- 7 weeks ago
Is Joseph Haydn's music boring? Not at all, say Paavo Järvi and the musicians of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. On their musical journey through Haydn's symphonic works, they discover new and surprising things.
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00:08Haydn has always been in the shadow of Mozart and Beethoven.
00:17With so much repertoire, why Haydn?
00:21Haydn? Couldn't that be a bit boring?
00:30The London symphonies are all pure gold.
00:38You can't simply run through Haydn. You have to dig out the small hidden treasures.
00:43You have to dig in the mountains.
00:57His symphonies are so full of humor.
01:15The last symphonies of Haydn, the London symphonies, are really the kind of perfect prototypes for everything that we now
01:24consider a classical symphony.
01:27The Deutsche Kammer Philharmonie Bremen and conductor Pavel Yervi are on a mission.
01:32They want to bring Joseph Haydn's symphonies into the 21st century in a series of concerts and recordings.
01:39They've already applied this approach to the symphonies of Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms.
01:44Now they're turning to Haydn, a composer who played an important part in music history, but whose symphonies are rarely
01:51heard in concert halls.
01:57Doing this Haydn project is a very strong wish of Pavel's. It's his vision. We want to learn together. He
02:04wants to learn from us and with us.
02:16Pavel and Haydn, for me they almost blur into one person. They are two souls with a connection that find
02:22and seek each other. It's wonderful to be part of it and we have a sense of humor too.
02:35My hope is that the project will bring some kind of attention, new light, perhaps a little bit more love
02:43to Haydn.
03:08The Kammer Philharmonie rehearses in a school building on the outskirts of the northern German Hanseatic city of Hanse.
03:14Bremen. This is where the orchestra works on its repertoire. On occasion, the space is converted into a recording studio.
03:22As now for the ambitious Haydn project recordings. The London symphonies, twelve in all, composed between 1791 and 1795.
03:34We left it like that at the time. That's how we left it and it sounded very good. Here we
03:39can change it a bit if we have to, but I'd rather not.
03:43Sound engineer Jean-Marie Geisen ensures that the orchestra sounds exactly as it did during the last recording sessions.
03:50A total of 50 microphones are needed, but there are three main ones that will determine the sound texture.
03:56The recordings will be made available on CD, as downloads and on streaming platforms.
04:02Over the next two days, Symphony 93 by Josef Haydn will be recorded.
04:12Estonian-American conductor Paavo Yervi will lead the orchestra.
04:18I'm Paavo Yervi, the artistic director of the Deutsche Kammer Philharmonie for more than 20 years.
04:25The star conductor is working with a very unusual orchestra, a self-confident and democratic unit organized as an independent,
04:34private company.
04:35From the beginning, its members have countered a top-down hierarchy with cooperation and co-determination and cultivated a climate
04:43of creativity.
04:44The 41 musicians are also shareholders who bear both artistic and economic responsibility.
04:50The Kammer Philharmonie has achieved almost all it's set out to, and has played its way into the elite of
04:57world orchestras.
05:05The beginning, the first moment.
05:07The beginning, the first moment.
05:11The first moment.
05:21In the very beginning of the symphony, he starts with these great chords, the statements.
05:31and then you expect something epic,
05:33but he pulls back and he starts telling the story.
05:39As if he's saying, now, everybody settle down,
05:45there's something I want to tell you.
05:47And he sets up all the characters,
05:50and he says, well, there was this and there was that.
05:56And at the end of the introduction,
06:00he leaves you with a little question mark,
06:03and then the story begins.
06:06There are so many things that simply make you listen
06:09from the very first second, if you want to listen.
06:16My name is Sarah Christian,
06:18and I've been the concertmaster
06:19of the Kammer Philharmonie for 10 years.
06:24Beginning, please.
07:13In the 93rd symphony, the flutes play
07:16unison the whole time. There is no second flute part, there is only A major which
07:22means in pairs or solo. And the question is why does he write solo? Well of course
07:29the instruction is that only one part is to be played but does that mean it
07:33should be played quieter or does that mean it should be individual? But with
07:38Parvo it's often the case that he says, come on, do something.
08:06My name is Bettina Wild and I'm the principal flute. I've
08:11been in the Kammer Philharmonie for a very long time, since 1992.
08:15Just one other couple of things please. Paavo in bar 11 for flutes, first oboe, first
08:21violins, could they make the phrase more obvious? That these are two
08:28phrases and in bar 12 the second quarter note needs to be less than the downbeat.
08:34Right now I'm hearing...
08:36Okay.
08:38But two phrases starting from pick up to 11.
08:42My name is Philip Traugott, I am the recording producer and I've worked with the
08:47Deutschkammer Philharmonie Bremen and Paavo Yervi for almost 20 years.
08:51Okay, let's please begin bar 105 second time.
08:58Yep, 105.
09:00Let's just check the tempo.
09:02Let's take 41.
09:18This team, Philip Traugott and Paavo Yervi, who have known each other for a really long
09:24time from their student days, is very special I would say. Paavo trusts Philip totally.
09:32And Philip sits there in his room and conducts in the sense that he has an incredibly clear
09:36schedule of how he wants to do it. And Paavo conducts the music. And in most cases it's
09:44Philip who says what needs to be recorded again. That's his job, of course.
09:50I'm Elke Schulze-Höckermann, principal horn of the Kammer Philharmonie since 1993.
09:55That's my own 93.
09:58Can you please in fact have the woodwinds from 1.22 with Paavo in tempo?
10:02Where?
10:04One, two.
10:08Actually, recording sessions require many playthroughs of the music.
10:13The system and process that Pavel and I have developed over the years, which seems to work
10:19very well for us, is a combination of longer takes, perhaps complete performances of a
10:24movement, and then shorter patches, as we say, going through the work to get more of
10:30the detail and more of the precision that we all want later on.
10:34And I try to vary this as much as possible, so that the musicians actually never know
10:40what's going to happen next. And this is one of the ways that I hope to keep the music
10:45making spontaneous and fresh.
10:48Can we please, one more time, have at 169, horns, trumpets, bassoons and cellibass?
10:56Just to have that motor rhythm going. 169, that group in tempo.
11:09When Philip comes to record, everyone is a bit like, oh, he hears everything. You have to be on your
11:16toes.
11:18He demands an incredible amount from us. And if Philip says it's not yet good enough, then it's not yet
11:25good enough.
11:26It's a complicated job because you need to be a diplomat, you need to be a musician, you need to
11:31be a technician,
11:32you need to be sometimes a pedagogue because certain things you need to listen with a very critical ear.
11:37Was that in tune? Which one exactly needs to be fixed? It's a lot of little moving parts and a
11:44good producer is able to do all of that.
11:47Good, thank you. Let's please begin bar 143, bar 143. Take 29.
11:56That upbeat, even lower, even longer. Let's take 143.
12:22There's a passage in the first movement where the flute plays a motif that is recognisable from the Blue Danube
12:28waltz.
12:30And we celebrate that, so we act as if we're quoting the Blue Danube, which of course can't be the
12:35case.
12:36Haydn never meant it to be that way. So it's taking a liberty and cheeky to do it like that,
12:41but it's just a lot of fun.
12:42It makes a lot of fun.
12:47At 1.59 when you have this...
12:52Maybe a bit more Viennese, Straussian.
13:04It's nice if we are playing still this upbeat because it's printed the way.
13:11It could be a little wider for the oboe as well.
13:24The symphony is recorded digitally in parts called takes, which are then put together by the sound engineer in post
13:31-production.
13:32Listening to the takes in the sound control room is essential, because what the microphones record sounds different than it
13:39does on stage.
13:42Maybe, maybe not too slow. In tempo. And this is too fast here. Then this one.
13:52We always try to put the same passion on our CDs as we do at the concerts.
13:57And the more passionately you play, the greater the risk that something goes wrong, because you give up a bit
14:02of control.
14:03And the recording sessions are really about perfection.
14:07There's a big difference because the musicians are all sitting in their own places where I sit.
14:13I hear the first violins, the horns and the cellos, much more than the trumpets and second violins.
14:19So we can't assess the balance.
14:22We all go up and listen to what we have produced and then realize, well, downstairs it sounds like this.
14:28And upstairs it sounds completely different.
14:31So this listening from the outside is a completely different dimension.
14:35I'm Ulrich König, I'm an oboist in the Kammerfeld Harmonie and I've been with the orchestra for quite a long
14:41time.
14:43This, sorry, this one, should be a little bit of a question mark.
14:49Maybe not too final, yeah, this one.
14:57Listening together is a hallmark of the orchestra.
15:00It shows that the members of the orchestra identify with it and all want to make the recording as good
15:05as possible.
15:09My name is Matthias Beltinger, I am the principal double bass of the Kammer Philharmonie and have been playing in
15:14the orchestra for a very long time.
15:21Harvo and Philipp really value this democratic principle, the way that so many people get involved.
15:38That's great.
15:39And the part of our The
15:39Percent, de controle all week.
15:40And that's great!
16:09My name is Jonas Krause, and I've been principal timpanist with the Kama Philharmonie since 2019.
16:20Visually, I have a very stereotypical image of Josef Heiden, a powdered white wig and knee-length red coat.
16:26I think he walked in a very upright manner, proud, but not at all vain, very funny, mischievous, and I
16:33think very sociable.
16:34You could have spent lovely evenings with him, enjoying a beer and some roast pork.
16:40Josef Heiden was born in Austria in 1732.
16:44He was the Kapellmeister, the music director, at the court of the Esterhazy Princes for almost 30 years.
16:51There, he conducted the orchestra and composed both sacred and secular music.
16:56He also composed the melody for what is now the German National Anthem, writing it as the Imperial Anthem in
17:02Austria.
17:03How I feel about Heiden, and how I grew up thinking about Heiden, was always this rather stiff portrait that
17:10you always see everywhere,
17:11with a wig and a little bit just uptight, you know.
17:15And I think that these portraits, they are not right.
17:20When you listen to his music, and most importantly, listen to the humor in his music,
17:27this cannot come out of a person who is uptight, stiff, and boring.
17:35It just is not possible.
17:38Heiden was actually a hard-working musician who gave his whole life to music and composed an innumerable number of
17:44works.
17:45That's why I feel Heiden was a bit like, well, a bit like us.
17:52My name is Nüla McKenna, I'm the principal cellist, and I've been playing in the Kammer Philharmonie for eight years.
18:01When Prince Nikolaus von Esterhazy died, a new chapter began for the 58-year-old Heiden.
18:07The court orchestra was dissolved, and he was suddenly a freelance composer.
18:11He accepted an invitation to London, where he was soon celebrated by high society.
18:17From 1791 on, he gave major concerts there, and continued composing.
18:22The Twelve London Symphonies are among his most popular works.
18:26He died in Vienna in 1809 at the age of 77, a wealthy man of world renown.
18:35He was one of the richest composers of his time.
18:38I mean, he was having dinner with kings and queens in London.
18:42In Austria, he was a servant.
18:45Even at the end of his life, people said, like, why is he buying a house here in the middle
18:48of Vienna?
18:49I mean, he's just a musician.
18:50A musician should be going through the kitchen door and entering with servants.
19:09A musician should be going through the kitchen door and entering with the hypoth spans.
19:10A musician should be going through.
19:14A musician should play.
19:14A musician should be Emma Thompson, as old man of broader shots.
19:14A musician should be gracias.
19:15A musician should be seated.
19:16A musician should be from, as old man of negro more at the neighbor's�도 North by the strength.
19:18A musician should be睡ed up and сказать,
19:21A musician should be frigid up and achtergrpped in his life.
19:33I think he was given certain liberties in London that he didn't have in Esterhazy.
19:38It was clear that he was given carte blanche and was told, come to London, write as much
19:42as you want, let yourself be inspired.
20:06The London symphonies are all pure gold, musically, without exception.
20:16And each time I always hear the music in a totally new way.
20:49The great thing about our orchestra is that although we play and even record these pieces
20:54over and over, we discover them anew each time and somehow bring our own vitality to them.
21:15The Haydn symphonies, particularly even in the London symphonies, which are really great
21:19masterworks, are often enjoyed more by the conductor and musicians than the audiences.
21:27Audiences can often relate more to the extreme elegance of Mozart or the dramatic tension that
21:34is found in Beethoven.
21:39Josef Haydn wrote music history.
21:41His symphonies cemented a new creative principle that still functions today.
21:54Heidn has consolidated the form of the symphony, so we now know how it goes.
21:58There's always a slow introduction and a fast first movement, then a slow second movement,
22:03the minuet and trio as the third, and finally another allegro.
22:07So all the generations that followed Haydn knew that's how a symphony works.
22:11The symphony.
22:32Haydn is a little bit more pragmatic in his music, but his music, when it is taken in the
22:38right spirit and with the right sense of humor and with the right proportions, it clearly
22:46becomes a composer on the same level as Mozart, as Beethoven, as Schubert, as Schumann, as Brahms,
22:53as all the greats.
22:55He's really one of the greats.
22:59The orchestra is performing the Haydn symphonies at the Vienna Konzerthaus over two evenings.
23:04They play 80 to 90 concerts a year, an important source of income.
23:10Proceeds from ticket sales, recordings, and sponsorship deals make up some 75 percent of
23:16the orchestra's total earnings.
23:18The other 25 percent comes from state subsidies.
23:30Before we record, we always have long tours, and we are always making sure that we
23:39are in the flow of the music.
23:43Every musician, given the choice, would say they prefer a concert because, of course,
23:48the audience is part of it.
23:52You know that the spark has ignited, especially when it's packed to the rafters,
23:56which fortunately is often the case.
23:58It's simply a great atmosphere.
24:18Are you still nervous sometimes?
24:22No.
24:25Excited, yes, but not nervous.
24:34Very often in concert, I experiment a little bit.
24:37Orchestra always knows to kind of be on their toes because we do unexpected things.
24:42I never know what I'm going to do.
24:58I hope that this project will somehow help a little step towards bringing Haydn back to
25:04the large symphony repertoire.
26:00Whatever village files that have opened in to take out and
26:01closer to the ocean Eck��
26:01Laureen
26:01Haydn
26:01Soul
26:01verdign
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