„I Love Hindemith and His Music!“
Tabea Zimmermann has been a member of the Foundation Council of the Fondation Hindemith since 2013. In this conversation, we discussed her work on this committee, her love for Hindemith and her further plans concerning these activities.
Ms. Zimmermann, you have been a member of the Foundation Council of the Fondation Hindemith since early 2013. What moved you to become a member of this committee?
First and foremost: I love Hindemith and his music! I am delighted to be able to support the Fondation Hindemith in making the works of this composer better known by playing them myself and making them accessible to my students. In my decade-long occupation with the composer, I have also come to know the Hindemith Institute in Frankfurt as a most important and competent institution. As a member of the Foundation Council, I can gain a more profound insight into the work of the Institute and, not least, become better acquainted with the composer himself. Accompanying the work of the Foundation and participating in its organisation, therefore, is especially appealing to me.
You are not only committed to the Fondation Hindemith, but are also Chairperson of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn Society.
We musicians often develop a strong self-centredness, since we are regularly on stage with everyone‘s attention focussed on us. This is indispensable in our profession, but it must not be allowed to take the upper hand. Through my membership in committees such as the Fondation Hindemith and the Beethoven-Haus Bonn Society, I like to make use of the opportunity to see the bigger picture beyond my own activities as a violist. In this way, I can concern myself with topics that expand my horizon and give additional impulses to my work as a performing musician.
What are your guiding principles in your artistic work?
It is very important for me that new aspects come into view in each and every new listening and playing experience with a work. Each performance is preceded by a new search for an interpretation that appears right to me at that current point in time. I then put this to myself and the audience as a basis for discussion – and call it into question again at the next confrontation with the piece. This is done in order to prevent me from lapsing into routine – which I absolutely want to avoid, even if my approach requires more work.
Has this changed your image of Hindemith over the course of the decades during which you have been involved with his music?
I have the impression that in interpretations made in the past – including my own – the more tender aspects of Hindemith‘s music have been neglected. People like to play Hindemith in a rather gruff and hard manner – for example, by taking his dotted rhythms very seriously. Hindemith, however, was originally from Hessen and spoke with a rather soft, slightly singing accent. With this background in mind, I have recently tried to track down some of this characteristic spoken style in his music and to bring it out in the music.
This coming July you will be leading a master class at the Centre de Musique Hindemith in Blonay together with the pianist Thomas Hoppe. Not only Hindemith‘s viola works will be on the programme …
Viola courses are boring! – No, seriously: I have meanwhile taught the viola for over two decades and look forward to being able to offer a one-week chamber music course in Blonay where pieces are rehearsed that this incredibly versatile composer wrote for other instruments and ensembles. An intensive involvement with these pieces ultimately widens my own horizon as well, for which I am most grateful!
Chamber music forms an ever-greater focus in your work.
This also has to do with my self-conception as an artist. I regard myself as a musician – the viola is simply the instrument with which I can best express my qualities as a musician. It is therefore only consistent with this standpoint that I have been playing with the Arcanto Quartet since 2002 and have directed projects of the Ensemble Resonanz Hamburg from the point of view of the viola as artist in residence.
Have these experiences also had an effect on your other artistic work?
It has indeed become ever more important for me to view music as a whole and not only be focussed on the viola part. One’s own tone – especially that of an instrument in the middle range – must fit in with the overall sound and must always be regarded in relation to the other players. Regardless of whether it is to the piano, to the partners in the string quartet or other ensembles, or indeed to the overall sound of a large orchestra – here, too, the solo part is still part of the whole. Of course, this differentiated „listening into the music“ means more work – but it’s worth it!
Susanne Schaal-Gotthardt