Australian conductor Daniel Smith gave an interview before his concert with the Mariinsky Youth Orchestra that will take place at the Mariinsky Concert Hall on 19 July featuring Dvořák’s Carnival concert overture, the work Kalkadungu for didgeridoo and orchestra by Matthew Hindson and William Barton (soloist – William Barton), and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”.
– During your previous visits to St Petersburg you have conducted all-Mozart and all-Ravel programmes, and now your concert features three works, each composed nearly a century apart from each other. What is the main challenge for you as a conductor in such programming and what is the main idea behind it?
– The main challenge for everyone who is playing in the orchestra as well as me is that we have to adapt to three different works immediately, especially during the concert. The most important thing for me is to be instantly able to change my mind to be prepared for the next work while conducting the previous piece without loosing a focus on the music that I’m conducting at that time. The pieces in the programme are chosen in such way that the start is light but gradually becomes heavier by the end of the concert, so a particular thing about this programme is the energy, or rather the mental energy to sustain for the whole programme.
– How does Kalkadungu fit into a programme that also features Dvořák and Beethoven’s Eroica?
– The piece Kalkadungu was programmed originally. It represents some tragic moments in the history of Australia. Along with Dvořák’s Carnival concert overture and Beethoven’s Eroica I intend to show a form of life, which is represented in the first piece – it is about celebrating the life, although in the middle of this piece there is a moment when some sadness comes. Then the programme continues with Kalkadungu, which begins in a sad mood, then there is a battle in the middle, and then it moves onto the idea of hope. Then, in the Beethoven, it starts with the hope in the Eroica, there is a personal depression in the second movement, but the symphony ends with the grand finale. So the entire program is about the life of a human being and various kinds of emotions a human might experience. I think Kalkadungu fits naturally between Carnival and Eroica.
– What is so extraordinary and unique in the piece Kalkadungu that is likely to surprise a listener who has decided to attend the concert on 19 July?
– Well, of course the presence of the didgeridoo itself! William Barton is one of the greatest didgeridoo players in the world. And this is really a new instrument that appears with the orchestra – there are not so many works composed for didgeridoo and orchestra. The audience will be shocked (in a positive way) with the sound of the orchestra because Australian music is rather different to what orchestras around the world usually play. Kalkadungu is a modern piece but in a particular way of expression. The audience will hear sounds of Australian animals played on the didgeridoo, but the orchestra players will also have to produce these sounds with their traditional instruments. The work also employs other instruments that are not usually played in the orchestra – for example, eucalyptus trees will be used at some point.
– If you were to plan a programme for your next concert at the Mariinsky, what work by a Russian composer would you include to conduct, if any?
– Before I came to Russia for the first time, of course I loved Russian music but I don’t think I understood it entirely, because I didn’t experience Russian culture, communication with Russian people, Russian cuisine. Every time I come back I learn more, which is interesting to me. I think, if I come back and if I am to conduct Russian music I would like to bring an interpretation of Russian music by myself as someone outside of Russia and so I would be delighted to conduct the Tchaikovsky cycle, in particular, his Symphonies Nos. 4, 5 and 6. Tchaikovsky is the composer that, so to speak, takes me into a different world when I am conducting his music. I conduct quite a lot of Tchaikovsky’s music outside of Russia, but it will be a great privilege for me to conduct his music in Russia one day.
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