כשהייתי בת 18 פגשתי את מאסטרו בנג'מין זנדר בזמן שהוא ניצח על הפילהרמונית בפעם הראשונה.
סיפרתי לו שאני חולמת להיות מנצחת והתחלתי להתפלספף איתו על ניצוח ביתר התלהבות. הוא ביקש שאכתוב לו את מחשבותיי וכך עשיתי. יום לאחר שהגשתי לו את מה שכתבתי, גיליתי להפתעתי שהוא פרסם את זה באתר שלו:
סיפרתי לו שאני חולמת להיות מנצחת והתחלתי להתפלספף איתו על ניצוח ביתר התלהבות. הוא ביקש שאכתוב לו את מחשבותיי וכך עשיתי. יום לאחר שהגשתי לו את מה שכתבתי, גיליתי להפתעתי שהוא פרסם את זה באתר שלו:
A young girl - still in high school- came up to me after the concert
yesterday. She had been at some of the rehearsals and also at both
concerts. "Most conductors", she said, are content to get the orchestra
to play well and together, you seem to want to share every feeling and
every story in the music and that makes the players play better
together, because if they share a common idea or vision they will be
able to perform it in a more unified manner". Well, I said, you have
got to the very heart of the matter! That may be the secret. These
people feel the value of life so completely, and their feelings are
their mode of communication; heartbreak and sorrow are their daily
experience and so they are open with every pore of their bodies to the
profoundest expression in the music. Of course!
Do we sometimes
in America and England, in the hurly burly of the professional
run-around, forget that music isn't a job. It's a "way of being" that
causes other people, who come in touch with it, to have fuller more
expressed lives?
More thoughts later!
The young girl who
spoke to me at the concert wrote down her thoughts (because I asked her
to). Here is what she wrote. Her mother plays Double Bass in the
orchestra - that's why she was at the reherasals. Also it is school
holidays:
"Watching you conduct the Israel Philharmoinic at
the rehearsals of the Mahler 3rd reminded me of something important,
which I think that I knew, but had forgotten.
It is amazing how
much an orchestra changes with different conductors working with it.
Sometimes it even happens that a conductor interfers with the making of
the music instead of helping it come alive.
To my mind, it is not
necessary to teach an orchestra like the Israel Philharmonic how to
play the compostition. With such brilliant musicians the most valuable
thing a conductor can give to this orchestra is inspiration, or in other
words a reason to live!
Giving them imaginative ideas behind
which they can unite is similar to a leader of a country uniting his
people under a principle or goal.
Therefore telling the members
of the orchestra they should be together in rhythmn and colour is
useless in a way, for it is like locking them up somewhere together and
forcing them to get along. Whereas, once they have a mutual meaning or
essence, they will stay together even if you open the door for them to
leave.
Your work was according to this idea and has inspired me as well!
Sincerely
Shiri Amir.
Thank
you Shiri. You, in turn, have reinspired me - and possibly countless
others. Freedom comes not from having no rules - that leads to chaos,
which is another form of tyranny (as we see in Iraq today). True freedom
comes from clarity. But you have already said it so beautifully. I do
not need to add anything else. All that remains is to conduct one more
concert in Tel Aviv tonight and then I leave at 3.30am tomorrow to go
back to Boston where I will rehearse the Boston Philharmonic tomorrow
evening! I feel extremely privileged in my life. It will be hard to say
farewell to Israel - the land where they care deeply about life and
music!
