In search of the present
François-Xavier Roth has been bringing music to care homes as part of SWR Symphonieorchester’s commitment to community and participation, and this month he conducts the orchestra in several concerts for World Alzheimer’s Day. He reflects on music’s power to reach beyond language, the nature of memory, and why he prefers to read a score rather than memorise it
What is the background of this project?
It is something I’ve wanted to work on for years, and when I started my music directorship in Stuttgart, I wanted to make a strong statement in this direction. We began with a couple of concerts in care homes. It’s grown since then and we’re taking the opportunity of this year’s Alzheimer’s Week to develop it further.
Why did you want to work with Alzheimer’s patients?
There are several reasons. Firstly, my grandfather had Alzheimer’s, so I experienced the disease on a regular basis from a young age. It was always part of our family story.
I had the great opportunity and privilege to know Pierre Boulez at the end of his life, when he perhaps had some form of dementia. One of the last times I visited him in Baden-Baden, I brought my friend, the flautist Emmanuel Pahud, who played Debussy’s Syrinx for him. I could see how this man, who was completely lost in his own mind, suddenly reconnected to the present through the music. I was so impressed.
There are also questions about music-making that have brought me close to this topic. There is a paradox of memory. I have always believed that it is dangerous for musicians. As performers, we should constantly be reading what we play and not having a memory of it. It may sound strange to say this in the context of Alzheimer’s, but it is part of the question of how our brains react to memories and how musicians deal with this theme.
Why do you believe that memorisation is dangerous for musicians?
When you play something by heart, you may feel free, because you know the road you're going to follow and all the stops along the way. For me, that is dangerous. You’re following your own map of the score, with your own paths and turns. When you memorise a score, it’s easy to forget what the composer actually wrote, and you might have a memory that is not necessarily accurate or sharp.
Reading the score in performance is very stimulating – you can see something new or interpret the same detail differently. It's the same for a poem or novel. Approaching the score as if for the first time stimulates something in our brains, even if it’s our 500th time. We’re not following an itinerary, so we can surprise ourselves, even in the concert. A detail that appears in the moment might suddenly seem more important and the act of music-making changes.
Most of the time, we are playing music that has already been performed, and both performers and audiences tend to want to feel what they felt the first time they encountered it. This is also dangerous, because no composer wrote a work to be performed 10,000 times – it was always to be performed as if for the first time. When we repeat a work, we can lose sight of what the composer wanted to say because we’re living in a memory that has many different dimensions. You might have experienced a shock when you first heard a piece, or something comfortable, touching or melancholy. You want to re-experience that, which is absolutely not what we are supposed to do.
As a listener, my dream is to be surprised every time by a work I already know. I want to hear different angles or perspectives to it – not to be exotic for the sake of it, but because making music in a concert is so important, and so radical.
How do you prepare a score?
I have to know the score very well, but I don't memorise it. I analyse it to know how the work should sound, but I don't want to conduct by heart. Memorising is a very specific exercise. It trains a part of your brain so you can say, ‘There are a certain amount of bars there, and then comes this, and suddenly comes that.’ You’re building an itinerary in your brain. I don't need to do that. I know that what happens, but I don't need to mobilise that part of my brain, because I'm reading. It’s much more important for me to put my energy into knowing the score than memorising it.
When I study a score, I know the parameters of what I want to hear. Study is a long story, though. It's not a week or a month of work – it's a whole trajectory. I know how I want to hear a work, and when I face the orchestra, I rehearse to try to get as close as possible to this imaginary picture that I have built through my work. Very often the orchestra brings its own reality – in the best way – and they can find solutions to problems you imagined alone with the score. There are also problems that you didn't expect, but in the end, we work it out together.
Do you hold on to memories of performances in your past?
I remember old performances, but as a conductor, these concerts belong to my past, and who I am, and I don’t search for or re-enact them. As musicians, we are like Utopic searchers, never completely satisfied. Even if a concert goes well, we always believe we haven’t touched the truth or the best we can achieve. Although we are strong, we are also fragile and unsure, so the recollection of a great performance can be comforting and help our lack of trust, but in the end, it's nothing more than a memory. When I conduct the work again, I don’t search for something I did in the past. I look forward to what comes.
What is your experience of visiting care homes for people with dementia?
It can be disturbing, but also touching and essential. We play in a canteen or a meeting room. They talk to us very directly and we are a little shy. They are surprised we are there, because it's not routine that a symphonic orchestra comes to their home. But when we perform, we see their reactions. They laugh or beat rhythm or shout or sing. Music can provoke something that no other art form can, because it doesn’t require language. Receiving music, being inside it, is magical. Music is a drug, in the best sense. There is no end to the benefit of it.
Why have you chosen Rameau in your concerts in care homes?
Rameau is part of our first subscription concerts in September, and we go into the care homes with a small orchestra, so it makes sense to play Rameau. It is also full of dances, which are easy to hear the first time, and to interact with, using both your body and voice. It's gorgeous music, which they may not know. We are also planning a whole programme with music that is more familiar to them, which is also very important and stimulating for their memory.
How important is it for musicians to be involved in these sorts of projects?
I don't want to tell anyone what to do. If I come to it now, it's because I’ve thought about it for years, but other people are interested in other things, and that’s okay. I want to do more in this direction because it means something to me at this point in life, but musicians are not obliged to do anything. It’s fine for musicians only to do music.
You also work with amateur musicians. What do you get out of that?
As professional musicians, one lives in a bubble. When we explode this bubble and welcome people who don't play as well as us, but who are keen, we go back to the basis of what an orchestra is and what music is for. It’s stimulating for both sides. I enjoy the opportunity of discussing music with amateur orchestras in ways that are not always possible with professional musicians – explaining and experiencing the roots of orchestra playing, for example. It’s all about sharing our passion.
What have you learnt from working with people with mental health problems and dementia?
It’s so important to meet people who are different to us, especially in our times, when the tendency is to live in communities that all think and behave the same. I miss having conversations with people who are not the same as me. These people have sadly been put into places that are far away from others, but meeting them is a meaningful experience. We learn from them – from their spontaneity, their joy, their reactions. It shakes up many things inside us. For me and my orchestra in Stuttgart, it's an amazing experience and we are thankful.
François-Xavier Roth conducts SWR Symphonieorchester in several concerts as part of Musik bleibt! (Music Remains!), marking World Alzheimer's Day (21 September) and Germany's national Woche der Demenz (Week of Dementia) (21–27 September)
