Conducting for the 21st century

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conductor - and realist - Mariss Jansons talks to Eileen Battersby about the challenges facing orchestras today.

Igor Stravinsky stood on the podium, conducting his own music played by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, as did fellow composers Darius Mihaud, Paul Hindemith and more recently, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio. Living music, as well as an eloquent grasp of the traditional 18th- and 19th-century repertoire, have shaped the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra from its very beginning. Founded by the German conductor Eugen Jochum in 1949, this dynamic orchestra which performs symphonies by Schubert and Brahms at the National Concert Hall on Thursday, was born in a post-war era shaped by defeat but also a spirit of hope, as well as an awareness of a tremendous legacy, German music.

By 1960, Jochum's singular imagination and a series of tours had made it an elite international orchestra. Back in Munich, greatness had been secured through what would come to be seen as Jochum's enduring achievement, his majestic interpretations of Bruckner's symphonies. Throughout the 1990s Lorin Maazel led the orchestra through performance cycles of the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner, and into the 21st century with Schubert and Mahler.

To look at this orchestra's history is to consider a roll call of the major conductors of modern times: Otto Klemperer, Karl Böhm, Bernard Haitink, Sir Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta, Carlo Maria Giulini, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, and Leonard Bernstein, all of whom were guest conductors, while Rafael Kubelik's 18 years as chief conductor introduced a strong Slavic element, well served by his highly appealing emotional approach.

In September 2003, the versatile visionary Mariss Jansons, who has conducted the world's great orchestras from the Berlin Philharmonic, to the Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra, to both the London Symphony and London Philharmonic, and the Vienna Philharmonic, was appointed chief conductor. In becoming only the fifth artist to hold this position in a line of succession which extends from Jochum, to Kubelik, to Sir Colin Davis and on to the masterful, highly individual Maazel, Jansons joined an elite corps.

His debut with the orchestra the following month featured a programme of Britten, Stravinsky and Berlioz. Speaking from his home in St Petersburg on a cold, bright morning - "Such things are relative. Is it cold? Maybe, it is about zero degrees" - Jansons sounds very Russian, precise but affable, and agrees that a defining quality of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra lies in its versatility and its wide repertoire from Haydn's symphonies to the work of Rodion Schtschedrin.

What makes a symphony orchestra, any symphony orchestra, great? It is a difficult question to answer. Jansons considers the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. There is a long pause. "It is one of the world's great orchestras, yes, as well as one of the great orchestras of its own country." The presence of the great rival, the Berlin Philharmonic, which Jansons has also conducted, is never very far from anyone's mind when considering great orchestras. "The Bavarian Radio Symphony has technical perfection, musicality, truly great soloists and that good, profound, deep German sound with a real feeling for the style of the music it plays. The word 'radio', though, I think is not so good. It is old fashioned. Symphony orchestras play in concert halls, not radio stations, and I think 'philharmonic' sounds better than radio."

Whatever about its name, the orchestra's famous wide repertoire and sensitivity to style has been influenced by its attention to New Music. "There are about five or six of these musica viva subscription concerts each season in Munich. They are well supported. This orchestra, it plays everything. This is very important."

He says the classical music audience in Munich is very good. "It is used to having great music." As was he. Jansons is the only child of master conductor and teacher, Arvid Jansons. "All my life, since I was a small boy of three, or four, I had watched my father at work. I copied him. Conducting was my game. I knew I would do the same job as my father."

Of which great musician was he first musically aware? "Beethoven." Jansons was born in Riga in Latvia 1943. Does he feel Latvian or Russian? "I'm a real Latvian, but I have lived a long time in Russia. I like to think I have the best of both." The Latvian musical tradition is strongly folk and it confers a sense of expression. "I have lived in Petersburg since 1956, I studied here. Culture was always very important here, but now, not so much. It's true of everywhere." In the then Leningrad Conservatory, Jansons studied piano, violin and from the beginning, conducting. On graduating in 1969, he completed studies in Vienna under Hans Swarowsky and on to Salzburg, where he studied with the last of the great autocrats, Austrian maestro Herbert von Karajan.

By 1971 he was assistant to Yevgeny Mravinsky, the conductor of the then Leningrad Philharmonic. That same year, Jansons won the International Herbert von Karajan Foundation Conducting Competition in Berlin. This may well have led to Jansons being appointed Associate Principal Conductor in 1971 of the then Leningrad Philharmonic. He held this position until 1999. By then, the orchestra had regained its former name, that of the St Petersburg Philharmonic.

During this period, Jansons formed another important relationship, with the Oslo Philharmonic. His 21-year association with the orchestra brought it world-class status and earned Jansons the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit.

The Oslo years remain important to him. "It was exciting and very important for me. I was quite young when I got that chance. By the end, 21 years later, I was very happy, but not so young any more." He recalls his first appearance on the conductor's platform was in 1968, "a long time ago now". He was 25. Over the years he has seen the way a conductor's personality colours an orchestra.

"I do it my way, that's how I am, that's my personality - but you must also respect the individual sound and character of a fine orchestra. You, the conductor, must attend to the orchestra and its tradition. There must be some kind of continuity. This is why I think recordings are so important. It is more than commercial, it is the documentation. So that in 20, 30, 50 years' time, it is possible to say, 'that is the sound, that was the way that orchestra played under that particular conductor'."

He is about to complete recording the entire cycle of Shostakovich symphonies. "This was for me a most important project, now completed in time for the centenary next year. I have recorded each of the symphonies with a different orchestra and now I finish the cycle with the Bavarian and Symphony No 14."

It is not surprising, considering Shostakovich's profound regard for Mahler, whose music Jansons also reveres. Nor is Shostakovich's the only symphony cycle Jansons has recorded. Not only did his recordings of Tchaikovsky's symphonies with the Oslo Philharmonic help to establish that orchestra's international reputation, the set is considered to be the most appealing recordings of the works, while his superb recording of Dvorak's Symphony No 5, also with the Oslo Philharmonic, won a Penguin award.

Jansons is a classical artist firmly committed to recording in an era in which many soloists have rejected the studio process. He is a realist, well aware that for all the glories of live performance, most of us would have to concede that CD is the prevailing medium for listening. Recitals and concerts don't happen every day and the time constraints of modern living often interferes with physically attending a concert.

Alongside the music of Brahms, Stravinsky and Bartok, Jansons has also recorded that of Kurt Weill. "Why not? It's good music." With such a belief in the breadth of range offered by classical music, it seems that an orchestra as versatile as the Bavarian Radio Symphony is ideal for him. "Classical music needs listeners. It is not as supported as it should be. The situation is not great. The music is, but it needs audiences. Everyone can enjoy classical music, but there are problems of economics. Look at the recording industry. The classical CD market is in crisis. There are so many difficulties. This is why we now have orchestras launching their own labels. We are, too."

The Bavarian Radio Symphony founded its own label in collaboration with Sony Classics. On the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks live label, the orchestra record performances. The debut CD, Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6 and Schöberg's Verlärte Nacht was released six months ago, quickly followed by a live recording of Sibelius's Symphony No 1 and Webern's Im Sommerwind.

Mariss is a good talker, capable of making his points without sounding like a zealot or a dreamer. He is thoughtful, quick-witted, and informed. A public talk given by this man on the current state of classical music, performance standards as well as the darker financial aspects, would be valuable. "Cities like classical music," he says, before remarking that the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, which enjoys a high profile at home in Munich, does not own its own hall. "We rent our two main venues, that's how it is."

Aware of posterity, he is also interested in the moment and the elusive beauty of performance. How conscious is he of the men who wrote the music he conducts? "Oh, very much. You are playing the music and you wonder, exactly how did the composer mean this to be? Is this what he meant? Are we feeling the same way? Have we got it right?"

On New Year's Day, in Vienna 2006, Jansons will conduct the famous New Year's Day Concert. More than 50 million television viewers will share the experience. He is enough of a showman to delight in this and announces with engaging emphasis, "I love the music of Strauss." Best of all, though, for Jansons, who has performed the classical music repertoire with such energy, enthusiasm, intelligence and instinct - there was a memorable performance of Mozart's Requiem at the Lucerne Eater Festival in 2004 - is his love for, and understanding of Mahler. He has been twice awarded the Toblacher Komponierhäuschen, a prize honouring the Best Mahler interpretation by a modern conductor - for his 2003 recording of Mahler's Symphonies No 1 & 9 with the Oslo Philharmonic and again, in 2004, for his spectacular handling of Mahler's Symphony No 6 with the London Philharmonic.

Though not the most immediately accessible of composers, few offer more texture on closer study that Mahler.

"Mahler's music is about everything. Tragedy, drama, love its romance and its hatreds, the grotesque, you know, the absurd. There is tenderness, spirituality. He is saying big things about life, our world, the planet, religion, everything, everything. It's so expressive." He pauses. "Everyone sees, or hears, Mahler differently. Many love this music, some not so much. It's big. But nobody leaves the hall without feeling Mahler's music has impact." This week's concert features two great works; Schubert's Symphony no 8, and Brahms Symphony No 2, in which Beethoven's presence is strongly felt. On its next visit, which will simply have to happen, perhaps Jansons will led the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra through symphonies by Shostakovich and Mahler?

Mariss Jansons conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall on Thursday