Daniel Harding is one of those artists who, without much fuss, always put the bullet where they had put their eye. His ability to concentrate and work is something supernatural. And he goes hand in hand with his naturalness: neither arrogant nor humble, just a true Englishman from Oxford who already shone with his own light as a teenager, when he was welcomed under his mantle by Simon Rattle at the City of Birmingham Symphony and later Claudio Abbado at the Philharmonic. of Berlin.
It rained. This August 31, he turns 48, but the effectiveness acquired over the years has not diminished his enthusiasm. His mantra is... "if we do it, we have to do it well, professionally". Hence, flying planes, his other passion -with the permission of his love of football-, has been taken seriously to the point of being an Air France employee and spending time flying passenger planes around Europe and the north of Africa.
Resident of Paris -he moved just before Brexit and that convinced him-, he is principal conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony and will also be, from October 2024, of the Accademia Nazionale di Sant Cecilia, in Rome, replacing Antonio Pappano. Harding has spent the last week touring Spain with the European Chamber Orchestra, that private formation that emerged in 1981 from the initiative of young musicians who had coincided in the European Union Youth Orchestra, and of which the Abbado himself was a great mentor. This Wednesday they culminated the cycle with great success at the Torroella de Montgrí Festival.
This curious program that you designed for the Spanish tour, combining Beethoven and Sibelius (each Fourth symphony plus the Coriolà Overture and the Suite from Pélleas et Mélisande)... was it your idea?
This one was suggested by me, yes, because they are two of the composers with whom I remember feeling impressed when listening to them performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. They are very different but they are good companions. I like the shape of the program. The Suite was not originally on the program but we had to make a change and find a piece that would fit the size of the orchestra.
Why call it a camera if there are more than fifty musicians on stage?
The concept "camera" is an attitude more than a measure. Lately the borders between what is a chamber orchestra and a symphony have been blurred, because we have symphonies that play a lot of repertoire in small formations and that have really learned to play with that flexibility and transparency. And then we have some chamber ones that can play in large formation and that can deliver the powerful sound of what used to be the symphonic repertoire. The first time Beethoven was played like this it seemed impossible. And now it's totally normal. And then it was done with Schumann, with Brahms... with Sibelius! Why not?
It starts to be normal too.
The first time I heard this orchestra playing Sibelius was under the direction of Paavo Berglund. I was also young then, I must have been 19 or 20 years old and I remember thinking... Sibelius? But, uh, it's Paavo Berglund. And if he says that it is correct, it will have to be heard. Because no one knows this music better. And those recordings and live concerts are the most extraordinary Sibelius I have ever heard. Sibelius is often a composer of difficult balances. He wrote such interesting wind parts, and sometimes with big orchestras you can hear an impression but not all there is. But it's not a problem: do you play with a small orchestra? You have to work hard to get a deep sound. Do you play with a big one? You have to work on transparency. There is no perfect solution, but you need great musicians.
With that of the Chamber of Europe, he must have found a large part of the work done...
Yes, but that sometimes makes it easier and sometimes more difficult. Many of them have already played Sibelius's Fourth with me in Stockholm, but there were others for whom it was the first time. And what we do is feed on that extraordinary musical intelligence that the orchestra has, because they have this wonderful ability to play and listen, they listen to each other and listen to the music. When we played the Suite 'Pelléas...' by Sibelius, which was the first time for me as well as for most, we decided that we were going to play it, we played what was written there and we listened, we saw what the music told us. It's great not to come and say... 'I think it should be played like this', but... let's listen to the composer, he will tell us how it should be.
Haven't you run to hear Berglund's version of Sibelius's Fourth?
No. I'll listen to it now, next week, because I preferred to do it directly and see where it led. Because if I had heard it before I would have wanted to try to do the same.
In your previous interview with this newspaper, a couple of years ago, you were dedicating half your time to piloting and the other half to music, and you wanted to slow down, reach 30 or 35 programs per year, which is enough... Have you got it?
Yes, that would be it. Most months I do two shows; others I do three and others I do a long project.
Are you still co-pilot or have you been promoted to captain? He commented that being under the orders of a superior he learned about the position of the musicians in the orchestra...
Indeed, I am still a co-pilot and, although they are not similar worlds, they do have parallels. And it's interesting as a driver to be part of the team and with someone who has the authority that I don't have. It's good to experience that of not always having the last word.
Have there been hard times in your life when continuing to make decisions was uphill for you?
I think that's something you have to love. It is always hard to make the decision. But every decision we make as directors is temporary. And if it makes you anxious, I don't think you can do the job. You have to say 'that's the way it is today' and feel comfortable with the decision made... and tomorrow you can make another one, nothing happens. Sometimes you believe in something 100 percent, you're totally sure, and the next year maybe you say no, I was wrong. And sometimes you're not sure but you decide to do it this way or that way.
Speaking of decisions... when you left the Orchester de Paris and started piloting, was it because you needed a break?
No, it was just too much to be a music director in Stockholm and in Paris. When I said yes to Paris I probably thought that at some point I would leave Stockholm. Even so, I was very clear from the beginning with Paris: we didn't know each other, they invited me to give a concert and they asked me to stay. It wasn't logical to become a conductor after only one concert, but I enjoyed it, I liked the orchestra, and it was in my city, so I gave the ok, but only for three years. And after three years I left. I could have continued, but now when I'm a guest I have a great time, because now I enjoy the strength of that orchestra, as a guest you can enjoy, you don't have other things in mind.
¿Qué planes holds with the National Academy of Santa Cecilia?
They are ambitious plans: we will do the Wagnerian cycle, starting in 2025 and ending on the 28th. It will be my first complete Ring of the Nibelung. And we will do it starting the first year with the Valkyrie, the next Siegfried, the next the Twilight of the Gods and at the end we will do the entire cycle starting with the Gold of the Rhine. It will also be with something visual. And since in that city we have incredible churches and basilicas, we will bring out the orchestra for the requiems... by Mozart, by Verdi... And we will also do the Mahler cycle, there the musicians really want to do it. And we will decide which repertoire we address. No, it is not a small project.
