Scotsman.com News - Features - Leading from the front

THERE is no one more isolated than the figure at the centre of the orchestral stage, raised up from the musicians on a podium, his only route out his conductor’s baton and a thick score. However good the orchestra, it’s the conductor who moulds the sound, and the interpretation is his alone. It takes a certain kind of person to thrive on the pressure.

Flick through the International Festival programme this year and you can’t help but notice that there are quite a few such men appearing. Some, like Sir Charles Mackerras, are familiar figures, whose taut, exciting conducting stokes the fire of the Scottish music scene year round, and are shown in a more international light in the Festival with his special understanding with Alfred Brendel.

Further afield, this year’s programme showcases some of the most interesting conductors in the world, at various stages on their career path, from the young Vladimir Jurowski, to arguably one of the key figures in 20th-century composition, Pierre Boulez.

Boulez always knew he wanted to compose music. "As a child, I had thought at first perhaps I could be a pianist, but very quickly I thought no, to practise scales was not for me," he said. "I preferred to study harmony, counterpoint and composition."

The Edinburgh concert with the Ensemble Intercontemporain (which Boulez founded in 1972) compares two of his own works, the early 12 Notations for Piano, composed in 1945, and Sur Incises, a work premiered at the 1998 Edinburgh Festival. The second half includes Stravinsky’s Four Russian Peasant Songs in its original a cappella version for female voice.

Born in Montbrison in 1925, Boulez began to compose seriously aged 17, although he insists it was "trivial. I copied what I was listening to at the time". Developing his skills at the Paris Conservatory under Olivier Messiaen, "everything was opened up" post-war and led him to become one of the foremost exponents of 20th-century composers Schoenberg, Webern and Berg.

"I prefer to conduct contemporary works for two reasons. First, it is the repertoire that I studied very well, and second, even now, 20th-century music is neglected and not played enough compared to Romantic works. It is my priority."

Composing his intellectually challenging and imaginative works gives Boulez an edge with conducting. "It is not that you are more gifted than anyone else, but you are familiar with the processes of composition, so you don’t need to think very much. If I read something, I want it to sound, in performance, as much as possible how it sounds when I read it myself."

Boulez, whose ‘academic’ approach was once described as cold, is now principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and disputes the notion that all orchestras are the same "as if there is an international style like international cuisine".

"Personally, I listen to each orchestra and hear what they’re proposing, and then I respond. The relationship is like questioning and answering."

One conductor who is used to hearing responses to his work is 30-year-old Vladimir Jurowski, who made his Covent Garden debut in 1996 and went on to work with Welsh National Opera and the New York Met among others, before being appointed music director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 2001. Last year he became principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic.

Five years ago, Jurowski, who left Moscow for post-wall Berlin in 1989, conducted "one of the best programmes I have ever done" at Edinburgh, and is back this year, with two exciting themed programmes including Tchaikovsky’s fiendishly difficult Manfred Symphony and little known Rossini work Giovanni D’Arco.

Jurowski was only seven when he first thought about conducting. Watching a ballet performance, the youngster had his eye not on the Bolshoi dancers, but on his father, Michail Jurowski, conducting the orchestra. "I remember being puzzled, thinking how does he do it, has he memorised all the movements, or does he vary them at other performances? If he does different movements, how does the orchestra know how to play?"

Initially scared of the idea of standing in front of an orchestra ("my character is maybe not typical for a conductor"), it was not until his orchestral debut in a Berlin masterclass under Sir Colin Davis that he became convinced it was "a good thing".

Future plans include work in his native Russia, where he is excited to return after an enforced absence of 15 years. "We didn’t leave officially at the time," he says. "But now I can give something back to my motherland."

Fellow conductor Franz Welser-Möst was also a musically gifted child, who started conducting when one of his teachers hauled him out to stand at the front of the school orchestra. Making his first visit to Edinburgh with the Cleveland Orchestra this week, Welser-Möst says: "I liked it, but at the time I wanted to be a violinist." However, when a car accident at 18 left him unable to play, he turned to his "natural talent".

The Austrian is "very happy" to be in his fifth year as musical director of the Cleveland Orchestra, after an "exhausting" and "difficult" six years in London as director of the LPO. "You put your heart into something and then you get the flag [from the critics and bureaucracy] so many times. It was tough, but you learn faster that way."

Cleveland, a city miles from the cultural hotspots of New York or Los Angeles, is by contrast "a curiosity in America. Everyone backs the orchestra. In German we have a saying which describes it perfectly: ‘The island of the blessed ones’."

Its typically varied Edinburgh programme of three concerts will include the UK premiere (a requisite for an orchestra keen to promote new work) of Harrison Birtwistle’s Night’s Black Bird. "The Cleveland doesn’t go for the easy touring piece," Welser-Möst admits. "It’s a duty, a passion to show something contemporary in this world."

He’s recently tried to bring a "more singing sound" to the orchestra by introducing an annual opera in concert programme. "We have some fantastic singers and imitation is sometimes the best way to learn."

Welser-Möst likes a challenge. "I try to add a certain amount of flexibility, which sometimes gets in conflict with the Cleveland tradition for precision, but it’s an exciting thing to try to resolve that. If everything was done, then I could resign right now."

Dutch master Bernard Haitink is also known for blending an interest in opera with his love of classical music in interpretations of Bruckner, Mahler and Shostakovich.

"It was such a long time ago, I can’t really remember," says the eminent conductor and music director of the Dresden Staatskappelle when asked what drove him towards a career that has encompassed, among others, directorships of the London Philharmonic and Covent Garden.

Growing up in Amsterdam during the Second World War, Haitink first came to Edinburgh in 1946 as a young music lover to see the Glyndebourne Opera Festival performances. He stayed in the YMCA "for the first and last time" and queued to get into performances. "It was very special for me, and very unusual to travel abroad, particularly so soon after the war."

Haitink and the Dresden Staatskappelle (one of the oldest orchestras in Germany) will treat concert-goers to a programme of Mozart, Weber and Bruckner. "It’s an obvious choice for the Dresden Staatskappelle," says Haitink, one of the world’s leading Bruckner exponents. "The German classical tradition is music close to their hearts."

Haitink first worked with the Dresden when it was part of the former East Germany. "They were always a very nice orchestra to work with, but isolated because of the political situation. Rehearsals started at 10am, but the musicians would arrive at eight and start playing chamber music. Music was all they had."

At 75, he has no plans of laying down the baton (many conduct well into their 80s). "If I were to feel like an old man, I would not be able to do it any more, because conducting needs a lot of physical and mental strength, and I am under the illusion that I can still offer that to musicians."

Future plans include "exciting talk" of conducting an opera under the arch of the Champs Elysees. But then, Haitink isn’t one to make concrete plans. "If I see something I like, it would be silly to say no."

Franz Welser-Möst conducts the Cleveland Orchestra, Usher Hall (0131-472 200), Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 7.30pm; Vladimir Jurowski conducts London Philharmonic Orchestra, Usher Hall, August 31, 7.30pm; Pierre Boulez conducts Ensemble Intercontemporain, Usher Hall, September 4, 7.30pm

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