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Maestro Gustavo Dudamel, welcome back to the
Philharmonie.
Welcome back.
Its your seventh time in almost five years.
That's really quite incredible.
Yes, yes.
And it's a huge pleasure and honor,
always, to be back here.
For us.
For us.
For us.
But we are sitting in the audience today.
Usually we do the interviews on stage, or in another room.
Today I thought we'd sit in the audience.
And I wanted to ask you, can you remember the last time you
sat in the audience here?
Last time I think was when you were doing Carmen with Simon.
I think this was last year.
It was last year.
So it's not that long ago.
And I was listening there.
Do you remember the first time?
The first time I came here to conduct the Venezuelan
National Children's Orchestra.
And I remember, you were around, and you let us to
come, few musicians of the orchestra.
This was, I think, a rehearsal of Bruckner Nine.
And then I came to a concert when I came here to study for
three months.
It was a Haitink concert.
Brahms Fourth.
You've got a great memory.
Yes.
He was doing Brahms Four.
And I think a special composer.
He was doing a symphony for strings, I remember.
Did you get to sit in such a nice, expensive seat like this
one, or were you standing up in the back?
No, no, no.
I got good tickets.
You got good tickets?
Yes, I got good tickets.
Because that day, I was arising from Venezuela for
this experience, to assist Simon, to prepare the Academy
orchestra, I was living in this place.
You were here for three months,
and you were literally.
I remember you.
You were everywhere.
Doesn't matter what time of the morning or the night.
I was here.
You were always here.
I was, all the time.
And I remember, I was sleeping there on the top.
Up there in the box?
Deliciously.
I have--
During rehearsals, I hope not.
No.
Not during rehearsals, but between rehearsals.
Because I was living in the house of a Venezuelan friend,
Thomas Clamor.
I was living in his house.
That was really fun.
But they live very far, and it was very expensive for me.
So I was sleeping here, eating all the time--
I remember you were there.
--in the cafeteria.
And for me, it's like a house.
It's like home.
Because I feel like I know every corner of this place.
And I was listening to concerts there at the top.
Sometimes I got great invitation, I would say.
And I was sitting here.
It's a beautiful part of my life.
Three months is a long time to stay in one place here in the
Philharmonie for you, because you were otherwise traveling
everywhere.
What did those three months bring to you, do you think?
Well, as you know, I did all my musical education in
Venezuela, in El Sistema.
And Maestro Abreu and all my teachers were the basis of all
what I know about music.
But to come here was my first, let's say, international
out-of-home experience.
And it was great.
Because we grew up listening and watching concerts of the
Berlin Philharmonic, especially with Karajan.
We were playing, for example, Tchaikovsky
Four a lot of times.
Preparing that as a children's orchestra.
And which was the video that we were watching?
The video of Karajan with the Berlin Philharmonic.
So the reference was always there, and we had this sound.
But when you come here, it's different, because it's real.
And for me, I can say it changed my life completely.
Because the approach to the music, the sound, the way to
make the sound, gave me a different dimension of how to
think about what I want to get from the orchestra.
Because I was sitting here listening, watching rehearsals
of Haitink, Barenboim, Rattle, Abbado, Ozawa--
It's a dream for a young conductor.
--was at that time.
I was like, wow, in every rehearsal.
And it was a luxury for me.
Because you cannot come to a first rehearsal, because you
know-- and that is amazing.
But I was allowed.
And I was the only one here listening, the first rehearsal
of the Berlin Philharmonic, in all the world.
We were playing just for you.
I was feeling like, oh, God, I'm the owner of the world.
Must have been absolute
paradise for a young conductor.
But that is what I recommend to young conductors.
Because they always come, and they ask what to do.
An I say, well, it's not a better school than to go and
to sit in a rehearsal of a big conductor.
And if you have the chance to be here in Berlin, and to have
the chance to see, and to listen.
Especially when you close your eyes, you get a
different kind of energy.
The sound, especially, of the Berlin Philharmonic is coming
from the earth.
I feel that all the time.
It's not something like, "ah!" it's [LOW GROWL].
And that is great.
It's another kind of approach.
You grew up with the Berlin Philharmonic.
Because everybody knows the story about you
conducting your toys.
You used to line up your toys and conduct them to records of
Berlin Phil, Vienna Phil.
So you grew up with this sound, the Berlin Phil.
And you've done quite a few programs now, but this is the
first true German meat that you're doing.
Strauss is really one of our basic repertoire things.
I think the orchestra plays Strauss really, really well.
Do you?
Well, let me tell you.
When we did last year, the Zarathustra, Also Sprach.
And now we're doing Don Juan and Till.
But it was funny, because I was checking some things in
the string parts, and it said, "Time of Dr. Strauss, 29
minutes, or 30 minutes, in very old-style letters.
No!
Yes.
So this was the old music.
And Strauss conducted here.
He was 23 when he had his first
debut here as a conductor.
Incredible.
Can you imagine that?
No.
Incredible.
And this date was in the '20s or '30s.
Then it said Dr. Furtwangler, this time.
It's amazing, because you are like, oh my God, it's history.
It's tradition.
It's really a tradition.
Like, three days ago--
four days ago, I was conducting the Vienna
Philharmonic.
And we we're doing the Siegfried-Idyll.
Richter, that was the intendant at that time, the
very first one, he was the one that prepared for Wagner the
musicians to play for Cosima, like a serenade.
And it's funny, because I had the score, I opened, and it
has a paper that says, Richter conducting, Richter, Strauss
conducting--
this kind of reference, when I go here to the archives and I
can see Karajan's, 'Boim, Abbado, Furtwangler--
you're talking about the soul of this music.
And this is a challenge, as a young musician, to-- well,
so-so, because I'm already 32.
Yeah, you're getting on a bit.
But when you come here, you have to know
what you want to get.
Because of course, there are not musicians
here from that time.
But they all learned from the ones before.
Exactly.
It's the tradition.
So you need to be really well-prepared, very clear with
your ideas, but also open to receive what the orchestra is
giving to you.
Do you feel that tradition?
Do you hear?
Is that what you got on stage, do you think?
Absolutely.
And you have in mind a tempo, but that tempo change because
the way to produce the sound of the orchestra, and
then you say, OK.
This has to be like that.
What is it that makes different orchestras have
these different souls, do you think?
Well, I think it's beautiful, and has to be like that.
Because if all the orchestras played it in the same way, it
would be really boring.
And for us as conductors, especially coming as a guest
conductor, you try--
it is my conception--
I try to respect a lot what I have from, of course, the
musicians, and the way they produce the sound.
Because you can come in, you can know about everything, and
you are there.
But you have to know that you have to deal with this energy
that is magic.
Because it's not only to move your hands in
front of the orchestra.
I think the musicians, you feel in the moment, in the
eyes of the conductor, if he knows what he's saying.
Oh, certainly.
And that is something--
They know that before he's even done a beat.
Exactly.
By the time he comes in here and walks along, yeah.
You are like, hmm, no.
And I know that because I played in an orchestra.
And for me, it was all the time excited to see, wow, what
this guy is giving?
For you here, you have the best conductors coming, and
it's so great.
But I think, also, this orchestra has this amazing
hall, that it's like to have an instrument.
And you create and you adapt your sound.
And now, this place is a reference for the new
buildings around the world.
Because this kind of seating, where the orchestra is going
up, this creates a chamberistic way of playing.
Even if you are conducting, you see that everybody's
listening to each other.
I love, sometimes, to see videos when I see a violin
watching the woodwind section, and it's coming a solo.
Because everybody has knowledge of that.
And of course, you can not avoid, again, going back to
that tradition.
This kind of, well--
Strauss is our repertoire.
Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler--
well, all of them.
It's something that is in the blood of the orchestra.
And I think--
So did you choose this program for this orchestra?
Well, I think I'm very careful with the repertoire that I do,
especially with an orchestra like the Berlin Philharmonic.
You're talking a top orchestra, so you cannot come
here the first time and do Beethoven, or Strauss.
Because I was really careful.
My first program was Latin music.
It was, yeah.
It was.
In many pieces--
You gave us a hard--
it was hard for us, because you expected us to play these
pieces within two days that we'd never even seen before.
But you did really well.
And the second time, I came with a piece that was--
it's a very famous recording with Karajan, with Ozawa--
of Prokofiev Fifth.
Prokofiev Fifth, it's good, with Rachmaninov and
Stravinsky.
Then I came, again, back with Shostakovitch.
And now, last year, I did for the first
time Strauss and Beethoven.
So that is trying to build a relation.
I will not cook for you, the first time, a very complex, I
don't know, Berliner--
I don't know--
plate, you know?
Dish.
First, I will cook for you what I know to cook.
And then I will prepare something.
And it has been great.
Because the evolution of the relation is so natural.
And I feel that, when I come here,
everything seems very natural.
Sometimes, I don't have to say things.
I have an example.
Because I use sometimes a lot of metaphors to explain what I
want to have, or how to see the things.
And everybody's listening.
You receive, I receive.
So I really feel like you can feel part of the family.
Because when I was sleeping here, learning, assisting
Simon, watching, bringing, coming listening to here, it's
like, well.
So, working with the orchestra, you say that the
conductors have to know it inside-out
before they stand here.
That's absolutely the case.
But you take it to another level.
You rehearse from memory.
And today in the rehearsal, it's like you could see your
brain working.
Because you mentioned a place, and then you thought, oh,
there's something else I wanted to mention.
And you shut your eyes and you went, [CLICKING NOISES].
And you were scanning the whole score.
And then, [CLICK]--
Ah, yeah.
I've got it.
So you rehearse from memory as well.
Well, yes.
Crazy man.
That's wonderful.
No, but, look, I don't see that as a special talent.
Many conductors conduct by memory.
And other conductors, they conduct with the music, and
they are also great.
Yeah, but to conduct without the music, that's one thing.
But to rehearse without the music, and know the bar
numbers where everyone should stop, that's
very impressive, anyway.
Well, look.
This can sound like a cliche, but music is my life.
And I always say that.
And for me, it's so important to be always very
well-prepared.
And I'm studying.
And of course I have, let's say, a photographic memory
that I can remember.
Also a reference of the sound.
And sometimes, when I'm trying to see, I try to pass the
pages and to see where I am.
It's something like a way to study.
So I--
We love these little things that happen on the stage, with
conductors we like.
So we've got Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan.
Very nice horn program.
Thank you very much.
Because the horns are the heroes of both pieces.
They're Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan.
So what would you say?
Are you more a Till Eulenspiegel or a Don Juan?
Well, I have to say--
Oh, your voice is getting deeper now.
Yes.
And of course, I hope my wife is not--
if I say Don Juan, I will be problems.
Well, how about Don Eulenspiegel, or--
Till Juan.
Till Juan or Don Eulenspiegel.
Or Don Till.
Don Till.
Do you imagine these characters on stage while
you're conducting?
Absolutely.
You become these--
But we have to.
Because it's like, to read any story.
It's like, say, and for the people to laugh, or to suffer
in a short time.
Because I think for Till, for Strauss it was an idea to
write an opera about the character.
But he didn't go to write the opera, and he wrote the piece.
And it's so funny.
Because in such a short time, you show many, many--
how to say--
many--
Pictures.
He paints--
Elements.
Exactly.
--the pictures.
And also of the character.
This crazy character, playful character, making all this--
like a bully, you know, trying to do bad things all the time.
And you have to show that.
People have to laugh.
And the people have to see when he's dying.
You know, that--
this place.
The same in Don Juan.
It's one of the most amazing beginnings in
the history of music.
It really is.
Nothing has it.
I was thinking that today in the rehearsal.
It's thrust.
And here is the character of this guy.
But also, you see the love, the charming love.
You can even smell the music.
You can get the air, and study, too, the darkness, the
darkness of the character.
You know, the bad side.
So, of course, what we have to do all the time playing this
music is to show and to tell the history with notes.
And as a universal language, everybody understands that.
You don't have to speak German.
You don't have to speak English, Spanish, Chinese, no.
Notes.
Music.
And people receive that.
How did the Barber get in there?
A bit of--
I know it wasn't done for film music, but I know it, and
people know it from this film Platoon.
Yes, Platoon.
Look, Barber Adagio is this kind of
suspension of the time.
It's no time, is what I see in this music.
Because you start from the silence, and then you finish
for the silence.
And what you get is a climax.
You go to a top, very intense climax, and
then again into nothing.
My approach to the piece, and having a piece that I love, as
I'm a string player, of course, I love the piece.
But also, this--
I don't know how to say--
untemporal, no-time, floating feeling.
It's such a powerful thing.
And, too, with these string group, that all of them are
soloists, they are so great, and they intact so great as a
chamber music, is great.
I think I saw--
it's a great program.
The combination of the Barber and the Strauss, because you
get all of this.
You go from this suspension, I don't know, floating feeling,
to these very crazy histories of Don Juan and Till.
And I think it's a perfect--
We love doing it with you.
And also, the viewers of the Digital Concert
Hall are loving it.
They got from you a present--
1,000 passes to watch this concert.
So the viewer are going to be a lot tonight.
So we're really happy about that.
You're really fantastic in all this modern music
communication.
You're easy for an interviewer to find out about.
Because you're all over YouTube, and you've got a
great Facebook following, a Twitter following, and it's
just fantastic what you're doing for young people.
No, well, what you are doing.
Because it's very important.
And I always give the example of the digital concert.
Because it's amazing that people that cannot come to a
concert, or--
Or your friends in Venezuela.
Exactly.
In Venezuela.
Or in China.
Or in Japan.
They are really far--
Australia.
And they can listen, to see and to listen with quality--
And live.
And live.
A concert.
So this is the future.
And of course, for me, that is something very important.
Because education, also, is a very important element.
Because you can get the tradition.
When I came here--
of course, it's not almost the same.
But you can listen a concert.
I love when, before the concert is ready, you put a
little bit of the rehearsal there.
So people get to listen, and to see a
little bit of the rehearsal.
They love the backstage.
They love the inside backstage things, don't they?
And, well, this is the future.
I think it's part of the future.
Live people coming to listen to a concert, but also--
You can't beat a live concert.
That's our intention, is to show everybody who can't come
how great it is.
And then we've had this on tours.
People come to our concerts on tours who watch the Digital
Concert Hall, usually.
And we come to their country, they buy a ticket, they come.
So it is working.
It's very important.
And it's a symbol of future.
Well, I'm glad all your fans are going to be watching.
Will little Martin be watching, do you think?
Absolutely.
I wanted to ask you, does he conduct his toys like you do?
Well, he--
I don't know.
How old is he now, two?
Almost two.
Almost two.
Almost two.
In April 1st, he will be two.
He's amazing.
He's changed my life.
And I hope for him to make the best decisions in his life.
If he's a musician, beautiful.
Football player's also good, eh?
If he's a football--
If he's a dancer like his mother, it's great.
If he's a lawyer, if he's a shoemaker, I
will be very happy.
I would love for him to do--
that he can see of what I do that I do with love and with
passion, and with the commitment and with
responsibility that you need to have to do the things that
you do, as Eloisa also do with the things that she does.
But if he's a conductor, wonderful.
So he's not conducting his toys yet.
But he'd probably conduct with an iPhone rather than with a
baton, I think.
My grandmother gave him a car, where you press a button, and
it's coming some Bizet Carmen music, and all of that.
It's so funny.
And he takes a baton.
Since he was very small, he was always taking this and
doing this.
The baton?
Yes.
And we built a paper one because it was
dangerous for him.
And he was all the time like that.
It's beautiful.
I feel very proud of that.
But if he decides to do whatever he wants,
I will be so happy.
Because I'm completely in love.
Completely.
Well, I hope we see him soon here in the Philharmonie.
You have to bring him to a children's concert, and we'll
let him run around.
He will be sitting there on the stage.
Very good.
Gustavo, thank you so much.
It's been a wonderful week with you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Bye.