Kent Nagano (Berkeley, California, 1951) is one of the most important conductors of today. Since 2016 he has been director of the Hamburg State Opera, and before that he was director of the Lyon and Bavarian Opera. At 5:00 p.m. today, he will meet the Chilean public again, in a free discussion at the III Portillo Festival, organized by Alejandra Urrutia, in portillofestival.com.
The Japanese-American director performed twice at the CorpArtes Theater: in September 2016, with the Hamburg Philharmonic, and in October 2019 with the Montreal Symphony. For this reason, in a telephone interview with La Tercera, he asked what happened after the social outbreak. Also, if Chile has continued to make classical music in a pandemic.
How have you seen the role of classical music in the pandemic?
In Germany, the United States, Canada, France and Austria we were playing live until mid-November, and all our concerts were sold out immediately. When we had to close our doors to the public, we continued to play, but through television broadcasts and the audience that followed the orchestra was huge. And not only us, there are many concerts on television and the internet, and many people are listening to them. For me, this is a clear sign that people are really hungry for classical music, and it’s fascinating.
He says that at the Portillo Festival he will refer to “critical musical aspects for young people that we must observe so that classical music advances and flourishes in the 21st century.” For him, the essential thing is to treat audiences with respect, without compromising on quality or artistic sophistication, incorporating new works, far from condescension and the status quo. That is why Nagano always commissions and premieres works by living composers.
You worked with Olivier Messiaen and studied with Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez, three of the greatest musical geniuses of the 20th century. Did they have something in common?
Yes. First of all, they were able to find their own, personal and unique voice. Your own aesthetic. This is not so easy. I myself studied composition for many years, but I never found my own voice. I could say that I did quite efficient works, my compositions were correct and I got good marks (laughs). But to be honest, they weren’t original enough.
Secondly, he indicates, “all of them had a very good training as songwriters. They did not improvise or take shortcuts, but studied compositional techniques and structure very seriously for many years. Third, they had enormous knowledge of the repertoire of the past, and they did not try to break it, but instead wrote music that continues a tradition. That is why his compositions have become part of our repertoire; and they touch frequently ”.
The Hamburg State Opera is the oldest public opera in the world; It was created in 1678 and not for a court, but for citizens. How important is it for the State to invest in culture?
Culture represents human knowledge, values, beliefs, morals, and goals that we share in a society. The arts reflect this culture and are the basis of a unique collective identity. That is why it is important that the State invest in its culture. A society with a strong identity deepens its coherence and the quality of life it enjoys.
More about Classical music
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Four years ago, Kent Nagano began one of his most ambitious projects, together with the famous Concerto Köln orchestra: re-conducting the tetralogy of the Ring of the Nibelungs, by Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, but with historical criteria, not romantic, as is always done. “Thanks to the early music movement that has developed since the 1970s, today we have new perspectives that help us understand what the composers were trying to communicate,” he says.
This historically informed look has never been applied, until now, to Wagner. “This is the first time that scientific research has been carried out to have a context that allows us to understand his world, what Wagner expected, what sounds he imagined and what his ideal was. For example, what kind of voices was I looking for, were they really the voices that we see in the theaters of the world today, or was I looking for something else?
Nagano clarifies that “we are not only studying musical manuscripts, but also paintings from Wagner’s time to see the position of the hand on the violin and the fingering. And we are also putting this historical research into practice, playing ”, he explains.
“The first performance of Ring will be next year, with The Gold of the Rhine”Says Nagano. They will follow each season with an opera of the tetralogy: La Valquiria, Siegfried and The sunset of the gods.
In the recording field, the director has just added to his more than 110 albums two new productions with the Montreal Symphony, an orchestra of which he was the headline between 2006 and 2020. The BIS label published a live recording of 2018 of the Passion according to Saint Luke by Krzysztof Penderecki, who played at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, when the Polish composer who died last March turned 85.
“We worked together several times with Penderecki and I always admired him as a composer. I remember the premiere of the Passion according to Saint Luke, in the 60s; When my parents came back from the concert, my mother was furious, ”he laughs.
“I couldn’t understand their music at all and would say ‘What’s going on with contemporary classical music? I don’t understand anything! ‘”He adds. “But in 2021 the Passion according to Saint Luke It is one of the great works of the classical repertoire. It is fascinating to see that in just 50 years a piece can go from being a enfant terrible, radical and difficult to understand, to an artistic treasure of the ‘normal’ repertoire ”.
The other album, with the Analekta label, is of works for violin and orchestra by Alberto Ginastera, Leonard Bernstein and Samy Moussa. “I have been a great admirer of Alberto Ginastera. For me, he was always one of the most influential American composers, and now that we have the perspective of time we see that many of his pieces are entering the standard repertoire. He’s a genius! But one of the pieces that until now has not been really appreciated is its Violin Concerto, which I consider a masterpiece ”, he explains.
This is due, he indicates, to the fact that the Argentine’s work is very virtuous for the soloist and for the orchestra, which requires not only talent and a high technical level, but also the necessary time. Violin soloist Andrew Wang, for example, studied it for over a year. “The same thing happens with the orchestra, if not rehearsed correctly, it sounds like noisy modern music. But if done well, Ginastera’s melodic genius is exhibited, and you can feel the warmth and Latin American romanticism that it exudes ”.
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