Name: Password: or
strict warning: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home3/classij3/public_html/sites/all/modules/interview/interview.module on line 356.

Alex Klein, page 2

AK: I’m using their line to express what my heart says. Say you hear a joke that somebody tells you. If you like the joke, you go and tell other people the same joke. It becomes your joke now, but you actually got it from somebody else.

BD: So the music from other people becomes your music?

AK: It becomes my music, yeah. When I go onstage, I play my music. It just happens to have Brahms’ name on it, but it’s my music. I am the performer. I own the music.

BD: Are you conscious of the audience that’s there in front of you, or are you playing just for yourself?

AK: I’m very much conscious of them. But it’s a funny thing — I don’t see myself as the owner of the music; I see myself as the go-between. I’m there; I’m with the audience, but the performer in me is not. Alex Klein and the audience are listening to the oboe player. We’re both enjoying the same thing. So it’s as if I’m together with friends talking about a common emotion, and we all feel love right now. We all feel the pain. I happen to be performing the pain or the love through the oboe, but I don’t put myself on a higher platform saying, “I am the performer. Listen to me!” Or, “I am going to play for myself. If you like it now, clap.” I don’t like that. I haven’t felt comfortable with that. I prefer to humble myself and stay out of the way.

BD: So it’s really more of a communal effort?

AK: Yeah, yeah, it has to be like that. I truly believe that listening is fifty percent of the job. It’s way too arrogant for musicians to believe that they know how it’s supposed to be played, and just because the audience may not know about the details and harmony or fingering that they are using and their bowing, who cares? Music is produced by the musician, and that’s only fifty percent of the job. Understanding, listening, is just as important! And I think that our audiences may know more about the art of music than we do as performers, because as performers, invariably we get tied up into technicalities. “Oh, somebody played the wrong note there!” Or, “Somebody didn’t really match this out of tune thing here!” Especially at the level of the Chicago Symphony, all of these details are constantly going through our minds! We’re trying to get a good performance out! We don’t take time to smell the roses and say, “Oh, this is a really beautiful moment, so let’s sit back and enjoy it.” I can’t! I’ve got to count measures and come in, and not in five seconds! I have to come in right! I have to listen to the clarinet! It’s too much!

BD: But you have to do that for us, so that we can then enjoy it.

AK: Yeah, I have to take care of the technique so that the audience can sit back and let it flow and get the beauty of it without worrying about the technique. Some people in the audience who are more knowledgeable will concentrate on technical details, and notice if somebody cracked a note, but most of the people won’t!

BD: Is this your advice to audiences, to forget the details and listen to the entire thing?

AK: Exactly! Exactly. Don’t feel like you have to be an expert in order to enjoy this; you may already be an expert just because you love it! You’re already seeing it from a point of view that the musicians will never get!

BD: Just the fact that you’re there in the audience means that you want it.

AK: Yeah, yeah! And you can get the message!

BD: Is the music that you play for everyone?

AK: For everyone who wants it. I don’t think any music is for everyone. There are lots of musics out there that I don’t listen to every day, but they are still good.

BD: Should you?

AK: Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t. I would rather be flexible about that. To be honest with you, I’m a performer, so I listen to technicalities. If I listen to it all the time, music can become a burden because it draws the technical side of my brain. I use a lot of the left side of my brain to understand music, and that can be burdensome at some level.

BD: So you want to get out and play tennis or swim or run or something?

AK: Exactly. So I don’t go to concerts a whole lot. I don’t listen to a lot of new CD’s and new recordings that are coming out of there, because when I listen to them, I often get tired because I’m getting too much information and concentrating too much! When I do listen to concerts, when I do listen to CD’s, or go out and buy something new — and I do, you know, but probably not as regularly as one might think — I like to go as an audience member and really not care about technicalities. I just let the music come through me. I often do that by turning off the lights, putting on my headphones and laying down on the living room floor and listening to the music. I just let it flow through and teach me art.

* * * * *

BD: I’ve seen you onstage with as many as three different instruments. How many different oboes and varieties of the instrument do you play?

AK: [Laughs] I like to try something new! I am developing instruments for my instrument manufacturer, Lorée, in Paris. They send me instruments sometimes, and I try them out and I send back comments. When I go to France, I go to the factory and we mess around with it.

BD: Are you ever going to get it right?

AK: No! [Laughs] I hope not! We’re getting them better, always. Always better. I hope we never got to the point where we ran out of ideas and we can say, “It’s probably good enough.” I don’t want that.