Ivan Hewett
Journalist and lecturer
‘A marriage of a joking Scouse conductor and a glamorous Czech soprano – what better symbol could there be of European harmony? And as I discovered, it’s clearly a marriage made in heaven.’
Classical music’s best-known power couple, Sir Simon
Rattle and his wife Magdalena Ko ená, have done something sweetly old-fashioned. It’s the musical equivalent of leaving the bright lights of the city and the sleek modernist pad to curl up in an old country house with a few friends. The Pentatone record label has just released their new album of chamber songs, which they’ve recorded with some musical chums drawn from the Berlin Philharmonic, plus a longstanding English friend, clarinettist Andrew Marriner. Rattle has foregone his usual place of authority on the podium in favour of the piano. As for the music, it’s a bunch of songs for voice and handful of instruments that contain wonderful music by composers we’ve all heard of: Dvo ák, Brahms, Chausson, Stravinsky, Janá ek. But it’s likely many of us have never heard these particular pieces because, frankly, they’re just not important enough – they never feature in any list of their composer’s ‘best works’. Also, they fall between two stools: they’re too big for a song recital but not big enough for a symphony-sized concert hall.
PERFORMING OBSCURE chamber songs is certainly a long way from Rattle and Ko ená’s first musical encounter, which was performing Mozart’s loftily serious opera Idomeneo at Glyndebourne back in 2003. To go all domestic is in a way a perfectly natural move for two people who, having begun their relationship with a whiff of scandal – their affair at Glyndebourne was headline news and caused the break-up of their marriages – have now created a family together. Even so, it’s an utterly uncommercial idea that only two of the most bankable stars in classical music could carry off.
So whose idea was it? They give each other a startled look, as if this is the one question they weren’t expecting. ‘Er… are you starting?’ asks Ko ená. ‘Well, I think it was your idea,’ smiles Rattle. ‘Well,’ says Ko ená a touch hesitantly, ‘Simon and I like to perform songs together at home from time to time, and eventually we thought it would be good to do something in public, but not in a major venue. In fact, the first concert we did together was in Napa Valley, though we had to cancel because I got sick, the way singers do!’ She laughs. ‘Yes, my God, I had to learn so much music for that,’ adds Rattle, with feeling. ‘But that set the ball rolling. We started to explore other repertoire, and we realised there was this whole area of chamber song that has wonderful music, but is so little known.’
Slowly the idea took shape of a concert exploring little-known chamber songs in the company of some friends. Was this partly a deliberate homage to the now vanished tradition of domestic musicmaking? ‘Exactly – but without the alcohol, because when you’re making a recording you need your wits about you!’ says Rattle. ‘Actually, that sort of domestic music-making is how I began. I remember in my teens I used to play a lot of Baroque music, and we were basically sight-reading. I learned a lot of my music as a kid by playing with amateurs in Liverpool, some of whom played to a fantastically high standard. There was a Baroque violinist who was a truck driver, a printer who was the oboist – we always played in his house because he had a harpsichord.’
Ko ená recalls similar enjoyable times in Prague. ‘I used to do concerts with a jazz flute player, a Czech guy who also plays Baroque music, and we gave a series of concerts in the Rudolfinum where we deliberately only looked at our parts one hour before the concert. So we had to be spontaneous because we could not be correct. If we made a mistake we had to seize on it and repeat it and make it part of the performance. It was about making music in the moment, and it was risky, but somehow it always held together.’
So, in the spirit of those early days, they got together with friends to try out some chamber songs. Rattle enjoyed the chance to change roles – ‘frankly, it was nice to actually make some sounds for a change’ – but plays down his piano-playing abilities
‘Simon and I like to perform songs together at home from time to time’
and admits he’s glad they’ve not tackled the tricky Strauss songs included in some of those early sessions. ‘But, you know, it’s not about technique,’ says Ko ená, who clearly thinks her husband is being too modest. ‘I always find that performing with a conductor at the piano is a very special experience, because they always bring this feeling of creating an orchestra at the keyboard.’
The album includes a brand-new arrangement of a clutch of songs by Dvo ák, made by the conductor and Rattle protégé Duncan Ward, and one genuine discovery: an early version of Janá ek’s song-cycle Rikadla (Nursery Rhymes), which came about through a contact of Ko ená’s. ‘A member of the Janá ek Society approached me to say he had discovered these fragmentary songs which the composer later turned into a piece for choir and orchestra,’ she says. ‘This first version is for voice and ensemble, but there are these odd places where the composer asks for more voices to join in.’ Rattle chips in: ‘It was Magdalena’s idea to use the players, but we had to get them drunk before they would even consider singing Czech. When we tried it out in concert it was hysterically funny because they would appear in concert from different places, popping through a door or in a balcony somewhere. It was fine because those extra voices don’t need to be beautiful – they’re not supposed to sound like trained singers.’
Making this album has clearly been a learning experience, as well as enormous fun, and I ask what other things they’ve learned from each other over the years, musically speaking. ‘Well, it’s certainly thanks to Simon that I have explored much more contemporary music in recent years,’ says Ko ená. ‘It’s true I was not a complete novice, because in my childhood in
Brno I was a member of the choir which specialised in Czech contemporary music. But then later Baroque music took over in my life, and I lost touch with contemporary music. Simon re-awoke my interest in that area. For example, he introduced me to Berio’s Sequenza for solo voice, which has become one of my favourite pieces.’ As for Rattle, it’s not hard to guess what he learned from Ko ená. ‘Of course, it was discovering something about the Czech language, and lots of musical repertoire that I didn’t know before. I remember years ago when we were still “illegal”, Magdalena recited to me the poems by Erben [KJ Erben’s A Garland of National Tales] on which Dvo ák’s symphonic poems are based. I was preparing those pieces at the time, and to hear the language of the poems was a revelation. One of them is the basis for The Golden Spinning Wheel, and you can actually sing the main melody to that poem – it’s basically a word setting with no words. Really, it’s so helpful when I’m working on Czech music to hear the Czech language, which is so wonderfully not regular. It’s full of swung rhythms, so you have to be aware of that when looking at the notation. As [conductor] Nikolaus Harnoncourt once said to me, “It’s not what the notation says, it’s what it means”.’
It’s not only Czech music that Ko ená has introduced Rattle to. ‘Because Magdalena is so deeply immersed in Baroque music, she’s introduced me to many other things in older or pre-baroque music which were unknown to me, even though I had studied with David Munrow, the great pioneer of “early music” at the Royal Academy of Music,’ he explains.
‘All those great names of the 17th century – Claudio Merula, Sigismondo d’india, Barbara Strozzi – I had simply never heard of them.’
Given that Rattle comes from the north-west corner of England and Ko ená from a country that used to be part of an empire and was then behind the Iron Curtain, it’s not surprising their musical cultures are very different. Have they also discovered some unexpected affinities? ‘I think one definite affinity between northern England and the Czech lands is a kind of uproarious joy in life,’ says Rattle. ‘The opera that made me become an opera conductor was Janá ek’s Cunning Little Vixen. I never dreamed when I fell in love with that opera aged 17 that one day I would be married to someone who at one time lived only a bike ride from the actual forest where Janá ek used to walk. Also, there’s a wonderful dark humour, though I have to say it’s much blacker in the Czech Republic.’
Ko ená agrees. ‘The most tasteless jokes about Princess Diana’s death came from the Czech Republic, but it was not because they were being deliberately cruel. You have to remember we lived through Communism, when humour was a way of surviving.’ She pauses to think for a moment. ‘But, you know, I think it is older than that. Czechs are quite different from their neighbours. The Slovaks and the Poles, for example, are more religious in temperament, whereas the Czech people have always had the greatest number of atheists. What they believe in is intellect and scepticism, not God.’ The Cold War era has left its mark on the country, in ways that Rattle himself has noticed. ‘It’s a generational thing. I could speak German with Magdalena’s grandfather, but her mother was forced to learn Russian by the Communist government,’ he says, ‘so we couldn’t communicate. I can tell that when Magdalena sings something Russian in Prague, people can understand her, but they don’t like the fact that they can understand her.’
Having broached the subject of politics, it’s hard to avoid the current state of Europe, and of Britain. We can all sense the elephant in the room, and we all start to laugh. ‘I am not going to say a word about that,’ says Ko ená firmly. Rattle seems completely stumped when I ask about his feelings over Brexit. Eventually he says, ‘I wonder who could do justice to it. Would it be Lewis Carroll, Joe Orton, Salvador Dali? I mean… It’s beyond surreal.’ Ko ená breaks in to say she is not exactly happy about what is going
‘One thing that worked out well for us is that we are both immigrants’
on in her own country. Is that because of the surge in support for populist parties? ‘Yes, and these parties are attracting votes because they are promising people that no one of a different colour will be allowed into the country. There is a great fear of immigrants, which is really strange if you spend time in a city like London. For me this is disappointing, but one can see this trend everywhere.’
Given that fact, and the uncertainties over Brexit, it’s no surprise Berlin will continue to be their home for the foreseeable future. ‘We actually had a family meeting to discuss this,’ says Rattle. ‘When I decided to take the job in London everyone was in support of the idea, but we were in doubt as to how to do it. Should we move, should we spend half the time in one city and half in another? But the truth was, no one wanted to leave.’ As Ko ená points out, the children are thoroughly Germanised and want to stay put. They’re growing up bilingual, but will they speak Czech as well? ‘Oh yes, I am the Eastern European dragon mum who insists on it!’ says Ko ená with a laugh. ‘I strictly ration video games as well. But actually, apart from those things, I am pretty easy-going. With the language though, you have to make a big effort to set aside time for it every day, and not be casual, not mix it with English or another languages, otherwise it doesn’t really stick.’ Rattle is listening somewhat sheepishly to this and adds, ‘Yeah, and I’m really fluent in Scouse. Seriously, one thing that worked out well for us is that we are both immigrants. Neither of us is living in the other’s country, which evens things up.’ Rattle admits it’s hard to make family life work with the LSO’S very busy schedule. ‘We are trying to make sure that we find plenty of time for each other, and for them,’ he says. ‘They need us now, not at some unspecified point in the future.’
Family is clearly one thing that binds this couple; another is their extraordinary musical affinity. I quote Jean Cocteau’s remark that good collaborations are like apples and cheese: a meeting of
From podium to piano
Maestros who returned to the stool Simon Rattle’s late foray into piano accompaniment is not so unusual. In fact, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that conductors often prove to be fine pianists. After all, many of them begin their careers as repetiteurs, a role that involves playing for opera rehearsals armed with serious score-reading skills and superb command of the keyboard.
Having reached the lofty heights of the podium, a select few maestros then take advantage of the limelight to return to the piano without any pressure to make a living from it, bolstered no doubt by their handsome conducting fees. So here are a few to have sought out the stool after making it big as a conductor.
Famed for his time conducting the Dallas and Bournemouth symphony orchestras, in 2014, Andrew Litton surprised and delighted the music world with his own virtuosic transcriptions of jazz pianist Oscar Peterson solos, which he performed live at London's Conway Hall and recorded for BIS records. Litton is also something of a well-known interpreter of Gershwin piano works.
Antonio Pappano started musical life as a cocktail pianist and, also in 2014, appeared at the Wigmore Hall, proving himself a fine and entertaining foil for mezzo Joyce Didonato. At the BBC Music Magazine Awards in 2015, he gave a stylish performance of Happy Birthday in honour of Recording of the Year winner, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes.
Further back in time, Georg Solti (1912-97) first made his mark as an accompanist – he was something of a piano prodigy – and returned to the instrument years later, most famously in 1990 alongside Daniel Barenboim, András Schiff and the English Chamber Orchestra for Mozart’s Concerto for Three Pianos K242.
George Szell (1897-1990) was a formidable pianist before he took up the baton, and in later years took many opportunities to unleash his talents, demonstrating to concerto soloists – perhaps not entirely diplomatically – how they ought to play certain passages. Which must have delighted them. interestingly different temperaments. I wonder whether that’s been true in their case? ‘That’s a good question,’ says Rattle. ‘Certainly, I’ve had the experience once or twice in my life of being struck by just how easy a collaboration is. It just works without there having to be any words. And that was absolutely true with Magdalena. In a way it was surprising we ever got together, because we would not have wanted anything to spoil that. It was just like my collaborations with the great pianist Krystian Zimerman. I always knew exactly when he was going to come in, or when he was going to pull back the tempo. We don’t even have to look at each other. And that was immediately true for me and Magdalena.’ Ko ená agrees that their first professional encounter performing Mozart’s Idomeneo was miraculously easy. ‘We just clicked straight away,’ she says, with a meaningful look at her husband. Their new disc is proof that the chemistry is still as potent as ever.
‘Soirée’ is out now on the Pentatone label
‘Our collaboration just works without there having to be any words’