Confessions of a reviewer #3: Being a 'fan'

There are times when I worry that my love for certain orchestras, musicians, conductors and composers makes my reviews predictable and somewhat unreliable. Or perhaps I should rephrase, sometimes I worry that other people may think that they are. I have no prentension of being some kind of 'objective' listener (which is an impossibility anyway) and I  wholeheartedly admit to being a  fan of quite a few musicians. But does this mean that I review with bad faith? That I already know how I'm going to feel about a concert before having heard anything? And that I am so biased towards certain performers that I can no longer tell whether the performance is good or not?

I started thinking about this after meeting one of my musical idols, Yannick Nézet-Séguin after his performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No.13 in London. I would go see pretty much anything he conducts (though I might need some convincing if it includes Mozart...) and have yet to disappointed by any concert he has conducted. Then I worried that perhaps this means that I am not critical enough, which wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for the fact that I write reviews...

However, there is a reason why I love these musicians. There'll have been a time when I saw them play for the first time, and it is usually this first performance that makes such a massive impression on me that  I get the urge to see the musician more often. For example, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted Stravinsky's Firebird with the Philharmonia back when I was doing my BA (so probably in 2004 or 2005) and it was the most amazing thing I'd ever witnessed, the energy was tangible in the concert hall and I was buzzing for days afterwards. This made such an impression on me that I went to see more concerts conducted by him, and it turned out that this feeling the first concert gave me was repeated in every single of those performances (and sometimes even much more intensely). There's something  about Salonen's approach, musicality and choice of repertoire that attracted me in this first performance, and it is not surprising that these elements are a part of every single one of his concerts that I have been to. 

Similarly, I have never seen Pekka Kuusisto have an off day (plus he's always hilarious which helps), Nikolai Lugansky nails every piano concerto I've heard him play, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin can turn the most boring orchestral music into a raucous affair. Not to mention the fact that most of the musicians I like best tend to play repertoire that I love, I'm sure that if Salonen focused on early music I would have no interest in him. If the first time I would've seen Lugansky would've been a Haydn piano concerto I also doubt I'd care all that much about it. The music itself is so important, and musicians of course have preferences, and they have their areas of expertise, and it seems only logical that the musicians, and in particular the conductors, I love focus on repertoire that I also love. 

Perhaps the most important point is, however, that when I go to a concert conducted by Salonen or Yannick, my expectations are ridiculously high. They have conducted the best concerts I've ever seen, and so whenever I see them conduct I expect to be that amazed. Sometimes the music doesn't lend itself to quite the same level of enthusiasm but I expect the music-making to be extraordinary. With musicians that I don't know and have never seen before, I think my expectations are reasonable (of course in concert halls you don't expect anyone to suck) but never all that high. But if I take, for example, Yannick conducting Shostakovich's Symphony No.13  I expected it to be one of the best concerts of the year. What with Yannick's talent in choral conducting and the 13th being one of my favourite pieces ever, I expected nothing other than sheer brilliance. Thankfully that's what I got, and that is precisely why I admire him so much.

So how is all this reflected in my reviews? Of course one of the upsides of reviewing for bachtrack is that I get to decide which concerts I go to, and so the lack of negative reviews is mainly because I go see musicians and music I like or think I will like, and the level of classical music in London and in The Netherlands is just very, very high so terrible concerts in big concert halls are few and far between. I think my reviews are as honest, critical and genuine as they can be, and I just hope that that's good enough. 

Let's have some fun... or not.

The other day I was on youtube looking at videos of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, as you do. There's all sorts of amazing things on there and for some reason I had never before seen the two clips of him conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, with pieces by Berlioz and Prokofiev. They're very exciting clips, he's dancing and pulling silly faces and generally flailing about as he usually does. On top of that, the music sounds amazing.

But as we all know, people on the internet like to complain. Now, I have nothing against people who don't like Yannick, I can understand that he may be a bit too much for some people. But the comments on one of the videos were seriously some of the most hilarious and jaw-dropping things I've ever read on the internet. Most people there weren't complaining about his movements (though some were) but about his outfit. For the record, Yannick was wearing a black suit with a black t-shirt underneath. But for these 'serious' lovers of classical music this was disrespectful, you just simply cannot conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in anything less than a tuxedo, you know. One person even called it "offensive".

These type of comments are one of the reasons why I started this blog. I know I'm not a particularly good writer or have some unique insight into music, but so many people in classical music are simply too serious which can get a bit annoying. Is it really THAT important that a conductor is wearing -shock horror- a black t-shirt? Really? Is it really more worthwhile to bitch about this rather than listen to the music (or laugh at the hilarious faces Yannick pulls)? There is a person on that stage LOVING what he is doing, drawing the orchestra in with his incredible excitement and skill and some people decide to complain about his outfit?

So in honour of Yannick and not-being-uptight I will bring you some classical music videos that are not only beautiful but also a bit offbeat, to maybe laugh at and definitely enjoy:

Conductors: Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Ever since I've been regularely going to classical concerts I've wanted to play in an orchestra. Preferably something loud, like the timpani or double bass but most of all, I quite fancy being a conductor. Unfortunately the only musical talent I have is that of listening, so this is obviously not going to happen, but a girl can dream, right? When I was younger I never really understood what conductors did apart from standing in front of the orchestra with a stick and that they sometimes jumped (I saw quite a bit of Chailly and I remember his jumping so well because his hair was funny and floppy). But now I'm obviously aware of the fact that conductors do a lot more. And I figured that their role is important enough to dedicate a post to a conductor every once in a while. This first one is going to be about one of my two favourite conductors in the world: Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

I first saw Yannick a few years ago in Rotterdam, and even though I don't remember what music he conducted (probably something Russian), I do remember how much I loved him. Because the energy that he has in his body when conducting corresponds precisely to the energy I feel when listening to the pieces. He moves somewhat like a ballet dancer on acid but it's never over-the-top or innapropriate. You can see how much emotion he feels and how much emotion he can get out of the orchestra, and most importantly, you can hear it. I think this is probably the most important reason why I love him so much, there is something incredibly emotional about his conducting. There's a video on youtube of him conducting the ending of Mahler's 9th and he's actually crying. But it's not just the sad moments you can tell he feels so poignantly, when music gets spastic or catchy or happy he's dancing and jumping and smiling (his facial expressions are so hilarious sometimes). And like I said, it seems to me that the emotions aroused in him by the music are ones I can always relate to (and this is confirmed by what he says about music in interviews, I can really relate to how he understands and feels music).

Now, the fact that he's adorably hobbit-like and seems really lovely in all the interviews I've seen of him kind of helps, because at least he doesn't look like Gergiev when conducting (seriously think Gergiev wants to kill the orchestra every single time, he's menacing!). For me personally it also helps that he's a young conductor (he's 35), similarly to how I enjoy watching young people in the orchestra, I just already feel so alienated by the average age of the audience that it makes me feel all the more comfortable when someone on stage is under 40.

Some of these reasons may appear to be shallow to some, but I don't really mind that. I guess this kind of reflects how I'm not the most serious person (maybe it's an age-thing). Like I said in my first post here, I find a lot of writings about classical music too serious, I find the way some people talk about classical music too serious. It's not that I don't love the music in the most serious way imaginable, I do (ask anyone who knows me), but when I go to a concert I also just want to enjoy myself. I like being able to giggle at the grunts of a conductor (like Jaap van Zweden, he grunts like an ork!) and smiling when you see a soloist really get into a piece. In a certain way, seeing classical music live is also seeing a performance, not just hearing the music. And for me, Yannick is an exceptional performer as well as an exceptional musician. He makes going to a concert more fullfilling both because it's more fun and because the music is even more beautiful. And I am apparently not the only one who thinks this, as is evidenced by his job titles, Principal Conductor with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Orchestre Métropolitain in Montréal, and of course that's not all because he travels all over the place, conducting Mahler and operas and lots of other pieces. One of my biggest dreams is to one day see him conduct Shostakovich's The Execution of Stepan Razin even though it'll probably never happen.

Now of course it is time for some videos.


In 2007, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.


Yannick conducting Tchaikovksy's Nutcracker, recorded on december 23rd 2010.


Here he is walking around Rotterdam, talking about the city and sounds.

If you're more interested in him, there's also a really inspiring interview that you can view here (the website is in dutch, but if you just click on the large(r) video on the left the interview starts, and it's in English). And of course, go see him conduct when you have the chance!