Herr Poppen, your first season as Chief Conductor of the new Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern is about to begin. How intensively were you involved in the political aspect of this first fusion in the nation's history of two symphony orchestras from two different radio stations?

The struggle for the continued independence of the two orchestras took place before my time here in Saarbrücken. For this reason, little of it rubbed off on to me. When I joined the ship, even before it was clear that I was going to be Chief Conductor, the fusion was already a done deal. It was a good time for me to start work with the likewise new orchestra manager Benedikt Fohr. The cards have always been on the table, and I could always have said: "No, I don't want anything to do with this fusion, and won't therefore take on the job of Chief Conductor."

 

Can this not be a very thankless job?

It's certainly a difficult job, but not a thankless one. We are now going to broaden our profile with operetta and music in a lighter vein, and take over an important aspect of the repertoire of our colleagues from Kaiserslautern. The problem for the orchestra of Saarländischer Rundfunk [Radio Saarland] to date has been that while it was a very good ensemble, it was somewhat in the shadow of many others. Each concert was only performed once, and the area to which it was broadcast was very small. It never really got away from its local base, and remained an insider tip for musical specialists. All this has now changed, almost at a stroke. We perform each concert at least twice, if not three times, and through SWR [South-West Radio] the area covered by our broadcasts is much larger, and in this way we reach quite new listeners. The new name will make a significant contribution to the improvement of the whole orchestra's reputation.

 

Radio orchestras financed by the licence fee are often criticized these days for competing unfairly with traditional orchestras, in that they are increasingly abandoning one important point, namely the nurturing of contemporary music and devoting themselves almost exclusively to the standard orchestral repertoire. Are you going to go down a similar path here in Saarbrücken?

I see no sign whatever of this danger in our case. On the contrary, we are striking out quite deliberately, and more often, along contemporary paths, although I admit they have been somewhat neglected in recent years. A "composer-in-residence" will be appointed for every season, starting this autumn with Jörg Widmann, there will be a festival (as there has been, incidentally, for many years) devoted exclusively to music of the 21st century, and we are not afraid of the avant-garde either. New music must and will always play a role here. However we should not make the mistake of rushing precipitately into new music. We also have the task of providing a broad public with musical variety. It would make no sense to plan without taking our listeners into account.

 

The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken has been hitherto strongly represented in the recording business, and in recent years has made a number of productions for various labels, some of them arousing a good deal of notice. Will this activity continue, possibly on an even greater scale?

We have so many enquiries about CD productions, from interesting labels and also very exciting as far as repertoire is concerned, that we could at best implement a third of them. Of course we shall continue our tried-and-tested collaboration with ECM Records and OehmsClassics; it is a piece of good fortune that we can choose from among many offers.

 

What sort of repertoire can the music-lover expect on CD in the future?

Our first new release with Oehms will be all the Mendelssohn symphonies. We shall also record the Tchaikovsky symphonies for this label. For ECM we shall be recording 20th-century and present-day music. In the spring, for example, a CD with music by Frank Martin will be appearing, and we are currently talking about a Widmann programme.

 

Why have you begun with Mendelssohn?

For one thing, because I think a very great deal of him, and continue to think that we owe him a very great deal. There are statistics that show clearly that Mendelssohn is much more rarely played in the German-speaking area than in the Anglo-Saxon countries. I find that highly problematical, and think that the reasons for this lie in Germany's history. A part of the generation that attends our concerts did not get to know him in their childhood and youth. And secondly, I think that Mendelssohn is an excellent way to get to know a new orchestra. It is very difficult music, which demands that musicians display lightness of touch and incredible virtuosity at the same time. Wakefulness, liveliness, elegance - all these things are urgently needed for his music.

 

Let's talk about your career to date. How did you come to be a conductor?

I never took a degree in conducting. When I took a sabbatical at the age of 28, and went to study the violin in Bloomington under Joseph Gingold, I suddenly had so much time that I began to take an interest in conducting. However not with the goal of becoming a conductor. I took conducting lessons there, but it wasn't a complete training. When I returned, quite by chance I was offered the Detmold Chamber Orchestra, and when I noticed that conducting was getting into my blood, and I was getting more and more enquiries, I started taking lessons. Two names were very important for me: for one, Sir Colin Davis, and secondly Jorma Panula, who is still to this day an important source of knowledge and inspiration.

 

But before this, you were known above all as a virtuoso violinist. Why did you as a child choose this of all instruments - or was the decision made for you?

Neither of my parents was a professional musician, although both had a great interest in music. Music was always in our family, which originally came from the Heidelberg region.  My grandfather was a church musician and conductor in Heidelberg. He was head of the local Bach Association, and was assistant in fact to Max Reger, who was even my uncle's godfather. I remember many nice stories and photos of this period that my grandmother told and showed me, because I never knew my grandfather myself. I cannot say why it was to be the violin in my case, but no one forced me to take it up. I only remember that I always enjoyed playing the violin.

 

Your love of the instrument was evidently strong enough for you to become a music student...

Indeed. Although I was born in Westphalia, I'm much more of a Rhinelander. I grew up in Bonn, where I finished school, and while still at school I attended the Robert Schumann College at first as a so-called "young student", and later as a proper student. In Cologne our quartet later took lessons in chamber music from the Amadeus Quartet.

 

Are you talking about the Cherubini Quartet, which you formed and led?

Its predecessor. The Cherubini Quartet has existed since I was 19, although actually it was only a change of name. I myself had played in quartets continually since I was 13. So chamber music has always been an important element in my musical life. I owe that quite definitely to my main violin teacher, Kurt Schäffer. There was the Schäffer Quartet, to which he devoted a lot of time, and playing in quartets was also an essential part of musical instruction for the other great violin professor in Düsseldorf, Sándor Végh. This all left such a mark on me that I think that even today I conduct in a chamber music spirit. I endeavour to stimulate all the members of the orchestra to see themselves as chamber musicians and act accordingly.

 

When you left school, was it absolutely clear that you were going to study music?

I can still remember that after taking my school-leaving exam I was much exercised by the question of whether I should study music or not. I already had a very strong feeling for social issues. If I weren't a musician, I could easily imagine myself today for example as running a children's home in the Third World or being a social worker in Germany. But music is an extremely strong and important energy in the world, a kind of emotional nourishment for people. If I hadn't continually seen how music has precisely this effect on people, I wouldn't have wanted to be a musician. 

 

Have you never had the desire to be an "ordinary" orchestral player? Was it clear at an early stage that the only career for you was as a soloist? That you would later become a conductor, was, as we have heard, not something that could have been foreseen at that time.

Let's put it like this: even while still at school I spent a fair time on the rostrum, and I also won a few prizes with the violin. So when I was 15 or 16 I noticed pretty clearly that I could be successful as a soloist. As a student I never really analysed what we be the better path to take, and I didn't want to decide on whether to be a soloist or chamber musician. In fact I did both. During the intensive chamber music period - when I was 21 we were giving more than 120 concerts a year in the quartet - I also played actually all the great violin concertos with numerous orchestras. All the same, at that time I never pursued a well-organized solo career. I never set out to be a permanent member of an orchestra, if only because these other possibilities were open to me. Today I certainly wish I had had this experience. But I did have the opportunity to be the visiting Leader of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for a while.

 

Tell us something about your teachers.

I am extremely grateful to Kurt Schäffer for always giving me the freedom when I was a student to take lessons from other teachers. So from when I was 17 I was always going to Zürich and London, and taking lessons with Nathan Milstein. That was of course a very strong influence. He was an incredible musician and violinist, and he left his mark on me. Then when I was 21 I went to America and for a short but intense period I studied the violin under Oscar Shumsky. And on my return things very quickly took off with the quartet, with more than 100 concerts per season. We did this so intensively for seven years. In parallel I had my solo performances, and I had a part-time teaching post at the Düsseldorf Academy.

 

Presumably you have to be young to have your finger in quite so many pies?

I noticed that myself quite quickly. After these seven years of very hard work I left it all behind and took the sabbatical year in Bloomington that I've already mentioned. That was one of the best years of my life. I learnt and experienced an immense amount. After that I returned to the quartet in Germany, but we cut down sharply on the number of performances, so that we could have more time for projects of our own. I fairly quickly got the job of Professor of Violin at Detmold, and at the same time I started conducting the Detmold Chamber Orchestra, as I mentioned. After a further seven years I was appointed conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and at the same time to the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin, where I was first of all Professor of Violin, and then they suddenly, and pretty obstinately, persuaded me to take on the post of Rector. So for the next seven years I commuted between Munich and Berlin, until I became Professor of Violin in Munich. At this point my children had just been born, so that it was important for me to have just one home base.

 

But while you were in Munich, you didn't just have these two jobs...

No, that's true. For four years, I was the Artistic Director of the ARD International Music Competition. That was a very exciting job too. It was then that I began more and more to accept invitations to conduct other orchestras in a visiting capacity. I noticed that after eleven years as conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra, I felt the desire to close this chapter. So I decided not to renew my contract again, but without knowing what direction things would take. I was simply determined to devote myself more to the symphonic repertoire. Then, at a very fortunate time for me, I had this enquiry from Saarbrücken.

 

In all these years, didn't you miss playing the violin yourself? Did conducting become a sort of ersatz violin?

I think that last remark is accurate. I still play between four and six concerts a year and enjoy these brief excursions into the past a great deal, in fact sometimes I wonder whether I shouldn't expand my concert activity. But I realize quite quickly that I don't miss it all that much. When I'm conducting I feel the music so directly, more directly in fact than when I have a violin at my chin. 

 

You must obviously have the special gift of being able to lead people. This is absolutely necessary in order to be successful as a teacher, rector, conductor and leader of a quartet. Were you always aware of this talent?

I think fate has always led me to those tasks where I needed this ability. Everything I have done, although it all looks very dissimilar, comes out in the end in what I'm doing today. There has been no challenge in the last 30 years of my life that wouldn't help me in what I'm doing today. If someone had consciously planned this career, from my point of view it could hardly have been done better.

 

So you never consciously planned your career at all?

Quite definitely not. I have always tried to listen consciously to life. When tasks have been offered me, I have considered whether I was up to them, whether this task made any sense at this point in my life. However I have never made such decisions just in order to get further up the career ladder, but only ever for their own sake. I am now perfectly well aware that it would be totally illogical for me to spend the next 30 years here in Saarbrücken; simply because my life has always developed and changed in particular cycles. But who knows what things will be like in 20 years? At the moment I feel I'm in just the right place here with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie.

 

Seen from above, it was the next logical step to come here to Saarbrücken insofar as you spent many years as head of a chamber orchestra, and now stand in front of a large symphony orchestra.

One can certainly see it that way. What interested me above all was the symphonic repertoire. There are doubtless chamber music pieces that I haven't conducted, but not very many. It was my very specific wish to enter the field of the symphonic repertoire in the coming years. Of course I could have tried this as a visiting conductor with other orchestras. But the fact that I've been entrusted with this wonderful responsibility here in Saarbrücken/Kaiserslautern, not least by the orchestra itself, is something that makes me very happy.

 

But that also means that you'll be confronting many works for the first time as a conductor.

I'm doing quite a bit for the first time. The orchestra knows that, and knew that when it decided in my favour. For me it's certainly a challenge, because I'm permanent occupied with learning new works. But the musicians have as a result a chance to see, through me, facets in a work from the repertoire that they may not previously have recognized. If you do a piece for the first time, you have the advantage of approaching the score with fresh eyes and ears.

 

What kind of conductor are you when it comes to putting across your ideas to the musicians at the rehearsal? Are you one who works a lot with verbal images, or are you more the analytical type, who gives clear, concise instructions?

Of course I have a very strong emotional idea. But at rehearsals I don't talk about sunrises or nights of love. One mustn't forget that I'm sitting here in front of musicians who play at the highest level, and in addition they're highly educated people to whom you don't have to explain the emotional aspects of the music. Of course I try, if on occasion I can't get the sound I'd like, to use words to get my ideas across.

 

How open-minded is your approach to works that don't form part of the classical repertoire? Not least in your capacity as head of an orchestra, you must certainly have to face the problem of an aging public and finding new listeners.

I think that music is indivisible, you can't separate it. Whether a mother somewhere in the world hums a tune to her baby, or in the Andes a shepherd boy plays his sheep something on the pan-pipes, or maybe almost exactly the same tune suddenly turns up in a Mahler symphony or a wonderful jazz concert or a hip-hop song, all these are forms of music that I take very seriously. Music is so varied, that I wouldn't want to exclude any genre.

 

Do you think this genre mix will be needed in future in order to interest young people in the classical concert experience once more?

We have to be absolutely open for all conceivable possibilities and variations. Of course we're not in a position to compensate for what people missed out on in their childhood if they grew up totally without classical music. But we're all searching for ways of interesting younger people in what we're doing up there on the stage. Changes in the way it's presented are all part of it.

 

Have you discussed the special features of the Saarbrücken orchestra with your predecessor Günter Herbig?

Yes, we have indeed talked about these things. It was a really pleasant and friendly transition, which is not something you can take for granted. A changeover like this is always a sensitive issue, and it requires the orchestra too to make a clean break. He told me very frankly, conductor to conductor, of his experiences here, and gave me some important advice. I am really very pleased that already in the coming season he'll be returning to the rostrum in a visiting capacity to conduct Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony.

 

A look at forthcoming projects would suggest the conclusion that as conductor you're going to concentrate on the German-speaking area.

That would be a misleading impression. I've just been to Montreal and Sao Paulo, I'm collaborating in projects with the orchestra of the RAI in Turin, likewise with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, and with some other orchestras, for example in Japan too. The fact that in the next season I'll be more in Saarbrücken and Kaiserslautern than usual is a deliberate decision in view its being the first joint season.

 

The choice of guest soloists in the coming season shows, I think, your influence very clearly...  

It is interesting that you should say that, because our soloists certainly all stand for a particular way of making music. It's not that they've been invited because I know them. But what interests me in particular is the youthful spirit of the performers, which can after all be found in every generation. A chamber-music attitude, a communicative attitude, is extremely important to me. I recall with some sadness Mstislav Rostropovich in this context, with whom we often played in the Munich Chamber Orchestra. It was an incredibly intensive relationship, for example in a Haydn concerto, which he had after all played a thousand times before. But I've rarely had the privilege of working with an artist who reacted in such a lively and vigilant fashion to the orchestra and conductor.

 

To what extent have you been able to gather any operatic experience?

In Innsbruck I conducted Mozart's Titus and The Magic Flute, in Antwerp Handel's Ariodante, and I've also conducted chamber operas, including contemporary ones. In at the Opera House in Frankfurt I'll shortly be conducting a concert-hall performance of Bizet's Pearl Fishers. But this is certainly a field that could be more extensive. I love the opera. There's this story, funny but true. As a student I often went to the opera house in Cologne, which was enjoying its heyday at the time. Margaret Price had been engaged as Fiordiligi and I still remember how in Act II during one of her arias I seriously wished I could die as soon as possible and be reborn as a soprano.

 

With all your responsibilities, do you still have enough time for your family?

It is a bit of a tightrope act at home, I admit. But so far we've been able to meet all the challenges very well. My wife is a sought-after singer, and she's on the road as much as I am. Our two children have been accustomed from the outset to the fact that both parents may be away for a week or two from time to time. But to make up for it, we also both have very intensive times together with the children.

 

Are your children already following in their parents' footsteps?

Our two boys are six and four. The elder has now decided to learn the double-bass. There are newly developed instruments for children, small enough to be played by a six-year-old. He's over the moon, and also, now that he's six, he's at last able to join the children's choir. The younger one wants to learn the cello. Neither has to take up music, but I'd be very pleased if they did, as long as they themselves want to.

 

The interviewer was Felix Hilse

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