Харуки Мураками - Absolutely on Music

OZAWA: No, I don’t. Ordinarily, by the time a disc is ready, we’re already into the next piece of music. Of course when the recording is going to be released commercially, I’ll give it a listen, but on any one day I’m usually thinking about the music I have to perform that evening, so it’s simply impossible for me to listen closely to a recording of something I’m already done with. In this case, however, I had nothing else planned, and I was able to listen with the memory of the performances still ringing in my ears. So I really did learn a lot from them.

MURAKAMI: Can you give me a concrete example of what you learned?

OZAWA: Well, it was like looking at myself in the mirror. I could see every little detail with frightening clarity. You can do something like that when the sound of the live performance is still in your ears—or in the very tissues of your body.

MURAKAMI: When you get into another piece of music, your mind is completely focused on that one—so if you listen to a piece you’ve already finished, you can’t really get into it?

OZAWA: That’s right. We conductors are constantly moving from one piece to the next. We work with different orchestras, and sometimes we’re involved in long, grueling opera rehearsals. There’s a big difference between finding a little time between rehearsals to listen to a recording you’ve made and listening when you’ve got all the time you need and the music of the original performance is still in your ears: the music enters you in an entirely different way.

MURAKAMI: You mean you hear things in the recording that give you pause, that make you wish you had done them differently?

OZAWA: There are those moments, of course. But there are also passages where you think, “Hey, that was pretty good,” or “We’re really together here”—that kind of thing.

MURAKAMI: How about in the Saito Kinen performances we’re discussing here? Can you tell me what strikes you as some of their best features?

OZAWA: In the simplest terms, I can hear there’s more depth to the performance than before. More concretely speaking, the character of each section of the orchestra has deepened—or, rather, the potential has emerged for each section to go deeper. When that potential emerges, all of the musicians want to give it their best … and when that happens, the performance gets deeper and deeper. Because we’ve got a really outstanding group of musicians there.

MURAKAMI: Are you saying that when the Saito Kinen Orchestra performed at Carnegie Hall, it was in some ways different from usual?

OZAWA: Yes, without a doubt. We were working under so many constraints—we had hardly any time for rehearsals, I was still convalescing and, in addition, had caught a terrible cold—and yet we were able to bring off such powerful performances. There’s nothing normal about that. The Brahms and the Berlioz were truly wonderful. And everybody just threw themselves wholeheartedly into the War Requiem —the orchestra, the soloists, the chorus—it was incredible.

MURAKAMI: The War Requiem I heard in Matsumoto was an astounding performance.

OZAWA: No, this one was even better. I brought the whole Matsumoto chorus and the boys’ chorus with me, and having them there was very moving. You know, Japan has some of the best brass bands and choruses in the world, and this performance gave people a good taste of those high standards. The orchestra, too, had a thorough understanding of the music, so much so that a very difficult composition didn’t sound difficult at all. Meanwhile, I’m up there with that awful cold, in another world, coughing so much, it must have been terrible for the people around me. [ Laughter. ] But you know, when everybody’s into it with their hearts and souls, the conductor doesn’t have to do a thing—just direct traffic a little so as not to obstruct the flow of the music. Things work out perfectly like this every once in a while. It can happen with an orchestra, and it can happen with an opera. Then the conductor has no need to crack the whip. All he has to do is maintain the momentum. Everybody was determined to do his best in that performance because they knew the conductor was sick and needed help—which is exactly what I got.

MURAKAMI: But you had pneumonia! It’s incredible you lasted the full eighty minutes.

OZAWA: It’s true I had a pretty high fever, but I was too scared to take my temperature. [ Laughter. ] I couldn’t do the whole thing in one go, though, so I had them insert an intermission.

MURAKAMI: The original work doesn’t have an intermission?

OZAWA: No, I requested it. I seem to remember having done that once before somewhere. See, I’ve got “Pause” written into my score. But I can’t remember where I did that. It might have been Tanglewood. It’s a long piece, it was outdoors, some people need to go to the bathroom, that kind of thing. And maybe the weather was hot.

MURAKAMI: So far the only thing I’ve heard from your Carnegie Hall recording is the Brahms, but it’s an incredibly tight performance.

OZAWA: That’s probably because there was a lot of tension behind that performance. It gave me a very good feeling.

MURAKAMI: It just occurred to me that you’ve never once recorded Das Lied von der Erde in your whole long career.

OZAWA: No, I never have.

MURAKAMI: It’s surprising. Why is that? You’ve recorded the First Symphony three times.

OZAWA: Hmm, why is that? I don’t know, either. I wonder if it was just that I couldn’t get two outstanding singers together at the same time. You need a tenor and an alto or mezzo-soprano for that. Sometimes it’s done with two male singers. In concert, I’ve performed it with Jessye Norman a lot.

MURAKAMI: I’ve always thought that Das Lied von der Erde is the one Mahler piece in which an Asian conductor could bring out its special flavor.

OZAWA: That’s absolutely true. Now that you mention it, I once broke a finger conducting Das Lied von der Erde. Right here! [ He extends his little finger. ]

MURAKAMI: Is it possible to break a finger conducting ?

OZAWA: Do you know the Canadian tenor Ben Heppner? He’s a very big guy, and he was singing on my right side, and Jessye Norman was singing on my left. We rehearsed for two days, and Ben held the score in his hands the whole time. When it came time for the actual performance, though, he suddenly said he wanted to have both hands free and asked to have a music stand set up in front of him. It’s always dangerous to do things differently in performance than you did in rehearsals. Because he’s such a big guy, I knew the music stand would have to be a tall one; and if something like that fell off the stage it could injure a member of the audience and then we’d have a real mess on our hands. So instead of a regular music stand, we brought in big lectern kind of thing—you know, a heavy piece of furniture like a minister uses to deliver a sermon. I don’t know, I just didn’t feel good about it, and sure enough, when I swung my arm hard in a forte passage, my little finger got caught under the edge of the lectern, and snap! My little finger broke.

MURAKAMI: Ow, that must have hurt!

OZAWA: You have no idea. I went on conducting in pain for another half hour or more, but by the time I was finished, my finger had swelled up. I went straight to the hospital and had it operated on.

MURAKAMI: Conducting can be a tough job in all kinds of ways, with danger lurking in places you’d never imagine. [ Ozawa laughs, amused. ] In any case, I find it a shame that you have no recording of Das Lied von der Erde. I’d love to hear the latest performance by the ever-changing Seiji Ozawa!

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