Interview: Robin Ticciati - The principal difference

Published on Tuesday 1 December 2009 18:09

THE question is often asked: does such a self-contained and self-sufficient ensemble as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra really need a principal conductor?

There have been long periods in its 35-year history where the post has lain vacant, and musically things have simply ticked along, business as usual, with guest conductors jetting in to add their momentary individual touches to a band that instinctively plays together anyway. It's possible to tell with the SCO, for instance, when the visitor is not making much of a difference – the players simply focus on each other, and a polished performance emerges regardless.

So what difference will it make to have the young Londoner Robin Ticciati fill the role? The process of answering that begins next week, when the 26-year-old protg of Sir Simon Rattle appears in the first of five programmes he is scheduled to conduct this season marking his official debut as the SCO's principal conductor.

A quick squint at the content of these concerts is enough to suggest Ticciati is definitely out to make a difference. When I interviewed him last year, he expressed his programming priorities as realising "how exciting it is to lead an audience through an evening, and how important it is to tell them a story". He also spoke of the intellectual excitement of throwing a Haydn symphony into the same programme as Ligeti's Piano Concerto.

"Going to a concert should be like sitting down to a good meal," he argues. "You don't just want to eat steak."

It's that tasty juxtaposition of styles that symbolises his forthcoming debut appearances – although the Ligeti will actually appear in April alongside Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony. Next week's opening programme opens with the fresh modernity of Hans Werner Henze's Symphony No 1 and ends in uncommon territory for the SCO – Brahms's beefy Second Symphony. Directing Brahms with the classical-sized SCO is, says Ticciati, a world away from performing it with Germany's Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, where he is set to become principal guest conductor.

"When you go to an orchestra like Bamberg, with its magnificent late Romantic tradition of Joachim and Kubelik, then that's the sound you get, South Bavarian through and through. What the SCO brings to this repertoire is an innate knowledge of the foregoing classical style," says Ticciati. "If you take a piece like Mozart's Symphony No 40, he's constantly referring to the past as well as the future." Ticciati's aim next week is clearly to explore Brahms from a fresh stylistic context.

He's done it before, with a Scandinavian chamber orchestra. But it's the natural chemistry that seems to have existed right from his first encounter with the SCO last year – a spectacular Highland Tour that ended in a unanimous decision by the management and players to sign him permanently – that particular excites him about the challenges he has lined up in Scotland.

"Working with a chamber orchestra is a whole new psychological experience," he says. "They are a group of people who can play on their own anyway, so the conductor's role is quite different. Take the first bar of Brahms 2, where all you really want to do with the cellos and basses is breathe with them. A tight-knit ensemble like the SCO doesn't need every beat conducted.

"And because you are involved with fewer musicians, a wonderful sense of spontaneity is possible, but the relationship has to be absolutely right. You are faced with a close family rather than the sea of 100 faces that make up the typical symphony orchestra."

Ticciati's other key interest lies in opera, so it's not surprising to find that the third string to his bow is as musical director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera, nor that three of his five SCO programmes this season have a strong vocal content.

Joining him next week is the Czech-born soprano (and wife of Simon Rattle) Magdalena Kozena, to perform Mahler's Songs from Knaben Wunderhorn. A week later, it's the turn of the SCO's associate artist, mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, to perform Berlioz's dramatic cantata Le Mort de Cleopatre – one of the many failed attempts the French composer made to win the coveted Prix de Rome prize, but a fascinating work nonetheless.

There's more Berlioz in February, when Ticciati returns to conduct a full performance of L'Enfance du Christ. Not only that, he has even convinced Berlioz expert David Cairns to come up to Edinburgh and present a study day on Berlioz in line with the performance.

That's one early sign of Ticciati's commitment to the SCO post – the fact that he will increase his presence to nine weeks next season is another. And even if he has chosen to remain tight-lipped about the specific repertoire he will explore beyond the current debut season, the signs are that it will be anything but predictable.

His main objective, he says, is to create a relationship that "enables the orchestra's personality to come out". Those of us who listen to the SCO week after week know how strong and persuasive that personality can be. But although it is an orchestra that can speak very well for itself, put the right person on the podium – Charles Mackerras being a prime example – and the temperature goes through the roof. I have that feeling in my bones that Ticciati might just have that vital spark.

&#149 Robin Ticciati makes his official debut as principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the City Halls, Glasgow, on 11 December (0141-353 8000), and at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, on 12 December (0131-228 1155)