Communicate the fire

This is the continuation of our interview with Lola Astanova.

San Diego Reader: If you had to spend the next year on a desert island with a piano, what music would you take with you?

Lola Astanova: I wouldn’t want a piano! I would want to get away from it and focus on my tan. Probably Beethoven or Mozart but I would have to wait until I get a little older.

SDR: Why do you say that?

LA: I think you have to be in the right frame of mind for it. 19th Century music and romantic music especially, is so emotional, so passionate, you’re wearing your heart on your sleeve and it’s just all out there. At this time in my life that music is more fitting. When you are a little bit older — more at peace — you are ready for something that’s not so outward. Maybe I will end up playing more Bach or Beethoven concerts.

SDR: Come to think of it, I used to know an older gentleman who only wanted to listen to Baroque or Classical-Period chamber music. He explained that when he was a young man he was into Mahler and Bruckner but now...

LA: I love Baroque music. It’s so rhythmical which is very different from, say Chopin, which is rubato based and you can be free with the tempo. Baroque music — I love the structure of that. I love the tempo. I love that you are within the frame of the music and you have to stick to that but I hear techno. I can’t help myself. I think, “this is like club music”. I feel that energy. I don’t know, maybe there’s something wrong with me. I’ve never heard classical music as subdued or proper or academic. I’ve always heard it as very dramatic and over-the-top and rebellious almost. I think those composers, we may call them the founding fathers — Bach, Beethoven, Wagner — they were larger than life personalities. They were rebels. The didn’t follow the rules. That spirit resonates with me more than being a perfect conservatory student who dresses in a tuxedo and does all the right things. I never heard this music that way. Maybe I’m a freak!

SDR: Maybe it’s that innate response you mentioned.

LA: It stirs these emotions inside me when I hear Tchaikovsky’s Fourth. I’m like, “Oh my God, this is so grandiose,” I just want to eat it up!

SDR: It is! It’s like he understands.

LA: There’s this hopelessness, this drama, it’s suicidal, but it’s notes and harmony.

SDR: Is there a way to help the general audience to understand that better — because of the passive culture that surrounds the concert hall?

LA: I think there is because of the music. The music has been around forever but it has been relevant from one generation to the next. I think the performance format needs to be upgraded. It needs to be changed to make it more dynamic, to make it audience friendly. To make them understand. For someone who has never been exposed to classical music is would be hard for them to relate if they came to, you know, three Mahler symphonies in a row. They would never get it. The format needs to be changed.

SDR: I remember a few seasons ago Lang Lang was here and the opening weekend was close to sold out. The second half of the concert was Pictures at an Exhibition and it blew the roof off of the place. I remember thinking that there was no way people wouldn’t come back after hearing that. They didn’t even though it was a tremendous performance of incredible music. The next weekend was back to the normal attendance level.

LA: Organizations and performers are going to have to take risks and experiment. I can hardly picture someone like Wagner saying, “Well I’m not going to do it because what if I get criticized?” You can’t play out of fear or you will lose.

SDR: Yes — and Wagner was also in debt and he also had one rich dude who paid for everything. It’s not like things have changed that much.

LA: Later in Wagner’s life — he was in his 50s when things started clicking. I read his book, his autobiography, and what was so amazing is that he knew who he was. When he was 19 he was broke, nobody else saw it, nobody else believed but he knew he was Wagner. He had that strong spirit. I think that is what we need today. We need a little bit more of that. Maybe we’ve lost it and we’re too afraid so we’re just following somebody else’s rules. The music is there. The music is not a problem. We need to get that fire across. That’s what needs to happen.

SDR: I see it sometimes. When the players smile, I smile.

LA: Ya, I think we just need to loosen up a little bit. You know? It’s not a funeral. People have to want to come here [to Symphony Hall]. That’s the only reason they’re going to come — if they want to come. We have to make it appealing on every level. It’s a different world. Things don’t work they way they used to work a hundred years ago, or fifty years ago, or even ten years ago. Things are changing so we need to change with it. We’re competing with so many different things. There’s the entertainment industry, pop-music, movies. Why should people come here?

SDR: There’s so much competition and yet there’s no competition.

LA: [laughing] I think so, ya!

SDR: I love pop music. I listen to it in the car with my kids but that’s pop music and that’s one thing but I’m not going to say it’s the same. This isn’t that.

LA: I love it too. I listen to it when I want to be entertained but I don’t look for any kind of an emotional impact because in order for me to be emotionally elevated I need those four to six hours of Die Meistersinger or at the end of Tosca — I need to hear that aria. That’s when I feel like I was reborn. Pop music is a great source of entertainment. It’s a different energy. I would say that when I’m done with a classical concert I need to listen to pop music or club music to get my energy back. You can’t be serious all the time. You can’t listen to Beethoven all the time or you’ll go crazy.

SDR: I think if we can get more people involved in doing music, in participating in music maybe it would change things.

LA: I think arts programs and music programs in schools — you know, teaching kids how to play an instrument is very important. I think it should be mandatory. Absolutely. Everybody in Russia, every child, went to music school whether you wanted to or not. It is part of the tradition. Parents always make sure that at least you get some introductory level courses.

SDR: But how do they afford it? Because we can’t afford it in this country apparently.

LA: [laughing] It must have been the communism. In the Soviet Union the education was good and it was free. That was one good thing about Soviet times.