Episode 18
Iván Fischer
In this week's Interplay, Michael Shapiro talks to Iván Fischer about his remarkable compositions, many centered in Jewish culture and European Kultur, his background as a renowned Hungarian musician, and the practical experience of the international conductor.
Find out more at www.michaelshapiro.com
Transcript
Michael Shapiro:
Welcome to Interplay. This is Michael Shapiro, your host. Today, I have a wonderful friend, conductor, composer—but I'll talk about that order in a second—Ivan Fischer. Hello, Ivan. How are you?
Ivan Fischer:
Hello. Thank you very much for inviting me.
Michael Shapiro:
Thank you. You know, there are conductors who compose, and there are composers who conduct. Conductors who composed: Furtwängler, Walter, Klemperer—many in history. But there are composers who conduct, like Mahler, like Richard Strauss, like Ivan Fischer. And I want to go to that right away. Um, Ivan, this discussion is really about your music and what you have written. Now, I know you studied in Vienna with Swarowsky, I think, conducting, but did you study composition early on?
Ivan Fischer:
Before that, I did. When I was still in Budapest—and this was between the age of, um, 15 and 19—then I was at a conservatory, the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest, and I studied cello and composition there. Then I moved to Vienna, and I started conducting. And there wasn't really a composition class, except there were a a few composers who taught us various, um, details of composition. I remember, for example, Friedrich Cerha, a very good, uh, Viennese composer. He, he taught us, uh, notation, how to write music. Then there was Franz Urbanner, a very good other composer, score reading and how to orchestrate. So, it's difficult to say—I didn't have a, like, one composition teacher, but a number of different, um, details.
Michael Shapiro:
Now, it is very interesting because I think your composing totally infuses what you do as a musician, whether it's on the piano or leading an orchestra, or administering the Budapest Festival Orchestra, because organization and a composer is the same as administering—very similar to administering a large group of people and founding it, creating a composition, creating an orchestra, mentoring younger people like your extraordinary Nora Fischer, your daughter who's an amazing singer. And on YouTube, there are two performances that I could find of you accompanying her. One, I think, on Dutch television, and the other one, uh, another setting. And it's of a piece you wrote based on poetry of Rachel Korn, the Yiddish poet and short story writer who lived from 1898 to 1982, A Naie Kleit for soprano and piano, from 2009. Now, this was commissioned by the Committee of the Dutch Memorial Day in 2008 to commemorate the youngest victims of the Shoah. A million children were killed, murdered, and you wrote this piece, It is Difficult to Stop Mourning. So, Ivan, speak to us about A Naie Kleit.
Ivan Fischer:
Yes, originally, it was a commission by that memorial committee, and I composed it for a choir. It was originally a choral work because there was a youth choir, um, for whom the commission, um, happened, and that was the occasion. And it's performable with the choir, but I thought it takes away a little bit the, the personal attitude and the freedom it needs, because it's a little bit a, a chanson-like musical style...
Michael Shapiro:
Very much.
Ivan Fischer:
...which works better if it's freer, a little with rhythmic liberties. So, immediately when I heard it with the choir, I thought, "I will make another version for one singer."
Michael Shapiro:
Wonderful.
Ivan Fischer:
And this second version became more well-known, which, which I often performed with my daughter Nora, whom I had in mind for the, for the one-voice arrangement.
Michael Shapiro:
Well, the quality of her voice certainly, you can hear it, and the way she interprets, the way she turns the phrase, everything she does. Let's talk about the form for a second, composer to composer. It is an A-B-A-B-A-B form, but each A and each B is different. The A is a Yiddish melody, it's a Jewish melody, no question, coming straight out of your soul—and to this son of a klezmer, I got it immediately. The B section, however, is this kind of threnody, this kind of chant, almost liturgical, in your own voice, and it goes very different. Explain that, that A and that B to me, if you would.
Ivan Fischer:
If you think about the text of this poem, um, the story, it becomes very clear. It's about a new dress. You put on the new dress after seven years of mourning. You put away the mourning dress, and you put on your everyday dress.
Michael Shapiro:
Yes.
Ivan Fischer:
But it doesn't feel good. It hurts. It causes pain because it's difficult to stop mourning. This is the—this is what basically the, the poem is about. Now, one part of it is, is like a narration. You say—you tell the story to the listener that, "After seven years of mourning, I put on the new dress." And this is what, what we can, we could say it's a, it's a Yiddish-like chanson. It's a, it's a Yiddish song style.
Michael Shapiro:
Yeah.
Ivan Fischer:
And then, when you explore your own feelings—this is what you called the B section—where you, you, you don't really find yourself, you don't find identity with yourself, and this is these searching, hovering notes where you are looking for the harmonies, even musically speaking, "Where are we?" It's a little losing the ground.
Michael Shapiro:
Uh-huh.
Ivan Fischer:
And then, you describe that it doesn't—it hurts. It doesn't feel right. The, the buttons, the, the folds on the dress, everything reminds me on the mourning. And then you go back to the narration, you repeat that, "After seven years, I put on a new dress." And then again, you explore your own feelings. So, this code—the structure of the song comes from these two attitudes in the poem.
Michael Shapiro:
I want to talk to you next about something which is very dear to me. I studied conducting at the Mannes College of Music with Carl Bamberger, who was an associate of Furtwängler and Walter, and knew Klemperer very, very well, and he was born in 1902, died in 1987, at 85. He was, of course, a refugee and got out in 1938 because he had Soviet imprints on his passport, having conducted the premiere of Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto, among other things. But at his home, when he'd invite me and we'd have goulash suppa and speak Viennese German, he would have people there from Prague and Budapest. All Jews from various different kinds of backgrounds, all born around the turn of the last century. They were all fans of Goethe, and Rilke, and Hölderlin, and so forth, go, you know, and and Wagner. But they were refugees, every one of them from the Shoah. You've had similar paradox—paradoxical, uh, feelings with the composition of your great cantata, Eine Deutsche-Jiddische Kantate, a German-Jewish Cantata based on Yiddish folksong, Rilke, Goethe, and Avrom Sutzkever, a Shoah victim. Duality, paradox—you've spoken about this a lot, but not with me, so I'm going to push you further than you've done publicly. So many of these Jews, all of them, these mostly upper-class cultured Jews who play music in the home, they were fascinated with German culture, but yet they were victims of it. So, talk about this colliding of styles that you do in this wonderful, wonderful work, Eine Deutsche-Jiddische Kantate.
Ivan Fischer:
This, pa—this is precisely the paradoxical, um, duality what you described. When the Jews of Central Europe, many of them decided to leave religion arou—around 1900, or probably a little earlier, and and uh, started a lifestyle of an assimilated, a secular, but Jewish identity, then they still continued the natural, intuitive behavior of the Jewish people, which was to have an adoration for something, a spiritual value.
Michael Shapiro:
Mmm.
Ivan Fischer:
Yes. So, imagine, maybe the father—father's main spiritual source was God,
Michael Shapiro:
Mmm.
Ivan Fischer:
but the son, who stepped out of the religion, needed another God, another spiritual idol. So, this generation turned to culture, and culture became their religion.
Michael Shapiro:
Yeah.
Ivan Fischer:
And this was precisely what you say: our fathers' or grandfathers' generation, who became...
Michael Shapiro:
Gustav Mahler, n'est-ce pas?
Ivan Fischer:
Or Mahler himself, exactly.
Michael Shapiro:
Yeah.
Ivan Fischer:
Actually, the conductor of the first performance of Parsifal was a Jewish—a religious Jewish conductor, Hermann Levi.
Michael Shapiro:
Yes, he was.
Ivan Fischer:
And here we are in this Jewish world, in these families, they were looking for the most modern, for the, the newest cultural achievement, and it was the world of, of Richard Wagner. My family was full of Wagner fans. And, and when they went through the Shoah, you know, some people, like in all Jewish families, some were killed, other lost family members, like all, all of us, all Jewish people in the 20th century. But the adoration of German culture never changed. I asked my father about this, "After what you went through, how can you have such a, an unlimited love for Goethe, Beethoven, and all the German heroes?" And he said, "Oh, did—this has nothing to do with it. These, these are great people, and the Nazis were idiots, and..." They, you know, the Nazis didn't limit, didn't reduce his adoration for the German culture.
Michael Shapiro:
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Ivan Fischer:
Now, this duality was probably a little short-sighted because if you study the history carefully, it's deeply integrated. We know the antisemitism of Martin Luther, we, we see signs of antisemitism in the greatest German, um, culture—cultural cult figures. But still, the adoration is there, and intuitively I feel it, too. I love Beethoven and I love, um, the German culture, and I find it absolutely terrible what what this way of—this thinking did to me, to my family, to my people in general.
Michael Shapiro:
You know, your piece, the German-Jewish Cantata, which you've just described its background, I'd like to talk about musically quickly.
Ivan Fischer:
Right.
Michael Shapiro:
It is made up of four parts: Wiegenlied ("Sleep my little bird close your eyes"), a German aria, a Yiddish aria, and then what you call Grabschrift ("Epitaph"). Of course, there are many elements. There's the Baroque, there's classical too, I hear some Gluck, at least a little bit of a taste in the epitaph, which is absolutely remarkably beautiful music. Voices of the spirits, which I find a very interesting comparison to Orfeo ed Euridice, you know, crowns entwining in endless quiet, the power of good rewarding us in abundance. It's marvelous words. Now, the text continues straight through, there's no stopping, am I right?
Ivan Fischer:
There, there isn't because, because the whole piece is about duality, about paradox, about these two colliding, uh, languages. There is the German language and the Yiddish language.
Michael Shapiro:
Yes.
Ivan Fischer:
And, uh, it's a—it's a two-language cantata. You, you hear something in German and that has its own musical style, and the Yiddish has another style. Um, why Baroque? I, I, yes, I chose Baroque harmonies and ways of melodies,
Michael Shapiro:
Kind of.
Ivan Fischer:
because somehow, as a child, for me, it, it had an association with the German culture. A little bit of Bach in it, a little bit of that. It's a very dreamy association.
Michael Shapiro:
Uh-huh.
Ivan Fischer:
It means—means the, the, the, the tradition of German culture to me.
Michael Shapiro:
Understood.
Ivan Fischer:
And why does the Abraham Sutzkever poem, where he describes his own terrible wartime, um, experiences, where his mother died, and his feelings with his mother—it's a heartbreakingly sad, um, poem—why is that style a little bit, I, I could call it maybe the '20s, a bit of, uh, bit of Kurt Weill-like, uh, feeling...
Michael Shapiro:
But your voice, Ivan, I want you to be very careful about this, because you're talking to a composer of 50 years of writing, (laughs) more, 55, and I will tell you, it's your voice. And I grew up in Yiddish music, I grew up in, in, in symphonic music. Yes, these influences are there.
Ivan Fischer:
Yes, these are—what I'm talking about are, are the inspiration sources. Like, for example, in the music of Béla Bartók, you can recognize traces of Bach, you can recognize Debussy, but it's still Béla Bartók's music. And I, I talk about this type of—where the inspiration comes from.
Michael Shapiro:
No question about it. No, I thank you. But hearing it, first, the music has immediate recognition for this listener. I get it immediately. I know where you come from, I know your background, I feel it, and it is so deeply felt. I will also tell you that melodically, harmonically, and instrumentally, the orchestration—ideal. It works beautifully.
Ivan Fischer:
Thank you.
Michael Shapiro:
And I—no, but I also think that your experience in as a practical musician has informed what you do. I know it's informed what I've done, um, no question about it, and it informs what you do every second, every bar. Um, I want to shift...
Ivan Fischer:
Yes, just I, I want to comment on this. What you are talking about is a very important connection between the performer and the composer.
Michael Shapiro:
Yes, list—speak to me.
Ivan Fischer:
We know how practical Gustav Mahler was. Everything he wrote sounds wonderful.
Michael Shapiro:
Yes.
Ivan Fischer:
And there, there were of other composers who were less practical because their way of thinking is, is different. Look at the compositions of Leonard Bernstein, for example. Everything sounds immediately...
Michael Shapiro:
Yes, it does.
Ivan Fischer:
...brilliant because of his experiences with instruments, orchestras, voices.
Michael Shapiro:
Yeah.
Ivan Fischer:
So, I think here the, the two-profession people have a small advantage.
Michael Shapiro:
They do, but you certainly do, and the orchestration is gorgeous. And doing it with your people that you brought up is phenomenal. We're going to shift to The Red Heifer, which is a remarkable piece. And it was written, I think, about five, six years ago, am I right?
Ivan Fischer:
A little more. I think it was first performed in '13.
Michael Shapiro:
Ah.
Ivan Fischer:
In 2013.
Michael Shapiro:
And in many different locations. It—there's a wonderful YouTube broadcast with a great cast, with you conducting, uh, which puts it forward with very good English, uh, at the bottom, you know, script. The Red Heifer obviously is a major concept for evangelical Christians here in this country, as you may know, uh, that The Red Heifer comes back to Jerusalem and then the second coming of Christ will come. But it's also a concept in Jewish background, and the subject when it takes place with the blood libel in the 1880s, and then with the current madness of the right-wing, far-right in, in Hungary, of course. Jews living in a culture that don't want them? Significance of the red cow? And then at the end, I'm going to ask you some questions about folk music. But first, those first things: the subject then and now, Jews living in a culture that doesn't want them, and the significance of a red cow. Please speak to them.
Ivan Fischer:
This, this is a, a mysterious, uh, chapter in the Torah, the, the, the Red Heifer, um, is, is the purification, uh, symbol. Um, you have to be purified in the—the ashes of the Red Heifer, which never happens because one cannot find a Red Heifer because the Red Heifer has to be perfect, and, and there are many conditions which we cannot—which we don't have. Uh-huh, uh-huh. So, um, it's a—it's a theoretical purification which is described there, but never happens, and it's one of the obstacles why the Temple cannot be rebuilt. Um, now, the story here in this opera is about one character. There is one important character, the, the boy Móric,
Michael Shapiro:
Mmm.
Ivan Fischer:
who betrays his father and betrays his community.
Michael Shapiro:
Yes, he does.
Ivan Fischer:
When there is the blood libel case, then the, the antisemites are looking for a crown witness, and the boy decides to be that crown witness.
Michael Shapiro:
Mmm.
Ivan Fischer:
And, um, Móric goes through the psychological process of becoming a traitor, and he goes through the second psychological process of coming to terms with what he did. And, uh, what interested me very much is this betraying your own community, betraying your religion, betraying your father.
Michael Shapiro:
Mmm.
Ivan Fischer:
Then, when the—when the—when you get the proof that it was all wrong and you see that it was in vain, and you see—now, this is very important—that your father doesn't punish you. This is the crucial moment in the opera.
Michael Shapiro:
He doesn't, though. They sit, and he falls asleep, the father. (Laughs)
Ivan Fischer:
Yes, he's there, but he doesn't say—the boy expects to get a big smack, but he doesn't do it. He's just sitting there, he doesn't say a word. And this somehow starts a purification in the boy's mind. Something happens to him where he understands. This was—I know the most daring, um, decision in this one-hour opera was...
Michael Shapiro:
It is, correct.
Ivan Fischer:
...to finish with a 12-minute piece without any singing.
Michael Shapiro:
Correct. Very daring, I might add. A very daring piece.
Ivan Fischer:
In those 12 minutes, you hear the motives, you hear the—the melodies, the fragments of the melodies...
Michael Shapiro:
Yes.
Ivan Fischer:
...what happened earlier, because you hear what goes through the mind of the boy.
Michael Shapiro:
Yes.
Ivan Fischer:
He relives those experiences again and gets somehow purified.
Michael Shapiro:
It's an unbelievable experience, and also, your—the, just musically, what happens there. Let's jump into the music for a second, because I heard so much different things. First, the entrance of Esther, the young girl, is a gorgeous folk melody, which, uh, is original, may I ask? Phenomenal. And then...
Ivan Fischer:
No, no, no. No, it's completely my, my...
Michael Shapiro:
Yeah, and I'm saying it's your compo—composition. It's fabulous. And it sounds like it comes right out of the hills.
Ivan Fischer:
You know, I have a compositional style, which I would call a collage technique, that I like to confront different styles with each other. And for me, musically, it was a, a very exciting idea...
Michael Shapiro:
Mmm.
Ivan Fischer:
...to, to confront the Hungarian folklore, because this is what lures the boy into being a traitor.
Michael Shapiro:
Right.
Ivan Fischer:
And to confront this style with the Jewish elements in the music.
Michael Shapiro:
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Ivan Fischer:
So, for me, this was the, the possibility of a, of a collage, of a, of a confrontation of two musical idioms. And it starts, in fact, with the Hungarian folklore's style, but they are all compositions by me.
Michael Shapiro:
Fabulous.
Ivan Fischer:
One—one element of this style is the folk song, the song sung by Esther at the beginning. Another element is the dances, the folkloristic dances, which are—which is the dance music by this big party scene. These are—these are all inspired by Hungarian folklore.
Michael Shapiro:
Is it the csárdás? Is that what it's called?
Ivan Fischer:
Yes, csárdás is one of a sequence of dances. It starts with other dance forms and eventually turns into a csárdás.
Michael Shapiro:
Mmm. Mmm. It's fabulous. You know, and then what is absolutely beautiful, after all of that, you have the, um, what I call the freedom or liberation quartet of the father plus the other three defendants in the case, when they're liberated. Kossuth comes in and gives that great, beautiful aria, and his influence seems to liberate the men, and the judge declares this to be a false case and has them freed. But the Jewish music you bring in there is so deeply felt and so beautifully done. That, the contrast also with Esther's music and then the dance music is striking. It's a great accomplishment.
Ivan Fischer:
What I had in mind was a nigun. A nigun is, um, one of those, um, melodies which the Hasidic people sing sometimes without any words. It's just a "bim-bam," whatever.
Michael Shapiro:
Ecstasy, ecstasy. You know, dance music, as you do in the...
Ivan Fischer:
Yes, dynamic dance, yes. It's something which develops. It starts maybe a little, uh, less exciting and becomes more and more exciting and, uh, leads to ecstasy. Now, imagine you are liberated, you just come out of a terrible prison with lots of physical pain, and you are liberated. It cannot start immediately your, your ecstasy, but gradually through this music, they, they, they become extremely joyful. So, this, this art form, the nigun, um, helped me to, to write this Jewish style.
Michael Shapiro:
It's brilliantly done, beautifully play—played and sung, and I—it's thrilling. Um, last discussion before we go, and this has been so wonderful: what's next for you, composer Ivan Fischer?
Ivan Fischer:
Well, this is not an easy period for me. I thought first that being, uh, locked down with the, the COVID, uh, pandemic, it, it's great to compose. You are at home, you are, you have time. But it doesn't work that way. Somehow, it, it didn't, didn't—and I don't have an explanation for it—but, but it's very—it's much slower than usual. Maybe this forced, uh, solitude is not something which is the right thing. Um, probably other people can explain it easier than I do. I can only report that it wasn't an easy time for me.
Michael Shapiro:
Yes.
Ivan Fischer:
Now I am writing a slow movement for a brass quintet. There is a piece called The Fanfare, which I, I wrote for a brass group, and they asked me to, to write a first movement to it, so it becomes a, a longer composition of a, a slow-fast pattern.
Michael Shapiro:
Good.
Ivan Fischer:
I have to finish it in, in about 10 days, so this, this will happen. And, um, and there are few other small commissions, but I don't expect anything big. My last year, which was very important for me, was when I finished Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, because it, it required a lot of study.
Michael Shapiro:
Mmm.
Ivan Fischer:
I composed the, the version which we don't have, of the original first version of the libretto, which I, I find much more exciting. And in that, L'Orfeo by Monteverdi ends with a big bacchanal scene, and I wanted to compose that bacchanal, uh, feast.
Michael Shapiro:
Wonderful.
Ivan Fischer:
It's about 10 minutes music, completely in the style of Monteverdi's period.
Michael Shapiro:
Wow.
Ivan Fischer:
So, you are not supposed to hear where his music stops and my one starts.
Michael Shapiro:
Oh, that's wonderful. Uh, well, you know, we've been talking about, uh, three of your pieces, and now this new one and the brass piece, and it's been a wonderful conversation. Ivan Fischer, composer, musician, fighter for human rights, thank you for being on Interplay. This is Michael Shapiro, your host.
Ivan Fischer:
Thank you. Great honor.