|
Good music comes from the heart but to become a good musician you have to lose yourself in the music. Paul Gulda talks to Gilbert calleja about music, life and growing up with a famous father 
At five years of age he played a little violin. At eleven he gave it up for a recorder his father left lying around in the house. “It felt like a toy,” Paul Gulda, now a world-renowned musician, says. “The first contact with the object, the physical relationship with the instrument is very important. You have to like touching it, handling it.” Gulda explains how the playfulness of an instrument is necessary for the novice, “it has to be like a toy, it has to come natural to the child – if it’s fun then the child will express himself.”
Friedrich Gulda, Paul’s famous pianist father, was often described as a musical non-conformist. Mainly renowned for his unconventional interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart and Jazz, the father had entrusted the boy’s early musical education to jazz musicians. “My father believed wholeheartedly in a direct, personal approach to music. Before taking on all the academic stuff you have to just embrace it.”
He stops, looks blankly at the people gathering in the Phoenicia lobby and calls the waiter for some tea before resuming. “Please, I want to stress this. Having fun by listening and recreating is essential in the build-up of a good musician. What do you learn first: how to talk or how to write? You obviously know how to talk or sing first. It is only natural.”
He reminds me that students are often the product of their teachers and tells me that the “very gentle first steps” are perhaps more important to a musician than all that the conservatory can offer.
We talk of his choice of instruments: the recorder, the clarinet and the piano and I bring up the subject of recordings. I mention Schumann, Beethoven, Shostakovich and Chopin. “Brahms also,” he adds, “and another important recording, which is still in production, of Mozart’s little known Violin sonatas.” Gulda speaks enthusiastically about the composer’s works for violin. “Mozart knew perfectly how to play both the piano and the violin. They are sublime, a goldmine which until now few have ventured to fully explore… but a double CD with all of Beethoven’s cello/piano works issued in Japan with Austrian cellist Clemens Hagen, is probably my favourite CD to date.
“A recording is always a frozen moment in time. The musician changes and a few years down the line he listens again and perhaps thinks that he would have done it somewhat differently.”
Anticipating my question, he says that there is a clear distinction between a live performance and a recording adding that the latter “captures just one moment, sort of like a photograph.” He argues that there are two ways in which a classical artist can feel critical to his recording; he either says “I’d do it differently now” or is wowed by what he achieved years earlier and asks himself, “What have I really learned since then?”
He pauses to think and pours himself a cup of tea.
“You can listen to yourself with more detachment of course, as opposed to when you are playing live – you can criticise. If you do play well on the record though, you tell yourself: ‘this is exactly the way I want this idea to be expressed’. Nobody else can say it quite your way.”
I change subject and ask about his “Musical Discourse” composition based on texts by Nazi camp survivors. The work was commissioned for, and performed at the 54th liberation anniversary celebrations of Mauthausen on the 9 May 1999. Gulda explains how he had been voluntarily involved in projects in Eastern Austria since 1991.
Did he have any particular reason for wanting to work on these projects?
“Two reasons. My grandfather was a Jewish émigré who had to flee from Italy and consequently my mum grew up in South America. The other reason was that I was not happy with the way this part of our history had been dealt with publicly. The situation has improved a lot since then.” He pauses and after brief reflection says, “I believe in being active as a citizen.
“As a musician Musical Discourse allowed me to give a tune to my ideas about Mauthausen and racism.”
We speak at some length about his social involvement and the role of the politically engaged artist. I also ask him about his ‘Haydn alla Zingarese’ 1993 project where he brought together classical and Gypsy musicians in order to show the Eastern influences acting upon the great composer.
“Multiculturalism is an asset,” he says, “If you realise that, then working against racism is only natural. This has shaped me as a person and a musician.
“Self-fulfilment requires concentration... but there are many paths along which different people can walk, yet the need to ‘find’ meaning is universal.”
I try to forward another question but “I’m still not quite done,” he tells me in a blunt Germanic tone. “Let me think… there is this void, a hollow that you want to fill with meaning. You want to fill your little hole. Some people do it on a small scale, ever digging deeper into a chosen topic, others do it on a larger scale, looking about with universal curiosity, but somehow it amounts to the same. And in the best moments of music – take for instance gypsy music – they are completely ‘in it’. The musician is filling his hole, existing in and for that moment, in the very note he plays. They don’t think too much, it comes natural to them. Sometimes, some of us musicians think too much.”
I ask Gulda about his involvement with Malta and the ‘Mediterranean Arias’ project. Back in 2004 Bawag International Bank engaged him to play for a gala concert in Malta. The Austrian company owning Malta International Airport invited Gulda for a collaboration with Maltese soprano Lydia Caruana and the ‘Mediterranean Arias’ project took off.
“Malta and Austria have both been decisively shaped by different cultures. We were influenced by the German and neighbouring Eastern cultures. You, by the Arab-speaking world, the Italian/Christian traditions, plus the English. Put them together and you get an incredibly rich cultural mix.”
Gulda explains how both artists feel very much at ease about interpreting “on a single disc” Maltese, Italian, Greek and Spanish pieces. I ask about their coming together.
“Lydia and I were introduced by the organisers and we hit it off from the beginning. We sort of balance each other: she is the more temperamental and I’m the more rational. Well… no big news in that. The big news is she has a very good insight into musical logic, some singers don’t have that. Many singers are most worried about how ‘their’ voice comes across. Lydia does not stop there.”
“How do you relate to Charles Camilleri’s work?” I ask.
“What I’ll play on this record (by Camilleri) is mostly folkloristic. I know very little of what else he does – but in the folk material his particular mix of basic European/Western material and a certain, I want to call it pagan or archaic innocence, or even edginess – I think that’s very appealing. Of course there is a pervading element of sensuality as well. I don’t know if I see Malta correctly but I think he embodied the spirit very well. His music definitely shaped my vision of the islands. I can say I know Malta better now… as for the rest of his work I only know one other piano piece and it somehow shares these same qualities.”
He stops and holds his forehead forcing himself to concentrate: “There is a similar mix, a variety of points of reference like on a sea-chart. There are fixed, agreed upon points of departure, maybe a lighthouse, but you stray away and head towards the unexpected, towards uncharted territory – there’s that sense of freedom and yet you don’t have the feeling that you will get lost or sail off and fall down the edge.”
The interview is coming to an end and I ask him to have the last word.
“A few things,” he says. “I think it was very important that Malta became part of the European Union. It has a lot to offer and gain from linking up with the rest of Europe. The economic part is just a small part of the whole equation. The spiritual or rather intellectual part of it is also very important. The identity of the language is a definite asset… it is the only Semitic language which ‘we’ can read in Latin characters. That’s an important bridge which we should take care of.
“Finally I’d like to mention the great natural talent here. People like Lydia and David Vella (Temple studios Mistra) haven’t even studied abroad. There is a lot of talent here, especially when you consider the smallness of it. The size gives you one big advantage on the other hand, you can also participate more directly in democracy.”
Pointing out that we have a two-party system and that people’s thinking is often biased by party politics, Gulda says “Well, my thinking is perhaps too idealistic, but I see a lot of public open discussion going on in the papers. Look at how well it works in the small Swiss cantons: they don’t talk about parties, they discuss issues and vote on them. Let me go back and liken that to music. You have certain ideas and assumptions, but in the end it is about listening to what is evolving right now.”
|
