There is more to music than tempo and dynamics !
Hartmut Haenchen in conversation with Opernwelt
You are now turning seventy, came late into the international business as a conductor and, after going via Halle, Zwickau and Dresden, held your first chief position in Schwerin. Today, the trend is going in the other direction: not even the post of first kapellmeister at major houses is really in demand. Young conductors want to become chief conductors right away, and those who haven't led famous orchestras in their thirties have a crisis on their hands. Does good conducting have to do with maturity?
There are undoubtedly very good young conductors today. I just wonder how they conduct when they are sixty or seventy. Will they be better then? Can they go through a maturing process when they start so high? I would say of myself that I have gotten better over the years. When I was very young, for example, I made the mistake of taking on Fidelio; that was in Munich, in Wolfgang Sawallisch's day. I'm still annoyed about that today. The piece is murderously difficult! In two years I will do it again - after I have never conducted it again - in Madrid. A heartfelt wish of mine. With Beethoven's Missa solemnis, I always said: I won't conduct it until I really have something to say with it. Then, at the age of 62, I dared to do it. And I also postponed the Eroica because it is so often badly executed. I was 55 then, the first time. As for the so-called career: I took my two positions in Amsterdam so seriously that my annual presence was 42 weeks! It was really about building up for me. I think I can say that it was worth it for the sake of art: It would have been impossible with the eight- or twelve-week contracts that are common today.
How do you specifically go about rehearsing?
The way I work is that for every opera performance, for every symphony, even for almost every accompaniment in a soloist's concert, there is sheet music on the musicians' desks that I have set up beforehand. I mark each part precisely in terms of articulation, ornamentation, dynamics, vibrato, etc., not just the types of bowing. As far as such things can be expressed in writing, I try to give the musicians a basis. Thank God that not everything can be expressed in writing! More and more I find that orchestras are grateful for this way of working. In the past, there was definitely resistance. I have experienced orchestras that wanted to play from the material that had always been played from. The conductor was basically only allowed to go a little faster or slower, louder or quieter. But there is more to music than tempo and dynamics.
One composer for whom you arrive at quite different results than many of your colleagues is Richard Wagner.
Even with Wagner, musical ideas are often obscured by practical performance routine. Think of the early Wagner, up to Holländer, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin: there he still oscillates between Italian opera, Weber, Marschner. In between, there is already his specific chromaticism, the great arches, the novel tone colors. You have to present that in all its richness of contrast, and that means a lot of work, which begins with setting up the material. I don't understand, for example, why no one does what Wagner clearly wrote to Liszt in connection with the premiere of Lohengrin: When there are several forte statements in a row, it means that the dynamics recede in between - that is, a diminuendo, which he does not write out because it was a matter of course. Today, the second forte is usually played even louder than the first.
Does the new, source-critical complete edition help with such questions?
Certainly, and I am in good contact and constant exchange with the editors. It is not only about what is written in the autograph, but also about what Wagner changed later. The dynamics he instructed in Munich are different from those for Bayreuth. In some pieces, he noted very different things over the course of many years. You have to consider where he compromised because he wanted to be performed, and where he seriously changed his mind or thought things through. All of this takes time. Also rehearsal time. That's why I have now refused to conduct at the Vienna State Opera for the umpteenth time. Only recently another invitation came: Parsifal with three orchestra rehearsals. At best, you can play through the piece once. So as not to be misunderstood: Of course the Viennese can play it, and I can conduct it. We start together and finish together. But what for?
One of the special features of your Wagner performances is that you use portamenti.
That's right. Portamento is frowned upon today, and many singers look at me with wide eyes when I ask for it. It is considered frivolous. But Wagner writes down where he wants portamenti, and is quite consistent about it. With these instructions, he very likely wrote against the too frequent use of portamenti at that time. There are passages in his work that are almost designed for a portamento as an increase in expression. And this was also cultivated well into the 20th century.
It often happens that a composer makes changes during rehearsals after the autograph has been completed. Puccini and Verdi worked no differently than Wagner. It is actually the normal case. But these changes rarely end up in print. They are considered as something that does not belong to the "actual" piece.
That's how it is. Whereby the piece does not exist as a definitive entity. The composers were much more flexible than the printed music suggests. I am currently preparing for Daphne by Richard Strauss, the performances will take place in June 2014 at the Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse. The score of the Dresden premiere has been preserved. There you can see that Strauss and Karl Böhm made tremendous retouching. Strauss only came to Dresden for the dress rehearsal. And after this dress rehearsal, an additional rehearsal was scheduled because he thought - quite self-critically - that it wouldn't work this way. For Vienna, he then continued to retouch because the orchestra still seemed too thick to him. These are all things that are still not mentioned in the printed score.
Amazing, because Daphne is not an early piece. He had plenty of experience in balancing the orchestral sound.
There is a wonderful letter from Strauss to Clemens Krauss where he is annoyed with himself and says that he still hasn't learned that a single violin can cover a soprano singing in a low register.
You champion the thesis that Bach and the music of the Viennese Classical period should be played with vibrato - precisely because people today are historically informed.
It always irritates me when so-called historical performance practice simply ignores vibrato in instrumentalists and singing voices. Finger vibrato in the strings has been known since the 16th century. And the often quoted sentence in Leopold Mozart's violin school only says that one should not vibrate "as in a fever". If you read the whole chapter, you will find very differentiated statements about vibrato playing. Vibrato was taught as ornamentation at that time. At the same time, his colleague Geminiani pleaded for "as often as possible". Thus, there can be no question of a sempre non vibrato in European music-making practice. However, one must realize that the chin rest was only invented in the 19th century: It enables violinists and violists to hold their instrument without using the left hand. Since then, the arm can be involved in the process of vibrating. Before that, there could only be finger vibrato. It is also a fairy tale that Joseph Joachim played without vibrato and therefore Brahms should be played in the same way. There are recordings of Joachim. One can clearly hear that he vibrates, even in Bach - not much, but still. Carl Flesch and Pablo de Sarasate then initiated the continuous vibrato that we know today as the normal case and from which, in turn, the strict non-vibrato playing is set apart. Neither the one nor the other is historically correct. It is about the dosage, and that is different for every composer, for every epoch.
Did Bach reckon with vibrato?
As far as I can see, there are no direct verbal statements from him on this subject. But we know something about his idea of sound through the numerous organ appraisals he wrote. He attached great importance to the tremulant. At times he even recommended two of them. Why would he have done that if he did not want vibrato? The register of the vox humana was also important to him. It was a matter of transferring the natural vibrations of the human voice to the organ as much as possible. As far as the boys' voices were concerned, sweetly floating or quivering voices, as it was called at the time, were even expressly preferred. We know that, for example, in Johann Krüger's boys' choir, natural vibrato was a prerequisite for being accepted at all.
In Mozart's Da Ponte operas, you sometimes have the harpsichord playing not only in the recitatives, but also going along with musical numbers, which is completely unusual today. In addition, a fortepiano is increasingly used instead of the harpsichord. What sources do you rely on?
It amazes me that (starting with Nikolaus Harnoncourt) fortepianos are increasingly being used. Of course Mozart loved the fortepiano very much and was committed to its further development. But in his time there were no such instruments in the opera houses. In fact, there were very few of them; development was just beginning. As far as the role of the harpsichord is concerned, there is a drawing of the premiere of Don Giovanni in Prague. It clearly shows that there were two harpsichords: one at the conductor's desk, with which Mozart accompanied the recitatives, and one by the continuo instruments. Incidentally, it is clearly documented that Mozart used a cello and a double bass in addition to the harpsichord. Recitatives accompanied only by the harpsichord were therefore unusual. Whether cello and bass always played is a completely different question. One was very free in that respect. There is a report by Luigi Bassi, the first singer of Don Giovanni, in which it is said that they did something different every evening. When I conducted Don Giovanni in Los Angeles, we were very free and undogmatic. The harpsichord gives new color possibilities. In Zerlina's Batti, batti aria, the joke comes out much better when it goes well. On the other hand, of course, there are passages where a dark, compact sound is important, and the harpsichord has no place there. In general, it can be said that the harpsichord brings a kind of overtone to the orchestral sound, while the sound of the fortepiano takes on a life of its own.
You grew up in the Dresden Kreuzchor and got to know the musical life of the GDR from all sides. Besides all the bludgeons that were thrown between your legs : in retrospect, would you say that there were positive aspects that were lost after the fall of communism?
Life in the GDR fostered very different perceptions of art than were common in the West. That also applies to music. You could hear between the lines, so to speak. Everything had a much more direct, existential pull. Think, for example, of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, where, after the catastrophe with Stalin and the Fourth Symphony, he constantly forces the high "a" in the finale, which in Russian means "ya." And this in turn translates as "I". This "I am still here," people understood. The audience perceived music as a very personal language. This also applies to music by Beethoven, for example. I personally very much appreciated this culture of perceiving art. Today, people tend more toward the culinary; it's all about appetizer culture. Classical music is supposed to entertain, and in order for it to do that, people often add something. "Just" listening is no longer enough.
Where do you see the reasons for this?
I am deeply convinced that the audience has not become worse. Interest and the willingness to get emotionally involved in music are there. You just have to encourage it. But when it's the ratings that count, when classical music plays only a marginal role in the arts pages, and when it's presented primarily in snippets on the radio, then understanding is lost at some point. I experienced how important it is to promote understanding in Amsterdam. When I started there in 1986 with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and as GMD of the opera, there were many people who really only wanted to hear Mozart and Beethoven. For years I gave introductions myself, and for our Mahler cycle we also communicated his whole environment, playing his Amsterdam friends and his Vienna friends. So we were able to schedule each program six times in the Concertgebouw. That was 12,000 listeners at each program! And at the opera, even with a piece like B. A. Zimmermann's Die Soldaten, people were lining up for tickets. It's really up to the mediation.
How did you get from the GDR to the Netherlands in 1986 in the first place?
They wanted to have "one less political problem and one less bad conductor," as the GDR officials put it, and offered me the chance to buy my way out. The plan was that for ten years I would pay twenty percent of the fees I earned in the West to the GDR. For valuta, the GDR was ready to sell the ideology.... Now I was earning very well in the Netherlands with two chief positions, but still had no income: The maximum tax rate of 72 percent (now 52) applied, then 20 percent to the GDR and 10 percent to my agency. Even the largest sum, however, was only 100 percent.... On top of that, you could hardly rent in Amsterdam at that time: I came from the East, they didn't want to rent to someone like that - and if the person was also a musician and German, then certainly not. So I had to buy a house for my family on credit. At first, I only had a three-year contract and no security. My wife told the children who was allowed to shower and when, and counted out the slices of bread. It was like being at war (laughs).
What principles do you use to select the repertoire you conduct?
Whether it's an opera or an orchestral concerto, I want to be able to tell from the score whether the composer heard the piece internally before or while he wrote it. You can tell that very quickly from the score. If it's not the case, if it's mainly about mathematically calculated and structural aspects that don't connect with any acoustic experience, then I can't perform it as a conductor either.
Can you give an example?
Recently, a request came from a famous German orchestra, an important concert. I turned it down because the program included a piece in which the microtonal structure extended to eighth notes. I have no problems at all with quarter tones in the sense of Ligeti or Reimann. But eighth notes I can no longer hear, and so I can't conduct. There is a recording of this piece: the orchestra simply plays uncleanly. You could also put a wavy line there, as has been common practice for a long time. That would mean: something between these notes. But if the eighth notes are supposed to be structurally significant on the one hand, but on the other hand cannot be exactly grasped by the ear, then I have a problem.