Paavo Järvi Conducts Beautiful Music

Published Nov 30, 2021, 5:00 AM

(Recorded June 2021) Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi is one of the most in-demand maestros in the world, and one of Alec’s favorite conductors. Järvi is currently the chief conductor of the NHK symphony orchestra in Tokyo and the Tonhalle Orchester-Zürich. Over his career, he’s led orchestras in Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Malmö, and, for the decade between 2001 and 2011, here in the United States, as the musical director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He and his musical family are pillars of the thriving classical music scene in his home country of Estonia. Paavo Järvi talks to Alec about how slowing down in the pandemic offered Paavo time to think, his early love of music, what it was like to come to the United States from Soviet-era Estonia as a 17-year-old, and what he took away from a decade of conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. 

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

Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin takes listeners into the lives of artists, policy makers and perfor 
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