This year’s concert season at Teatru Manoel comes to an end with the ‘Magical Classics’, a joint production between the Theatre and the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) which will be performed on Friday 30 and Saturday 31 May.

As a supporting partner of the National Orchestra, Bank of Valletta got in touch with the man behind the works - Maestro Brian Schembri - who is the principal conductor and artistic director of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra and who, notwithstanding his vast experience, admits to still getting some butterflies in his stomach before each and every performance.

For the event, Brian Schembri returns to the stage with the MPO to conduct a repertoire of classics featuring two champions in this genre – Mozart and Beethoven. The programme will also include guest soloist Godfrey Mifsud.

Here is what Maestro Schembri told us:

1.    The Magical Classics Programme presents the two-evergreen composers - Beethoven and Mozart. Any particular reason/s for these two options for the finale of the concert season?

The main reason is in the composers themselves, who happen to be two of the greatest, most beloved, accessible to all, composers.

As you say, they are evergreen and as time goes by, one cannot but be amazed by their appeal, freshness and authentic impact on the listener. I have a profound belief that any artistic activity needs to be deeply rooted in the assimilation of the great experiences we have inherited from the everlasting classics. The works being presented in this concert are testimony to this

2. Do you have any favourite composer/s or opera/piece and why?

Mozart and Beethoven for sure! There are others of course. In fact, apart from personal affinity with one composer, work, or another, a performer throughout his or her work on a piece, would inevitably be creating a special relation to the same work. Studying it thoroughly in all its artistic, technical and other aspects, one seems to appropriate the work, making it « one’s own ». One lives with the work, sometimes for many weeks, months and yes, even years. This is a normal process, which the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler called « an act of love ». I am convinced that one cannot perform a work without somehow loving it.
 

3. The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra and other foreign orchestras - You have conducted many orchestras in your career, both locally and outside our shores. Is there any difference between conducting a local versus a foreign orchestra? If yes, what are the main differences you note?

The main difference is in the way the MPO has developed throughout the years and its particular characteristics resulting from certain obvious local realities.

These realities are of various natures. On the one hand one finds a deeply rooted love for music of all kinds, the great amount of natural talent that exists, the aspirations to creative discovery etc. On the other hand, one finds a musical landscape more often than not built on the inevitable amateur and parochial way of thinking.

Professional high level music education has been taking a long time to develop, while in spite of the social professional status of many music enterprises (i.e. the fact that people are paid for a job), the actual organisation, functioning of such organisations is generally not organised to adequate, professional standards.

Naturally this makes work very demanding, sometimes frustrating. However, this, in turn makes it exciting, extremely challenging to established certainties and gives each project a quasi pioneering quality. Performing and achieving some kind of artistic quality in such circumstances is for me a satisfaction which completely supersedes any frustration one inevitably meets with during the process of preparation.

In my new role with the MPO, I feel very lucky to feel supported by the musicians and the administrative team, the Chairman and board directors, who are on the same wavelength on most essential issues. I am therefore very optimist about future prospects and achievements.

4. When did your love for music develop? Were there any influences?

It started very early in life. My father Carmelo, an extremely talented musician, was very active in both the classic music scene and the entertainment jazz band environment in the 50s 70s. Naturally music was very present in our home. On the other hand other relatives were equally involved in some kind of musical practice or other.

I cannot really understand or define the way this childhood activity, which was born out of a naughty summer prank I was punished for, became so much part of my life.

It just happened, step by step. Till I graduated from Kiev, then Moscow Conservatoires, I never had any preconceived career plan. I just developed as a musician as I grew up and life lead me from one step into another. Career planning has never been my best characteristic. Whatever I have achieved, is the result of luck (good and bad) and support and help from family and my excellent teachers.

5. Do you feel that the younger generation is culturally open to classical and opera music and do you feel that this has changed recently? If yes, how?

Very difficult question. In my younger days in Malta, classical music was probably also not that popular with youths anyway! In spite of this, education somehow did manage to give some basic form of information about the arts. In the 70’s, a students’ club full of rock mad youths would still know enough about classical composers to give me the nickname of « Schubert ». Sometimes I get the impression that today, they would probably think that Beethoven is a St Bernard dog in a funny film…

What has definitely changed is present day society’s attitude towards art. Art has essentially become a consumer product, depending on market values of supply and demand at worst and an element of the magical concept « Culture » at best.

This « Culture », has become anything from fresco painting of the vault at St John’s Cathedral to washing doorsteps on Saturday morning, via the inevitable pastizzi craze. In this perspective, Art as a specific concept of human intellectual and spiritual activity inherited from the Greeks (at least), has been dissolved into a sort of « anythingness » in a generalised minestrone of acute culture-itis.

I do not think that there is anything wrong with the younger generations in themselves. Honestly, if world social leaders (of all kinds and forms) prefer to exhibit their cultural engagement through a cross over or Eurovision style event rather than a performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, then I would hardly expect the younger generation to do otherwise.

6. You are both the principal conductor and the artistic director of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra. Do the two roles conflict with each other and if yes in what ways?

No conflict whatsoever, rather the contrary, in fact. A conductor conducts rehearsals, concerts etc, an artistic director directs the organisation in its artistic choices, visions and developments. Mainly for reasons of coherence between artistic decisions and their execution, the person who has the task of artistically conceiving the way to follow, should participate directly in the actual realisation, i.e. conducting concerts. Especially in cases like Malta in which, as a mentioned earlier, many aspects of organisation, planning and functioning may still be « under construction », this dual role is, in my opinion essential.

7. Is there a ritual you follow before each performance?

For me the most important thing is to spend some time alone, trying to avoid anything that intrudes on my concentration. This is always important, but rehearsal days can be quite hectic, sometimes interspersed with meetings and all sorts of distractions. On concert days, silence and solitude are obligatory.

Bookings are open and tickets may be obtained by visiting www.teatrumanoel.com.mt or by calling on 21246389.