Nic McGegan

My great pleasure.

I don't generally do not. I just—I like really good, tight rhythm. So, uh, that's not just a sort of, because I'm allergic to sloppiness or anything like that. Um, but I hope it—I, I, you—it begs the question, I suppose, "What do I think about when I'm recording?" Uh, but I'm not thinking about anything particular.

It's very true. There are still plenty of—many, many, many, many, many.

Well, I do a little musicology, uh, which is something I enjoy. And when I say musicology, that's giving it too grand a word. Um, I do look up in various books um, where the manuscript might be, for example. Um, which—and they're often quite easy to find online these days, too. It's always—I find it very instructive to look at the composer's handwriting, see how he wrote the piece. Um, then I try not to listen to another recording. At least not too—not too close to anything that I'm doing. I'd like the ideas to come um, from me and uh, just by looking at the music. And then there are certain things that I can do. If it's a late Haydn symphony, for example, there's certain sources. Um, there's some very interesting ones, for example, when people like Haydn and Chur—where Hummel and Czerny uh, arranged Haydn symphonies for piano duet or piano—but they put metronome marks on them, uh, which is quite interesting. It doesn't mean one has to observe them, but they are near enough contemporary sources. Um, it's nice to uh, take an edition, such as say, the Haydn-Mozart Presse edition, which is the one from Vienna, which then needs correcting. There's an awful lot in there which tidy-minded editors put in that I don't think should be there. Um, and so I—I, if I'm doing a new piece like that, I'd like to use my own parts. So I know that uh, what I'm putting in is what I want. Also, it keeps down the amount of uh, rehearsal time, the amount of talking time.

And that can—that can matter very much if I don't happen to speak the language of the orchestra. It's much better for—to um, put stuff in and play it, and then if I don't like it, I can change it, rather than try to go through. Let's say, well, years ago I did a—a Handel oratorio in Vilnius with a Soviet—well, I guess they would just stop being a Soviet, with a Russian orchestra, uh, a Lithuanian chorus, and I spoke neither of those two languages.

Yeah, and of course, the Lithuanians probably did speak Russian, but—but wouldn't admit it.

And so, uh, anything I wanted that had to be said, had to go through several translators, which was a colossal waste of time. So it's much better to uh, just put it in and then if we can change it, uh, I—I like it if people ask questions, "Why is this not piano?" or whatever. Um, sometimes one puts in a few extra slurs. Um, very often, I'll bow a piece as well, though I'm not a string player. At least to—to get stuff, shall I say, to get stuff started.

Uh, we all know in America that rehearsal time is—is pure liquid gold. So it's important not to waste it.

You're a better pianist than I'm a harpsichordist.

I imagine you do. Say again? I imagine one does. I've had a few terrifying experiences like that.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I—I have an idea—I, I use as little hooking, for example, as possible. Few hooked bowings as possible. I grew up with those, um, and I've seen in American orchestras that this has changed enormously over the last 20 years. When I first went, say, to the—to certain orchestras um, where the principal strings were in their 70s and 80s—

—and maybe from former Russian territories. There was a—a very different style of bowing than what's being used now. So, um, I spend my time unhooking bowings, uh, using a lot more double down-bows than they ever used um, in, in 25, 30 years ago. So, I would bow it as I might bow a Baroque piece, and then put in a few modern—more modern touches because of modern bows heavier, for example. Um, so it depends, uh, and it's never—you know, a concertmaster will always want to change one or two things, and that's just fine.

It's— [Laughs] you'd be crazy to go against that concept. Yeah, no, and they—they actually play the instrument, so it's fine. Uh, but I don't do it so that it's sort of uh, bowing that's as regimented as the North Korean army when it's doing its goose-stepping. In other words, what uh, what works for a violin doesn't necessarily work for a cello, even if they're playing the same thing.

So I put some—I—it's, I keep it fairly loose, put it that way.

Uh, well, it depends who I'm working with, doesn't it really?

Well, luckily, having worked a lot in early music, I have absolutely no sense of pitch whatever. Having worked at 392, uh, 415, 420—

—428, 440, and now the sort of 442s and a little higher, um, I like— I just—I just do what I'm told.

Who knows?

I try. I remember taking the Swedish Chamber Orchestra on tour with a piano concerto. We started in Sweden and we ended up in Bavaria. And the pitch went up very slightly, about every 30 miles. So the oboe's eyebrows were up somewhere near where divine's used to be, just trying to keep up with this constant rise of pitch as we went further and further south in Germany. Cuz the Swedish Chamber Orchestra then played at 440, so—

Well, I never asked, but uh, uh, and eventually, I think they had to get new staples, cuz the—shorten staples, cuz they couldn't—they couldn't squeeze any higher and their eyebrows couldn't go any higher just to get up to the pitch in wherever it was we were.

Sure.

Yeah.

Mm.

It's almost as many as Schubert, in fewer years.

Yeah.

I would beg to differ only in Die Verschworenen, The Conspirators, which is an opera I'm very fond of.

Uh, well, I've only heard half of those, maybe, um, on not necessarily great recordings uh, where you get the impression that the score was cracked open two days before. Um, and uh, frankly, the thing that annoys me most are the plots.

These ridiculous things that happen in the Crusades, uh, don't—don't appeal. It's obviously—it's very much part of a particular genre which had a fairly short shelf life, I think.

But, um, there are some great tunes, there's some nice arias. How it all fits together, particularly the operas with lots and lots and lots of dialogue—

—um, it seems to me that it's just nice numbers, some of which are very nice.

But it's not what I would think of as a serious, long opera or even a comic, long opera.

Sure.

I think his—his operas, funny enough, sound a little earlier than they sometimes are. Um, in other words, that operas from the 1760s, 1770s, uh, they don't have the miracles of the ensembles that you get in Figaro, for example. It's a lot more arias, you're lucky to get a duet. Um, he's often—even when he's writing something in the 1780s, he's using a libretto that had been—that was maybe 20 years old. Maybe he's conforming to the taste of his patron, who did, after all, pay his bills.

Yeah.

We know that—and we do know that Haydn absolutely loved The Marriage of Figaro. He thought it—he was awake dreaming about it for days on end. So, it clearly, um, influenced him greatly, but he didn't write another opera after that, at least a comic opera after that. He only wrote one opera seria, which was not performed until the 1950s. So—

Lucky you.

There've been many great composers, but you mean great opera composers, in other—what shall I say, people who uh, who really advanced the art, if you know what I mean.

As opposed to do what's there very, very well, but don't push the boundaries.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And definitely. I played under him, by the way.

When I was—when I was a student, when I was a student.

Uh, Cambridge. He conducted The Dream of Gerontius, and I played first flute.

First flute. I was a flute player in those days.

That was with—I think that was the recording, or was it the LSO I thought he recorded it with? He—he wanted to learn the Gerontius, um, and so he came over for six rehearsals to Cambridge. It was King's College Choir and—

Yeah.

It's wonderful.

Sure.

Yeah.

There is no escape.

Oh, it's not much longer than that. It—it said it took 24 days, but that's not true. Uh, cuz how he would write would be to write a grand sketch from beginning to end uh, of any piece, and then he would— particularly if it's an opera, he'd send the arias out to the singers who'd say, "I don't like this one, this one's too high, the coloratura doesn't work." Um, and they'd send it back. And then once he knew what keys it was going to be in, and had got that, then he would come back and write the recits, and then he would fill in the viola parts and all the middle bits. So he just wrote enough to send it to the singers, basically, is the—is the 24 days. But in an oratorio, he still had to put the, you know, that includes choruses, which are, you know, that's a lot of ink.

Yes.

Cam—Cambridge.

Yeah, Sir David Willcocks, and various people like that. We—we had to do five-part Palestrina and the full, formal academy—academic course that basically hadn't changed since the 18th century.

Absolutely. I find it's like painters who can't draw. I mean, you have to have the real technical background and then you can feel much—somehow much freer after that. Cuz you sort of know how it works.

Right.

How the woods—how the woods work, for example.

No, I'm too short.

Well, it's nice of you to say so. Uh, when I was at school, we had a music school every Saturday morning. Um, and there was a—a group of string players, and I did not play a string instrument. And they were all my friends, so they said, "Well, why don't you do something useful?" Like um, "wave your arms around in front of us so we don't get lost." Um, and so I conducted the Mozart Divertimenti. One of the first pieces I ever did was Strauss's Metamorphosen, funny enough. I think I was 17 or something.

But, uh, it was—it made a nice change from being on the other side, in other words, looking at a conductor. Or, sometimes not looking at a conductor, but uh—but knowing how they got the results they did, or knowing why they didn't get the results that they did.

Uh, or simply the ones who talk too much, the ones who uh, led totally humorless rehearsals where everyone was bored within the first two minutes, just because they had no nice demeanor, shall I say. Um, I think, maybe it's just me, but I seem to remember there were—there were terrifying conductors even back then. Um, and uh, then of course they were all male, as well, that's the other thing, cuz happily, that's all changing. Um, and then when I went to Cambridge, uh, I didn't know anything about early music when I went there, the early music stuff happened there. Uh, but I conducted the first orchestra, the second orchestra, and the opera at Cambridge while I was there.

Yeah, and you don't do anything at Cambridge for credit. Uh, you just do it. Uh, you just have to pass the exams, which are—in the music course when I did it, involved a lot of composition, actually, as well as uh, music history and pretty—first two years, harmony and counterpoint, that kind of thing.

Uh, Alan Ridout, his name was, is a sacred composer, very nice guy. I took over from him in teaching at Cambridge, actually. Um, wonderful, wonderful guy. Um, and they weren't terribly interested in what style you wrote anything, it was about ideas. Um, there were even composing exams, when they would sit you down for 6 hours and make you write something.

And it would be things like, you know, I remember one of them—I don't know if it was my year, but, "The BBC is going to do four programs uh, about sex education uh, and they want you to—they, I'd like you to write four things about different animals and their courtship which you could use for uh, for use on television programs." So it didn't matter what the animals were, what style you were going to use, they wanted you to use your imagination.

And of course, it's—it was absolutely wonderful, because you could have, you know, jumping kangaroos or uh, whatever you wanted to do. Um, it was the '60s after all, so, you know, it could be quite raunchy.

Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, it wasn't sort of uh, "Here is a—here is a fugue subject, please write on it." Um, that was the previous years when you did that.

Yes.

Yes.

We also had wonderful ones, uh, uh, "Write a short overture to a Shakespeare play of your choice." We had 6 hours for that.

Sure.

I think that's absolutely true. Having never had a conducting lesson in my life, uh, I look at the score and it makes me do what I do.

It has to come from inside, going out.

It's very easy to do the, what shall I say, the sort of gestures that you would use to bring in a plane at JFK.

That you can learn, you can learn that parrot-fashion, but it—it doesn't—for me, it doesn't do anything because, first of all, there's no emotions behind it. You're merely time-beating. You're not saying—you're not giving a hint as to how you want that to be played. One of the reasons, I don't use a baton, cuz I don't—for the stuff I do, I don't really need to, but it means I can use gestures with both hands to help um, get the gestures I want.

[Laughs] Yes. Yeah, it's wonderful. Um, and uh, also being quite short, with relatively short arms, I'm not likely to knock anybody over, so— plus I'm best—as a Brit, I'm best unarmed, so I don't use a baton.

I stuck one behind my specs once, and I'm not going to repeat that.

Uh, was it worth it?

I try.

The good—the goodies. The goodies and the greats, yeah.

It's a piece I actually don't know very well, so it's uh, but I've seen it several times.

Well, one thing would definitely be to not to say, "I want it to go this way," whatever, because it's a—a collaboration with the people who are on stage.

I'm not going to say, "The tempo for rejoice," in Messiah, "the tempo for Rejoice will be this," and someone would say, "Ah, but my voice works a little differently from that." Uh, in other words, it's always a collaboration.

In the same way as the composer wrote for specific people, too.

So, um, I—I've worked with conductors who say, you know, "It goes this way, and that's it." And a singer has to say, "I'm sorry, but I don't feel it that way," and "I'm the one who's on stage, um, having to perform it." Uh, so I think a conductor needs to take a step back, and, you know, "My conception—" My conception, it should be—is much better when it's our conception.

It is a collaborative art, and uh, and there's sometimes—I'm going to be very annoying now, and say this—there's also something that comes in, in opera, which is called the stage—who is called the stage director.

And I've had some conversations, for example, I've been talking to a singer saying, "How fast would you like this particular aria to go?" And the stage director comes in, "She will sing it like I have it on my recording."

To which the answer is, "No."

No, I have, and he's very nice, but it—it's uh, um, you know, it's— I've had choreographers like that, too. Not Mark Morris, I hate to add, but—uh, proud to add, but, uh, you know, it goes this—it go—they've re—it's been choreographed to a recording and that's the end of it.

So, you—you—your—the music then just becomes like turning the lights on. It's a part of—

Sure, it's got to be um, and that's why I say working with great stage directors and great choreographers like Mark is such fun, because it is a collaboration. Um, especially if it's a new piece, obviously.

And a very musical—they're a very musical one, very musical guy, too.

He—he's—every so often, he does me out of a job, and I don't mind at all. He conducts Dido, I know.

Which I used to conduct years ago.

With him.

We will.

We never answered the question, though, to go back. You were talking about Handel, we talked about 17th and 18th-century composers as be—who were the great opera composers and who really sort of advanced the form? The question is, um, you know, I—I Monteverdi, I think, is a must, cuz he really did—here is a man of the theater. Um, Purcell in his own way, though not a lot of it is opera.

It's just such wonderful music. Um, Handel does when he—when he can.

Uh, things like the mad scene in Orlando is a wonderful, wonderful piece. But sometimes I think, you know, uh, the conventions can get the better of you. On the other hand, Hasse, whose music I hardly know, seems to be a wonderful composer, but I don't get anything from the operas as such, as opposed to someone like Joyce DiDonato doing a lovely album of arias, which I'm very happy to—to buy, in order so that I don't have to listen to the operas, [Laughs] cuz they—she's someone that is such a wonderful singer and she makes such a great case for the arias. I think Vivaldi's time may come, actually. Some of his operas are really terrific. I really like them a lot. Um, whether they're great operas as opposed to really fantastic music is, of course, another question. Um, you know, Mozart—as you say, Haydn—Haydn's music is wonderful, whether his operas are great—I—the only one I've ever done all the way through was Orlando Paladino, which I did think is tremendous fun. Um, great as opera? I'm not so sure. Musically, it's got fantastic moments. Um, Schubert, as you say, I—I happen to have a soft spot for one of them, but uh, you know, that's like some recipe of something that you loved as a child. I did actually, The Conspirators, we did at high school. So I was probably 15, so I got in there early. But, you know, I—I've never warmed, for example, to Fierrabras. Um, and—

Yeah. The other operas that I—I don't have a great deal of time for are what you might call the Faustian operas, where a guilt-ridden man is saved by a singing Hausfrau.

Yeah, you know, she sings top C, bakes her own cakes, makes her own clothes, and tries to save him in some way for kind of suburban domesticity, whereas before he's been going around the world on a boat feeling terrible. Um, I just don't buy it.

It's a great pleasure, Michael. We should keep this up, let's have regular chats.

Great pleasure.