A Maestro's Passion: Fabio Luisi / Conductor

"Direct Talk"

Our guest today is Italian conductor, Fabio Luisi.

He's a globally renowned maestro

who has held prestigious posts around the world,

from the Vienna Symphony Orchestra to New York's Metropolitan Opera.

In September 2022,

he became chief conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra,

Japan's premier classical music ensemble.

Luisi recently mounted the podium in Tokyo for his inaugural concert.

We spoke to the maestro about his work as a conductor

and his passion for music.

A Maestro's Passion

I feel very proud and very privileged

to have been chosen for this position.

I'm just delighted.

And I look forward to even more happiness in the coming years,

as I'll be working together with this orchestra.

It's a great orchestra.

One of the best orchestras in the world, in my opinion.

September 2022.

Luisi led his inaugural concert as chief conductor.

The main program was Brahms's Symphony Number Two.

In front of a full house,

the maestro and the orchestra found a beautiful harmony.

Of course, these first concerts were very exciting.

It was almost like

there was this certain feeling of anticipation, of expectation.

And also, of excitement, since we were starting a collaboration

that will extend over the next few years.

There was a lot of curiosity from everybody,

from the orchestra, from the audience, and from myself, too.

Because being a guest conductor is one thing,

but being a permanent conductor is another thing entirely.

I believe that you really have to work

to establish a strong relationship of trust

between the orchestra and the conductor.

Founded in 1926, the NHK Symphony Orchestra

performs with leading conductors from Japan and abroad.

Its current schedule includes 54 subscription concerts a year.

As chief conductor, Luisi will be conducting a vast range of programs

over the next several years.

This orchestra's greatest strength is its superb technical quality.

Its second greatest strength is that

the orchestra maintains a certain sense of tradition.

That is, the tradition of the numerous maestros who came before me.

Despite the change in the musicians,

there is a sort of collective memory that belongs to the orchestra.

And that memory is very fortunately still being carried on today.

Two days before his inaugural concert, Luisi leads a rehearsal.

As the leader, he must take charge of the 79-member orchestra.

Like most conductors,

a key part of his job is how he gestures to his players.

I believe that a conductor's

single most important responsibility is this.

It is that he must express the inherent character

of the music through his gestures.

He has to convey his musical ideas.

For instance, he has to let the orchestra know

whether to play a passage with explosive force,

or in a soft, intimate and lyrical way.

He communicates this through his gestures.

Once all of this has been conveyed to the orchestra,

the orchestra then has to implement it for the audience.

So the conductor is functioning as a kind of medium,

between the will of the composer, the orchestra,

and then ultimately, the audience.

He communicates in a way

that is immediately understood by the orchestra.

And it's also understood by the audience, to a certain extent.

His will and his ideas don't need to be explained verbally.

I would say that's the secret.

A good conductor is one who doesn't speak much,

but makes himself understood through his gestures.

Today, Fabio Luisi is a world-renowned maestro.

His story starts in Genoa, Italy.

At the age of three, he began taking piano lessons.

I had a very simple family.

My mother was a housewife and my father was a train conductor.

My parents were the ones who made me learn piano.

It wasn't my idea at all.

But I liked it.

Because it was like a sort of game to me.

And because I liked it, I continued.

And then my true passion was born when I was about 14 or 15 years old.

At that time, I realized that music would be a part of my life forever.

Luisi would go on to graduate

from the Niccolo Paganini Conservatory in his hometown of Genoa.

But rather than the piano, he pursued conducting.

Back then, I was often spending time with people involved with music,

including a few singers.

And at a certain point,

I finally realized that piano might not be my thing.

I was very good at playing the piano.

And I was especially good at sight-reading.

There was a woman I met who was planning to take a singing exam.

And she asked me to accompany her on the piano.

Since her exam ended up going very well,

this woman introduced me to some people,

who in turn introduced me to more people.

Many of the people that I met were singers.

And some of them asked me to play with them,

and to help them learn opera.

But to be honest, at the time,

I didn't know anything about the opera repertoire.

However, I was good at sight-reading music.

I was really fast.

And I was also very precise rhythmically.

So I could teach the singers well.

In a way, that's where my story started.

It was then that I realized,

maybe I could join this new world as a conductor.

It was from there that my love for opera, orchestra,

and theater started to blossom.

Luisi then moved from Italy to Austria, to study conducting

at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.

It was a period of struggle.

It was a difficult time because I had no money.

And I had to support myself in my studies,

because my parents weren't able to.

So I had to give piano lessons, singing lessons,

trying everything and anything I could to make money

and be able to keep living in Austria.

I was living alone in a very small room.

Supporting myself, having to buy food and pay rent on my own.

Doing all of that as a young person was very hard for me.

But I knew I wanted to train as a musician and later as a conductor.

So I persisted.

I was firmly convinced that

that was exactly what I wanted to do in life, with all my energy.

In 1985, at the age of 26,

Luisi made his professional debut as a conductor.

Over the years, his reputation grew,

and he held principal posts at the Vienna Symphony Orchestra,

New York's Metropolitan Opera, and more.

He is known as an adept conductor of the opera and symphony.

Bringing an opera to the stage is a complex and difficult thing to do.

You have to face all sorts of unexpected problems, and solve them.

I have done all the things a musician can do.

I have been a conductor.

I have played instruments in the orchestra.

I have been a prompter for the singers,

and cued the singers to help their vocal entries.

I'd say there's nothing that a musician can do in the theater

that I haven't done over the years.

For me, these years have been an extraordinary learning experience.

I earned so much knowledge.

And that includes a love for this job as well,

which I believe to be absolutely necessary.

You never stop being a conductor or a musician.

It's a constant part of your day, of your life.

It's something you don't forget about.

It's a way of life.

Luisi currently keeps a residence in Switzerland.

And he has a hobby he indulges on his days off.

Perfumery.

In this fully-outfitted room,

he crafts and blends all sorts of ingredients.

It's something that I've been passionate about since I was a boy.

I liked going to perfume shops, smelling all of the different perfumes.

But it's just a hobby.

I am not a professional.

Being a professional perfumer is

a very serious and very difficult thing.

Very intensive and in-depth study is required.

I don't have time to take that on, but it's a nice pastime for me.

It transports me away from everyday life,

and forces me to focus quite closely on very different things.

And also, unlike my job as a conductor,

I find that making a perfume is a creative activity.

I create a perfume out of nothing.

I create something that does not yet exist.

And I like that.

It's something I'm very passionate about.

A life filled with the scent of perfume and the sound of music.

But in 2020, that life was turned upside-down.

The COVID-19 pandemic.

Cities were locked down, and the world's theaters were closed.

Luisi said that being unable to perform made him remember something.

I realized how important music is to social life.

And what's important is not just the music itself.

It's the fact that art brings us together,

maybe to enjoy a concert, a play,

or an opera, or to go to a museum.

There has been an impact on our personal and cultural lives,

but there's also been a large impact on our social lives.

I realized this when online streaming began to grow explosively popular.

It seemed like almost everybody was playing music or performing,

and streaming it online.

That worked for a while,

but then we all realized it just wasn't the real thing.

The real thing is going to a concert.

But it's also dressing up to go to a concert,

it's taking the car or the subway,

getting to the theater, entering the music hall,

sitting together with everyone,

and being together with all of the people enjoying the concert.

That kind of experience is important not only for individuals,

but for society as a whole.

Now the arts are back,

and Luisi has become chief conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra.

He wants his concerts to bring the joy of live music

to as many people as possible.

We want to do a good job, to put on good concerts for our audiences.

I'll be taking on a repertoire

that will be different from that of my predecessors.

And I hope that we can do that with a lot of joy and enthusiasm,

and convey this joy and enthusiasm to our audience.

You don't make music for yourself, you make it for other people.

There is no orchestra without an audience,

and there is no audience without people

who create something for an audience.

And that's us.

(Do you have any words to live by?)

"Tolerance" means accepting others for who they are.

Accepting them without expecting them to be different,

just because they are different from me.

In my opinion, this is a very important concept.

If we could all understand the importance of this concept,

I think life would be much easier and more pleasant.