Conductor yearns to shape the rite of primal power

By WILLIAM DART


Yan Pascal Tortelier redefines Gallic charm when I meet him on the eve of his tour with the NZSO.

The conductor's playful response to the question of what it was like growing up with not one, but two cellists as parents is, "I couldn't escape my fate".

It was his famous father, Paul, who made the young Tortelier aware of the lure of the baton.

"He had played with all the great conductors - Bruno Walter, Koussevitsky, Toscanini and Richard Strauss - and he would talk to me about them.

"He had this dream to become a conductor himself but he was such a brilliant cellist - you can't have it all."

It took the young Tortelier 20 years to move from violin to podium, but his background as a professional violinist was an advantage.

"Conductors deal with 60 string players in the orchestra, the rest of the musicians are soloists in their own right.

"You intervene and express your views but it's left to them to perform. With the strings you can really shape it your way."

He looks back on younger days, when he would try to force his views on the orchestra, and says that now he's more inclined to take on board the personality of the orchestra he's working with.

Back again with the NZSO - Tortelier was first here in 1994 - he finds them "in the best of shape. They respond beautifully, and hopefully they think the same of me. I'm very impressed with the way they deal with The Rite of Spring. I find they eat it".

Stravinsky's cataclysmic score is the centrepiece of the orchestra's Saturday concert.

"It's all about the power of the pulse," Tortelier says. "Every instrumentalist has his own demands and challenges, but my role is to create a feeling of primal power and make it as irresistible as possible."

There's a generous sampling of French compositions in both programmes, including Dukas' Polyeucte. "It's like super-French Wagner," Tortelier enthuses, "absolutely magnificent and never played.

"It's a matter of finding the colours and the clarity," he adds. "People think that French music is all impressionistic and has to be whooshy, ethereal and dreamy. No, no, no, it's not just that. There is so much detail and it has to be brought out clearly, even in Debussy's Nocturnes."

The general consensus is that Tortelier likes his tempi on the fast side, and he's quick to mention that it was his father who warned against taking things too slow in a recording.

"But I do like music to flow - there has to be a rapport between the notes, otherwise you lose the connection and the melody. It's like riding a bicycle - if you're too slow you fall off."

One senses in Tortelier a nostalgia for an age now past. He adores Beecham stories and greatly admires this conductor who, like Koussevitsky, "was a dilettante, and not a professional in the sense that we understand it now".

"But they had the ability to inspire an orchestra, a flair which is difficult to find these days. Everything has become so standardised. Orchestras expect conductors not to disturb too much, do a good quick job - and that's a bit sad. There is far less room to express your personality than there used to be.

"A recent audience survey discovered that most listeners identified with the more conventional performances. It's interesting, very interesting, but again a bit sad."

There's a pause, Tortelier draws in a breath and, barely suppressing a chuckle, adds, "I promise to try not to disturb too much."


Concert

*Who: Conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

*Where and when: Founders Theatre, Hamilton, tomorrow 8pm; Auckland Town Hall, Friday 6.30pm, Saturday 8pm