shakes his head]. I mean, I think there is NO other composer of his level who could occasionally write such bad pieces!
DW: Wellington’s Victory?!
BG: [laughs]. Also in painting…there is…a French painter, Georges Rouault, and he has some paintings where he shows the crucifixion, and I think it’s absolutely the wrong subject for him. It ridiculous but of course personal taste plays a big role. But ja a very prominent example is always Beethoven. Not always up to ‘what he actually wanted’ or ‘should have wanted’.
BEETHOVEN
DW: So what is Beethoven’s role in your life as an artist? How much do you think about Beethoven? Because I know you’re very spiritually connected to Schubert but what’s your relationship to Beethoven?
BG: Well when you think about how rich music history is in terms of ‘phenomena’….he’s definitely one of them. I would say that no other composer has made such a development or progress from opus 1 to 135. And that is already unbelievable!
DW: Well said, yes, considering where he began and where he finished.
BG: And that he was one of the first who brought music from this entertainment character to the main thing. It was not like Mozart or Telemann or Vivaldi….or even Bach, whose Orchestral Suites were background music for the parties of the nobility. No, with Beethoven there was no eating or dancing; you have to sit there and listen to music! And he was one of the first to do this, and that was a huge thing.
DW: But that’s not to say that none of the Bach Orchestral Suites have no artistic value.
BG: Of course not.
DW: But it was what they were intended for, socially.
BG: Ja and I don’t know whether the ‘nobilities’ really knew what they had there. But it’s the integrity of these composers to write high level music for these occasions. And there is this famous story with Beethoven when he played piano and they were talking and he smashed the lid of the piano and said: “I don’t play for pigs!”. It was dangerous, but he was too famous to put up with that. I think that we all have to be very grateful to him that he did this.
D: To be the first diva!
BG: Ha! What Wagner then developed more and in this direction was where he said that music had to play the role of religion, meaning that it’s that important. And I mean Beethoven was conscious of himself….he was bursting from his own importance and genius. I’m sure he knew exactly what he was.
DW: But these are your perspectives on him as an artist. Has anything from him shaped your life in terms of how you make your choices?
BG: Which choices?
DW: Well I don’t know exactly….but when I think about him I don’t feel as close to him as a composer as I do to Mozart. But what I do get from Beethoven is that the element of struggle is amazing. He has shown the world how we can surpass ourselves….the music is a constant reminder. He’ll never let the music come to a state of rest. It’s always wanting to get somewhere….
BG: Yes, and no other composer was glorifying the human being like he did. Not only in the 9th symphony but also in the 7th symphony. This Greek ideal that human beings are something unbelievable….which, when you think about people you don’t like….[laughs] I don’t think so. But he celebrates this human ideal, for example in the 7th symphony. That’s one celebration of being human!
DW: Is it a celebration of human beings per se? Or something else?
BG: What some of them can really be…or should be, yes.
DW: So at the other end of the scale….well I have two interesting questions. Do you think that this is an idealistic or optimistic view of the human being? Is he presenting something that is too false? That’s my first question.
BG: If you aim for ideal, you are not wrong. I mean he himself was far away from this ideal! [laughs] But let’s fight for it, and one day maybe it will come.
DW: And my second question is – at the other end of the spectrum – does he take you dark places, where he shows you what is dark about human beings?
BG: Not so much….but if dark also includes violence, then I would say yes. Some of his pieces are really violent, especially when you think about when he wrote these pieces. Until then we were used to Bach and Haydn and Mozart….and then suddenly somebody comes along with such ‘brutality’ in some instances…it starts in a big way with the Eroica [Symphony no.3]….there are these ‘brutal’ parts which nobody else comes close to! But it’s part of the human nature. But dark in a sense of Schubert or Mahler?….then no.
DW: I’ve always believed that music is full of metaphors, so essentially music can reflect everything we experience as human beings. So everything that we experience in life has a parallel in music. So for instance, so when i hear counterpoint, and great counterpoint, that is an ideal for me that dialogue is possible if you have different opinions. That’s something that gives me at least some hope when the world isn’t good at dialogue. That’s one thing. But music innately can’t have it’s own sense of ethics. People do. Do you agree with that?
BG: [long pause] If music wants to express or comment on ethics it probably needs text, like in Beethoven 9. But I think he was very close to doing this also without text. Because (and for now let’s not think about the ‘violence’) there’s this kind of self-confidence in the notion that humans are something special, according to the enlightenment, and I would say that is the main ‘ethic’ or postulat. And I don’t actually know another composer….Bach and Bruckner are too religious in this respect, and I think if you are desperate in your life, Mozart might be the best healing….but Beethoven….Beethoven tells you that “you are special” and “you can do things that will change the world!”.
The SYMPHONIES
DW: Absolutely. I believe that. So what about your relationship to the [Beethoven] symphonies over the years? You must have done them so many times! I remember, in particular, seeing a wonderful performance of the 6th that you gave during my tenure as Resident Conductor and as your assistant [2005-8]. It was one of the best Beethoven live interpretations I heard during these years. What is your feeling about the symphonies? What’s your relationship to them? Do you think about them a lot in your spare time?
BG: Ja. Because they are….although from the same person, so different. He never wrote the same piece twice. Or any piece twice. And I can’t think of a piece of such importance that ‘opened doors’ like Eroica. Eroica is….when you think about when he wrote this, and what people were listening to at that time….Unbelievable! That there was actually a man who has to write something like this! That was actually the enlightenment in music.
DW: It was. It came out of nowhere. A kind of writing that came out of nowhere.
BG: And there we have one of these phenomena that are….how do you say it in English….unexplainable?
DW: Inexplicable.
BG: Ja. And then something like Symphony no.5 where you have this perfect sonata form, and that transition from the 3rd to the 4th movement – my god! It’s amazing simply that somebody had the idea to do something like this, no matter how he did it. I mean, until then, all the Mozarts, all the Haydns, were all so….[makes a gesture indicating boxes].
DW: Well that transition is glorious. It reminds me of the coda of the first movement of the 3rd piano concerto. The way the pianist exists the cadenza in a wonderfully novel way with that dominant 7th chord….no resolution….and then the series of arpeggios and the crescendos, from nothing, building so very quickly to a massive climax. The change of character and tone in such a short space of time is what amazes me. I think he was the first person who could do things like this, consistently. My teacher John Corigliano considered Beethoven to be his favourite composer because of this consistently conceptual approach which was so unique and such a ‘first’, historically speaking.
BG: Oh Ja. And Beethoven was a man of unlimited fantasy. And he had the ability to build huge constructions out of almost nothing.
DW: The first movement of no.5 for example.
BG: Absolutely. And ‘build-ups’, such as the development of the material in the last movement of no.5. Where it goes and goes and then you reach this level and then you think another composer might have stopped here….but Beethoven builds further and then further! [enthusiastically hums melody]. And it goes on and on and he still manages to put another one and another one! [indicating stacking building blocks] Unbelievable. This composer was unbelievable.
DW: Don’t forget the total surprise of stopping the action by bringing back the 3rd movement theme, out of nowhere. I mean, that’s something very cinematic, wouldn’t you say? He’s thinking in terms of a narrative.
BG: Like in a flashback?
DW: Yes! I mean, that hadn’t been done – I don’t think any composer had done anything like that in that moment in the 4th movement.
BG: You’re a Mozart fan….didn’t he do something like this?
DW: Well come to think of it, yes, well sort of. In the 9th piano concerto, incredibly early in his life for such an idea, he does something like this. There’s this amazing moment where he sticks a gorgeous minuet in the middle of this blazingly fast rondo. From nowhere! Hmmm, but in this case it’s not technically a ‘flashback’ because it’s not a quotation of a previous movement per se. But I find it striking.
BG: Getting back to Beethoven, bear in mind it’s also a sign of self-consciousness if you quote yourself….he was also the first composer to be self-conscious in this way.
DW: Yes, the ego, whether you like it or not, is present here. What about the 6th symphony? Do you feel close to that?
BG: Not that much. To the 4th movement, jah.
DW: Oh gosh yes, absolutely, that’s my favourite movement [the ‘storm’].
BG: I’m not really fond of the 2nd movement. It’s very long for being so soft, which is not typical Beethoven…also the last movement….but still he manages to make a huge build up in this movement at the end to create a wonderfully untypical ending.
DW: When you conduct this again, how much revision of your own concept will you go through? Do you just pick it up and it feels like an old friend?
BG: No, I’m sure that sometimes you change things.
DW: And how many weeks before a concert will you revise it?
BG: Ummm…it depends on how well you know the piece and how often you have done it. It depends on how difficult the piece is, how long it’s been from the last time, how well you know it, etc.
DW: I know you’re a huge fan of the 7th. You’ve given interviews about this, about the sheer relentlessness of the development of material in the last movement for example, just like the 5th symphony. But what about the 8th symphony? It’s one of my favourites.
BG: Ja, not so much the last movement.
DW: Really?! I think the structure is amazing of the last movement. The key changes are very clever.
BG: Well [laughs], if I say ‘I don’t like this’ I mean of course it’s still good! But I don’t actually know how or why, in such an unbelievable tempo he wants this tremolo….I mean you can’t play this! [tries to sing it]
DW: Well when he asks for something, he doesn’t really care how difficult it is. You just have to do it!
BG: [looking reflective] It’s strange. Symphonies 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 are somehow considered more ‘special’ than 2, 4, 6, and 8.
DW: The even numbers were on his bad days?
BG: Ha! Personally of 2, 4, 6, and 8, I think 4 is the best.
DW: Concerning the 9th symphony….the first year I assisted you, you did the 9th as the culmination of the Beethoven festival. I remember I asked you “how many performances have you given of this?”, and you said it was probably your 10th, but you had lost count! I remember getting so annoyed because I hadn’t even done one! And then many years later, I saw you again and you were doing the 9th again a couple times in South Africa and Germany and Canada. I heard you taking a completely different tempo in the slow movement and I remember asking about that. You said something like ‘I’m still trying to figure out how to do this’….
BG: I still don’t know it. I find no real access to this movement as a whole thing. I mean it’s especially the second theme – absolutely beautiful – but then there are only variations of these two themes and….I don’t know….I cannot….I find no….[gestures]
DW: ….Way in?
BG: Ja! It’s like I’m standing in front of a house and I try to find the entrance to this thing, ach.
D: You’re talking about the slow movement?
BG: Just the slow movement. The others I understand. But the slow movement, you have this adagio, the fast phrases [sings] it seems too rushed. And if you play it too slow – at least for me – it’s boring. And if you are faster then they hardly can’t play this and it’s not adagio anymore. But I’m happy to say that it’s MY problem! [laughs]. But you know the last movement also has some problematic things.
DW: The vocal settings?
BG: Ja, he had no sense to write music for the language. Which you only know or feel when you speak German. It’s sometimes grotesque especially when it’s very fast! [Freude, schöner Götterfunken]
D: The sopranos?
B: It’s grotesque. But, at the same time, who writes a recitative only for instruments?! [hums] Unbelievable, this part! But then the choir parts – the sopranos – are too high. No matter how good the choir is it always sounds….[long sigh].
DW: Not to change the topic, but I just remembered that when I heard the Grosse Fuge for the first time, as a university student, I had to stop the recording halfway through – I just couldn’t get through it – it was so violent! I couldn’t understand it. I mean, it was more inaccessible than some of the new music I was hearing for the first time! It certainly took me a while.
BG: Ha! the Grosse Fuge….that fugue from the Hammerklavier….
DW: Whoa, yeah. That’s quite a fugue!
BG: Ha, I’m clueless in this piece! Which is strange when you consider that this music comes from a period where everything is quite accessible. You know, I always thought that one understands music when it’s tonal, because that’s a language you understand….you understand the grammar. But the Hammerklavier fugue is a tonal piece and I still don’t understand it!
DW: Do you listen to his late quartets often?
BG: Ja. The last, the F major….and the C sharp minor, op.131. That is I think one of the absolute peaks of all time….
DW: I’ll finish with this question on Beethoven – what do you think as an interpreter when you approach the text in Beethoven? Whenever I observed your Beethoven rehearsals I remember really loving some of the little liberties you took here and there with the score. To make the music breathe. For example some tempo modifications in the 9th, in the 5th etc. It seemed to me to create, well, a more cinematic kind of approach, to return to our previous topic. These things helped create a narrative, or the sense of a ‘soundworld’. What’s your approach here?
BG: It’s an emotional thing. I do it only when what the text says is too much against your how I personally feel the musical moment.
DW: So you go with your instinct? Does any of that come from your love of cinema? Because it’s a very story-telling approach, when I hear you interpret this way.
BG: Such things are not written out….it’s how this music speaks to you. But whether that comes from film….ach, I’ve never thought about this. I mean, music is a language, and film is also also a language. You have to tell a story with these languages. In music the score tells me a story. I have to show or bring to reality the life of the story.
DW: What a great way to wrap up. Thank you Bernhard.
BG: Thank you.
