SF Interviews Music@Menlo's David Finckel

You have half a dozen Music@Menlo festivals under your belt now, can you reflect on what works, what had to be fixed, what you want to keep, what you want to improve?

We are always looking for ways to maximize the returns on the investments of our artists in the festival - to make sure their work is heard, appreciated, understood, and rewarded as it should be. One can never do enough of that as a serious presenter, because the rewards are endless, and the raw material is on your plate.

Organizing the festival is no easier now than it was at the beginning, except that as our staff has grown in size and experience, there are more people to accomplish the work. I think if it ever gets easy, we should worry that something may have been lost.

How do you keep track of new musicians and groups? What do they need to do to be invited to perform?

As a rule, Wu Han and I are always looking for artists unknown to us to might add something extraordinary, not only to our audiences on both coasts but to us personally as inspiring colleagues. We are often led in someone’s direction by a recommendation, and this method often proves valuable. Naturally, our curiosity develops if we hear of someone over and over again, and we’ll try to hear them ourselves. In general, we don’t present people we have not heard in person, as a kind of unspoken promise to our audiences.

How do you object to me arguing that the programs are slightly more conservative that in past editions, with one piece by a living composer and one Ligeti, but the rest of it is pretty familiar territory? Is it a case of ITE-ness, where you stick to the tried and true? And who is that lone living composer, Pierre Jalbert, by the way?

If you determine that the programming is more conservative by counting the number and proportion of contemporary works, you are free to do so, but that’s not how we think about it. Our programming this summer, or any summer, or winter, never has anything to do with the economy. We had planned a Mendelssohn festival for some time. He just happened to have been born exactly 200 years before the economy crashed. Should we blame him for that?

Pierre Jalbert is a well-known composer whose work we have enthusiastically endorsed, including commissioning him to compose a sonata for us [ed. "us" = Wu Han and Finckel, who gave the premiere in Aspen] which we have recorded for release on ArtistLed this fall. His trio, in our opinion, is a serious work that represents a new future for piano trios on a level with Mendelssohn’s. That’s why his music is with us this summer.

Are you aware of efforts such as Classical Revolution for chamber music? It's quite impressive to see a bar/coffee house packed with twenty somethings to listen to a piano quintet. Would you come to SF on a Sunday evening sit down with your cello?

Maybe. I think it’s great that new listeners may get hooked on classical music through these venues. For myself, with the limited time I have for attending concerts, or even seriously listening to music, I prefer places with great acoustics where the environment is very quiet, without distractions. Not to mention that I’m much more comfortable performing in those same environments - it’s simply what I’m used to.

At Music@Menlo, we go to great lengths to ensure an intense, state-of-the-art listening experience in every way, from our ultra-high-end (and costly) Hamburg Steinway pianos, to personally supervising lighting rehearsals, to being present for balance checks in EVERY dress rehearsal, for student concerts as well. In New York, Lincoln Center just spent almost 200 million dollars to make Alice Tully Hall sound better. We are into high quality everything, and I especially recommend that kind of classical music experience to the uninitiated.

You're coming back in October at Stanford with the Emerson String Quartet. You played the Brahms Quartets last time in SF, and that night, it sounded like there were two quartets, when Phil or Eugene plays 1st violin. Phil was much more understated, and Eugene more vigorous. Can you explain the dynamics of the change in personality of the ensemble from your point of view?

You are bringing up a point that thousands of listeners and probably hundreds of critics have been aware of since the Emerson Quartet first started. What should I say? We are not hurting for business, and I dare say that the different playing styles of the two violinists are one of the greatest strengths we have. Not everybody sees it that way, but we can’t help that. In any case, not one of our interpretations is dominated or directed by the first violin, as has been the avowed practice of some other quartets. We are extremely democratic and what comes out is the product of our collective musicianship.

You have played with Leon Fleisher (that Brahms program was part of your CD with him) and you will play with Menahem Pressler during Music@Menlo. Both are in their 80s and still performing. Is it only pianists, or could you picture yourself playing for the next 30 years.

You are very kind to allow me that possibility, but I don’t think it’s going to happen! At the rate I’ve been going, I’ll be lucky to be alive in 30 years. I keep very close track of how I sound - I’m lucky to be recording all the time, and I relentlessly review concerts via radio broadcast recordings. When I’m no longer able to contribute something worth listening to, or that does a work justice, no one will have to tell me to hang up my hat, I promise.