Tribune de Geneve

Un maestro genevois triomphe à la BBC

A 49 ans, Thierry Fischer a été nommé chef de l'orchestre gallois de la BBC

Depuis une semaine, un maestro genevois tient les rênes de l'un des quatre orchestres symphoniques de la BBC, la vénérable radio-télévision publique britannique. A 49 ans, Thierry Fischer vient en effet d'être nommé chef principal du BBC National Orchestra of Wales, à Cardiff, au Pays de Galles.  Une formation très appréciée des mélomanes, qui donne chaque saison des dizaines de concerts dans tout le Royaume-Uni et à l'étranger, et enregistre de nombreux disques.

Chez d'autres, cette forme de consécration laisserait des traces sur l'ego. Thierry Fischer, lui, ne se laisse pas griser par le prestige de ses nouvelles fonctions. Jeans, gros pull et baskets, il est resté tel qu'en lui-même. Tel qu'à l'époque où, jeune chef autodidacte, il dirigeait l'Orchestre de chambre de Genève (OCG), tout juste né des cendres du Collegium Academicum.

Un rêve d'enfant
Confortablement installé dans sa maison mitoyenne du Mervelet ("Notre rue n'est pas touchée par le projet de construction, mais nous sommes solidaires avec les autres habitants du quartier"), le chef d'orchestre genevois retrace avec lucidité son itinéraire hors du commun.

Après les années OCG, dont Thierry Fischer suit les succès actuels "avec fierté", il y a eu l'Orchestre du Ballet Néerlandais à Amsterdam, quitté après quatre ans ("Je ne supportais plus les danseurs"), puis Belfast, où il s'est retrouvé en 2001 a la tête de l'Ulster Orchestra. Une expérience fondamentale. "On jouait sur deux semaines toute la musique symphonique de compositeurs célèbres, Brahms, Schumann ou Mendelssohn. Pour l'orchestre, c'était un apprentissage génial. Et le public adorait!"

Ses triomphes à Belfast ont conduit à son engagement au Pays de Galles. "Me retrouver à la tête d'une Rolls Royce comme le BBC Orchestra of Wales, c'est un peu un rêve d'enfant qui se réalise", lance Thierry Fischer. Qui regorge de projets avec son nouvel orchestre. "On m'a choisi pour mes affinités avec le répertoire français, avec les classiques du XXe siècle et la musique contemporaine." On ne s'étonnera pas de voir Debussy, Ravel, Dutilleux, Messiaen, Honegger, Stravinsky, Prokofiev ou Chostakovitch figurer massivement à l'affiche de ses prochains concerts.

Également un chef invité très demandé, Thierry Fischer voyage en moyenne sept mois par an, du Japon aux États-unis, de l'Australie aux pays scandinaves. "J'ai le privilège de vivre ma passion tous les jours. Physiquement, c'est éprouvant, mais je me ménage des pauses deux fois dans l'année. Pour me ressourcer à la maison, en famille, et prendre le temps d'étudier, de méditer."

Maestro comble, Thierry Fischer affine concert après concert sa philosophie musicale. "Je crois sincèrement que les sons ont en eux une énergie qui rentre dans nos pensées et qui nous transforme, nous rend plus ouverts, plus sensibles et créatifs. Tout mon travail tend vers ce but : sortir du domaine du réel pour entrer dans celui du possible. "

Interview by Luca Sabbatini

Music that Changed Me

Thierry Fischer was born in Zambia, the son of Swiss missionaries. He began his career as principal flute in Hamburg and at Zurich Opera. Here he studied scores with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who conducted him in the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Encouraged by Claudio Abbado, he spent his apprentice years in Holland. He has since conducted across Europe, working as principal conductor at the Ulster Orchestra. This month he becomes principal conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

"My father was a missionary, so we lived in Africa for most of my childhood. My first memory of music is hearing Zambian drumming. I later lived in Ivory Coast, and there I heard the sound of women singing obsessive songs, with sharp voices, no vibrato.

We had a few LPs in Ivory Coast, and I remember listening to Beethoven symphonies in secret. When I was ten, I would put them on and conduct them, without having ever seen a score or attending a concert. This gave me a dimension of hope and was an escape into happiness. The one I will always treasure most is the 'PASTORAL' SYMPHONY . I was a flautist in the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for years, and I am proud of the Beethoven recordings we made with Harnoncourt in the early 1990s. When we performed the 'Pastoral' in Graz I remember Harnoncourt's face as we ended the piece - I could draw it now, there was a radiance, it was almost religious, I had a unique feeling leaving the stage - I knew I had touched beauty, that I could die without any regret. It was as if those secret hopes I had as a child were fulfilled in that performance.

After Africa, I came back to Geneva and attended a music school and I sang a lot - chansons and cabaret as well as choral. I was lucky to sing BACH'S ST JOHN PASSION in the Ensemble Vocale de Lausanne. I had had a Protestant-Calvinist education which gave it great resonance. Those chorales bring me such peace. Each one is we say, 'a cut in the chaos' - it suspends time. I am fascinated by the simplicity of the musical material. Singing those chorales gave me a lot of confidence and I knew I needed to be a musician.

When I first heard HEINZ HOLLIGER'S THE SCARDANELLI SEQUENCE I thought 'the way I feel now is the way those people who heard the St John Passion for the first time would have felt.' I was intrigued by every bar, every new number. I couldn't guess what was coming. Holliger took Hölderlin's poems about evading time and created this cycle that tries to escape time itself. He uses the choir a cappella and an orchestra, and a bass intoning the time, and patches where no instrument plays normally - it is otherworldly. I conducted it later and it took 33 rehearsals as it is so hard. I discovered physically the importance of trusting the sounds that I didn't know. It was a revelation.

When, as a flautist in an orchestra, I played STRAUSS'S EIN HELDENLEBEN it took me aback: It was the first time I realised how powerful the orchestra can be, and it made me see how important the conductor is when interpreting this repertoire. It was like seeing a Ferrari after seeing ordinary cars. It helped me to accept the power of orchestral music, and to realise how you have to deal with this as a conductor.

A piece which I discovered recently and gripped me is LE CANTIQUE DE JEAN RACHINE by FAURÉ . I listened to it in a car and I had to stop. It was everything I was looking for. I had tears rolling down my face. Such truth, such mystery in that piece: written in overlapping phrases, it's like a puzzle that doesn't fit, it subverts the usual musical logic. A little treasure of five minutes, it almost doesn't need conducting. You prepare it, and let it go.

It is the conjunction of joy and love that makes MESSIAEN's TURANGALÎLA SYMPHONIE such an important piece for me. It is full of untouchable sounds: it is naïve, but it obliges us to open our eyes and ears. It ask us 'Is life really so serious?' When I conduct it I just can't wait for the next bar, it's so fantastic, so exciting..."