Matt spricht mit Deutscher

[Music] [Music] is you know i introduce you in english in case that i say something wrong you have the possibility to correct me ahmed archer lived since 2018 in vienna she will receive the european cultures in a gala ceremony in the vienna stratosphere on the 20th of october and also your new piano solo album from my book of melodies will appear soon with sonic classical alma deutscher is an english composer a pionist and violinist so again thank you for coming at age six she composed her first piano sonata at age seven she completed the short opera the sweeper of dreams we will talk about that later age nine she wrote a concerto for violin violin and orchestra and at the age of ten her first full-length opera cinderella followed cinderella had its european premier in german in vienna in 216 under the patronage of famous conductor subin mehta at the age of twelve deutsche premiered her first biannual piano concerto and alma will give you a debit in the carnegie hall in december this year the concert is dedicated to your own compositions and you will also perform no they will play and i think that's very impressing the hall was sold out within 24 hours uh alma will appear in the salzburg sylvester concert in the course is fleshpill house with mozartium orchestra and also there she will play parts of her wildling concerto and her new walls sirenengling by 219 deutsche's official youtube channel has gathered more than 9 million views and 90 000 subscribers so it's not surprising alma that a lot of people call you uh wunderkind amma thank you for coming and now let's talk a little bit thanks uh you described once your jumping rope as magic it seems to play an important role uh for your music what's magic about your jumping rope well i got it first of all as a birthday present when i was seven years old and when i was younger i really thought that it was a magic rope because that's how i composed i would skip with it and melodies would come into my head and i really thought that it was magic it was the rope and now i know of course that it's not really magic um but but are you still using it yes i still like to skip with it but now that's not the only way i get melodies so i also get melodies when i'm just sitting on the uben or or when i'm serious when i'm asleep oh yeah this was i read that you that the dreams are very important for you that you dream melodies that has happened to me quite a few times the time i sleep and i'm dreaming and then in my dreams i hear a melody and then i would wake up and write it down in the middle of the night it's like with your first opera i think the sweeper even the title the sweeper of dreams so dreams were important there but it does not really totally describe the process of composing no it is like my more starting point well the pro so the melodies that's just the beginning so that's actually the fun part i i can't decide i can't command the inspiration to come to me it just comes sometimes even when i don't want it to come but then the more difficult part is then after i have the inspiration is then to sit down and to take a melody and try and develop it and to make a whole piece on it um and then if it's for orchestra to orchestrate it that is the most difficult part it's not only creativity it is also discipline exactly so that is the discipline part so you would say you're also a disciplined person one definitely has to have discipline right you just recently finished the children version of the full-length opera cinderella it can be seen soon at statsopo yes there will be the vida what is the difference between the children version and the adult version the full length version it's not only the length no there must be also some other elements well of course i mean the adult the the the version that i wrote first that is that is of course much longer that is a full opera with choir and with with big orchestra um more than two hours um and when i when i had to reduce it for the for the startup or for the children it was i i really didn't want to have to get rid of some scenes you know it really must have been difficult yes i couldn't bear to to get rid of this right all this but i actually had quite a fight with with dominique mayer he's always a wonderful person but we really had to fight a little bit on how it would be and then in the end we compromised that it would be one hour and 15 minutes [Music] is when did you come up with the idea uh to write an opera for cinderella or cinderella a kind of important fairy tale for you was there something which really fascinated you i think cinderella was always my one of my favorite fairy tales and i like the stories when the girls triumph in the end and i always wanted to write an opera ever since i was three when i had the magic flute because whenever i i hear something then i always want to do the same thing so i had lots of operas and i also wanted to write an opera um but i was too young then so um when i was when i was eight and i was starting to write and i wanted to write an opera um i thought i would take the cinderella story because it was one of my favorite stories but i i want i wanted i had to be talented and i wanted her to be a composer and so you changed the story yes yeah so it's not me not about the show anymore exactly so in the end so the prince is a poet and in the end the prince will not find cinderella with a shoe but he will find her with a melody because as she flees from the ball she sings this very sad melody and the prince remembers how it starts but not how it continues just that there's a very haunting harmony and so he vows that he will search throughout the whole kingdom and he will sing the beginning of the melody to each girl and only the one who can sing the right melody will be the one that he's looking for it's interesting it's like an opera about music no and homage to music yes i wanted music to really be a part of the story and the female is the strong part in that huh yes definitely we can now listen to maybe a central scene in the opera [Music] is in which relation do you see music and the story the narrative and the music is the music just supporting the story or in your opinion it's really also independent from the story well in an opera it's quite different to write the music than if if i was just writing a symphony or or a quartet because the music really has to reflect what the what the characters are feeling and bring out the their emotions um and so that's really quite a different thing um and one has to build tension according to to the story um and climaxes it's it's not as it's not as free is that why you love opera so much that there is this connection of music and language and story yes well i i i've always loved opera as i said but especially because there's a story i also used to love it very much because all the women wore such beautiful dresses i once when i was very young i saw an opera where the where the main character wore jeans and then i never wanted to see that opera again because one could just go into the street to see people wearing these and no but i'll really like it because there's a story and of course i also love to compose just right you compose piano pieces but you don't only compose you also uh you're also an excellent excellent musician piano and violin are they in the same right for you uh you like them both i like them both yeah equally yes i i can't say that i like one instrument more than another if you had a choice just composing or performing composing i will i will never ever i could never give up composing it just comes out to me wonderful how do you generate the stories for your purpose i mean we were talking about cinderella which was one of the favorite fairy tales can you also imagine to write your own libretto i ask you because you invented a country i think the name is transylvanian no exactly transylvanian yes yes i mean at that time you maybe didn't know that there is a country called transylvania i don't actually know why i chose this name um i must have had it somewhere but um yes when i it's connected with the whole world when i was already when i was four i'd invented an imaginary country called transylvanian and in this country they were i had many composers many imaginary composers um like um shell and flower and and green silk and blue gold and antonin yellow sink so it's very complex yes yes but that could be the stuff now for an own opera maybe in the future perhaps i mean lots of my inspiration comes from that quite often when i'm stuck um and i'm composing a piece and i'm stuck for inspiration and i'm very tired then i will just leave it a little bit and go outside for the inspiration and then i will ask maybe antonin yellow think my imaginary composer well what would you do here and quite often that actually helps then i come back with with a lot of inspiration when did music come first into your life was there a special experience something you remember well i always had music ever since i was born i remember when i was three i had a lullaby by richard strauss and i loved it so much it was so beautiful that i asked my parents how can music be so beautiful ever since then i wanted to compose beautiful music yeah what's your family background were you parents also close to the arts of the music and did they support you do this oh very much very much yes my parents are also musicians not professional not professional but amateur musicians so they have a high understanding yes they love music and when we were younger we would always play trio sonatas together oh nice and then at some point they stopped they didn't want to do it anymore but they even heard that your sister is also at least joining a gymnasium [Music] which is specialized on music now she's just she just started going to school ah okay just that okay so she's younger yes she's yes she's allergic but she's also talented yes she's also talented and she also plays the violin and okay how can we imagine your daily life because you you don't go to school you are you are taught by your parents at home and teachers is there any free time um well i i i try to always take some free time in the day where i can just go to the vineyards and get inspiration and and just free my mind a little bit but you are not i think computer games oh no iphones tv doesn't play a part in your a big part in your life no we don't have a television and i don't i don't have a computer or an iphone or anything but books are important but books i love reading books yes and i read many many books is there any book let's say the last which you read in the last month which is uh important for you which you really like i quite recently read um the count of monte cristo which i loved was very exciting uh you moved to vienna just recently last year now and 218 yeah by vienna instead of london and what do you like about it and what you miss well i love vienna very much i mean i i love the cafes and i love the vineyards and i love the people and and the palaces and of course the music um is it do you have more possibilities here in in in respect of your music and musical experiences of course i mean i can go for walks where where beethoven went for his walks it's quite an amazing feeling um it's a very very special thing i mean i think music is embedded everywhere yeah and you work with institutions here yeah with the state opera oh yes and also others your talent as a musician is already praised by a lot of authorities and stars like simon rettle or subi mehta but also ansofi motta loves your work which makes you certainly proud but on the other hand is it sometimes also like a burden the pressure of trying to fulfill all the expectations of being really good um well i i try not to think about it that way i mean i try i try to to do the best that i can um and to work hard and and to yes to to do the best that i can not not more not less and not to try and think of it as a burden but just it's incredibly exciting that's a challenge it's a challenge which is quite which is exciting and it's also i mean i i travel and i give concerts it's quite it's quite um incredible so you never have to feeling that people in a way don't take you so seriously because you were so young did you ever have this feeling well when i was younger i would get quite annoyed that i thought that people that people just thought you know i was i was sweet because i was a little girl but they didn't take me seriously as a composer and i this would always annoy me a little bit in the beginning when people would just see me but then normally when we would start to work together and and they would hear my music then they would take me seriously but it was still always something that i had to to fight with and now i actually think that it's people are really beginning to take me more seriously now which is which is wonderful it's an amazing so it's a wonderful feeling is that also a reason why you didn't like so much this comparison with mozart and the idea of wonderkind or well because people people were speaking about this now they when i was younger yes then people i mean and and i know that it was meant to be very flattering but but i i never really wanted to just to be another mozart so the the advantage of growing up is also that you believe this idea of wonderking exactly people really they take they begin to take my music seriously now not just because not just because of me but but to appreciate my music just regardless of my age but because of the music right and how was and is your training as a composer i read it's not based on the traditional english methods of exams and technically learning uh it's more concentrated on improvisation improvisation and methods which were used in the musical training of children in italy exactly in the 18th century yes in the 18th century in naples how can we imagine how does that work how could we it's it's a wonderful method it's called partimenti um it's one has a base and one has to improvise the harmony and then the melody on top and it starts extremely simple and i started with it when i was five already and then it gets gradually more and more sophisticated until one starts to improvise fuchs which is what i'm doing now so that was very helpful that which was really helpful because it's actually really fun one really fun way to learn because one improvises all the time so it's different every time one plays it but are there some how can i say like musical heroes composers you really adore and who are still influential for you well i love richard strauss and i i really love his music and the romantics like mental songs and of course shubat i love to mandelson tchaikovsky dwarjak verdi mozart of course what about modern music would you because i referred to an article which was published in the austrian newspaper standard and the title was the dangerous love for the melody and they expressed even their hope that you could give new life to the opera to the genre and they're also discussing your position as a position who seems to believe in beauty so beauty and music is important for you beautiful music it's yes i think it's it's just it's very simple i i want to compose beautiful music music that i love music that comes from the heart and i so you can't really deal with some modern music do you listen well i mean my music is modern i compose it now but i mean with a more kind of deconstructive music i would put it that way i mean i i i think it's i don't really see the point of i mean just for no reason throwing in dissonances just to just to absolutely no reason just to fit the ideas of some flip of some people of how music is allowed to be composed nowadays and it doesn't touch me i mean i don't go around telling other people how they should compose the music so but you know what you do so i think um don't see why other people should tell me how i should compose um i mean i i want to compose beautiful music that comes from my heart i don't i'm not also particularly interested in inventing a completely new language in music i'm not so interested in the whole academic question in language i mean if i was writing a novel then i would write a novel in english or maybe when i'm a bit better than in german but i wouldn't try and invent a completely new style or language which maybe no one could understand it's also pointless exactly i think it's the same in music i think what's important is to try and tell an interesting story in music um and and take the the listeners on an on an on a beautiful story and write beautiful music so yeah right 212 you composed your first first opera the sweeper of dreams the opera is based on neil goldman's story the sweeper of dreams and the libretto comes from elizabeth eddington can you tell us a little bit more about this opera i think it was a quite short opera no at that time but uh there was also a story you really liked and it's also a story about a strong girl yes it is it was a mini opera only 15 minutes but exactly i really liked it because it is about a girl who everything is against her in the beginning because she wants to get the job as a sweeper of dreams and the the three men who will give the job out will decide who gets the job and everything is against her in the beginning because of course she's a girl she's she's committed to crime so she's a he's a child and she's a female and so it's it looks very bad for her in the beginning but then in the end she succeed and she succeeds in convincing them because of her talent and then in the end she she succeeds and i really like that story it seems to be a little bit a story about yourself no at that time you were a child and you were a female and you succeeded so it was a little bit autobiographical i don't know well i was i was i was very young then it was very little but now but i like it i read somewhere that you play the piano with closed eyes this is not true that is not true i mean i i can but it's not the point and the point is to to play musically and beautifully not now but you wrote just um you just wrote a piano play no something for piano a piano album a piano album yes yes that work that's very new i just recorded it and it will come out in the 8th yes it's all piano solo pieces it's actually i i chose one melody from each year of my life so from four to fourteen because i wanted to call it ten years of melodies i forgot that it was actually eleven yes um but i still thought that it sounded interesting i mean one could see how the melodies developed so from very young and then how they got more more sophisticated it's also like a musical autobiography now exactly the progress is [Applause] [Music] see you were invited to play and perform in front of also very important people i think you even played in front of putin yeah do you have stage fright when these people are listening and watching you um i don't normally get nervous no no no because um i don't really see what this to get nervous about and anyway i think the most important thing is to play musically and beautifully so you're immediately concentrated when you start when i start to play i'm completely in the music and then i don't think so you don't hear anything nothing else yeah you don't have that probably helps with nervousness but you never had to train that was no i i naturally never had stage fright which is quite useful you were already extremely successful uh as a musician as a composer were there any disappointments something which did not work out in the way you wanted it to work out well and there are always some little disappointments i mean there's sometimes the things didn't sound exactly how i'd imagined them in my head but but then then i would have to think to myself well why why and why not and then i would rewrite it or sometimes reorchestrate it until it did but could one say that being a composer and being a musician fulfills in a way a dream was it somewhere like this is the dream i want to live in one has a dream and one has to try and and um one has to try and reach it right but that's what you're doing and that's what i'm trying to do so where do you see yourself in let's say 10 years well difficult to say no it's difficult to say i have i'm really not sure what i bought then but i'm sure i will still i'm sure i will be a composer that's why that's what i wanted to know because someone you said you said my music will live forever maybe yes but you will also live for the music i i would want to try and bring music to people who do not normally listen to classical music that is one of my dreams so my last question is do you already know what comes next is there any theme you're interested in do you think that could be my next opera or that i want to work on that well the salzburg understated have they want to commission a completely new opera for me which is very exciting um it will be a lot of work too and i'm still working on ideas for a story and i already have some melodies that i would like to use and but i can't give anything yet away because it's nothing as yet okay what do you think vent can be [Music] when can we experience the uh debut of that opera of the opera well perhaps in two years time and then maybe if not then in three years time okay so i hope you invite me i will listen and see it and alma thank you very much for the talk and for coming very funny here to the studio thanks [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Hochhaus Herrengasse

Views: 7,383

Rating: 4.9285712 out of 5

Keywords: Hochhaus, Herrengasse, Gerald Matt, Panoramaraum, Alma Deutscher

Id: WX7CKPWknmY

Length: 29min 54sec (1794 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 22 2021