Interview with conductor Stanislav Vavřínek

Your current place of residence is the little town where you grew up – Hluk in Slovácko, a small town near Uherské Hradiště. Why have you resisted the allure of big cities?

I left Slovácko for Brno at 14 and then I moved to Prague, where I was for 12 years. I first returned to my home region in 2010. I can resist the allure of those big cities for the very reason that I lived in them for a long time. Prague is a beautiful city, but just for a while. I couldn’t live there now.

What did you voluntarily and knowingly give up with that step?

I have to admit it wasn’t an easy decision to leave Prague, and it was by no means an overnight one. It took me a long time to finally resolve to do it. In so doing one voluntarily gives up important professional contacts, and can feel removed from the action. The view persists that one has to live in a big city if one doesn’t want to miss something important.

But you’ve surely gained a lot. For instance, you’ve repeatedly worked with Hradišťan. Have you ever played in a cimbalom band? (I know you studied flute, but you could perhaps handle another instrument that would suit such a band better).

I very much enjoy working with Hradišťan, because they’re great guys: honest, genuine, excellent musicians. You won’t find any academic affectations, tired ideas or animosity among them. They have a constant inner joy from music and life. When I collaborate with them, I feel as if I’ve gone to some spa. I never played in a cimbalom group as a child and I’ve never been a huge folk enthusiast. I was the type who had a room full of black classical music records. I didn’t listen to other genres at all, or even know them.

What is your family background, from the musical perspective of course? Did you have a singing grandmother? Or a granddad who was a rakish musician?

My parents are both amateur musicians. Mum used to play the piano very well and father has been devoted to brass band music all his life. He was bandleader in, I think, three such ensembles. They dutifully led me to music, overly rigorously from my perspective at the time; it didn’t leave me much time for other hobbies.

Where did you go to music school? And who guided you towards the conservatory, to the study of flute and conducting?

It was the folk school of art in Uherské Hradiště, toward which I feel great respect to this day, because somehow as a small child I took everything in very intensely. When a teacher passed, he was almost a demigod to me. So my respect for the Uherské Hradiště folk school remains to this day. It is worth pointing out that I had to do aptitude tests to get into music school. The number of applications was such that they by no means accepted everybody. Where have those times gone?!

As for the instrument, I think my father chose the flute; he’s always liked it. It was a rarity in a small town then – everywhere there were fiddles, cimbaloms, clarinets, trumpets, but no flutes. I came to conducting via the most natural route while studying at the conservatory. I remember spending all my savings on records and later CDs. I enjoyed the sound of the symphony orchestra terribly. I admired composers, but I didn’t understand how they could turn an idea and a concept into notes, how they combined instruments and harmonies. So I started borrowing scores, though at first I couldn’t even turn them over properly while listening, never mind read them. Actually, I can’t read some to this day.

Which teachers do you remember with fondness?

I remember Božena Růžičková, under whom I studied flute at the conservatory. She was strict but at the same time extremely humane. All the time I spent with her was as positive and valuable as could be. Actually, she was the first one to reveal to me the world of genuine music and its meaning. I often return to those times in my thoughts, because reality can occasionally destroy you and if a musician loses his invention or inner charge, that’s the end. At university I hugely respected, and of course I still respect, Professor Radomil Eliška.

And I should definitely mention one more name: Evžen Holiš, who in Brno introduced me to the field of conducting. I often recall those with whom it all began, because, in the main, only the great teachers with the most illustrious names reap the glory. Evžen Holiš was second director and accompanist at a theatre. He gave me the most essential, the most valuable fundamentals. He made clear to me completely pragmatically and systematically what a musician in an orchestra needs to know from the conductor. There was no artistic analysis of scores. That’s really not where it begins. Even an instrumentalist first begins with empty strings. This is usually underestimated by conducting students. They all want to create immediately and they don’t have good fundamentals. Holiš insisted that the hardest and most important thing was making a correct stroke and a correct first beat. It may sound ridiculous, but you can’t get anywhere otherwise. And sometimes it’s not as easy as it seems. He taught inner looseness for this. I’m grateful to him for those beginnings, because early bad habits are very hard to remove, if they can be at all. Tomáš Hanus, the late František Preisler and Jakub Hrůša also started out under Holiš. But actually nobody knows this, because only the big names make it into biographies….

Please tell me what became of the flute? Or rather, what decided in favour of the baton?

In reality I wasn’t actually that great on the flute.

What is the conductor’s life like?

You don’t get bored in your work. It’s an adventurous, inconstant, uncertain, slightly nomadic life. I regard the fact you learn a lot about yourself and others in this profession as very valuable. It’s not all roses in your personal life, though. You don’t have much free time, and I’m talking here in particular about capacity for thought. In some part of your brain a particular score is constantly playing out. You always feel that you’re not sufficiently good at it. That definitely isn’t right. I admire conductors who close a score and can relax. I’m not yet able to do that.

And please tell me now how the life of a conductor differs from that of a principal conductor?

The position of principal conductor suits me more. Not that I’d stuck on having some post. It’s actually more of a nuisance. But it suits me that I know the orchestra thoroughly. I know every name and I have an idea of their strengths and weaknesses in terms of character. I know what I can expect from whoever, and if a momentary mistake is just a coincidence or a more frequent weakness. It speeds up work in general. You can also create a long-term perspective of where you want to take the orchestra.

As a guest, you won’t change anything in three days of work; either it works out or it doesn’t. The first spark is very important. If there is a mutual spark and you don’t screw up in a big way in future, more nice concerts are a possibility. If there’s no spark, that door is usually shut for a long time. It’s a terribly interesting thing, comparable to a relationship between two people. You sometimes can’t explain rationally why you get on with somebody and not with somebody else. Every orchestra has its own spirit.

We last saw you with the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic on a TV recording of a concert from the Smetana’s Litomyšl festival. It was an evening rich in exquisite interpreters and unusually diverse in genre. Would I be right in thinking you enjoy crossing the borders of classical music?

I’ve already mentioned that from childhood I’ve only listened to classical music. I didn’t come into contact with other genres, except when I was forced to by radio stations in public places. I have in this regard huge gaps. I don’t know all of the big hits of the Beatles or other big stars. I’ve got closer to that music in practice, as a conductor. Now I don’t recall what the first such project was. But I definitely prefer good music from any other genre than bad classical music, which merely takes advantage of falling into a “higher category”. I only go beyond the borders of classical when I have a sense that it’s really something interesting, valuable and in its own way distinctive. Unfortunately, I have erred in my judgement and some concerts have been nothing but poor quality hot air. (It wasn’t possible to back out – but fortunately there were very few). It’s important to be very careful in that respect.

I expect that today’s programme presents you with two contrasting tasks: one thoroughly well-known, the other probably new and requiring preparation. How has this encounter with Rejcha’s music been?

I first encountered Antonín Rejcha’s work in practice in a brass quintet at the Brno Conservatory. His compositions are an important pillar in that ensemble, and not only among Czech musicians. I like Rejcha’s sense of melody. A good conductor is always known for a distinctive signature, and Rejcha undoubtedly has that.

I’ve never conducted his Te Deum and I’m now in the study phase. I definitely regard it as a challenge, one I’m looking forward to. I always feel extra respect for a new piece, because by contrast with compositions that I’ve conducted repeatedly, there’s the likelihood that it will surprise you in some way.

Is Christmas a time of music or more a time quiet where you live?

You know, they say that silence heals but Hluk [the name of the town translates as Sound] cures. And it certainly cures at Christmas, because it’s one of the few places where on Christmas Eve groups of musicians play Christmas carols in front of the homes of their families, acquaintances and colleagues. It takes them hours to get around the whole of the small town, and then they head for Midnight Mass. So in our place it’s definitely music at Christmas!