After a concert in the series Sommermusik (Summer Music) that covered four centuries of music history, Massimo Stefanizzi took leave of his audience with an incomparable interpretation of Franz Schubert’s Ständchen - a hommage to the Viennese composer in the church that bears his name today. The Venetian Stefanizzi was happy to accept an invitation for an interview the following day.
Christian Bauer: Maestro, we didn’t realise till now that Schubert and the guitar were such admirable partners.
Massimo Stefanizzi: I am delighted that you noticed that. Schubert and the guitar are unbelievably suited to each other - I would go as far as to say that Schubert’s poetical vein becomes visible through the guitar. Naturally, a careful transcription and arrangement was necessary [note: on the basis of the version by J.K. Mertz]. I do not find that this masterpiece is the poorer for that - on the contrary, the arrangement brings out the character of the piece more clearly.
C.B.: Would you like to tell us something about your musical education? What sort of a student were you?
M.S.: I was not necessarily a typical conservatoire student. I was insatiable and wanted to experience everything possible in the field of music. For this reason I found the academic climate of a conservatoire, especially in that of Venice, difficult to bear. At any rate I was a model student, I passed all the examinations at both the Conservatoire and the University with maximum marks.
C.B.: What made you decide to play a 10-string guitar?
M.S.: I first heard the 10-string guitar in 1979 played by Narciso Yepes and at once realised the much wider musical possibilities and greater forms of expression compared with the lute or 6-string guitar.
C.B.: Then the 10-string one is the better instrument?
M.S.: It is another instrument. It unites the tonal field of the Baroque lute with the dynamics and expressive possibilities of the modern guitar. In my opinion the 10-string and 6-string guitars have the same relationship as the modern piano with its double-escapement and iron frame to the hammerklavier.
C.B.: What experiences have had the most effect on you, musically speaking?
M.S.: There have been many but above all the work in the theatre with orchestras and singers was important. And then naturally the experience of composing, which was of decisive importance for my interpretative maturity.
C.B.: Can one say that the experience of the composer has influenced the work of the musician?
M.S.: Yes, very much so. They supplement each other. The composer gives the idea a form which at the moment of creation has still no distinct contours.
He thus begins to measured off an area of realisable possibilities using musical shorthand - the notes. This idea gradually takes form and the composer enriches it with new elements.
The musician or interpreter on the other hand takes as his point of departure the musical shorthand and must then go back to the original idea before reproducing it on his instrument. He must therefore be able, when searching for the main idea, the key to enable him later to make interpretative decisions, to dissect and analyse the score. One must do this step by step, search for the truth - or better: search for a spectrum of truth with the help of clues. Every musician should learn to compose. This will enable him to grapple with problems and boundaries tied up with creating music. Finding the clues in the score written by someone else is then much easier for the interpreter. The musician who can also compose can follow the path back more easily and it is easier for him to find the original idea. In this way he can also give the other elements of the score their proper meaning.
C.B.: So analysis alone is not enough to be an interpreter?
M.S.: No, writing and reading are complementary activities. Children learn both in school and an exception is only made in music, composing and interpreting are separated. Each piece is the result of a logical path which can be realised in various ways. Each score is a project and it is a little like a recipe: every cook is free to follow it as best he can or as he thinks is best since there is always a certain area of freedom in its realisation. In my opinion just this area shows the greatness of music: the multiplicity of approaches and possible solutions is in principle just what renews the music in every performance, what makes it a living, pulsating and relevant phenomenon. The boundaries of this area are, however, clearer for those who do not only know how to realise others’ “recipes” but also try to invent new dishes.
C.B.: Let’s talk about the work that lies behind a concert. What does your approach to a new score look like?
M.S.: Very spontaneous and direct, I have no special method.
C.B.: Where do you then find the elements for your interpretation? How do you decide, for example, the tempo of a performance? And how far does the musicologist in you enter into the interpretative work?
M.S.: I would say, very little and never consciously. I don’t like musicologists that stick their noses into interpretative questions with the excuse of historical competence. And since I am one of those musicologists it often happens that I must restrain myself from too great a respect for the score. As long as it is a question of rummaging around in libraries or preparing a fresh arrangement I am happy to let the historian in me work. But when it is time to pick up the guitar I prefer to drop the cloak of musicologist and roll up my sleeves. In giving my best I now actually rely on my intutition.
C.B.: What does inspiration mean for you?
M.S.: Inspiration is a very subjective and variable happening which varies from person to person and from moment to moment. Inspiration is a “provocation” that disrupts us, that provokes a reaction in us. Nothing can then return to its former place. I think that is why artists are often so restless.
C.B.: How would you describe yourself as a musician?
M.S.: I am an anarchist in music as in life. I am not a systematic person and a composer’s complete works do not interest me very much. This forces me always to be searching and to look in every direction. This means that I look at something from everybody, scores from all epochs and from the most varied composers.
C.B.: Somewhat hedonistic, isn’t it?
M.S.: Because I don’t play the complete works of a composer? What you perhaps call hedonism is in reality a severely ethical attitude because it requires the strenuous and often thankless task of selection. Incidentally, do you really think that exhaustive work on a compostion is a criterion for the value of the interpreter? The more musicians look for unassailability from the critics or applause from the public, the more they are hedonists - they wrap themselves in philology and offer the complete works of a mediocre composer who has been dead for 300 years and then play his works on an instrument copied from the original whatever. These aren’t interpreters in my book in the narrower sense of the word.
C.B.: Who are the musicians that you particularly admire?
M.S.: Those that make a decision, that bring in their personality. Those that refuse to follow fashion, reject empty phrases and don’t use the alibi of the current norms of performing practice. Those that are prepared to make courageous decisions because they have a strong artistic instinct and also have the necessary cultural equipment. It is not important whether their character is cool or passionate, it isn’t a question of temperament. What interests me above all is the human being and his intelligence that holds the instrument, the intellectual honesty, the ability not to lose himself in irrelevancies, his view of the world and how he manages to get it across to his audience when he is playing.
C.B.: What do you think audiences want?
M.S.: Those sitting in the hall, whether it’s in a small theatre in the provinces or in the Vienna Konzerthaus, don’t want to know anything about technical or musicolgical problems, nothing about analysis or other such matters - and apart from entertainment and distraction they want to be able to link it to what they know from other areas of life and have already heard and understand on an emotional, aesthetic or cultural plane.
C.B.: Do you like going to concerts?
M.S.: For a musician Vienna is like a cheese shop for a mouse. This city offers wonderful concerts in acoustically perfect halls. What more can one want?
(Excerpt from an interview with Christian Bauer. Vienna, 1 August 2001.
Translation from German: Dr. Christopher Norton-Welsh)