Interview with harpist Lydie Härtelová

Have you already played it?

No, I’m appearing in Martin’s symphony for the first time today. I was impressed some years ago by a performance of it by the Czech Philharmonic. Then the solo parts were played by the harpist Renata Kodadová, the harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková and the pianist Jan Páleníček.

How has the cooperation with your colleagues been?

I know Monika Knoblochová well from recordings and concerts, of course, but we’ll be performing on stage together for the first time. By contrast, I’ve been running into Marcel Javorček for years now. He comes to play solo parts with us at the PRSO and is really excellent. And also as a soloist.

Frank Martin isn’t one of the best-known composers and today the piece with which we most often associate him is being presented. What should we remember about this artist?

Several titbits have captured my imagination. Perhaps that he was just a few short weeks older than Bohuslav Martinů. While Martin was born in Switzerland, our Martinů died there. At the end of his life Frank Martin moved to Naarden, and in that town, where John Amos Comenius is buried, he died. And perhaps one more interesting fact: Frank was one of 10 children in the family of a Protestant pastor from Geneva, and they say that it is indeed the youngest child who is often musically talented. His parents enrolled him to study mathematics and physics, however.

Have you registered in his music any coherence, any order that could have derived from mathematics?

Martin actually had two styles of composition: At first he was influenced in many ways by Schönberg’s dodecaphony, which has a lot in common with mathematics. The second influence came in Frank’s 12th year, when he was unusually strongly affected by a performance of St. Mathew’s Passion. Johann Sebastian Bach became his life-long model. Actually, in the Petite Symphonie Concertante we also discover parallels with Brandenburg Concertos.

Lydie, knowing you, I expect that your musical life is just radiating with various colours. Is that something you’d have imagined at the age of 14, when you swopped the piano for the harp and began your studies at the conservatory?

Perhaps I imagined that I would perform as a soloist in spectacular robes at prestigious venues. But today I’m very satisfied with how life is going, that I can make music in its entire breadth and diversity – and through the harp!

In September this year you began teaching at the Prague Conservatory. What do you regard as key to teaching work?

Definitely a sense of mutual trust between teacher and student. And also the teacher’s ability to instil in his charges an enthusiasm for music.

I’m sure you can spread enthusiasm! Please tell us, what led you in 1986 to establish the “Naši pěvci” (Our Singers) mixed choir, which you have also led ever since as choir mistress?

The first impulse was the wishes of my friends. They were so inspired by attending a certain concert that they dreamed of setting up their own singing ensemble. And because I was by quite some way the only professional musician, they asked me to lead it! You surely sense that the name “Our Singers” contains elements of a practical joke, because at first it certainly wasn’t a case of singing in the true sense of the word, and our amateur society couldn’t have borne the weight of having for instance a Latin name. But as the years passed it started to go well.

But you’ve also invested a lot of energy into the choir…

A great amount, you can’t imagine! After some time I myself began to study singing. With our standards rising, it was necessary to recognise and name the principles of correct breathing or the setting of the voice. I also consulted with choir masters from time to time, in order to get my hands right. In any case, singing is an amazing and beautiful thing. I’d like to invite you to our Advent concert. On 14 December, we’re performing part of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Evangelical Church of St. Salvator.

Thank you for the invitation. Our readers have surely grasped that you are an energetic and hard-working woman. Tell us how all your engagements and hobbies combine with the role of a four-time mother?

Sometimes it’s a headache, but I’ve enjoyed great fortune – partly in the person of my unusually tolerant husband, while I also have amazing parents who have helped with the children from the beginning. I’ve got to say that it’s thanks to this that they’ve been well raised!

So we say goodbye with some light-hearted exaggeration. May your family and musical harmony continue. Jitka Novotná