Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing
Speaker 1: from iHeart Radio. That's the NHK Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Speaker 1: my guest today, Pavo Jarvey performing Wagner's dus Rheinhold The
Speaker 1: Entry of the Gods into Valhalla. Pavo Yarvy is one
Speaker 1: of the most in demand maestros in the world. He's
Speaker 1: currently the chief conductor of both the nhkse Symphony Orchestra
Speaker 1: and the tom Hall Orca to Zurich. Over his career,
Speaker 1: he's also led orchestras in Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Malmo, and
Speaker 1: for the decade between two thousand and one and twenty
Speaker 1: eleven here in the US in Cincinnati. Pavo Yarvey was
Speaker 1: born into a musical family in Soviet era Estonia. His father,
Speaker 1: Neme and his brother Christian are both also conductors. The
Speaker 1: family defected to New Jersey in nineteen eighty when Pavo
Speaker 1: was seventeen years old. As one of the most respected
Speaker 1: conductors in the world, Pavo Jarvey travels a lot. When
Speaker 1: the pandemic struck last year, he found some freedom in
Speaker 1: staying put.
Speaker 2: It was one of those sort of amazing moments, because
Speaker 2: first of all, we never thought it would be three months.
Speaker 2: We thought, oh, it's going to be maybe a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks, and then things will get better. And then
Speaker 2: you realize it's going to be a bit more, and
Speaker 2: then a bit more again, and then you realize that, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is now indefinite. We don't know how long it's
Speaker 2: going to be. And you know, something happens in your
Speaker 2: brain when this happened. I'm sure you went through the
Speaker 2: same thing. But I started. First of all, I was
Speaker 2: kind of restless, and I started learning the things that
Speaker 2: I was supposed to do, even though I knew that
Speaker 2: they were going to be canceled. And then I slowly
Speaker 2: started doing less of it. And then I started doing
Speaker 2: a lot of nothing. And when you start doing nothing,
Speaker 2: an interesting thing happens. At least happened to me. My
Speaker 2: brain started working in an entirely different way. I didn't
Speaker 2: live by the schedule first time in twenty five years
Speaker 2: or thirty years. Even I didn't need to wake up
Speaker 2: at eight, I didn't need to catch the train. I
Speaker 2: didn't need to catch the plane or go to a rehearsal,
Speaker 2: be prepared and then all of a sudden, interesting things.
Speaker 2: You start thinking about different things. You know, why am
Speaker 2: I doing all of this stuff? This is so great
Speaker 2: to actually wake up in your own bed, and also
Speaker 2: to know that next day and day after it's also
Speaker 2: your bad. And then you start questioning these sort of
Speaker 2: slightly philosophical things, like I am not so young anymore?
Speaker 2: Even do I feel like a kid? How many years
Speaker 2: of active life do I have? Do I really need
Speaker 2: to be on a schedule like this for the rest
Speaker 2: of my sort of.
Speaker 1: The schedule you've been on for quite a while thirty years, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the schedule you But but it's interesting you say that
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of people in the professional
Speaker 1: world I live in, whether it's acting in film and
Speaker 1: television or theater, and then maestros, soloists and so forth.
Speaker 1: They're like race horses. And what the COVID did was
Speaker 1: it allowed them to just go into the corral and
Speaker 1: just eat some grass. And they said, well, maybe I
Speaker 1: want to go running, but I don't necessarily want a race,
Speaker 1: and I want it to be competitive. I'd like to
Speaker 1: go run on the beach. I'm a horse and I
Speaker 1: want to go take a run for something exactly and
Speaker 1: you realize that when you gave people these bunches of time,
Speaker 1: they started this journey to get back to their true
Speaker 1: nature of what it is they like.
Speaker 2: I think exactly right, And I also think that you
Speaker 2: don't have enough time in your schedule or in your
Speaker 2: brain to really think. You know, it's a funny thing
Speaker 2: because I'm thinking all the time, but I'm thinking about
Speaker 2: things that I need to think about, the things that
Speaker 2: you need to be prepared. I need to learn this,
Speaker 2: I need to make that schedule. I have an interview
Speaker 2: coming up, I have a television thing, I have a
Speaker 2: recording whatever. But these are the things you have to do,
Speaker 2: and you have to because you have a deadline. But
Speaker 2: the kind of thinking that happens when you have no
Speaker 2: deadline is so much more valuable and interesting ideas start
Speaker 2: coming and said, why didn't I ever think about this before? Well,
Speaker 2: I didn't have time. I didn't have time. I was
Speaker 2: with no room in sort of trying to catch up
Speaker 2: all the time rather than just heavenly scheduled. Man.
Speaker 1: One thing you don't realize about people in the classical
Speaker 1: repertoire I set is these are people who know exactly
Speaker 1: where they're going to be on August fifteenth, three years
Speaker 1: from now. Absolutely, they've booked festivals and they've booked concerts.
Speaker 1: These things are booked out so far. But I want
Speaker 1: to pivot here and ask you as I was reading
Speaker 1: about your biography, and I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about popular music and rock and roll music and the
Speaker 1: boy from Estonia who had to smuggle cassettes of rock
Speaker 1: music and then set up a drum set. Tell me
Speaker 1: about your relationship and what I'm looking for really is
Speaker 1: the scene between the two. Are you a man who
Speaker 1: there was a sense of a duty because of your dad?
Speaker 1: I remember watching in the documentary that you said that
Speaker 1: your father had the classical music playing on the radio
Speaker 1: or on an album or cassette all day long, and
Speaker 1: in the middle of the family dinner, he go wait
Speaker 1: and he'd want to hear the passage or whatever the
Speaker 1: moment now was classical music something was a feed a
Speaker 1: complete for you because of your dad. It was a
Speaker 1: true passion. It was both And were you two different
Speaker 1: people that craved two different sources of music?
Speaker 2: I think the answer the first thing is that I
Speaker 2: think the difference and the distance between these two types
Speaker 2: of music is actually not so big. In fact, I
Speaker 2: don't really see any distance. I don't think that there
Speaker 2: is any difference between rock music, jazz music, or classical
Speaker 2: music if because on the highest levels of it, it
Speaker 2: is just as much hard work, and it requires just
Speaker 2: as much talent and requires just as much skill. Very
Speaker 2: specific to that particular field. For me, when I have
Speaker 2: dinner with my girls, you know, we listen to Eta James,
Speaker 2: we listened to you know, Billie Eilish, We listened to
Speaker 2: a lot of this stuff. I even play some of
Speaker 2: the rock music that they have no idea, but I said,
Speaker 2: listen to this, and this is all. This is great.
Speaker 2: This is led Zeppelin, Leed Who fifteen and seventeen years old.
Speaker 2: Some of the greatest names in music history, pop music
Speaker 2: history are totally unknown to them, just like in films.
Speaker 2: And it is very interesting for me to realize that
Speaker 2: my girls actually know who bah was bad how and
Speaker 2: chekhovs Gea. They don't know a lot of you know,
Speaker 2: If you say who is Peter Gabriel, they say, I
Speaker 2: don't know. And it's one of the greatest of grades,
Speaker 2: you know. And so the distance between these two fields,
Speaker 2: or the arts in general, is very short, and it's
Speaker 2: not actually at all. For me. It was never that
Speaker 2: I wanted to become a rock and roll drummer. I
Speaker 2: just did it because I loved playing it. But I
Speaker 2: was actually studying drums in school, and it was a natural, totally,
Speaker 2: totally natural connection from just being a drummer, you know,
Speaker 2: like most of the bass players in symphony orchestras are
Speaker 2: all sort of quietly fantasizing being the great rock players
Speaker 2: in a rocky Yes. Absolutely, and so it's not actually
Speaker 2: so different. And one other thing that's interesting that you
Speaker 2: just said, I was never forced into music. I loved
Speaker 2: the fact that I never had to make a decision.
Speaker 2: I have two girls right now who don't know. They're
Speaker 2: very talented, but they don't know what am I going
Speaker 2: to do in life. I never had ever that question
Speaker 2: because I wanted to not only to be a musician,
Speaker 2: I wanted to be a conductor. Way why because my
Speaker 2: father was a conductor. I loved my father. I think
Speaker 2: he was having a lot of fun and we're very
Speaker 2: close to this day. So it was done. It was
Speaker 2: a done deal. I wanted to be a conductor, and
Speaker 2: I never ever wanted to be anything else ever, And
Speaker 2: so it is maybe a little bit unusual. But the
Speaker 2: point of the story is that I think that if
Speaker 2: somebody sort of makes it fun for you when you're
Speaker 2: a kid, it stays with you. You know. If somebody
Speaker 2: forces you, that's a different story. But I was never forced.
Speaker 1: Your family left Estonia. Your father conducted a piece, if
Speaker 1: I read this correctly, without what we're considered the necessary
Speaker 1: permissions back then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well the Arvo Credo and Credo is on a
Speaker 2: religious text, and Arvo part was a kind of a
Speaker 2: dissident composer. Now he's of course the legend, you know,
Speaker 2: but my father was not supposed to do it, and
Speaker 2: he did it anyway, and it was a huge scandal,
Speaker 2: and it was basically it was bordering on a kind
Speaker 2: of you might be deported or you might be sent
Speaker 2: to someplace really cold.
Speaker 1: And that was happening when you were how old.
Speaker 2: I was probably eleven something like that.
Speaker 1: Sow as a young child, that's when you head over
Speaker 1: to New York.
Speaker 2: No, we came to New York when I was around seventeen.
Speaker 2: But that incident sort of started the whole term a
Speaker 2: longer process, yes, a long process.
Speaker 1: Yes, So you came when you were seventeen, You come
Speaker 1: and you talk about seeing as many people on the
Speaker 1: highway coming from the airport into the city as we're
Speaker 1: in your entire town or country, or we're in all
Speaker 1: of Ustonia exactly right. And you thought, no one's going
Speaker 1: to find me here, no one's going to I'm going
Speaker 1: to get so lost here.
Speaker 2: You know, if you live in a country of one
Speaker 2: and a half million people and you're isolated because it's
Speaker 2: an Iron curtain Soviet Union, you go to Kennedy Airport
Speaker 2: and then you take the highway and you see four
Speaker 2: lanes this way and four lanes that way, and you
Speaker 2: literally you haven't even seen it in films. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was that it was this dramatic, you know, so
Speaker 2: I thought, Okay, nobody will find me here.
Speaker 1: Now, obviously your father had this reputation. I'm sure when
Speaker 1: he came to New York he was not without contacts,
Speaker 1: without friends. He had people he could plug into here.
Speaker 2: Correct, absolutely absolutely, And in fact, my father was a
Speaker 2: very well known conductor back in a Soviet Union and
Speaker 2: in Europe. But you know, since the Soviet Union was
Speaker 2: closed and Iron Curtain was very much you know, a
Speaker 2: real thing, the actual possibility to make contacts in the
Speaker 2: West only came when you were allowed to travel, and
Speaker 2: he occasionally was allowed to travel, and in fact he
Speaker 2: even conducted in metropolitan opera. He conducted on Eigin and
Speaker 2: met a lot of local Estonian expats in America. You know,
Speaker 2: in New Jersey and New York has a very large
Speaker 2: Estonian community. And you know it fun fact for you
Speaker 2: to perhaps to notice that almost every big city in
Speaker 2: the world, but also in the United States, has what
Speaker 2: they call an Estonian house that was a little community
Speaker 2: centers where Estonians would speak Estonian, would do the folk dancing,
Speaker 2: they would do the male choir singing, they would have
Speaker 2: the newspaper published, they would have Estonian independence. Observed. It
Speaker 2: was a little place in every in Chicago, in New York,
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles, in New Zealand, in London, in Paris,
Speaker 2: everywhere there was an Estonian house. So there are a
Speaker 2: lot of Estonians scattered around the world. And one of
Speaker 2: those people actually brought us and gave us refuge when
Speaker 2: we came here.
Speaker 1: When you get to New York, how does it begin
Speaker 1: for you? You knew you wanted to be a conductor. You
Speaker 1: eventually end up at Curtis and so forth. But what's
Speaker 1: the beginning for you when you land in the United States?
Speaker 1: How does your education begin?
Speaker 2: The very first thing is the language, because when we
Speaker 2: came to the United States, within speak an perhaps hello, goodbye,
Speaker 2: nice to meet you, and I said that was about it.
Speaker 2: So this was the first thing which had to be
Speaker 2: kind of dealt with. And so we lived in the
Speaker 2: house with our Estonian family. Pustrums were their names. I
Speaker 2: was seventeen years old. So we went to the high
Speaker 2: school in New Jersey, and it was, in fact one
Speaker 2: of those really nice moments where we became and slowly
Speaker 2: learned the language through speaking with other kids or trying
Speaker 2: to speak with other kids. And of course they never
Speaker 2: knew what the Estonian is like. And they said, oh,
Speaker 2: there's two Russian kids, because I was my sister, two
Speaker 2: Russian kids. And I said, no, no, no, We're not Russians.
Speaker 2: Were Estonians. Oh, Astoria Queen's no. No. Estonia then already
Speaker 2: applying to schools. I went to Juliel Pre College, I
Speaker 2: went to University of I'm.
Speaker 1: Saying, is, how does that happen because of your father's
Speaker 1: reputation proceed but then introduction is made, No.
Speaker 2: Not at all. No, In fact, what you have to
Speaker 2: do is that there's an audition that you send in
Speaker 2: new application, and you have to do an audition.
Speaker 1: You knew you wanted that, you knew you wanted Juilliard.
Speaker 2: I was dreaming about Juilliard, and I was. I got
Speaker 2: into a pre college as a percussionist, and from.
Speaker 1: There on the John Bonham of Estonia.
Speaker 2: I think there are better drummers than me, much better
Speaker 2: drummers than me in Estonia. But actually that is a
Speaker 2: very very active rock scene also in Estonia. But mainly
Speaker 2: Estonia is known for its classical music, of course, but
Speaker 2: the rock and the pop music, and it's it's actually
Speaker 2: very very big there, and it's a very good some
Speaker 2: very very good artists.
Speaker 1: And what was the pre college program at Julliard? How
Speaker 1: did you find that? What was that like?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I had to travel every morning,
Speaker 2: get up at six from New Jersey, get a bus,
Speaker 2: go to Port Authority terminal, then walk. But that was
Speaker 2: a ford. It was a forty second street, the old
Speaker 2: fashioned way, not the cleaned up gentrified Disney thing. It was,
Speaker 2: you know, and I barely spoke English, so I always
Speaker 2: remember the moment where I was walking from the the
Speaker 2: terminal to Juilliard, and the girl came up to me.
Speaker 2: A lady came up to me and said, do you
Speaker 2: have time? And I was sort of struggled, and I said, yes,
Speaker 2: it's seven o'clock am. And then she looked at me
Speaker 2: kind of and walked away in disgust. I think she
Speaker 2: obviously didn't have.
Speaker 1: Her phone mink jacket on.
Speaker 2: She had, Yeah, she didn't really want to know what
Speaker 2: time it was.
Speaker 1: She wanted you to know what time it was. But anyway,
Speaker 1: you made it up to sixty sixth Street, and when
Speaker 1: you get there, what kind of work are you doing?
Speaker 2: Well? First of all, we had theory lessons, we had
Speaker 2: air training, we had solfish, we had a percussion the
Speaker 2: major lessons. But the most interesting thing was always the orchestra.
Speaker 2: It was a pre college orchestra. And the orchestra was
Speaker 2: full of really wonderful, wonderful musicians, a lot of them,
Speaker 2: or not a lot of them, but some of them
Speaker 2: I'm still very closely connected, and they are now well
Speaker 2: known musicians. And you would every time have an orchestra rehearsal,
Speaker 2: and the conductor was rehearsing, and you are playing timpany
Speaker 2: and you are kind of all in that world, you
Speaker 2: can see what the conductor test tells to the strings,
Speaker 2: and you see how the brass players react to some comments,
Speaker 2: and you know, all of a sudden, in the back
Speaker 2: of the orchestra, you are actually doing much more than
Speaker 2: learning how to play dimpany. You're learning how the process
Speaker 2: of conducting is actually happening and what is important. How
Speaker 2: what are the things that you like about the way
Speaker 2: the conductor asks the musicians, What turns you off, what
Speaker 2: makes you angry, what makes you laugh? Who is popular?
Speaker 2: Who is lest you know it is it's a whole
Speaker 2: process universe. Yeah, and that process is very much to
Speaker 2: do with also human ability. You know, some conductors can
Speaker 2: know everything, but they can piss everybody off in first
Speaker 2: three minutes and nobody will want to hear what they say.
Speaker 2: And other people they do they close off, Yes, they
Speaker 2: close off, and they immediately build a kind of a
Speaker 2: barrier between themselves and the conductor. And you know, there
Speaker 2: is not so much love sort of loss between orchestral
Speaker 2: musicians and conductors anyway, from the kind of older history
Speaker 2: of the kind of tyrannical conductors, which of course now
Speaker 2: is not the case anymore because the society is different,
Speaker 2: but there is a kind of a built in distrust
Speaker 2: and musicians always listen to the teachers, and teachers say, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, conductors, they can be this, they can be that.
Speaker 2: So it was an interesting kind of experience to see
Speaker 2: how the process works.
Speaker 1: Conductor Pavo Jarvey. If you love stories of life on
Speaker 1: the podium, be sure to check out my conversation with
Speaker 1: Finnish composer and conductor Esa Pekasomin. When he arrived in
Speaker 1: the United States to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he
Speaker 1: loved leaving behind the arrogance of the European classical music world.
Speaker 3: When I started out in LA, I had this some
Speaker 3: kind of residue from this European thing that Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: here to bring some kind of culture to elevate you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this culture is medicine kind.
Speaker 1: Of thing, which is vile.
Speaker 3: And it was an interesting process because I was talking
Speaker 3: about things, you know, the way we used to in europeothdays,
Speaker 3: and you know, with this kind of historic necessity of
Speaker 3: atonal music and this and that, and people were very nice,
Speaker 3: they said, oh, yeah, great, interesting, but how does it sound?
Speaker 3: Asking these questions that are the obvious questions that everybody
Speaker 3: should ask, but we went for some reason asking.
Speaker 1: Hear more of my conversation with Maestro Essa pecasaloinon and
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break, Pavo Yarvey
Speaker 1: talks about the role he plays in the orchestra as
Speaker 1: the conductor. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. This is the sacrificial dance from Igor Stravinsky's
Speaker 1: The Right of Spring, performed by the NHK Symphony Orchestra
Speaker 1: in Tokyo. The conductor is my guest today, Pavo Jarv.
Speaker 1: Pavo Jarvey's home country, Estonia, has a population of just
Speaker 1: over one point three million and a thriving classical music scene,
Speaker 1: in part thanks to the Arv family. Pavo Jarve's life
Speaker 1: and work was featured in the two thousand and three
Speaker 1: documentary Maestro. The film includes interviews with famous classical musicians
Speaker 1: talking about Jarve's talent and explaining the complexities of the
Speaker 1: classical music world. Violinist Joshua Bell goes so far as
Speaker 1: to suggest musicians playing at the highest level do not
Speaker 1: need a conductor. Pavo Yarby wouldn't go that far, but
Speaker 1: he agrees his job is probably not quite what you
Speaker 1: think it is.
Speaker 2: Two things. Number one, I am not a decider per se,
Speaker 2: because I don't believe in this. It's not an autocratic
Speaker 2: for me. That doesn't work. What works is I invite
Speaker 2: musicians to see my point of view. And when Joshua
Speaker 2: or somebody else says that we don't need a conductor,
Speaker 2: they are really explaining it to a kind of a
Speaker 2: layman who doesn't quite understand the nuances, because what they
Speaker 2: don't need is somebody to be the policeman in order
Speaker 2: to organize everything, because on that level where he exists
Speaker 2: and I exist in a new or philharmonic, and so
Speaker 2: they can play the piece together and make sure that
Speaker 2: it doesn't fall apart, absolutely without a problem, without a conductor. Now,
Speaker 2: so one would ask why is the conductor important or
Speaker 2: what's the role. I'll tell you my view of that
Speaker 2: is this, somebody has to formulate a point of view.
Speaker 2: That point of view varies from one conductor to another.
Speaker 2: And so that is why we still do some standard
Speaker 2: repertoire because some younger generation people see it in a
Speaker 2: different light. But they have studied the score, they have
Speaker 2: studied the tradition, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: one hundred people cannot make up their mind to be
Speaker 2: unified enough to formulate on the spot of the performance
Speaker 2: and interesting enough point of view. Just getting through something
Speaker 2: is not the goal. It's making something exceptional and finding
Speaker 2: ways of making an old piece new. That's really the
Speaker 2: conductor's job. The other thing is that you know most
Speaker 2: of the people. If let's say you go to new
Speaker 2: or Philharmonic, a fantastic orchestra, they have to do a
Speaker 2: different program every single week. Every single week, they have
Speaker 2: at least three new pieces that they need to master.
Speaker 2: They play all the notes they need to be absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2: They don't have time to study in depth all the
Speaker 2: scores for three new pieces. Every research it takes years.
Speaker 2: It takes years. If it's a job, that's a conductor's job.
Speaker 2: But I would never say that this is a kind
Speaker 2: of eye decide or I have a strong point of
Speaker 2: view and then I invite them to see it. And
Speaker 2: actually musicians always look for that. They look for somebody
Speaker 2: who is going to open the door that illuminates something
Speaker 2: in the piece and where a piece that they've played
Speaker 2: a hundred times becomes maybe fun again. Because it has
Speaker 2: a little front angle, maybe a slightly different point of view,
Speaker 2: and you know there are a lot of subtleties that
Speaker 2: can make a piece sound new. Well.
Speaker 1: The reason sometimes I dwell on that topic is because
Speaker 1: theater mirrors the classical repertoire, because very often you're doing
Speaker 1: a revival of classic material. So the work of Chekhov,
Speaker 1: the work of Williams, the work of Miller and O'Neill
Speaker 1: are like all the great composers. And the joke we
Speaker 1: always tell in the theater is we know the material works.
Speaker 1: So if the show's a bomb, it's us. You know
Speaker 1: we got it wrong. And the director's task is to
Speaker 1: do what you're saying, is to sell them a clear
Speaker 1: sense of what the film is they want to make.
Speaker 1: How do I sell you on my idea and get
Speaker 1: you to do what I think you should do? Now,
Speaker 1: As I often say, for years when I was the
Speaker 1: announcer for the Philharmonic, I'm the bat boy for the
Speaker 1: New York Philharmonic. I'm not really a great pitcher or fielder,
Speaker 1: but I just love the game, so to speak. But
Speaker 1: when I see, like, for example, a very easy component
Speaker 1: of this or analysis of this is I'll go download
Speaker 1: a piece, and let's use a very basic piece. I'll
Speaker 1: get the adagio, the fourth movement of the mal or ninth,
Speaker 1: and I'll see that High Tink plays it, and he
Speaker 1: does it in twenty seven minutes. And then I'll see
Speaker 1: that Mozelle with the Philharmonic does it in thirty one minutes.
Speaker 1: It's four minutes longer. And so pace is of course
Speaker 1: one component. And I want you to share with me,
Speaker 1: is that in your realm, you decide or you propose
Speaker 1: the pace of the piece, the emphasis, What are the
Speaker 1: knobs and dials you're controlling.
Speaker 2: One of the most fundamental choices that any performer has
Speaker 2: to make is a choice of tempo. And it's an
Speaker 2: interesting thing about tempo in general, because tempo can be
Speaker 2: a metronomic understanding. You can put the metronome and say, okay,
Speaker 2: this is sixty, so this is exactly how it is.
Speaker 2: And that's very often how the click tracks and movie
Speaker 2: soundtracks are made, because it needs to be absolutely precise.
Speaker 2: And then there is a perception of tempo, which is
Speaker 2: sometimes a great conductor can make a very slow movement
Speaker 2: so compelling that it doesn't feel slow, it doesn't feel
Speaker 2: like it never ends. And sometimes an inexperienced conductor or
Speaker 2: a less talented conductor can do it even a little
Speaker 2: bit faster whatever, and it feels like it never ends.
Speaker 2: And if you feel like, my god, this is dragging
Speaker 2: and this is so boring, and then you look at
Speaker 2: the timings and actually it was a faster performance that
Speaker 2: should have been easier to listen to. And so the
Speaker 2: experience of knowing how to say something has a lot
Speaker 2: to do with knowing within the whole process when to
Speaker 2: speed up, when to take time. This material is repeating,
Speaker 2: they have to go a little bit forward, and so on.
Speaker 2: So it is really a perception of time that matters.
Speaker 2: And very often in older conductors they get slower, but
Speaker 2: they get slower because they know how to that space.
Speaker 2: And very often the very young musicians they do everything
Speaker 2: on adrenaline and say, oh, they're so exciting, you know,
Speaker 2: But then it's all adrenaline and nothing else. You know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you look at the old actors and they just
Speaker 2: pause in the middle of the dialogue and it's like
Speaker 2: there's a long silence, and it is it's filled with tension.
Speaker 2: And in some people, in some cases, people are afraid
Speaker 2: of being silent, they just need to fill every single
Speaker 2: moment with a word.
Speaker 1: Conductor Pavo Yarv. If you're enjoying this conversation, be sure
Speaker 1: to follow Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back,
Speaker 1: Pavo Yarvey talks about his favorite music to conduct. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear the thing. This
Speaker 1: is Pavo Yarvi conducting one of Jean Sabelius's best known
Speaker 1: works of false Trieste, performed by the Estonian National Orchestra.
Speaker 1: When the documentary Maestro about Pavo Yarvey was released in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, he was the music director of
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The film features many performances in
Speaker 1: the orchestra's primary home, Cincinnati Music Hall.
Speaker 2: It is a fantastic acoustics And the thing with this
Speaker 2: hall is that it was built by one of the
Speaker 2: taft was a president in old times, and there's a
Speaker 2: women's committee in old times. Women's committees got all these
Speaker 2: things done. If you were a president's wife, you collected
Speaker 2: the women of all the rich people around you, and
Speaker 2: they built all the costs, that's right, And so what
Speaker 2: happened is that this was built for conventions and concerts
Speaker 2: and May Festival, which was of course the Great Choral
Speaker 2: Festival still exists in Cincinnati, and when I was their
Speaker 2: music director. I left it ten years ago, but I
Speaker 2: was astounded by how large it is. In three thy
Speaker 2: five hundred seats is a whole that is way too
Speaker 2: big for Cincinnati. Cincinnati is not a very big city.
Speaker 2: It's a great city, but it's not a very big one.
Speaker 2: So we started this campaign in trying to do something
Speaker 2: about this hole. So finally it was renovated. It looks
Speaker 2: the same, but it is a bit smaller. It's just
Speaker 2: so gorgeous.
Speaker 1: You have to say, redesigned the inside of the space, right,
Speaker 1: the same thing they're doing at Lincoln Center, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is the building is landmarked. And I think I've said
Speaker 1: this before on the show. We had Alan Gilbert on
Speaker 1: the show several years ago as he was leaving New
Speaker 1: York and Deborah Border, who I must say, I've never
Speaker 1: been prouder to work on a board than I am
Speaker 1: on the Philharmonic board, simply because of the genius of
Speaker 1: this woman. Debrah's the one who she knew whatever schedule
Speaker 1: they had for the renovation, she said, we're shut down
Speaker 1: for the COVID. I think she bumped it up like
Speaker 1: a year. She said, let's blow the place up. Now
Speaker 1: we're not in there and we're not going back and there.
Speaker 1: Let's just start. I'm just so excited because they are
Speaker 1: going to have the most beautiful space. They took four
Speaker 1: hundred seats out of there as well. They took a
Speaker 1: lot of seats out.
Speaker 2: You know, this is one of those strange phenomena that happened.
Speaker 2: Classical music somehow had to compete with the kind of
Speaker 2: large show business events, and in a way, the music
Speaker 2: is not designed for that. You know, at two thousand seats, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: three thousand and four thousand, it's just not the right music.
Speaker 1: It's impractical. When you're in a town like Cincinnati, What
Speaker 1: was it like? Explain to people where does the ensemble
Speaker 1: come from? Do you have to bring people there and
Speaker 1: house them? Are their natives of Cincinnati? Many of them?
Speaker 1: Where does the town come from?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you Cincinnati. This is one of the very
Speaker 2: funny things about the United States is that most people
Speaker 2: in America don't even realize how much culture is actually
Speaker 2: in these smaller places in the Midwest. For example, you know,
Speaker 2: since Scinnati is I think the second third oldest orchestra
Speaker 2: in the United States, it was created by the same
Speaker 2: guy who created Chicago Symphony. It was totally German, you know,
Speaker 2: Fritz Reiner, who was a music director for fifteen years
Speaker 2: the Isaie. First job of Stokowski was in Cincinnati. You know,
Speaker 2: the amazing legacy of horror with Stravinsky, all the great
Speaker 2: conductors and great composers, they all went to Cincinnati. There
Speaker 2: are pictures and if you listen to, for example, one
Speaker 2: of the most iconic American pieces that everybody knows, the
Speaker 2: Fanfare for the common Man. You know, that is commissioned
Speaker 2: by Cincinnati Orchestra, and many, many, many, many other historic things.
Speaker 2: So if you start thinking about all this rust belt,
Speaker 2: the best orchestras in America are in Midwest. Okay, there
Speaker 2: is of course New York Philharmonic, clearly that is exceptional.
Speaker 2: But if you look at Cleveland, if you look at Chicago, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh,
Speaker 2: you know, this is not exactly the glamorous part of
Speaker 2: the United States, but this is an unbelievably cultured This
Speaker 2: is where all the German European immigrants went, you know,
Speaker 2: all the Californias and West Coast and also Texas. That's
Speaker 2: already an afterthought that music came later there. But Cincinnati
Speaker 2: Symphony was an orchestra where Stokowski was a music director.
Speaker 2: He became the greatest Stokovsky of Philadelphia. Ryiner became the
Speaker 2: great Fritz Reiner of Chicago Symphony. And so Cincinnati is
Speaker 2: really suffering from the basic image that the United States
Speaker 2: and Americans have about Ohio. Ohio, waya Wio? Did I
Speaker 2: ever live Ohio? You know that this is exactly the
Speaker 2: whole thing. That is a kind of a you know, stereotype.
Speaker 1: A prejudice. Toured the Big Five, well, a Big.
Speaker 2: Five truly are great, there was no question about it.
Speaker 2: But in today's world.
Speaker 1: They have a lot of money. Yes, but I think.
Speaker 2: That more than money even, I think it has something
Speaker 2: to do with the legacy of long term relationships that
Speaker 2: they had with conductors. You have George Zell stayed all
Speaker 2: his life in Cleveland and clearly made sure that this
Speaker 2: orchestra is unbeatable, and in.
Speaker 1: That hall and that hall in Cleveland.
Speaker 2: Well, right now, I would say that Severance Hall in
Speaker 2: Cleveland great as it is without any question, is the
Speaker 2: Cincinnati is not anyverse.
Speaker 1: In my life of listening to and collecting first on
Speaker 1: CDs and then downloading this relationship between the maestro and
Speaker 1: the ensemble. And I remember a Counzel who was the
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Pops conductor for thirty years. Yes, he was there forever,
Speaker 1: he was there forever, Eric, exactly, I was always devouring that,
Speaker 1: as you said, that conductor who stayed and developed that
Speaker 1: rich relationship to TWA with Montreal Slatkin was Saint Louis
Speaker 1: Mata with the Dallas Symphony, Tilson Thomas and Francisco Asa
Speaker 1: Packer in la and so for you in Cincinnati. But
Speaker 1: getting back to this question about the performers or a
Speaker 1: significant number of them or any significant proportion of them
Speaker 1: natives of Ohio or they have to come in for
Speaker 1: the season.
Speaker 2: No, they all become residents of Ohio once they get
Speaker 2: the job in orchestra. You know, getting a job in
Speaker 2: American orchestra it is it's a nightmare. It is so difficult.
Speaker 2: I mean there are people who try for ten years
Speaker 2: and they don't get the job, and almost give up,
Speaker 2: and they say, okay, one more audition and then then
Speaker 2: never again and they get a job finally. You know
Speaker 2: it is it's it's all behind the screens. It's extremely
Speaker 2: tough to get a job. So of course if you
Speaker 2: are a member of an orchestra and Cincinnati, you have
Speaker 2: to live there because you have to work every week.
Speaker 2: But originally all the musicians came from Germany. This was
Speaker 2: I mean the area where the whole is located. It's
Speaker 2: called over the Rhine. This it has, it has a
Speaker 2: local to go back there, has a beautiful architecture, and
Speaker 2: the one of the largest October fests outside of Munich
Speaker 2: is in you know, Kentucky, which is right next door.
Speaker 2: So it's a really German and you know, and a
Speaker 2: certain cultural sort of DNA remains to this day.
Speaker 1: And I thought the Greater's ice Cream was the number
Speaker 1: one reason to go to Cincinnati. I would ship I
Speaker 1: would ship Greater's ice cream to all my friends on
Speaker 1: dry ice I'd send them these cases and they'd all
Speaker 1: be crying. They say, my god, this is the greatest
Speaker 1: ice cream I've ever heard. I facilitated their addiction to
Speaker 1: Greater's ice Cream and Cincinnati, and now I have to
Speaker 1: go back there to a concert.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the thing is that the I left the
Speaker 2: orchestra already more than ten years ago. But what I
Speaker 2: like very much, and I agree with you, is that
Speaker 2: these relationships that are long term are really worth something.
Speaker 2: And in a lymic business this is not so common anymore.
Speaker 2: People stay a few years and they go to another,
Speaker 2: you know, in all things.
Speaker 1: In all things, yeah, but I think one.
Speaker 2: Who really I love the people who build some who
Speaker 2: leaves something behind it.
Speaker 1: So this is a cliched question, but I can't help
Speaker 1: myself because you know, there's music I listen to that
Speaker 1: I enjoy, and there's music I listened to in the
Speaker 1: classical reperte that I don't really care for. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of Mozart. I mean the
Speaker 1: very chirpy kind of complex as it is mathematically as
Speaker 1: multi layered and dimensional as some of these composers are.
Speaker 1: As we move, you know, further toward Stravinsky and so forth,
Speaker 1: and things get a little more layered and non traditional,
Speaker 1: there's nonetheless music I listened to, which is I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember I was doing a film and I told
Speaker 1: them I said this before on the show. But forgive me,
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to impress you here with my passion
Speaker 1: because in my life, if I had my life to
Speaker 1: do over again, and I mean this, I swear to
Speaker 1: God in Heaven, if I had my life to do
Speaker 1: over again, I'd be you.
Speaker 2: You know. You told me that after I told you
Speaker 2: that offstage in New York last time, and you came
Speaker 2: and you said, I want your life. Yes, I want
Speaker 2: to be you.
Speaker 1: To Blurn, to play, to play the piano, to all
Speaker 1: of them have to master some instrument. Apparently they all
Speaker 1: play something, and then to become a conductor. Because I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm racing from a show I was doing, or was
Speaker 1: shooting a film, and they contractually had to let me
Speaker 1: leave work at five o'clock on four nights of one week.
Speaker 1: They knew in my contract that on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday,
Speaker 1: I had to leave the show shooting a movie in
Speaker 1: Brooklyn at five o'clock so I could go to Carnegie
Speaker 1: Hall to see the shots Capel do the Mallorcycle with
Speaker 1: Baron Boyme and Boulez, and I wanted to see them
Speaker 1: all four, five, six and nine. And I am late.
Speaker 1: I went home to change my clothes and I ran down.
Speaker 1: I'm going down Central Park West and Obama was in
Speaker 1: town and the cops had everything shut down. And by
Speaker 1: the time I go in the back of Carnegie Hall
Speaker 1: and get my tickets and run, and as literally as
Speaker 1: my ass hits the seat, I'm the last person and
Speaker 1: sitting in the hall. And as I sit down and
Speaker 1: I touched the cushion, the door opens and out comes
Speaker 1: Barrenburm to conduct the ninth. Now the music plays, and
Speaker 1: everybody's there to get what they want. I mean, if
Speaker 1: they're dying for this mallorcycle, And the tears are just
Speaker 1: streaming down my face, and the tears are streaming down
Speaker 1: the face of everybody to the left of me and
Speaker 1: to the right of way. And this music touches you
Speaker 1: in a way that nothing else can exactly. And the
Speaker 1: woman says that, and the woman says that in the documentary.
Speaker 1: She says, this is a music that that goes so deep.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering, what are the pieces that you play
Speaker 1: that touch you. I do know you can't pick favorites,
Speaker 1: But what's a piece or two that you play that
Speaker 1: even you're surprise at how much it moves you.
Speaker 2: I would think that without any exception, it is something
Speaker 2: slow in a dodgo by Bruckner, a dodgo by Maler,
Speaker 2: something that is introverted. Like if you listen to the
Speaker 2: fourth or the seventh Symphony of Sibelius, you have this
Speaker 2: feeling that you have this, this something is just creeping
Speaker 2: deep inside you. It is not it's not artificial, superficial,
Speaker 2: easy listening. Or Americas say to Tapper, I don't this
Speaker 2: doesn't do anything. Really. What does something to me is
Speaker 2: a slow you know, like the end of the marl
Speaker 2: A three, you know, the last movement. It is just
Speaker 2: out of this world. And yeah, I think slow music
Speaker 2: that really just gets inside your.
Speaker 1: Soul, which probably the seventh.
Speaker 2: I love the seventh, but listen to the Adago of
Speaker 2: the of the of the eighth Bruckner eighth a dodgo
Speaker 2: of the Brookner six, unbelievable, Bruckner nine a dodger. But
Speaker 2: you know, Beethoven was the person in this ninth Symphony
Speaker 2: who kind of created the prototype for this great adago,
Speaker 2: you know, the ninth, the slow movement, and every composer
Speaker 2: since tried to kind of outdo him, because it was
Speaker 2: the true master knew was really somebody who knew how
Speaker 2: to write a a great a dodger, and that is why,
Speaker 2: for example, Mather often ends his symphony in ninth definitely,
Speaker 2: but also the third with this incredibly so searching a dodger.
Speaker 2: And to me, slow music. Maybe I'm just getting old,
Speaker 2: but I always I always loved slow and contemplative music.
Speaker 2: I wanted to tell you something funny because you mentioned bottom.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting here in karantine in Tokyo in a hotel.
Speaker 2: He's upstairs. He's upstairs, and he wanted to come and
Speaker 2: see me. They wouldn't let The people are so uptight
Speaker 2: here in Tokyo that they wouldn't let him into my room.
Speaker 2: And it is so funny because we are literally in
Speaker 2: the not in the same wing too.
Speaker 1: So it's hard to believe that the six feet of
Speaker 1: concrete and steel are separating two of the greatest maestros
Speaker 1: in modern music today in the classical retor. You can't
Speaker 1: have a cup of tea together, well I am, I
Speaker 1: can't have a martini together.
Speaker 2: I had a battle already, you prepared with the glass
Speaker 2: of even I got two glasses. They wouldn't let him.
Speaker 1: You'll have to toast over the internet.
Speaker 2: So we did. We were literally doing what we're doing now.
Speaker 2: And this is a story.
Speaker 1: You were married, you're not married now, and you have
Speaker 1: two daughters. If your ex wife she was a violinist,
Speaker 1: a very good one, yes, and you met her where I.
Speaker 2: Met her actually in London when I was well. I
Speaker 2: still live in London and between London and US, but
Speaker 2: she was studying in Royal Academy and we met in London.
Speaker 1: Now I always tell people, and forgive me if this
Speaker 1: sounds odd, but that is I often find the talent
Speaker 1: is the greatest affordisiac. And if talent is the greatest
Speaker 1: afford desiac. And I was a conductor working in the
Speaker 1: classical repertoire, I'd want to get married probably two or
Speaker 1: three times a month. You know, talented women who are
Speaker 1: playing these instruments are just they're everywhere.
Speaker 2: You know. This is one of those almost dangerous subjects
Speaker 2: in this diamon age. But the truth is exactly what
Speaker 2: you're saying. What you're saying is so right because you
Speaker 2: first of all speak the same language, you speak music.
Speaker 2: It's your passion, both of you nuances. It is so
Speaker 2: it is so obvious that most people in that field
Speaker 2: find their partner in the same field. And it is
Speaker 2: very difficult to even understand the idiosyncrasis and all the
Speaker 2: craziness that one needs to understand if you are not
Speaker 2: in part of that business. So this whole thing about
Speaker 2: you know, be careful workplace romances and all this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: on one level, I understand totally. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: there is almost impossible to create a union that is
Speaker 2: really long lasting.
Speaker 1: More and more, I think what you're saying, if I'm
Speaker 1: hearing you correctly, which is what I've suspected, which is
Speaker 1: more beyond the chemistry between a man and a woman,
Speaker 1: or two women or two men for that matter. Beyond
Speaker 1: that chemistry, it's the chemistry of the arts exactly. It's
Speaker 1: just nothing like watching all those tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: hours that these people have are hundreds of thousands of hours,
Speaker 1: and they're up there and they're doing their thing, and
Speaker 1: you sit there and you watch them all doing the
Speaker 1: same thing together in service of the same thing. At
Speaker 1: the same time, I think to myself, this is the
Speaker 1: most intoxic anything in the world. Now you're there in Tokyo,
Speaker 1: just are you doing something with NHK or who are
Speaker 1: you working with?
Speaker 2: NHK. I'm a chief conductor in NHK. I am a
Speaker 2: chief conductor in don Hale Orchestra Zurich Deutsche kame Philomony
Speaker 2: in Bremen. So geography is quite wild, and I have
Speaker 2: not been here because of the COVID now for thirteen months.
Speaker 2: So now I have decided, as a chief conductor, I
Speaker 2: have to come here and sit through this curantine because
Speaker 2: it's my orchestra, and I feel the loyalty and I
Speaker 2: feel the responsibility.
Speaker 1: Well, let me just say this to you. You are
Speaker 1: one of the most elegant men I've ever seen on
Speaker 1: the podium in my laftum. And you are a great, great,
Speaker 1: great music conductor. And I hope we see you in
Speaker 1: New York before too long. We are dying for you
Speaker 1: to come back.
Speaker 2: Please, thank you, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Conductor Pavo Jarv. This is Pavo Yarv conducting the Estonian
Speaker 1: National Symphony in the Contus in memory of Benjamin Britten,
Speaker 1: written by the world renowned Estonian composer Arvo part I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio.