Christoph Eschenbach is deeply relaxed. “No,” he says, almost astonished at the question, “the Japan tour didn’t strain me at all. Although we had a concert every day.” The program included all four Brahms symphonies, heavyweights of the romantic repertoire, and performances took place in and around Tokyo. The 83-year-old maestro, it seems, shows no signs of tiring. “Making music gives me a lot of strength,” he says with a smile, “also mentally.” In addition, fortunately he has no health problems. “I am very happy about that.”
On June 17th and 18th he will raise the baton for the last program that he is working on as chief conductor with the Konzerthausorchester. But it shouldn’t be a final. “On July 8th we have another performance at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival. I have also agreed with the orchestra board and the artistic director that I will come back for a few weeks every year.”
He’s not done here yet
That is why Christoph Eschenbach does not want the fact that two unfinished works are heard in the farewell program – Mozart’s Requiem and Schubert’s B minor Symphony – to be interpreted as a warning sign, but as an “I’m not done here yet”. And in fact, shortly after taking office in 2019, he was brutally slowed down in his work with the musicians. Because of the pandemic.
Inevitably, he was unable to complete the range of content that he wanted to cover during his three-year term of office, as planned. A lot was canceled, others had to be postponed – but even when Eschenbach extended his Berlin job by one more season, wishes were still unfulfilled. Which he will now realize as a guest in the future: “That’s why there is no feeling of a break.”
The Konzerthausorchester already has experience of such musical friendships: it also remains in close contact with Eschenbach’s predecessor Ivan Fischer, who was chief conductor at Gendarmenmarkt until the summer of 2018.
School of hearing through Corona
“The orchestra and I have grown very close,” emphasizes Eschenbach. Because the musicians share his conviction that making music is primarily about listening to one another very carefully. “This is what creates the sound balance – even if the 3rd trombonist at the back is still in contact with the 1st violin at the front.”
The only good thing about Corona, he adds, was precisely this sensitization: “Due to the regulations, the musicians were not allowed to share a desk for two as usual, but now had to have their own music stand. This greatly increased the distances between each other, which made the coordination of the voices complicated, but was a good lesson in listening.” The positive effects can be heard on a CD of works by Carl Maria von Weber that Eschenbach and the orchestra recorded in 2021: The music literally vibrates with verve and intensity.
Competitive thinking is far from him
As open as Christoph Eschenbach is to new works even after 60 years in his career, he is not interested in the competitive spirit within the capital’s classical music scene. “Kirill Petrenkos should do what he intends to do with the Philharmoniker,” he says, “we’ll do what corresponds to our philosophy.” For him, the only thing that counts is to focus on your own orchestra, to work with it as well as possible. He finds it important that the chief conductor is not a specialist, but covers all styles and periods of music history.
He doesn’t want to rack his brains about how the concert tickets can then be sold to the man and woman. “It is the artistic director’s job to position the concert hall in the city,” emphasizes the maestro. “I don’t even want to know how he does it.”
From Paris, where Christoph Eschenbach has lived for a long time, he wants to be on the road a lot when it comes to music. Among other things, he plans to release a Bruckner cycle on audio and video, with various orchestras. He doesn’t set a limit for appearances per year: “I know when I’m in the planning phase when it’s going to be too much.”
In the future he even wants to play the piano more. “I broke a finger. It took two years for him to heal because I didn’t want an operation – rightly so, as it turned out,” says Eschenbach. Now he’s starting to practice again, “like a piano student,” the virtuoso flirts. “The pianist career can flourish again. Let’s see.”
Source: Tagesspiegel
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