When you meet an orchestra for the first time as a conductor, isn't that like a first date?

Yes, when you meet an orchestra for a week for a project for the first time, it's even like a "blind date". But when the promise is for five years, as in Erl, then it's much more complicated, more like marriage "back then", when the spouses didn't know each other.

Are you nervous?

No, not at all, I have heard the orchestra, I have experienced it and I am tremendously happy. Of course, I have to steer this now, but the musicians should not be afraid. I love to draw out talents, to inspire. So: Zero fear, only joy!

In the work and "education" of an orchestra, there are always various motivations, but with you I always experience that it's only about the music, right?

A lot would have to happen for me not to focus on the music anymore. It very rarely happens that I get annoyed about non-musical things or that relationships in the orchestra play a role.

Now you have been living here for a few years quite nearby, is it something new for you to also live at the place of your work? 

When you work a lot as a conductor, it is a rarity to find a task that takes place 35 minutes from your home. That actually doesn't exist, the work is always associated with travel, with jet lag and it is a great happiness for me that my main task now takes place so to speak "on the doorstep".

The program of the orchestra concerts is very diverse. Is that so to speak your "gusto" or do other factors play a role?

No, that's not just my gusto: In America, Australia or Israel, the orchestras have no Wagner and Strauss experience, they hardly play Bruckner, and you can hear that in the sound of the orchestras. But almost everything we play is based on this sound. You have to work on the basis of the sources. So Beethoven's "Eroica" is actually the starting point of all symphonic sound development.

Here in Erl, the orchestra plays Wagner wonderfully, so I don't have to set that for sound development here. Schumann is very important to me. Wagner said about him that his symphonies are "orchestrated chamber music". And I particularly like that. I always wish for a freedom in making music, like a pianist.

After a piano evening with Radu Lupu and the third sonata by Brahms, I had to conduct Brahms' third symphony the next day. Then I thought to myself: Why can't I play a symphony by Brahms with orchestra as freely as Radu Lupu plays this sonata? Actually it must be possible, the music of Brahms or Schumann is actually free! So I just keep trying to achieve this kind of rubato with the orchestra, like with a piano piece.

You have 5 years ahead of you together with the orchestra, where does the long view go?

Gustav Kuhn's idea of forming, preserving, developing the personality of the sound body was brilliant and right. Nowadays we have lost this contact between orchestras and conductors, we have so much to do, we conduct, we travel, we drive on, that's it. But at my age, you actually have more interest in building an orchestra, both in sound and in the way of making music. And that only works if you spend a lot of time with the orchestra.

You can literally feel your burning for development and – let's call it – education in the conversation! Are there other areas where you would like to make a difference?

For me it is important to do something for opera conductors. This is a métier that many have tried without learning the craft. In the symphonic field, even a good musician can succeed in front of the orchestra without technique. But for opera you need different tools. That's what I want to convey to already established conductors.