The Book Show

Many music lovers regard Englishman Steven Isserlis as the world's greatest living cellist, and his passion for music extends beyond performances and recordings.

He's written two very entertaining books for children, telling the stories of the great composers, and giving some insight into the making of some of the most beautiful music that we know today.

His books—Why Beethoven Threw the Stew and Why Handel Waggled His Wig—exhibit an appealing playfulness in a world where classical music is often taken so seriously that it becomes daunting.

Steven Isserlis clearly likes his subjects.

Steven is currently touring Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and Michael Shirrefs asked him if understanding the composers as real, three-dimensional people is important to him as a performer.

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Peter Mares: Many music lovers regard Englishman Steven Isserlis as the world's greatest living cellist, and his passion for music extends beyond performances and recordings. He's written two very entertaining books for children, telling the stories of the great composers, and giving some insight into the making of some of the most beautiful music that we know today.

His books, Why Beethoven Threw the Stew and Why Handel Waggled His Wig, exhibit an appealing playfulness in a world where classical music is often taken so seriously that it becomes daunting and off-putting.

Steven Isserlis clearly loves his subject. Steven's currently touring Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and Michael Shirrefs asked him if understanding the composers as real, three-dimensional people is important to him as a performer?

Steven Isserlis: I think it's important in order to inspire one to be a musician. I wouldn't ever base my interpretations on biographical facts. For instance, we know Shostakovich (to pick one example completely randomly) had a miserable life, and of course there's a lot of that in the music but you have to find it in the music first, not say, 'Oh he had a miserable life, therefore I must play his music miserably.' Then one can miss moments of hope and optimism in Shostakovich.

But my teacher, Jane Cowan, always described the composers as their personalities when she was teaching me, and it's not that that had a direct bearing but an indirect bearing. It made me more fascinated to know about them and then to know about their music, and that's what I'm trying to pass on to children. I think it's a very good way of introducing them to music, to introduce them to these amazing characters who were the great composers. And then from that it's just a natural step to get to know their music.

Michael Shirrefs: You do seem really fond of these people though. You seem especially drawn to their oddnesses, their idiosyncrasies and the details that make them quite distinctive. Do those stories make us have a different experience of the music, do you think?

Steven Isserlis: Not necessarily. As I said, the music is complete in itself, but the more one knows about the personalities, the more one wants to know and understand the music, I think. It's a very good way in. The composers become one's friends, then one wants to know what one's friends do for a living.

Michael Shirrefs: Can you know too much?

Steven Isserlis: No, as I was saying, if you allow your interpretation to be directly affected by what biographical facts you know, I think that's very dangerous. The music is a world in itself and everything is there in the music, you can't superimpose your feelings about a composer's personality on the music. You mustn't do things to the music, the music must do things to you. But, having said that, when Schumann is, for instance...he's the most autobiographical of composers probably, but when he's quoting some other piece of music as a secret message for his wife or whatever, it's nice to know what he's quoting and why, and perhaps it gives you an idea of the colour he wants.

Michael Shirrefs: Robert Schumann is one of your favourite composers. Do you mind reading a short excerpt from one of your books about the life of this composer?

Steven Isserlis: All right. I'm talking about Schumann's music.

[reading from To speak very generally... to ...it all depends on what sort of dream he is having.]

Michael Shirrefs: Steven Isserlis, thank you for that reading.

Steven Isserlis: It's quite a serious bit, isn't it.

Michael Shirrefs: It is a serious bit...

Steven Isserlis: Most of the books are humorous.

Michael Shirrefs: Well, they're much more playful. But this shows some of the depth of the emotion that you get from Schumann's work.

Steven Isserlis: And children can understand that, there's no reason why not.

Michael Shirrefs: Absolutely. When you're playing some of Schumann's work, do you feel there's this trajectory of his emotions as you're playing it?

Steven Isserlis: Oh yes, and he really tells a story, and you can tell stories to most of Schumann in a way you can't to Beethoven. Beethoven is much more abstract, at least I find myself focused on thinking of the musical motif and that he's doing it entirely without having to make a story. And Schumann is much more cinematic, if you like. And yet, having said that, Schumann is so many things, he's not always...there are very abstract works as well, but very often he gives poetic titles to his music, you know what he's thinking.

Michael Shirrefs: Another composer that comes up (and this is a bit more of an indication of how playful you can be) is Franz Peter Schubert. I grew up listening to my mother singing works from Schubert lieder, and I'm very familiar with that style of music, but here I discover that his nickname was 'Schwammerl', which translates to either...well, you say 'tubby' or 'mushroom' or 'sponge', you don't seem to be sure which, which is pretty funny. And the fact that you go on to refer to him as 'sponge mushroom' is pretty wonderful and very playful. Is playfulness lacking sometimes in the way music is taught?

Steven Isserlis: Yes, I think so. I think I was very bored at school in my music lessons. But it should be. It's probably true of all subjects. Maths should be taught playfully as well, I was also very bored in my maths lessons, in fact I think I was bored in all my lessons at school except English and that's probably why I write today because we had such a good English teacher. I still remember his lessons. Definitely an inspirational music teacher can just transform a child's life. That's what happened to me, my cello teacher is completely inspirational and certainly she transformed my life and she's still a big influence on me today. And you can see in Venezuela, that whole orchestral scheme that has changed the lives of so many young people in Venezuela, and that comes from one man, I think. So teachers are very important people, it's quite a responsibility. It's a hellish job, I think, because of the responsibility, but those who are called to it really have the gift, I think they're magicians.

Michael Shirrefs: One of the things that I grew up with, one of the things that made classical music sparkle for me was not a classical musician but it was Danny Kaye's funny and magical piece The Little Fiddle.

Steven Isserlis: It's wonderful, me too.

Michael Shirrefs: And then you had funny and very talented people like pianist Victor Borge. So it's not just about playfulness, it's about a sense of humour, it's about understanding that these things have to reflect both the dark moments but also the ridiculous.

Steven Isserlis: Of course. I think all the great composers had great senses of humour, both in their lives and in their music, with the odd exception like Wagner...I suppose he's trying to be funny in Meistersinger, but basically I think these...as I pointed out, they are three-dimensional characters. We don't know about Bach's humour but judging from his music he must have had. And Beethoven is certainly very funny and Mozart was very funny, if you read their letters.

Michael Shirrefs: A couple of notable absences from your books are a couple of composers that have written well-known works for cello, the two Edwards, Grieg and Elgar. Elgar in particular has been described in one place as one of the war horses, I suppose because his cello concerto gets programmed so often. Do you get tired of playing favourite requests, the predictable cello pieces?

Steven Isserlis: No, not at all, I love the Elgar, I adore it, and I don't get at all tired of playing it. I suppose I play it five or six times a year maybe, so it's not that much. I mean, the Hayden concertos I seem to be playing this year and next, which of course is the Hayden centenary, a lot, and the Schumann concerto, but I can't imagine...I might get tired of practicing them a bit, but once it comes to the performance hopefully it's...especially the Schumann is such a profound work, as is the Elgar, I can never imagine getting tired of that sort of profundity.

Michael Shirrefs: Are you leaving space for a third volume of stories for children?

Steven Isserlis: Faber keeps asking for a third book but I think if I do write a third book it's going to be very different, I think it will have to be fictional because, especially the second book Why Handel Waggled His Wig, took me two years and I've just read...I got more obsessive about it, I had to know more facts, which resulted in a much longer book. I don't want to give that amount of time to another book, there are other things I need to do with my life.

But I'm doing all sort of different things, like, for instance, I've been writing some musical stories which a composer called Anne Dudley is setting to music and they're going to be published by Universal Edition and they're going to hopefully play them in children's concerts around the world. They're all fairy stories somewhat transformed into stories about cellos and violins. It's a fun thing. And then I'm always writing articles and forwards for books and things, so I keep writing the whole time, it's just a natural companion for my cello playing.

Michael Shirrefs: Just on a slightly different tack, I was interested reading an article that English music critic Norman Lebrecht wrote about you when he spoke about a tradition of the heroic cellist, citing the obvious early 20th century examples of Rostropovich who was very outspoken about human rights in Soviet Russia, and Pablo Casals who exiled himself as a protest against the fascism of Franco's Spain. Does the cello somehow give the player some sort of moral purpose?

Steven Isserlis: I'm not sure about that. I suppose maybe cellists can be a little more thoughtful because we have to play the bass line so often, more thoughtful than violinists who just play the big melodies and like to show off and I think maybe the sound is too close to their brain and has a bad effect. I think cellists are more serious people, but I think it's more Norman criticising me there for not being a political activist, but I wasn't born in a country that produced a fascist dictator, or Soviet Russia, so my point was that if there's something to protest about I'll protest about it. But it's usually something to do with music; like, for instance, I just wrote a letter to The Guardian which was reprinted a few places attacking our minister of culture, whom I then just met recently at a reception. I don't think she liked the letter very much, she sort of said, 'Who are you?' I told her my name. 'Oh, delighted to meet you,' she said and stalked off. Anyway, my job is to be a musician and not a political figure.

Michael Shirrefs: Just on that idea of circumstance, I spoke recently to a Canadian novelist Steven Galloway about his book The Cellist of Sarajevo which is based on real life Vedran Smailovic who was a cellist for the symphony orchestra. His story was extraordinary because his reaction to the trauma of witnessing a massacre during the siege of Sarajevo was to sit in the bomb crater and play Albinoni's Adagio for 22 days to honour the 22 dead. So why is it that cello seems to channel such drama and passion?

Steven Isserlis: Because it's an instrument that has everything, cello really does. It goes from a bass basso profundo right up to coloratura soprano, it can do anything, and it's just the most human of all instruments, I think. Of course there are a lot of cellists in literature as well. I just wrote an article for the Trollope Society magazine about The Warden by Trollope and how the warden must have played the cello. That was a fun article to write. Of course Charlie Chaplin played the cello, Bonny Prince Charlie played the cello, of course there's a Dickens character how plays the cello Bleak House, a very suspicious character, Harold Skimpole. The cello pops up in different places.

Michael Shirrefs: So is the cliché of the brooding, moody, flamboyant cellist something that you really kick against? Is that a modern construct?

Steven Isserlis: I don't know. It means we sound interesting, that's fine. No, I think cellists, like composers, they're all very different people.

Michael Shirrefs: Norman Lebrecht does acknowledge that the world has changed and that your ideology, which is to share your passion for music with children, is quite valid and you do love to host concerts for children, I guess that you will keep putting these passions into print as well.

Steven Isserlis: Yes, it's not just children, it's adults as well. I guess I have a little didactic side somewhere, but it's not really didactic, it's more music has enriched my life from day one basically because I was born into a family of musicians, I don't remember a life without music...I'm virtually never bored because I've always got music going in my head and of course I want to share that with people. It's like when you hear a great joke, you want to tell it to people and give them that pleasure, and this is on a larger scale. I really want to communicate that pleasure and infect people with what I get out of music.

Children...I know this group in South Africa, Buskaid, you may have heard of them, they're amazing, these black kids from Soweto...actually I just dreamt about them last night, funnily enough. But anyway, they're these kids from the township of Soweto and this lady, again, who I know, this English violist went out and started teaching them string instruments, and they're an amazing string orchestra. They play just beautifully on any level, you don't have to make allowances for them coming from a non-western musical culture.

They play absolutely beautifully. I played a concert with them once, and they're just adorable children, and they tour around the world now giving concerts. And gosh, what they might be doing if they weren't in that orchestra...they come from families with terrible drug abuse problems, gangs and everything, but they got the music bug and now they're fulfilled, happy people. It's wonderful, you can see it when they play.

Peter Mares: Steven Isserlis playing the Courante from JS Bach's Cello Suite no 3 in C major, and the earlier music you heard was from his performance of Robert Schumann's concerto for cello and orchestra, played with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. Steven Isserlis was talking to Michael Shirrefs about his two books, Why Beethoven Threw the Stew and Why Handel Waggled His Wig, both of which are published by Faber.

Further Information

Steven Isserlis and the ACO

Publications

Title: Why Beethoven Threw the Stew
Author: Steven Isserlis
Publisher: Faber, 2005
ISBN 9780-5712-0616-2

Title: Why Handel Waggled His Wig
Author: Steven Isserlis
Publisher: Faber, 2006
ISBN 9780-5712-2478-4

Music

CD title: Steven Isserlis Plays Schumann
Track title: Langsam from the Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 129
Artist: Steven Isserlis and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie
Composer: Robert Schumann
CD details: RCA Victor / BMG Classics - 09026-68800-2
Publishing/Copyright: BMG, 1997

CD title: Bach - The Cello Suites - Steven Isserlis
Track title: Courante from the Suite No.3 in C major
Artist: Steven Isserlis
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
CD details: Hyperion - CDA67541
Publishing/Copyright: Hyperion, 2007

Presenter

Michael Shirrefs