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The distinct sound of the Cleveland Orchestra has to do with our home, Severance Hall, because it is also an instrument we work with. We react to what the home gives us back: information, dynamics, colors, rhythm… All that. It is what makes great music, great music.
How do you feel you have contributed to this musical identity?
When I started as Music Director, I had already known the [Cleveland] Orchestra for several years, and I have always admired its discipline, control, and precision. Being an opera freak myself—I’ve conducted over 70 different operas in my life—I started doing opera with them, with a focus on breathing and the singing of phrases, which gives more warmth to the sound.
I learned a lot from great singers in my career, having had the privilege of working with people like Mirella Freni, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Alfredo Kraus, and others. That has always been my ideal: that an orchestra should also sing.
How do you keep your relationship with the orchestra going so well after so many years?
A young colleague once asked me: “When you’re a music director for such a long time, how do you keep this relationship going well?” I said: “There are two secrets. One is: don’t make it about yourself, make it about the music. And secondly, don’t bore the orchestra.”
After 25 years, I’ve conducted not only more than 1,200 concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra, but also more than 800 different pieces. So every time you do something, you try to introduce your musicians to something new. And when we play a piece for the first time, I try not to repeat it over and over again.
What kind of dialogue do you hear between the two works on this program, Strauss’s Four Last Songs and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8?
Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8 were written within just a few years of each other.
On the one hand, there is an old man, Richard Strauss, who accepts that the end is near and has no negative emotions about it. It’s a peaceful farewell to life.
Shostakovich, on the other hand, wrote this symphony in a political system where he was under a lot of pressure, and he himself said that it’s a poem about war and the horrific tragedies which any kind of war produces. At the end of the symphony, it feels like there’s a big question mark about what the future is going to bring.
The Cleveland Orchestra, “America’s finest,” made a highly anticipated stop in the City of Lights, with the esteemed Franz Welser-Möst, taking on Shostakovich’s magnificent Eighth Symphony.
After nearly 25 years with Cleveland, how has your approach to music-making changed?
After nearly 25 years, you don’t have to prove yourself anymore. That’s the great thing about retirement.
In my case, I have picked, I think, 58 of the musicians personally. When I look back at those years, it is filled with gratitude for having had the chance to pick them, then seeing them succeed. It’s so rewarding and makes me really happy. I feel just like Richard Strauss: no regrets, just gratitude.
