Cristian Măcelaru speaks with Maison de la Radio about being Music Director of Orchestre National de France

An interview with the music director of the Orchestre National de France (Photo credit: Sorin Popa)

Cristian Măcelaru: Saint-Saëns in the veins of the National
By Christian Wasselin
Maison de la Radio et de la Musique
September 1, 2021

Cristian Măcelaru, what does the Orchestre National de France represent for you today?

I have always found the Orchestre National de France to be the European counterpart of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which I have often conducted, because it has the culture of sound, a sound produced by the full tone of the strings and the color of the winds. The National Orchestra is like an Arabian horse: you don't have to force it to go faster, you just have to establish an exchange between the musicians of the orchestra and myself so that the musical tension is maintained. This exemplifies the quality of our rehearsals: the work is very intense, but the atmosphere is relaxed because everyone feels at ease. And that, I think, is the heart of my work: to find the place where the orchestra feels most comfortable so that it plays at its best without my having to impose a point of view. Developing a performance, with an orchestra of this caliber, is a conversation. Most of what we have to do is in the music, and my role is to communicate to the musicians what the score is telling me. It's not about what I think, it's about how we communicate the spirit of the music to the audience. Whatever orchestra I'm in front of, I spend 90% of the first rehearsal listening to the orchestra, identifying the best in it. A great orchestra is like a great singer; when it is well accompanied, it sounds even better.

You compare the National Orchestra to the Philadelphia Orchestra. In what way is it also the heir to the French sound?

The French character of the National Orchestra comes from its flexibility, its elegance. I think the word that best describes it is suppleness. Its color comes from the richness of its sound (I remind you that the National Orchestra uses French bassoons) but also from the mixture of this richness with a softness, something brilliant, but also a transparency that makes nothing sound thick in what it produces. A bit like a dancer at ease in space who finds the ground with lightness.

We come to the famous question of French music: one of the missions of the National Orchestra is to interpret it with excellence. But does French music exist in itself? And if so, what characterizes it?

When one thinks of French music of the 19th century, one thinks first of opera, then of composers like Berlioz or, at the very end of the century, Debussy. However, there is an important French orchestral repertoire, which must be approached with the same conviction that one would use to conduct Beethoven. One cannot reduce the identity of French music to sound, but it is a fact that each French symphonic score creates its own orchestration. I make it a point of honor to faithfully render the composer's thoughts, without conducting the work that I would have liked the composer to write.

All conductors say that...

But I do it! (Laughter.) During my second concert with the National Orchestra (it was in July 2019, before I was appointed music director), I had the musicians rehearse Ravel's La Valse for ninety minutes; they were astonished, because this work is part of their repertoire. Yes, but I had many of the indications that had been added by the previous conductors erased, in order to return to the original. Interpreting is first of all understanding the composer. Mahler said: to continue a tradition is not to stir the ashes but to keep the fire alive.

The scores of all composers do not reach the same degree of precision. Those of Berlioz or Mahler are more detailed than those of Beethoven...

If one leaves aside the metronomic indications, one must approach the language of the composer as closely as possible. Articulation (staccato, legato) and rhythm define the character of the music; then the harmony defines the trajectory of the music; and then come the motives and the melody, which define the structure, but the structure also allows one to grasp the smallest details. If Brahms indicates dolce and later espressivo for the same melody, it is not by chance: dolce calls for a color; espressivo, a feeling. I am convinced that the better we play Saint-Saëns, the better we will play Boulez and Dutilleux. I once asked Pierre Boulez this question: "What are you studying at the moment? He gave me this answer: "I am studying musical structure. There is indeed a dialectic between structure and details. The same goes for painting: if you understand the structure of a painting, the details jump out at you.

Which French composers are your favorites?

I love Duparc, especially his symphonic poem Lénore, Chausson, Massenet, Lalo, and of course Saint-Saëns, who is an incredible composer. Take the beginning of the finale of his First Symphony: there is a solemn rhythm in the manner of Lully! This symphony is the work of a young, seventeen years old musician; it can evoke Mendelssohn or Schumann, but its harmony is inimitable.

A book published a dozen years ago bears the title: Saint-Saëns, the French Beethoven...

What is regrettable about Saint-Saëns is that he did not evolve his language, or very little. He died at more than eighty years old, four years before the creation of Wozzeck, when Stravinsky, Strauss and Schoenberg had already produced their masterpieces, but he only advanced his own music by twenty years. In twenty years, Beethoven made a leap of two centuries in his music! If I really had to compare, I would compare Saint-Saëns to Mozart; there is the same naturalness in the music of both. I am very happy that this year we are giving great orchestral selections by Saint-Saëns, but also very rare works such as the Requiem or the incidental music for La Foi, which we will be placing in parallel, during the same concert, with the Piano Concerto "L'Égyptien" and with Debussy's ballet Khamma, a ballet that features an Egyptian priestess.

Precisely: how did you build the 21-22 season, which is the first season you really conceived as the National's music director?

First, I studied all the programs given by the orchestra over the last fifty years in order to get to know its repertoire. Then I combined well-known French works, such as Daphnis et Chloé, and lesser-known works, such as those by Saint-Saëns that have been mentioned, and I added pieces such as Scriabin's Poème de l'extase, where the French influence is felt. The orchestra must also play an international repertoire: Mahler's Fourth, for example, which I will conduct with a work by Bruno Mantovani. I don't want to specialize, I'm obsessed with the desire to discover, and each program I design is made for a particular orchestra. It is rare for me to give programs here and then repeat them elsewhere. As far as contemporary music is concerned, I mentioned Mantovani, but in May I will also conduct a work by Philippe Manoury. It would be limiting not to rub shoulders with today's music, with Dusapin as well as with John Adams. I direct a festival of contemporary music every summer in California, and those two weeks are essential for the health of my soul! Our mission is also to bring the world's greatest composers to us.

We've talked about composers from the late 18th century to today, but are you ready to conduct works by Bach?

Of course I am! All orchestras should play Bach, which is the genesis of symphonic music and harmonic development. Bach can help us to play Saint-Saëns better.

There is also jazz, with for example the concerto of Martial Solal that you will conduct in January, and the improvisation...

One of my great friends is Wynton Marsalis, whose Violin Concerto and Blues Symphony I have recorded. Don't forget that Kurt Masur first commissioned Marsalis for a symphony orchestra. The result of that commission, All Rise, was premiered in 1999 by the New York Philharmonic, of which Masur was music director at the time, and performed four years later by the National Orchestra. Finding a good swing is not easy for a classical musician. For my part, in the framework of the new "Visitors to the National" series in May, I will be improvising with violinist Augustin Hadelich and with Sarah Nemtanu, one of our two solo violins. I like to improvise; I think I will have a lot of fun that night.

You are also a composer...

I like to compose, it’s my favorite pastime; it allows me to make a dialogue between the sounds which are in my head with the feelings which are in my heart. I write with a pen, like Stravinsky who said that he preferred to write music rather than to compose! But for now, I can't afford to devote several weeks in a row to this work, as Mahler did during the summer. It is possible to be a composer and a conductor, as Thomas Adès shows, but it is difficult to compose while being the music director of an orchestra. Pierre Boulez and Leonard Bernstein were both music directors of a single ensemble. I am aware of the responsibility that I have at the head of the Orchestre National following Martinon, Maazel, Dutoit, Masur, Gatti, Krivine: a conductor really makes his mark on a single orchestra during his career. Simon Rattle's work in Birmingham will be remembered above all.

You are going to go so far as to conduct yourself in the concert given during the Fête de la musique as part of the "Viva l'orchestra" festival...

In the United States I understood the need to put the orchestra at the heart of society. You can't imagine the pleasure amateur musicians feel when they achieve what they thought was impossible! Music education, which Pierre Boulez also showed me was necessary, is not a dogma but a way of opening the mind.

The National Orchestra will give a series of concerts as part of its Grand Tour, in which you yourself will participate...

This is also our mission. My American experience has also shown me that orchestras must be ambassadors of art. If audiences far from the big cities don't know that symphony concerts exist, how will they have the desire to attend? We will not play to overshadow the ensembles that exist in other French cities. When the Berlin Philharmonic comes to Munich, do the Munich audiences sulk? No, they are very happy to listen to an orchestra from Berlin.

By the way, what do you think of the Radio France Auditorium?

In the Philharmonie, the sound is beautiful and limitless, but there is not the intimacy that I find in the Auditorium of Radio France. We practice the art of speech at the Philharmonie but we practice the art of conversation at the Auditorium. Art is a conversation that brings us together, and the metaphor of art finds its resolution at Radio France. "Nothing belongs to you, you must give everything", said Enesco. Music is indeed only sound; it becomes art only when it is given it to others.  

Translation by Andrew Bogard

To view the full interview, click here.