Knowing The Score: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Allan Pulker - The Wholenote
February 2010

One of Toronto’s favourite musicians is a Montrealer: conductor and pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin. And it’s been fascinating to watch the rise of this gifted artist, from Toronto’s vantage point.

In 2003, Quebec conductor Bernard Labadie suggested that Toronto’s Bach Consort invite Nézet-Séguin to conduct Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. (According to Toronto Symphony Orchestra bass player, Tim Dawson, who carries much of the responsibility for the Bach Consort, Labadie said, “Yannick is really very good, you know.”) In October 2004, he stepped in to conduct the Toronto Symphony at the last minute, replacing an ailing Emmanuel Krivine in an all-Russian programme, which included Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. This performance, as I recall, was received with unanimous critical acclaim. In March 2005 he returned to the TSO as guest conductor. Of those performances one reviewer wrote: “soloist and orchestra maintained a sensitive balance and the music came through as an integrated whole. Nézet-Séguin deserves the lion’s share of credit.” He has been back in Toronto every year since then as guest conductor; and in 2007, in the midst of conducting Gounod’s Faust for the Canadian Opera Company, was whisked from the Four Seasons Centre to Roy Thomson Hall, to lead the TSO, replacing Valery Gergiev.

In January of that year I interviewed him during a break in rehearsals for Faust. The big news in that interview, which became the cover story of The WholeNote’s February 2007 issue, was the very recent announcement that he’d been appointed principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. While in Toronto that month he was conducting not only the COC but also the Bach Consort, as well as performing Schubert’s Die Winterreise in recital as a pianist with baritone Alexander Dobson.

There are two big news items this time: first, Nézet-Séguin will be back in Toronto on February 24, this time not as a guest conductor but as the conductor of his own orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic; and second, the first recording of the Rotterdam Philharmonic conducted by Nézet-Séguin has recently been released by EMI classics. According to publicity materials, the disc “explores Ravel’s orchestral music through three themes: childhood, Ancient Greece and waltzes,” and presents Ravel as, in Nézet-Séguin’s words, “the greatest orchestrator French music has ever had.”

In mid January I spoke with a very busy Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the phone. He had just returned to New York from Montreal (where he had conducted a concert by l’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montéal) to conduct that evening another performance of Bizet’s Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera, a run which has been receiving rave reviews. It’s clear that he’s popular all over the place, not just in Toronto. Indeed, something I haven’t even mentioned is that he is principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which he will conduct four more times this season: February 10, 13, 14 and April 10.

This young Canadian is obviously doing something right, very right, to have rocketed to the upper echelons of the conducting world in such a short time. Nine years ago he was the music director of a regional orchestra in Montreal, now he is in charge of one of the world’s great orchestras, and is welcomed with open arms as the guest conductor of the best orchestras everywhere. I wanted to find out in my conversation with him how he was able to draw such a positive response from orchestras, audiences and critics wherever he goes.

I asked him to speak about his approach to three areas of a conductor’s work: preparation (getting to know the scores to be conducted), rehearsal and performance.

He began by pointing out that there is a big difference between learning a score for the first time and preparing to conduct a score that he’s already conducted. “A few years ago everything I did was for the first time, but now I have a repertoire.” He is curious by nature, however, and has to be careful not to overload himself with new music to learn: “I like to discover things, but it’s also such an enormous amount of work to learn anything for the first time,” even if it’s something he’s been listening to since he was 12. His golden rule in preparation is never to let it show that it’s the first time, to learn it so well that everyone just assumes he’s done it before.

I asked him about his studying process. “It’s very much in a linear way. I go through a score from start to finish, trying first to get a sense of the dramatic or narrative line.” At the same time he also tries to bring into focus the structure, or the architecture of the composition. “I work from the details to the general. I know it’s a relatively unusual approach, but it’s always been my way.”

I also asked if he uses the piano or if he reads a score like a book. “It can be anywhere – at home or on a plane – but almost never with the piano.” Interestingly, one of Tim Dawson’s comments was: “When visiting Yannick backstage during rehearsal breaks you will invariably find him sitting quietly with the score. He is very friendly with his visitors, but his main focus is always the music. He is busy preparing music for so many programmes that he is constantly studying. He seems to absorb the music very quickly and his memory is phenomenal.”

And what about recordings as part of his preparation? “Recordings,” he replied, “are important as a preparation before starting to study.” Indeed, he likes to listen to as many different recorded versions of a work as he can get his hands on. Once he has begun to study a score however, he finds recordings almost a frustration. Sometimes he will even feel that a recording he has admired for many years is all wrong, once he’s studied the score.

Moving on to his approach to rehearsals, Yannick’s first comment was that he values rehearsals very much, and doesn’t consider them boring or simply something you have to go through in order to have a concert, where “all the excitement and energy should happen.” In fact, trying to confine all the emotional involvement and magic to the concert can make them a distraction, resulting in performance that is not very deep. “A rehearsal is rewarding when there is something happening – and there’s a good atmosphere and a good pace, sometimes even more rewarding than a good concert.”

We talked about the atmosphere of the rehearsal. “The right atmosphere has to do with a lot of respect [for the musicians in the orchestra] and focus, but at the same time to be able to have a balance between funny moments and lots of concentration.” It is also essential to him for the orchestra to relax and begin to breathe together, which allows the music to unfold naturally. He also likes to keep the pace very high and avoid dull moments. And he finds it impossible to work from a rehearsal plan: “There’s nothing worse,” he commented, “than the musicians feeling the conductor is doing something because it was planned rather than because he was responding to what he is actually hearing. Conductors have to be great listeners. It’s not only showing what has to be done, it’s also to react to what is being done, immediately translating and shaping it.”

Dawson’s comment was that there is something quite magical about Yannick’s rehearsals. “As his rehearsals progress you find that the spirit of the music has entered your consciousness and filled you up. He doesn’t dazzle you with his technique – everything is clear. It’s so easy to play for him.”

Since much of the critical response to the recording and also to his interpretation of Carmen at the Met has included comments on his ability to bring out orchestral colour, I inquired as to how he did this. “It’s so wonderful to talk about this,” he said, “because I’ve been asking myself the same question.” Indeed, people have been telling him that they have heard orchestral colours in his Carmen that they’d never before realized were there! “Colour,” he explains, “actually originates from shape, from a real emotional impulse, from phrasing or even harmonic detail.”

He also thinks there’s a misconception that French music is second rate compared to the great German repertoire, because “it’s all about colour, meaning that it is superficial.” For him it’s pretty much the opposite, and orchestral colour is central to the meaning of the music, originating in the musicians listening to each other, breathing together and finding the flexibility and the supple quality of the phrasing.

At this point our conversation moved on to performance. Expressing something musically, he said, needs a lot of generosity, and in order to be generous one needs to be free. “To be free we need to know what the parameters are.” This, he feels, is one of the roles of the conductor: to keep the orchestra together and integrate the parts into a convincing overarching shape, creating conditions in which the musicians can feel free enough to express the music.

“What in general,” I asked “are your thoughts on recording, and specifically on the Ravel CD, which has just been released?”

“It’s a big debate, because people say there is such an overload of recordings. Why do we need another one of repertoire that has already been recorded so many times? The real importance in a recording is to feel that we have something to say together. In the case of the Ravel recording, it’s the new chemistry [between him and the Rotterdam orchestra], especially since it was made early, in June 2007, after I had been appointed director but before I had actually started. I think the chemistry, which was then very, very special and is still very special, between the orchestra and myself comes out in the recording. You can hear in it the virtuosity of the orchestra, rhythmic clarity, the colours, especially in the playing of the wind instruments, all put to the service of that great music.”

For him and the orchestra there’s something strange about the recording, because together they have evolved since then. Nevertheless, although it is sort of like looking out the rear window and seeing where he and his orchestra have been, it does tell people that there is an unusual partnership there.

I asked him also to speak about l’Orchestre Métropolitain, which he continues to direct, despite the meteoric trajectory of his career. “My continuing involvement with l’Orchestre Métropolitain is essential, because this is the place where I still feel grounded, feel I have my roots. Obviously it is very important for me to give back to the city and be faithful to them – I would not be going back if it were not a worthwhile musical experience. We’re not done yet! The relationship is so great, and the orchestra keeps evolving, so for me to be there four, five, six times a year with the orchestra in my home town is not a burden but a very real way for me to remain grounded.”
I’ll give Tim Dawson the last word, because his words really reveal the pattern that underlies the variety of things that came out in the interview:

“The most compelling thing about Yannick, in my opinion, is his heart. When you are with him he gives you his full attention. He is not looking over your shoulder to see if someone more important is behind you. He does the same for an orchestra. He gives himself completely to the music and in the process invites you to do the same. His is a burning passion for music: it is a gift to share time with him and simply soak up every moment.”