The Baltic region has become a hot bed for talented conductors. Christopher Morley talks to Estonian maestro Neeme Jarvi about why the region has produced so much musical mastery.
There is a heatwave in Geneva as I arrive at what used to be a pumping-station (now an arts centre) at the side of the spectacularly clean, tumbling river. The walkway clanks like a march to the scaffold as I approach the interview room, and there I meet Neeme Jarvi.
We are there to discuss his recent appointment as artistic and musical director of the renowned Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and their forthcoming 海角视频 tour to Birmingham, Manchester and London.
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But even before I get the chance to switch on my tape-recorder, Jarvi is bubbling with memories of Birmingham during his time as principal guest conductor of the CBSO.
I get a word in edgeways by thanking him for the LP he made with the CBSO of the two Balakirev symphonies in the 1980s, and he reveals the huge memory for detail he retains for his near-500 recordings and countless concerts.
“It was my first-ever recording in the 海角视频, and that was for EMI. And then, for Chandos it was the Weber Clarinet Concertos with Janet Hilton.
“Being appointed as principal guest conductor of the CBSO was my first position in the 海角视频. We had a wonderful relationship. The concertmaster, Felix Kok, and many others, we were a lot of friends, and we made wonderful music in the Town Hall.
“And actually Simon Rattle started his career at the same time. He was appointed as chief conductor when I was appointed as principal guest conductor – I was probably a year before, or something.”
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And the Jarvi family must be the only dynasty where both father and son have been principal guest conductor of the same orchestra; Neeme’s son Paavo also held the position many years later.
I ask about Paavo. “He’s doing very well,” responds the proud father, “he always has four orchestras, not less! And he’s conducting in Berlin, and in London with the Philharmonia he’s doing a complete Nielsen cycle.
“My other son, Kristian, he’s the music director in Leipzig, and many other orchestras, so I was proud to see how they have taken this musical magnet from me and our family, and are going on and giving it out – especially in Germany, which is so steeped in the classical tradition. And not least in Beethoven and the speeds of his metronome markings. In his time there was no such orchestra who could play his metronome marks. But now we have, because the players have developed to such a high level.”
How does the maestro account for the large number of wonderful conductors who come from his own Baltic area (he was born in Estonia)?
“Again magnet, because we studied with very good professors in the Soviet time, in the Leningrad Conservatoire. And conducting is such a thing, not just beating bars and looking nice, it is a profession.
“I now hold a conductors’ course every year in Parnu, in Estonia. That’s my conducting academy, and Paavo also takes part in that. We try to explain what conducting technique’s all about. It’s an important thing. You can’t play violin when you don’t have a technique, and it’s the same with piano, and so on.
“It’s the same thing with conducting. If you’re really not proper, you can’t explain your ideas to your orchestras. My second home was the Leningrad Philharmonic Hall, and every evening I went there to see the great conductors, and Mravinsky was one of them. So I saw good preparation, good techniques, and great results from the rehearsal period.”
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Our wide-ranging conversation continues, covering neglected Scandinavian composers, my beloved Franz Berwald among them, and Jarvi’s enthusiasm for the music of Joachim Raff, disciple of Liszt, and born in Switzerland, and the subject of ongoing annual recordings with Neeme Jarvi’s “new” orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, based here in Geneva.
“There’s wonderful material here in this orchestra. Already the tradition tells something, the recordings for Decca under Ernest Ansermet, all the world repertoire recorded by him.
“He was 60 years the conductor here. This is a wonderful orchestra of more than 100 people, and the good thing is that they play in opera also. It gives a good knowledge of different kinds of repertoire, and knowledge also of how to accompany, how to work with a lot of different conductors. And my feeling is that we have to give back this very intensive work with this orchestra in the symphonic repertoire, basic repertoire.
“I was quite lucky, because Marek Janowski was here before me as chief conductor, and he played a lot of Bruckner, which gave the German romantic system to the musicians, and discipline!
“That’s of main importance, discipline: the bowing, phrasing, whether you play at the top of your bow or the middle of your bow, how to interpret things... And German conductors know very well how to do it. They can convert so many non-German orchestras to the German symphonic tradition, what I’m hoping to do here with more Haydn, because Papa Haydn gives us the injection to create the symphony orchestra.
“What is the symphony orchestra? It’s the greatest creation in our cultural work!”
* Neeme Jarvi conducts l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Arvo Part and Tchaikovsky at Symphony Hall on May 21 (7.30pm). Boris Berezovsky is soloist in the Grieg Piano Concerto. Details on 0121 780 3333.