“A string instrument is a very unique animal,” says Matthias Pintscher. Or: “precision is very important today; when the strings are at a 720 Pizzicati in a Bruckner Symphony, not quite together, then the second bassoon’s looking over here.” Or: “music is like a drug.”
after the first few minutes of conversation in the Conductor’s dressing room in the concert hall, Maag is clear: pint of of conducting and composing, but also talk about things to the point, crisp formulations from the Sleeve shaking. This helps him, undoubtedly at his Job; who wants to be in the area of the new music really successful, must be able to so present that it is not only the initiates understand.
confidentiality concerning Lucerne
at the same time, he must the initiated – musicians, colleagues, Critics – of his qualities convince. Also, the managed pintscher for a long time: Pierre Boulez took him in 2013, as his successor to the Parisian Ensemble Intercontemporain. In addition to the Special formations for new music, he conducted regularly some of the big Symphony orchestra with a wide Repertoire from Mozart to the present day. Also, as a teacher, he is in demand – not only at the famous Juilliard School in his adopted hometown of New York. And also as the successor of Boulez, he conducted a few years together with the composer Wolfgang Rihm, the Lucerne Festival Academy, until he dropped out last summer with a Bang. You ask him the reasons, he will be Once tight-lipped: “I have not agreed with the Lucerne Festival, that we Express ourselves about it.”
Now pintscher in Zurich; the Zurich Tonhalle orchestra has placed him in this season on the Creative Chair, the to forgive for a couple of years of conducting composer, respectively, composer and conductor. In the next few days, he conducts his violin Concerto “Mar’eh” and the works of Debussy. And he is a two-day masterclass at the Zurich University of the arts, a; last autumn he was already there, and he was delighted: “this place, This quality, this glowing Commitment of the people – Zurich can be proud of this Institution, write to you, please!”
No doubt, the “fervent Commitment” has he, too, had it always been, or at least almost. Matthias Pintscher, born in 1971 in Marl in the Ruhr area, was at the age of five, when his parents sat down at the piano, “and I can’t say that I would have worked with enthusiasm in flames”. But with nine he wanted to learn the violin, “that was really my own desire”. Soon, he played in a youth orchestra, sat in the midst of this sound, and since everything was clear: He wanted to conduct, “to say to the other, as quickly, or quietly, or to play loud, but the sound handle”.
Matthias Pintscher in Berlin.
source: Youtube
Soon, he wanted to enroll his own ideas “in this sound”, so to compose. No violin sonatas, nothing to small size, but orchestral works: “This is what has fascinated me from the beginning.” In the meantime, he must fight for the time for composing, Conducting commitments in his Agenda. But the combination is still ideal for him, or even more: necessary. He would encourage any young composers to set the time before an orchestra or an Ensemble, says Pintscher: “You have to have a physical contact with the instruments and knowledge of how an orchestra is breathing.”
What he means by that is a couple of minutes later, clear. Pintscher has tilted to a second Espresso, and in addition to a cloakroom, the violinist Leila Josefowicz welcomed (“if we see us as “brother and sister””). Now he stands in front of the Tonhalle-orchestra for the first sample of his work “Mar’eh”. The title is Hebrew, translate it most closely to “beautiful condition”.
And beauty is here; but not a mirror polished, but a silent, sometimes brittle, ungeschni. The work would be a picture to see a pale shaded surfaces, free lines, rich splashes of color; and smooth Transitions, where one would actually suspect not. Josefowicz makes a sound as the noise to start, then swell, and finally into Flap get, up to a horn to take him on. Sometimes the music is so quiet, as only the room would sound, then sharp edges and crevices of the ear canals. Or there is bubbling of the sudden; how, exactly, Pintscher knows the instruments, as he deftly uses his means of such effects.
In the score, everything is listed as accurately, as in contemporary works usual. But the requirements do not seem to act as a corset, the music actually starts very soon, to breathe in this sample. To quote a typical pintscher-set: “When you Conduct, it needs the confidence in the soul of an orchestra.” How right he is, is unmistakable.
concerts, with works by Pintscher and Debussy in derTonhalle Maag: 4. and 5. April, 19.30. Workshop at the Zurich University of the arts: 5. and 6. April. Information www.tonhalle-orchester.ch. (Tages-Anzeiger)
Created: 03.04.2019, 17:19 PM
