An interview with Christian Baldini

Guest conductor Christian Baldini sits down with Aaron Gervais to talk about his inspirations as a conductor and composer.


PART 1

How did you start conducting and how did you start composing? Were these two interests connected for you, or were they separate things that you both happened to like?

I actually started composing when I was little. I was a pianist and was completely mad about Mozart. So I only wanted to play Mozart on the piano -- no other composers. Then I started composing myself, which opened up the spectrum to a broader range of composers.

Conducting came later. I was in desperate need of somebody to conduct my music, so it ended up being me and I enjoyed it very much. Some of my fellow composers in college started asking me to conduct their music, and that is how it all started. I founded my own orchestra in Buenos Aires and there I was conducting.

You have said elsewhere that you actively promote the music of great Argentine composers, such as Piazzolla and Ginastera, and clearly your background as an Argentine musician has been influential for you. Do you think growing up with this music helped to cultivate your personality as a conductor/composer? Or in other words, say you had grown up in the same family, but in a place like Davis, or maybe Buffalo, NY. Would you still have become the same musician?

This is an interesting question. Growing up in different places of course influences who you are and it instills flavors and idiosyncrasies that you would not otherwise necessarily have. I had the fortune of having as my piano teacher a great pianist called Juan Pedro Carletto, who aside from being a phenomenal classical pianist, was also an incredible tango pianist. I would go to his house and we would wander around playing different pianos (he restored pianos too) all over the place.

I attended college in Buenos Aires, at the school that Ginastera himself founded (Catholic University of Argentina). So there was a big tradition both for Ginastera's music, and for the experimental composers that had influenced my teachers there. I was exposed to all corners of musical aesthetics, which really facilitated me.

I also think it is important to consider what one listens to. I try and surprise myself with new music all the time. And by new I mean completely new. Not just academic/art music, but also popular music. For me, to just listen to classical, romantic, and contemporary music would be the equivalent of a chef only eating gourmet food. I mean...we all like a bit of bread and butter occasionally. So I very much enjoy listening to Radiohead, jazz, folk, tango and more.

You've stated that you want to conduct opera. What attracts you to the opera medium? Have you conducted any new operas?

Opera is the most wonderful combination of all the arts. Music is clearly its heart, but the intrinsic connection with literature, painting, design, dance, and theatre make it particularly attractive to me. It is a medium that will never be obsolete. It can always refresh itself and it is so flexible that it can be expanded and contracted without losing its identity. I also love the human voice. It is the most expressive of all instruments. I have enjoyed wonderful collaborations with the Aldeburgh Festival in England, which was founded by Benjamin Britten in 1947, and for which I have conducted Britten's The Rape of Lucretia.

For your own compositions, do you like conducting them, or would you rather sit back and let someone else do it? Do you write music that is to be played without conductor?

I have gone through different stages. As I said before, I started by conducting my own music. Then I went through several years of hearing my music conducted by other musicians, and I must say I find it important for a composer to experience this both ways. Hearing somebody else do your music gives you a different insight about what you do.

I also enjoy conducting my own music. Conducting and composing go really well together, one feeds the other. I have also written music to be played without conductor. I have done quite a lot of chamber music and solo music. I wrote a solo violin piece called Whimsical Spheres that is rather theatrical: The violinist completely owns the stage and there is some humming as well as a relationship between his/her movement and the sound.



PART 2

What were some of the challenges involved in preparing the Hurel for this concert? [Philippe Hurel's Figures libres, played by SFCMP on April 25 at ODC, and on April 26 at Herbst Theatre.]

Figures libres is a fascinating piece. It has a rhythmical energy that is difficult to describe. So working in rehearsals we will concentrate very much on bringing all this brightness out of the page. It is a work full of details and it will be a beautiful task to bring them out. I am very much looking forward to this collaborative work with the musicians in the ensemble. As a conductor, I feel a big part of my job is to help inspire the players.

How do you address the question of interpretation as a conductor when you are working with a living composer? Have you found that composers are generally useful to have around, or do they mostly get in the way of your work with the ensemble?

Working with a living composer can be a really wonderful thing. In music from previous centuries we always bump into the matter of tradition, and what people are used to or how they expect us to perform certain things. Style and tradition can be hindering if not approached with freshness. Let's remember though that even great conductors like Mahler did reorchestrations of several works. And Schumann was retouched and reorchestrated by many conductors. Mahler also reorchestrated all of the Beethoven symphonies.

Now, working with a living composer is a different matter. It can be very refreshing and eye opening. Each composer is different to work with. Some composers just come to the rehearsal and will be very happy in general and make only minor comments. Other composers might come and start by giving long speeches to the musicians. Some will simply give you notes. It is a matter of personality and preference really.

Some composers are very open to changes. They are happy if you decide to take a somewhat faster or slower tempo from what they wrote. Some others really want you to stick to exactly what they put on the page. I have had situations in which very experienced composers can be so humble -- they ask you, as the conductor, if there are any suggestions that you have in terms of changes of instrumentation for a certain passage. It can be very humbling to work with great composers who are so open and flexible.

What do you think are the most important characteristics of a conductor who wants to conduct new music?

I don't see many differences really between conducting new music versus conducting music from previous centuries. In a sense, in contemporary music you do need an absolutely accurate and infallible technique, due to the complex textures that are in the music. I guess familiarity with types of repertoire and openness for possibilities of sound are a big advantage for a conductor who would like to perform new music. Somebody who is not very familiar with extended techniques will probably feel somewhat out of touch conducting Lachenmann or Sciarrino.

What for you are the biggest differences between conducting a chamber group versus an orchestra? Or is it just the size of the baton that's different?

As far as I'm concerned, the baton makes absolutely no difference in terms of the group in front of you. Depending on the circumstances, I have conducted a 100-piece orchestra with my hands, and a 5-piece ensemble with a baton.

I would say that I try to work with an orchestra as if it were a chamber group. With this I mean that I like orchestra members to listen to each other as much as possible. In the end, they are the ones producing the sound. As the conductor, you just channel what is happening, and you create a focus of energy in order to achieve a coherent, organic performance. I also like to think of an ensemble as a larger entity, several individuals working together like a really excellent machine, like clockwork, completely latched into one another, and each performing an indispensable job.

What do you like to do when you're not doing music?

I love cooking, reading, swimming and playing with my 16-month-old son, Dante.