(orchestra playing)
Beethoven's Sixth Symphony,
the Pastoral Symphony, was composed in 1808.
The form is untypical,
it's in five movements, which was not so common
in those days.
My favourite thing is that
he describes nature, but with the rules of those days,
how the piece should be composed.
(orchestra playing)
Conducting the Pastoral Symphony
or Beethoven symphonies in general
needs to be slightly more like older men's style,
meaning that the movements
need to be a little bit more elegant.
But still, to keep the interpretation youthful and energetic,
you need to be smaller,
but with more excitement in your face.
Beethoven can be played very boringly,
but with the Philharmonia Orchestra and me,
we need to create this kind of youthful sound of Beethoven.
I don't agree that Beethoven
should be played with some kind of traditions.
You should know at least few of them,
but Beethoven for me
is slightly improvisation at the moment,
how to make it energetic.
For example, Beethoven uses a lot of sforzati and accents,
which means suddenly louder,
but what kind of sforzati do you make in Beethoven?
Is it sharp,
(imitates heavy sforzato violin sounds)
(imitates light sforzato violin sounds)
It makes a huge impact of the general form,
how our Beethoven sounds.
Tempo changes, you can do subito, sudden,
and then you need to control the orchestra at all times.
Even the tempo is straightforward,
but you can add your own interpretation
by controlling it all the time, a little
and that's what makes it interesting to conduct.
(violin playing)
My favourite part in this piece is maybe the third movement.
I've always loved the scherzos in Beethoven
because of the joyfulness of the music
and here the horns in the middle part,
(whistles horn part)
(imitates drums )
There is a natural groove.
(orchestra playing)
With Beethoven, the challenge is that there are of course
hundreds of opinions on how to play Beethoven.
And many orchestras do it.
Audience have heard it so they have expectations.
They might be surprised by what our interpretation will be,
but people need to understand that time goes forward
and it's not the same Beethoven they heard 20 years ago
or 50 years ago.
(orchestra playing)
Special thing about the Philharmonia is that,
it's a rehearsal,
busy day, then we have a tour, then we have concerts,
but they are always happy persons.
They just love to play music and always smile,
always ready to perform,
always in top shape,
which is amazing
because they do plenty of projects all the time,
but still they have this will to play.
I'm so excited, I'm looking forward
to conduct this piece with the Philharmonia.
It's a masterpiece and it's great to play.
And once again,
you will see how much fun on stage we will have together.
(orchestra playing)