BD: So you knew that person got it!
AK: Well, I knew that person got something that I was thinking about. Other people might think it just seems very spatial, very distant, which also has something to do with travel. Some people might think sun, others would think yellow, others would think light. We’re all pretty much getting the same idea.
BD: So if someone comes to you and says, “I was thinking about a baseball game,” you’d feel they missed it?
AK: I would think that they probably were not listening to what I was playing, or I was really doing a bad job in communicating! That would not be good!
BD: Have you basically been pleased with the performances you’ve given these many nights?
AK: Yeah, yeah. I am very happy. I am very happy to be a musician. It’s very fulfilling to me. I’m a perfectionist, and as a performer I worry about details, so I will also tell you that every night, no matter how wonderful the concert is, I keep thinking I can do better. We can improve tomorrow night; we can do something different. That’s not to say the performance was minimized; it’s just because it’s the nature of art. If we tell a joke to a group of friends, we tell a joke once. Then at the end of it, if your friend comes from the bathroom and says, “Hey, what did I miss?” you’re going to have to tell the joke again. Are you going to do it verbatim, using the same words again? No. You’re going to just do a short version of it. But it’s just as funny, and the people who heard it the first time are probably going to laugh the second time as well, because you changed something. That is art when we use our words to change something, to express something completely new, and people get an emotion out of it. In music it’s the same thing. The last thing we want to do is to play exactly the same notes the same way every night. That would be like being the most completely boring person in a dinner party!
BD: But when someone plays a recording, it will be exactly the same thing every time it’s played. Is there any ambiguity for you when you make a recording?
AK: My recordings are not as authentic as a live performance, because I realize it’s going to be listened to several times, and analyzed as a document. A recording is a document. It’s something that I write down in my computer, and then I do a spell-checker, and then I come back to the next day and revise one paragraph. We cut and paste. We say, “Well in this passage, by the time we played it the fifth time it got a little bit better, so let’s paste that one in.” So we create a document that can be published. It lacks the authenticity, but it still carries a lot of information. If people like the recording, they’ll probably like a live performance better in terms of carrying emotions. But a live performance can never carry as much information as a document.
BD: So they’re two separate things that should exist in parallel?
AK: Yeah, exactly. If I go to a conference and I present a paper, I read my paper. That’s a document. Or if I introduce a colleague of mine that’s going to read his or her paper, then I’ll probably just introduce them and say a few words. That’s going to sound a little broken up and not planned, but it’s going to have a lot of emotion because it’s improvised at the minute. “Oh yeah, this guy! I met this guy a long time ago. You’ve got to hear what he has to say!” That’s a lot more inspirational than my saying, “We are about to hear Dr. So-and-So present...” [Both laugh] Who wants to hear that? So a live performance and a recording have this in common. Some people like to record live, and that’s a document of a specific performance. Again, it’s going to carry less information.
BD: One last question. Are you optimistic about the future of music?
AK: Oh, yeah! Music is never going to die. It’s going to change; it’s always changing. Even for classical music, there are doomsayers out there, but maybe it’s not classical music’s fault. It may be the fault of performers; it may be the fault of composers who can’t quite connect. I realize the intellectual need to create something completely new even if the audience doesn’t like it. Fine, great! But so what? What does he mean? Maybe classical music should get a few jolts every now and then, but overall I think classical music is very healthy. If you were to wipe out every orchestra, every string quartet in the world, just like it never existed, the next day somebody’s going to start playing classical music again because it’s part of us. The Eroica Symphony of Beethoven talks about liberation, empowering poor people, regular people, to strive for a better life. I get empowered by that because I see the same thing happening in our world right now. If I hear the Ninth Symphony, about the joy, about humans believing in ourselves, not necessarily going against the establishment but improving on establishment by giving ourselves the strength, the pride of being human, that’s a message for today as well! And the same can be said about the Bach cantatas and everything that came before. Classical music’s about four hundred years old now, and I would give it at least another two or three hundred years before we need to do something else!
BD: Good! Well that’s more than enough for the two of us, anyway! [Both laugh] Thank you so much.
AK: My pleasure. See you.
Alex Klein began his musical studies in his native Brazil at the age of nine, and made his solo orchestral debut the following year. At the age of eleven, he was invited to join the Camerata Antiqua, one of Brazil's foremost chamber ensembles. During his teenage years, he toured and performed as a soloist, recitalist, and as a member of several professional orchestras in Brazil. He then studied at the Oberlin Conservatory with James Caldwell, earning two degrees in music performance.
After a year at Oberlin, Mr. Klein won first prize in the first Lucarelli International Competition for Solo Oboe Players, held at New York's Carnegie Hall. He has received many awards worldwide, including at the 1988 International Competition for Musical Performers in Geneva, Switzerland, in which he was the first oboist to be awarded first prize since Heinz Holliger, three decades earlier.
Mr. Klein joined the Chicago Symphony as principal oboe in 1995. He has performed as soloist with the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and Chicago Sinfonietta. He has recorded for Teldec, Boston Records, Newport Classics, Musical Heritage Society, and Cedille Records.
Alex Klein won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist with Orchestra for his recording of the Richard Strauss Oboe Concerto with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony. Klein left the Chicago Symphony in July 2004 due to the onset of Musician's Focal Dystonia. He currently performs as a soloist and conductor, and also teaches.
© 2002 Bruce Duffie
This interview was recorded in Chicago on June 11, 2002. Portions (along with recordings) were used on WNUR in 2003, 2008 and 2009.
Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.
Used by permission.
Listen to Alex Klein play Bohuslav Martinu's Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra here.
Wilhelm Molique’s Concertino for Oboe and Orchestra can be heard here.