Paavo Järvi: Haydn in perspective

Crescendo Magazine

 Thimothée Grandjean 

May 17, 2023

Photo:Kaupo Kikkas

In our last interview with Paavo Järvi, we talked about Messiaen, about an album with the Tonhalle Zürich. The style and orchestra change with this new encounter. Indeed, the conductor and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen are embarking on a recording of Haydn's 12 London Symphonies. This is an opportunity to meet him to learn more about this new project, which takes place in the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of their collaboration marked by so many major projects, including a landmark recording of the complete Beethoven symphonies. On the sidelines of the Bremen concerts, Paavo Järvi talks to Thimothée Grandjean. 

You have been the artistic director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen since 2004. How do you look back on your time together? 

I have carried out many projects and concerts with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. I've been the artistic director for almost 20 years, but the adventure began in 1995 with my first concert with the orchestra. I have a very good relationship with them, both musically and personally. Arturo Toscanini famously said: "Anything more than seven years is too long". Yet I have been conducting this orchestra for more than 27 years, so it is possible.

The specificity of this orchestra is that it is not a normal orchestra. There are no rehearsals every Monday, there is no routine. This ensemble works on a project basis, not on a weekly basis. When we created this orchestra, the aim was to avoid a routine and to offer flexibility to the musicians. In addition, we have travelled extensively and given countless concerts in different cities, countries and continents. Finally, I have a real musical understanding with this orchestra with a strong and well-defined identity. They have been defending their way of playing for several decades now.

 

Such a long tenure is now exceptional, conductors rarely stay longer than 10 years. What are the secrets of the longevity of your collaboration?

If you have a common project that is interesting for the orchestra and the conductor, it will always work. That's the case here in Bremen. For example, one of our projects was to work on the complete Beethoven symphonies. We immersed ourselves in these works, worked on them for a long time, gave them in concerts and finally recorded them. It was a long and thorough job that was done in order to obtain a quality result. Then we did the same thing with Schumann, albeit with a different approach. So it's about identifying and working in a unique way because in today's world everything is played well but not always in the best way. That's a bit of a problem nowadays, the performances are of a good level, but the orchestras don't take the time to work on the pieces in depth. So that's what we're trying to do here with DKAM. We take a very careful approach to a specific repertoire that corresponds to the identity and culture we are developing. DKAM is considered one of the best chamber orchestras in the world.

Can you tell us about your experience of working with this orchestra and what makes DKAM so special?

The structure is special. It is a functioning, self-managing orchestra. Their life is in their own hands, so to speak. They make their own decisions, whether it's musical or practical. They don't have the routine of many other orchestras, because of the nature of their projects. It is a group of enthusiasts who have really created the orchestra for themselves. This is a big difference, because most orchestras audition musicians who then become employees of the organisation. Here they are co-owners. Once they are accepted into the orchestra, they become shareholders. This changes the attitude considerably. On the other hand, because there is not the security of most orchestras, every concert is important, every rehearsal is important. There is no security to fall back on. This of course creates an extremely concentrated and special atmosphere.

After Beethoven, Schumann and more recently Brahms, you have chosen to focus on Haydn and his London Symphonies. Why did you choose this composer and these symphonies?

Haydn is for me one of the greatest composers of all time. There is no doubt that Haydn is important in the history of music and that he is linked to all the great composers. His influence is felt by all the great composers who followed him. I also have a special soft spot for Haydn because as a child I always heard him at home. My father and I used to play pieces on the piano with four hands. He is also a great Haydn fan. It was very familiar territory from a very young age. I would even say that I started my musical education with Haydn. He was instrumental in the very early stages of my life. While many composers, such as Brahms, Dvořák or Tchaikovsky, to name but a few, can be played by many different orchestras, Haydn is a very specific language and soundscape. The sound, in particular, needs to be unified. People need to know how they play Haydn. There is not just one way to play, far from it. But when you play this repertoire, you have to be on the same page and make sure you know how you want to play Haydn. This is possible with an orchestra that has clearly identified its sound and approach. The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is one such orchestra.

Haydn is a composer who scares many conductors away from his symphonies. What are the stylistic challenges of his symphonies? 

Since the revolution brought about by people like Roger Norrington, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, John Eliot Gardiner and a few others, classical music, but especially Haydn's, has been put into a category where only specialist orchestras can play it. And I think that's not very healthy. It must have happened when people had to make their point about historically based performance practice and how things sounded in Haydn's time. This is just speculation because nobody really knows. You can only build something from letters and testimonies. So we have created, on the basis of very credible material, a way that could be close to the interpretation of the music in Haydn's time. More importantly, this movement freed everyone. It sort of took the shackles off this sort of romantic tradition. And that's the real benefit. A lot of the historically informed gurus of the movement interpret similar things in very different ways. So there's not just one way to do it. But what is clear is that the post-Wagnerian vision has been kind of wiped out. It never made sense with this repertoire anyway. So I think we are now living in a kind of best of all possible worlds, where we know the specialities of early music performance practice. Also, we're now dealing with orchestras that are made up of a lot of young people from a new generation who are comfortable with a newer style of playing. There is a kind of middle ground where I think the truth lies somewhere in between. If you look at the Haydn symphonies, let's say Harnoncourt's London Symphonies, he recorded them with the Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam, which is not a specialist orchestra in the sense of historical performance practice. So that means that even these people who started out as very strong revolutionaries in trying to change our point of view, went back to recording and playing these pieces with traditional orchestras, which I think is the purpose of this movement, to bring it into the mainstream.

After the first volume devoted to Symphonies Nos. 101 and 103, the second volume of Haydn's London symphonies will be released in 2024. This will coincide with the 20th anniversary celebrations of your tenure as artistic director of DKAM. Do you plan to continue the Haydn adventure with other symphonies or oratorios?

I think the London symphonies should be finished first. Let's see what happens next. There will probably be a Schubert cycle. It's not impossible that we'll come back to Haydn afterwards, or perhaps to something else, anything is possible. My personal wish was to do the London symphonies because I consider these symphonies to be the pinnacle of Haydn's output. There were some great symphonies before that, and some of them were really magical, but on the whole the last 12 symphonies are his greatest masterpieces.

How do you approach the preparation of these recordings? Is there any specific preparation for a project as important as this?

As with every project with this orchestra, we rehearse and perform a lot. We always rehearse before a concert without exception, even if we do three concerts in the same city, three nights in a row, we always rehearse an hour before. So we are always fine-tuning, adjusting and correcting. We make sure that the next concert is a step up from the last one. Here they are co-owners. Once they are accepted into the orchestra, they become shareholders. This changes the attitude considerably. On the other hand, because there is no security like in most orchestras, every concert is important, every rehearsal is important. There is no security to fall back on. This of course creates an extremely concentrated and special atmosphere.

What are your future plans as a conductor and music director? Is there any particular project you would like to do in the near future? 

With the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, there are of course many projects that we want to realize. Schubert is perhaps, after Haydn, the most important, because I think it is the greatest and most important music written in the Germanic tradition. But of course there are several Haydn symphonies, there are Bach orchestral suites, there are an infinite number of projects that we could still do. Mozart, for example, that we haven't done yet. So the list is long. Let's see how we can complete them. But that's not what's missing... the wish list is long.

https://www.crescendo-magazine.be/paavo-jarvi-haydn-en-perspectives/