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Three questions for Yannick Nézet He is a rising star in the conducting fraternity and, at the tender age of 32, the Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra: Yannick Nézet-Séguin will be performing on Sunday at 4 p.m. with the orchestra in Konzerthaus Dortmund. When you were ten, you told your parents you wanted to be a conductor. Did you have a sense of vocation? Yes, in fact I did. I was fascinated by a lot of things at the age of ten, but conducting was different; I was in my element. I sang in a choir back then and really liked the conductor. And Charles Dutoit, the conductor of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, was very famous, too. I simply had to watch his concerts on television. At the age of 32, you found yourself succeeding Valery Gergiev as music director. Were you worried that his footsteps would be too big for you to follow in? No. Every orchestra has its own history, and each conductor adds something to it. It was not my aim to be compared to him. The members of the orchestra knew that I would be different, but they also knew that I would not change the important things. I am, of course, honoured to succeed such a great conductor, but I was also chosen for my qualities. It’s good to be different. In Dortmund, Strauss and Messiaen are on the same programme. Isn’t that a strange combination? Not at all, it’s actually one of my favourite programmes. It’s about the human struggle between hope and pain, how we fight wars and destroy ourselves. Messiaen has a spiritual, religious way of looking at things that is characterized by pain, sin, heaven and hell. The backdrop to Ravel’s piece is the First World War, in which he lost many friends. Although Strauss’s piece is positive, it does convey Europe’s behaviour before the war, and that the cultural pride and riches of Europe had to become entwined in conflict, to a certain degree, although the work does end on a hopeful note.
Traduit de l’allemand par L'Orchestre Philarmonique de Rotterdam
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