Lockdown Listening
Gramophone
15.04.2020
What are our musicians listening to during lockdown? We asked them each to nominate one recording that speaks to them at this particular time...
Conductor
Paavo Järvi’s most recent releases are, with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, a DVD of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem (C Major) and, with the Estonian Festival Orchestra, a collection of music by Erkki-Sven Tüür (Alpha). He was Gramophone's Artist of the Year in 2015.
Brahms Symphony No 3 Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Leonard Bernstein (DG)
Long ago, I was driving with my brother in Los Angeles, late to a dinner party. In the car, we were listening to Brahms Symphony No 3, not knowing who was conducting. It was one of the most unusual, exaggerated, self-indulgent and emotional interpretations I had ever heard, yet totally captivating and impossible to switch off.
We arrived at the restaurant very late and sat for another 20 minutes in the car, parked in front. We had to find out who it was, who had dared to take so many liberties and had re-imagined this Brahms symphony from what we used to know.
At the end the announcer said that it was Bernstein with the Vienna Philharmonic. The reason why it was so important, was because it gave me courage as a young musician to dare to follow my intuition and not be ‘intimidated’ by legendary interpretations from the past. In that way this recording remains very important for me. Now with a little time on my hands, I want to listen to it again and see if time has changed my perception.
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/lockdown-listening
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