My favourite piece
I’m looking forward to playing Beethoven’s seventh. It’s a percussionist’s party. Beethoven had his own way of writing for percussion. He created a tradition, you play a lot strongly.
But with Beethoven, you also have to be able to play a fortissimo weakly, but with a lot of character. It should be more energy than volume really.
The music and the time
I want to see classical music as a living art form. What was written 200 years ago is not the same as we play now. The music is something that arises in the moment. It is a social art form created by the meeting between the musicians and the audience.
In the old days, they had nothing but live music, it’s almost hard to understand. But they were still as we are. But with fewer gadgets.
It’s fun that the art form is intuitive. You don’t control it. What the music is about doesn’t really matter to me. Once upon a time, all classical music was “contemporary music” and I don’t think the question was asked about “why” it was played. The quality consists in doing it together, you succeed together with an audience. There are many of us who share a great experience. That’s where the value lies.
My instrument
The symphony orchestra’s percussion does not have as old a craft tradition as the string instruments. Ours were first utility instruments in the military. In Gothenburg’s Concert hall we have a kettle-drum from the 19th century, it has been played in front of both Sibelius and Stenhammar. But an old kettle-drum is not obviously better. It’s more about how easy it is to play.
A kettle-drum consists of a hammered copper kettle in a cast iron chassis. The skin is soaked and stretched over the kettle-drum where it is allowed to dry. The leather needs to be replaced sometime a year, because the fibers break after a while and the tone dulls.
My favorite instrument among the percussion instruments in the concert hall is a pair of Turkish cymbals. They come from the famous company Zildjian and were manufactured in Constantinople over 100 years ago. They sound incredibly good. They do not require special care. If you are there and poke, it might take another 100 years before they sound the same again…
Violinist Nicola Boruvka
"My favourite piece is Tod und Verklärung by Richard Strauss. It's a mystery how he makes the orchestra sound the way it does. The overtones sparkle throughout the hall. You get caught up in the story."
Trombonist Jens Kristian Søgaard
"I am very much looking forward to playing Richard Strauss' Alps Symphony. He writes so beautifully for the trombone, it is challenging and very expressive."
Double bassist Jenny Ryderberg
"I'm looking forward to Tchaikovsky's sixth symphony, Pathetique. It's the piece of the double basses. We end by playing dying heartbeats. It's been speculated that Tchaikovsky was illustrating his own impending death."
The earth - our legacy
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