Conductor Carlos Kalmar
A Conversation with Bruce Duffie
It is often instructive to look back at what people said and see how much is still relevant. These interviews that I am presenting show just how alert and prescient my guests were at the time we met. It is also fascinating to see how right most of them were when speaking about the future. This conversation is a case in point, for conductor Carlos Kalmar looks ahead from the vantage point of 1999 and tells about things which have now come to pass.
We met in the summer of 1999, during his first engagement with the Grant Park Festival. His career was blossoming in Europe and elsewhere, and this was a fortuitous beginning that has proved successful for all concerned. The following year he was named Principal Conductor. He has come a long way in a few short summer seasons, and he has broadened his own sights with several substantial American works.
When we sat down to begin, Kalmar was bubbling with excitement. His speech was rapid and infused with a few non-English words, and his grammar was often chaotic, reflecting his genuine joy at trying to communicate myriad ideas at once . . . . .
Carlos Kalmar: When I work, I always start to speak many languages at the same time.
Bruce Duffie: Is one of those languages music?
CK: Hopefully, because for me, certainly, music is a language. I have been making music since I was seven, and I do not know how to translate the language.
BD: Is music something that must be translated, or is it something that’s universal?
CK: For me it’s universal, but I don’t know if for all people in the audience, or all people who are listening to music it is as universal as it is for me, because certainly I am accustomed to music; I’ve been making music for over thirty years already. We have to face the fact that nowadays, in the times in which we are living, we see many things but we don’t hear them. We don’t listen so carefully, and our ears are not accustomed to hear carefully. I am always aware that maybe some things are not so clear in the music, but sometimes during concerts or during rehearsals you get the passion, and you get the sense of music there, and then it’s interesting.
BD: You’re a conductor. Are you really a translator, or are you merely a presenter of the ideas? I know it’s a fine line that I’m asking.
CK: The word “translator” I would use mainly for the musicians with whom I’m working, because certainly I think about the aspect that not all the orchestras with whom you work your whole life are accustomed to the style and to the language of a certain music. There is no question that Tchaikowsky is one language, Bizet is another, and Mozart is a third language. All is music language, but it’s different. Just to give an example, German orchestras are accustomed to Romantic German repertoire — the big ones certainly are. They are also accustomed to Mozart, but for some German orchestras, it’s a little difficult to play French music, so I have to translate a little. For the audience, I think my work as conductor is the work of presenter, but I must admit that I don’t like the word.
BD: What word do you like to place upon yourself, if any?
CK: I wouldn’t say a word, because for an audience, I would like to tell everybody that my job is — in Latin we say I’m primus inter pares, I’m one among musicians. As a conductor I’m certainly the leading man, but I’m only one of them. I don’t like the idea of the conductor being God himself talking about music, and the rest of musicians are just there and that’s the instrument.
BD: So it’s very much a collaborative effort?
CK: Yes!
BD: Where does the composer fit into this? Is he head collaborator?
CK: No, no, the composer is more. The composer is absolutely more, because certainly you have to invent the music while you interpret. But being honest, I don’t think that the work of a conductor is so creative. I think the work of a composer is creative, but we are recreating something which was already created some years ago, maybe some centuries ago. I think the work of the conductor has not to be overrated. I always say for the audience, “Don’t overrate the work of a conductor;” for the musicians in the orchestra, “Don’t underrate it.”
BD: [Laughs] So you’re going to play both sides of the fence!
CK: Oh yes, because I must admit that I have the experience. Somehow the orchestras here in America with whom I have been working react a little differently from the German and the Austrian orchestras.
BD: How so?
CK: The Americans are never underrating a conductor’s work because they are very respectful, which some German orchestras are not, really. I’m thinking about the joke — what’s the difference between an American orchestra, and certain European orchestras? American orchestras, when they see a new conductor, they say, “We want to play like he tells us to play it.” Other orchestras, maybe in Europe — and I will not mention any names — say, “We have to play the work the way he tells us, but we would like to play it as always.”
BD: [Laughs] So they don’t want you to change anything that they have learned fifty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago?
CK: Yes, but let’s face the fact that this is only a joke just to give an example; let’s not take it too seriously. There is no question that the interpretation, the way we are doing Mozart, is completely different than it was done fifty years ago. In my opinion, you can’t do it that same way.
BD: Should we try to do Mozart the way Mozart did it, or should we try to do Mozart the way we expect it?
CK: To be honest, I always say, “I don’t have his phone number and I tried really hard to get it.” [Both laugh] But there is no way to get his phone number, so he can’t tell me, really! Every conductor, every musician has to be like a doctor in a certain way concerning Mozart, concerning Bach as well. If a doctor gets his doctorate in medicine thirty years ago, he has to read carefully what’s new, what’s going on until now so he’s still modern. For example, there are some interpretations of music of Bach, of Mozart and some other composers done by Furtwängler or Klemperer which are amazing! They are overwhelming, but... [pauses]
BD: But they would be unacceptable today?
CK: Unacceptable today! It’s no question. Today, with the work of conductors like John Eliot Gardiner or Nicholas McGegan, among others, certainly the style has changed a lot. We don’t play Mozart and Bach in a Romantic way. And I always believe that when I am seventy years old, the young musicians are going to say, “Oh this old guy, he really is not any more able to conduct Mozart.” In that time, in thirty years, maybe we are at a completely different point in the interpretation of certain music.
BD: So way back in the twentieth century we had certain ideas, and maybe in the next century they’ll have different ideas. Is it up to you to keep up?
CK: Certainly is up to me, and I have to be careful with what I do. I have to read about the composers and I have to listen to other interpretations and always think about it.
BD: Would you want to contact the shade of Mozart or the shade of Bach and ask them how we should do their music?
CK: Personally I wouldn’t do that, because certainly all these composers never had to think so seriously about the interpretation of their music as we have to! They were genius, and we all are just musicians. So it is not helpful if I ask Mozart himself, “What did you do?” because maybe he is even not able to explain what he does.
BD: He just did it?
CK: He just did it.
BD: Do you just do it?
CK: I think always that the best thing to be a good musician is to combine the intellectual side with the language of the heart. The best musicians for me, for my understanding, play with a lot of heart while onstage; but while we are working, while we are rehearsing, they use a lot of intellect.
BD: Is all your work done at rehearsal, or do you leave something for the spark of the evening?
CK: In my personal case, as musicians tell me, I leave something. But I don’t leave it because I want to; it just happens.