Page 282 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

In between Domingo's performances of Bellini's Norma in Barcelona this summer, we snatched a
virtual coffee-break together to discuss his plans for the coming seasons in Liverpool, why the
city 'already feels like home', his relationship with his mentor Daniel Barenboim (who received
Gramophone's Lifetime Achievement Award last night), and how being part of the original El
Sistema in Venezuela has informed his approach to music education and community work.

Tell me about your first date with the Royal

Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as a guest –

was there a spark right away?!

Our first date was three years ago, when I flew over from Barcelona to conduct Beethoven 7. It’s
not with every orchestra that you have chemistry within the first few minutes, but with them it
came very immediately and naturally. With a piece as familiar as Beethoven 7, most orchestras
will play it the way they’ve always played it, but not the Liverpool players: they were receptive,
they were flexible, they were 100% open to new ideas, tempos, articulations.

I enjoyed making music with them from the very beginning, because the atmosphere was so
relaxed but at the same time pretty intense. You guys in the UK work very fast: rehearsal then
bang, concert! So all in all I’d say it was a fantastic first date – weird but great!

Is this your debut recording?

Yes, my very first recording! I’ve chosen a mixture of pieces I know and love together with a work
which I’d never conducted before and found extremely difficult: Debussy’s Jeux , which I think is
one of the greatest scores of the twentieth century. I feel like it’s always been unfairly
overshadowed by pieces like The Rite of Spring , The Firebird and Debussy’s own La mer , but it’s
an extremely virtuoso piece for the orchestra as well as being a huge challenge for the conductor
because of all the tempo changes and interpretative decisions we have to make. It’s a piece that
has to be extremely detailed in order to sound well, and that pianissimo ending reminds me of a
tennis-ball bouncing – sometimes the audience doesn’t realise it’s finished even after you stop
beating!

Alongside that we have Roussel’s Suite No. 2 from Bacchus et Ariane , Dukas’s La Péri and of
course Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune . I did a lot of French repertoire with the
orchestra last season, and there’s more to come next year: La mer and what I call Ravel's Spanish
pieces all together. It's been a great experience, and the orchestra plays French absolutely
fluently!

And I gather you'll be importing some music from

South America too...

My second week as Guest Conductor was one of my most special weeks in Liverpool. That was
when I did some South American music for the first time with Pacho Flores [principal trumpet of
the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra] and the orchestra were very open to it right away: it’s
not so often that you can find percussionists with the right sense of rhythm, but they absolutely
nailed it!