Delyana Lazarova

Welcome to Interplay: Conversations in Music. This is your host, Michael Shapiro, with my very special and delightful guest, Maestro Delyana Lazarova. Very nice to see you.

Well, it's wonderful to be together. We first met uh, when uh, we saw you conduct, fairly recently, the Oregon Symphony in a concert of a friend of yours, a young composer, plus a Rachmaninoff Rhapsody played by Simon Trpčeski, and then the Dvořák Seven. And we sat back and we said, "Oh my God, she's she's one of them." And there are few people that we can say she's one of them, but you're one of them. What What do I mean by that? It's It's a It's a conductor who understands the orchestra, understands how to accompany, understands also how to generate music—musical phrasing, and rhythmic dict—rhythmic clarity in a dynamic way. So, brava.

Thank you. It's not a common thing for someone to take a score and present a kind of fresh start for the score. And I felt that everything you you touched, whether it was the new work or the uh, Rachmaninoff, or the Dvořák, it's it all sounded very fresh. So let's talk about phrasing. I know you started out as a string player, right?

And have you always studied uh, string instruments throughout your childhood? And young adulthood?

It's so easy. [Laughs]

Let's talk while we're at it, about a piece I know very, very well, because I've conducted it many times. I'm a pianist, and as you know, a composer, but I've conducted the Mendelssohn E minor Violin Concerto many times. I have very rarely heard an orchestral performance of the piece, especially in the first movement, that really does justice to it.

So, let's talk about your preparation. And when I say it doesn't do justice to it, there's style, there's the orchestration, there's the fact that many string players feel that it may be the greatest writing, idiomatic writing for just the violin that—in any of the concerti, and I would agree with that, having conducted most of the major concerti. When you're studying that E minor concerto, fresh, and you want to present it fresh, of course, the violinist is going to take their own tempo, and we we want to work with the soloist. But sometimes there's a push and a pull with that. Let's just talk about the opening.Which doesn't have a grand opening like the Beethoven or the Brahms, it goes right into it, pretty much.

All right, so there's the one there's one thing: will the soloist take my tempo, or do I really have to work it out with them earlier?

How do you how are you getting that initial E minor sound?

How do you envision it, and how do you portray it? So you get what you want, right off the bat, being very much in the minority of people who've not been able to achieve it, even the really most famous and great conductors.

If you if you said this to the orchestra, they'd look at you like you're nuts. So you can't really do that.

Now, staying with the piece.Up or down, to start?

I agree with you. There are many string players in the great orchestras who say, "Oh, we can do the same thing down as we can do up."

I have never bought that, and I've dealt with greater great orchestras. And I I just don't ever buy that, because they do something when they go up. There's a kind of different inflection than that ick then when they go down.

It sounds like Stokowski, but I I can believe it.

Now, what do you think about Stokowski bowing, where the the uh players, Stoki used to say, I was at those rehearsals, actually, where we'd say, "Conductors always telling you to go down here, up there. I don't do that. You can go up or down, free bowing."

As a pianist, I don't tell the leader what to do, the concertmaster. I don't typically, unless it's a section where I say, "Let's try it—let's try it up," or off the string or on the string. You know, you can play with those kinds of things, it's fascinating. Um, so you think—I think, you are a guest at this time of your life. I'm hoping that changes, [Laughs] that you can guest, but have your own place, that you can shape. There is, there was a moment, um, in certain conductor's lives, that they were a—an anomaly, something unusual. Marin Alsop and I have been friends for almost 40 years, and I—I she's told me over dinner, and I can say this, Marin, if you're watching, that in the early days, you were hired because you were not the old, you know, Viennese, um, you know, man. [Laughs] And she suddenly was getting gigs in the early days, but she had to prove herself, as it were. And she said very—it's a tough, pioneering role, as we know. As a composer, I will tell you, that I don't care what the person's background is, or what they look like, or what their sex is like, or I could care less. Do they understand how to phrase? Can they make the piece sound fresh, as if it was just composed then? So, I saw in your approach, that there was a freshness of phrasing, and of rhythm, and of togetherness, that I've rarely found in conductors. So, I trust you'll never lose that. [Laughs] But talk to me, how do you make a Dvořák Seventh Symphony as if it was just freshly composed? It's the first conductor looking at it for Dvořák.

A little bit.

One thing that a composer thinks about, especially one at my age, is, why does certain music last, and other music just won't? I'm—I went to Juilliard in the '70s, and even before that through my teacher Elie Siegmeister, and then Vincent Persichetti at Juilliard. I got to know everyone, I mean the composers, certainly, everybody. I can mention a long series of names. Most of those people, if not all, are not played now. Not even a piece here and there. [Laughs] And these are major names of the time. So, a lot of us think about, we've spent our lives writing or performing and doing things like that, and then, why? What's the reason for it? Why should a piece last? Now, we know why a Beethoven Nine lasts. It's not just the great genius of the music, but it's also its ethos, what it says. And it's something that I'm very much involved with thinking about: why am I doing this? What is it for? And how can I put it across forever? So, when you're pro—approaching, for example, a Beethoven Nine or a Mahler Two, there's a different responsibility, isn't there?

Yeah.

Beautiful. It's also progress to an understanding style. Every composer who writes the best music, has a unique thing to say. I think. Very much so. Um, so, in studying a— a Beethoven Nine, I don't think you can get to it unless you've done the concerti, unless you've done the choral works, unless you have started it, mi— on the earliest symphonies, and also have conducted Haydn, going back, Handel, and Mozart, and understand where his ethos came from. He's a very different person. The mo— more I get to know, and I've played all the piano concerto, the piano concerti, and also I've played all the sonatas, as a pianist. I've conducted most of the symphonies. I will tell you that, the preparation in going through that process of chamber music, is also crucial. So, as a violinist, do you still do string quartets, trios, piano quintets?

Because it certainly brings you into the style, and does one thing which I think about is, there are many people that are on top of the notes, and you sit there and you go, "Ugh, I'd rather be watching a movie or a mini-series on TV." But then there's the great musicians, and you're one of them, because you've got it in you, that come under the notes. They're under the notes. They create something that is not just a superficial, you know, process through the piece, a path. They're understanding what's in the soil.

I saw it, I saw that. I was astonished by it, it was really quite something to experience. Because, physically also, did you study, actual study, baton waving? Or, did you—

That's interesting, that was the town I was a coach at the Zurich Opera House, when I started. Um, did he teach— teach you baton technique, or was it more musicianship in the score?

Well, that's the point. That is the point, because we're all physically different. And if you look at, some of the great ones, even Toscanini, and Klemperer— I mean, Klemperer, there's, who knows what the hell's there, especially as he got older, but somehow he was able to pull things out of that Philharmonia that are amazing. Toscanini's technique is absolutely great, and I know people who worked with— with him, especially in Italian music and things like that, it's extraordinary. Now, bringing up Toscanini, I'm thinking of Lenny, who I knew personally, and other people, not everyone, Carl Bamberger, my teacher, told me: every conductor cannot do everything. They can't. You must think about that. Are there certain composers who you feel, that you can't do?

The reason I mention it is that I cannot conduct Bruckner or Wagner. I just can't, it's not in me. Um, and I know that if I'd been alive at that time, I would have been in the Brahms camp. It was just a matter of who I am as a human being. Um, but I fully understand the— the Viennese classic composers, and the French, and the Italians. But, there's two composers I just, there's no way I could do it, never. There's just no way. I just, I don't underst— I, although I, um, am in awe of a lot of the Wagnerian operas, the underlying uh, you know, aesthetics of him, revolt me so much. And, you know, Bruckner to me, I just don't understand. I, you know, Aaron Copland used to say about Sibelius that he'd rather watch paint dry. I love Sibelius, I don't talk about him that way. But, what I'm trying to say is that no matter what one does or tries, and you could be a Karajan or a Toscanini, you know, there's repertoire that, if you listen to what they have done or you see what seen that what they did, they didn't understand the style. It wasn't in them physically, and mentally, and emotionally. But you're not, you're not there yet.

Well, Bartók is such a beautiful person.

Yeah, I'd love to have this conversation with you in 10 years, so, let's be sure to have it.

You started out as a violinist, I know at IU, and we have some friends in common from there. And then you decided to go into conducting. What made you do the jump, and not just be an orchestral violinist?

Manchester's who you're talking about?

Yeah. Well, Sir Halle and Sir Mark Elder are remarkable people, and he was a— I would think he would have been a wonderful person to be with.

It's odd, but, you know, you talk about the Halle, and I remember the days of Barbirolli, and then Skrowaczewski, and Sir Mark. That orchestra, and that place, has had a special integrity, I think, um, that many other places have not had, because the directors have been directors for a long period of time. And they were deeply feeling people. Those three people, very much so. Since your your experiences at the Halle, you've gone on to do tremendous guesting all over the place. May I ask you, because I ask this of my friends who are music directors, and I've been a music director of a small orchestra, would you want to be a music director these days?

One issue that I remember, my second conducting teacher after Bamberger was Harold Farberman, who was very different. He was all about technique, and that was it. Nothing about the scores, nothing about musicianship, phrasing, rhythm, out the window, was all about: click, click, click, or you, the arm. You know, it was all exercises, physical stuff. He comes—he came from a percussion background. But he said something, because he had been a member of the Boston Symphony from very or early age, that in a minute and a half, the orchestra decides whether or not they're going to follow you or not. You must have experienced something similar, too, with all these guesting you've been doing.

Correct.

Yeah.

Now, when you're phrasing the Dvořák Seven, dee-da-da, dee-da-da, dee-da-da-da, dee-da-da-da-da, dyum-pa, which gets rhythmic after this kind of lyrical thing. There is an organic way of feeling that, don't you think? Versus, yad-a-ta, dad-a-ta, dad-a-ta, ya. This guy's, yad-a-ta. Also, what's the tempo of that 40th Symphony, versus dee-da-dee-da-da? I think it—did you— I'll ask the question of you, not what I think. Don't you think there is, when you're looking at that score, you're a different person than somebody else looking at the score. But to make it compelling, what do you think you need to do, phrasing-wise, and sound-wise?

But, they could be coming from an argument with a child, they could have been cut off on the road by another car, they could be feeling not up to themselves that day, or they could be feeling great, or, you know, everybody's—you got a 70 to 100 people there coming at you, and you've got to just take a deep breath together and try to produce something. It's not an easy task.

So when somebody is as natural as you are, and looking at it as making music together, I think, in that minute and a half, it gets across with you, Delyana. I think it does.

Show us, let us, what—what do you want? Tell us.

No.

Sotto voce, ma, con espressione. Delyana Lazarova, I could talk to you for hours about our trade and what we do to make music.

There's never enough time, but I I want our—our viewers to get a taste of your—of your majestic view of music and the way uh we were just swept off our feet when we heard it.

Well, thank you for joining me. This is Michael Shapiro on Interplay, Conversations in Music. Thank you.