Heinz Holliger, oboist, conductor

It was a grand time in New York this spring as Elliott Carter, the Zehetmair Quartet and a host of others joined HEINZ HOLLIGER for birthday celebrations at the 92nd Street Y.

 

The series heard the U.S. premiere of Holliger's String Quartet No. 2, as well as Holliger playing "a shapley account" of Carter's 'HBHH' (Happy Birthday, Heinz Holliger) and "taut high-energy performances" of the Carter Quartet for Oboe and Strings (2001). Read the full New York Times review.

 

The birthday celebrations continue; Schott Publishing releases two debut recordings of Holliger's compositions, Romancendres and Gesänge der Frühe.

"An immensely powerful, multilayered work, full of dense orchestral writing and highly wrought climaxes." - Andrew Clements on Romancendres for THE GUARDIAN, June 5, 2009

Happy birthday wishes to the Maestro!

(June 2009)

The Wall Street Journal Europe, page 12
(Copyright (c) 2005, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

THE SWISS OBOIST, conductor and composer Heinz Holliger, 65 years old, is one of Europe's most accomplished musicians. Mr. Holliger is a regular guest conductor at the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Basel Musik Forum and the Zurich Opera House. He tours and records with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Ensemble Modern and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. Mr. Holliger has also inspired more than 100 works for the oboe, written for him by such well-known composers as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio and Hans Werner Henze. His command of the instrument as well as his emotional expression makes him one of the great instrumentalists of our time. During a stop in Manhattan to play Elliott Carter's oboe quartet (written for him in 2001), Mr. Holliger found time to chat with Benjamin Ivry at an Upper West Side hotel about his life and his music.

Q: You were born in Langenthal, near Bern, Switzerland. When did you begin studying music?

A: It's a tiny village, where I started to study recorder and piano. By the age of 10, I was already going to Bern for music lessons, traveling alone on the train. I was proud to be permitted to go to the big city.

Q: Why did you decide to focus on the oboe at the Bern Conservatory?

A: At age 10 I already wanted to play oboe, but nobody in my village played the instrument, and they forced me to learn clarinet because at least that was part of the village band. What's most important for playing the oboe is to be a good musician. Unfortunately, many oboists are failed pianists or violinists.

Q: You studied composition with Sandor Veress, a Hungarian pupil of Bartok and Kodaly.

A: The little I know about music, I learned from Veress, whose compositions use small units of folk music in the same way Bach used traditional dances as the basis for his works. Veress is really in the tradition of Bach, writing extremely complex music based on four or five notes from folk melodies.

Q: You also studied in Paris with the famous French oboist Pierre Pierlot.

A: Starting at age 14, every spring and autumn school holiday I went to Paris to study with Pierlot. My excellent Swiss teacher, Emil Cassagnaud, wasn't so interested in technique but was a very expressive musician -- even sometimes overexpressive. At the time I was very interested in sports and running fast, and so I liked Pierlot's fast way of playing. Pierlot stressed that the oboe shouldn't be a heavy instrument, but he didn't inspire me musically.

Q: You also worked with the French pianist Yvonne Lefebure (1898-1986), known as "a volcano at the piano."

A: Her character was volcanic, but as a performer she was very refined and delicate. I learned lots about the oboe in Lefebure's classes, since during piano lessons she would say, "Horn, oboe, clarinet" at different points in the piano music, as if I had to orchestrate the music while playing it.

Q: After joining the Basel Symphony as principal oboist, you studied composition with the radical Pierre Boulez. Has he mellowed since then?

A: I preferred him then. He may seem mellow now, but I think it's because he keeps his thoughts to himself more. Boulez learned that as a conductor you have to make compromises. Back then he was much more divisive: declaring what was allowed or not, what was dirty or clean in music. All that is very French. Before working with Boulez my musical ear wasn't bad, but with him it developed to the point where many people fear it!

Q: The great Polish composer Witold Lutosawski wrote a "Double Concerto for Oboe, Harp and Chamber Orchestra" for you in l980. What was he like?

A: Lutoslawski was one of the most morally upright persons I ever met. He never talked about how he helped lots of Poles who were in political trouble during the years of Soviet rule. Lutoslawski always brought back to friends in Poland a suitcase full of heart medications which were hard to find in communist Poland. He was really an altruist.

Q: You're in Manhattan to play the oboe quartet by Elliott Carter, a composer who enjoys more prestige in Europe than in his native America. Why is that?

A: Carter is the only authentic American composing genius, and Europeans appreciate him because they understand, better than American audiences do, where the roots of his musical traditions originate. Carter's way of looking at music is deeply traditional; and while his extreme expressivity may come from modern Viennese influences, there's also something very jazzy and "dancing" about his music that is American. Plus there's his optimism: never sentimental, unlike some European composers who shed tears with every note.

Q: You also worked with Paul Sacher, the orchestral conductor and wealthy longtime director of the pharmaceuticals giant Hoffman-La Roche, who commissioned over 300 works of music.

A: Sacher was a conductor first, before he became rich. Sacher commissioned works even before he had money. Unfortunately, apart from Bartok, he supported a lot of second-rate composers -- and for years didn't move a finger for the great music of his time. Only after he met Pierre Boulez did Sacher learn his lesson and came around to appreciating modern music. Sacher was also intelligent enough not to try to conduct music he wasn't able to master.

Q: Your first full-length opera "Schneewittchen," recorded on ECM, has been called a radical reworking of the Snow White story: "spare, intense and often raw-nerved." Is it not for children?

A: It's about the characters of the fairy tale, but it's a completely labyrinthine game where everyone on stage has five or six different characters. When the opera was performed in Zurich there was a sign over the box office, "Not for Children" -- but some youngsters came anyway, and liked it very much.

Q: Why have you rarely composed for the oboe?

A: Because the oboe does not have many secrets for me. Composing is a way of discovering new worlds: emerging from a dark cave and being able to see things. The oboe is too close to me for me to feel this sense of discovery in writing for it often.

Q: You are co-artistic director of the Ittingen Music Festival in Switzerland, which you founded in 1995 with the distinguished Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff, who has complained that most musicians only talk about their careers, or food, or exchange off-color jokes.

A: Actually, Andras Schiff enjoys telling jokes very much, even not-very-clean ones, and also very much likes food, so he was partly speaking about himself. Andras and I have different personalities, but we get along because the main thing is to let the other person breathe. I can sometimes be intolerant and say, "I like this" and "I hate that," but I try to smooth down this type of reaction. Schiff really believes that the piano is not just an instrument, but part of a larger world of music making -- and this is where we meet on common ground. (April 2005)

"A grand - and ongoing - musical relationship is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary. We are speaking of the JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET's residency at the Library of Congress..." (read Joe McLellan's full review) Another special relationship is that of the Juilliards with oboist HEINZ HOLLIGER, with whom it will tour the U.S. in January 2005. (January 2005)