一篇老采访

关于他的音乐，关于他的生活，挺全的 ----------- Maybe it's because he's just returned from a rare two-week break on the Italian coast, but Emmanuel Pahud is relaxed almost to the point of nonchalance. Leading the way towards a secluded corner in the lobby of Berlin's five star Grand Hyatt Hotel, he signals to a waitress he seems to know personally to bring him an espresso and an orange juice before reclining in an engulfing brown leather sofa. After 15 years of flying around the world as a star soloist, Pahud has obviously become perfectly accustomed to fleeting encounters with journalists in hotel lobbies. He is effortlessly in control of the situation, answering questions with an assurance and casual confidence that prove nothing much can phase him any more. 'I'm working more these days, and I'm working much faster,' he pronounces, spreading his arms across the back of the sofa. 'I've learnt a lot and basically I'm working much more efficiently. Where I used to need three or four days to prepare, now I need maybe three or four hours. Compression factor 24.' Pahud's workload has more than tripled since the early days of his international career when, in 1992, he became one of the youngest ever section principals at the Berlin Philharmonic aged just 22. Back then he was doing about 50 concerts a year - but with the success of his solo career and continued involvement with the orchestra, that number has spiralled to around 160. It doesn't seem to daunt him. 'Sometimes I think I should be slowing down,' he admits. 'But actually what I enjoy is the diversity you can have with an instrument like the flute. A lifetime is not enough to play the entire piano repertoire or the entire violin repertoire, but for a flute player it could be possible so instead you can extend and expand. That's why I play everything from baroque to contemporary music to jazz and other forms of music.' Pahud's fitted denim jeans, light checked shirt and cream waistcoat complete a casual bohemian look, with at least half a day's worth of gruff stubble on his tanned, oh-so-French-looking face. His charming good looks and fresh image have appealed to a new generation of flute players thankful for a role model who doesn't fit the usual stereotype of being blonde, skinny and female. Pahud admits that more women choose to play the flute than men. 'I guess that's a general trend in classical music - and in any business actually. There are far more women active nowadays than in previous generations. I think now it's 75 per cent girls studying the flute and 25 per cent guys. When I was studying myself it was about half and half, so it's changed a lot. But when you listen to the great flautists of the past and present, I could not say that their way of playing is particularly feminine. Some of the music written for the flute is meant to be presented in a feminine way, but that's not necessarily true for all the rest of it.' For Pahud, the flute has in fact always had masculine associations. He started playing at the age of six after spending hours with his ear pressed to the wall listening to the boys next door and their father practicing: 'I could hear the flute, the violin, the cello, the piano. I don't know why I chose the flute but maybe it was because the eldest son was playing it, so he was the one playing at the best level at that time - or because the father was also a flute player, so there was a kind of authority there. Anyhow, I said to my parents, "I want to play the flute, I want to play the Mozart concerto that guy next door is practicing."' Six months later, little Emmanuel was presented with the Christmas present of his dreams. 'I remember I was so happy,' he beams. 'Everyone was saying, "Try it, try it!" But I had such a big smile on my face that I couldn't blow a note out of it, I really couldn't.' Unusually for a world-class musician, Pahud comes from a completely unmusical family. His parents never played instruments, and although his brother learned the violin for a while he gave up in favour of concentrating on school work when he was older. 'It's my thing,' he confirms. 'It always seemed pretty natural to me to go out there on stage and go and get it; it felt very comfortable.' He does, however, have his family to thank for shaping his international outlook from an early age. Born in Geneva in 1970 to a French mother and a Franco-Swiss father, Pahud had lived Baghdad, Paris, Madrid, Rome and Brussels by the time he was 17. 'I don't remember any of it but I've been told that my first words were actually in Kurdish and Arabic,' he laughs. Nowadays he is understandably rather confused about his nationality. Is he French, Swiss? French-Swiss? 'Neither. Well, I guess half and half - I don't feel strongly related to one or the other in terms of national feelings. I'm a foreigner.' But he does have a special place in his heart for Paris, where he moved at the age of 17 to study at the Paris Conservatoire. 'Ah, I was thrilled,' he reminisces. 'I was so happy to be there on my own. In three years I learnt about 10 years of life experience, basically. It was a very exciting time. Once the day was finished it was like another part of my life starting - I had about three or four dates every night.' Four dates a night, even with his masculine charm? Surely not. 'Nooo, dating has never been my thing,' he says bashfully. 'Not necessarily dating, just meeting. It was like, "OK, let's go to the cinema at this place and then meet these other people to have dinner, and then go to the disco..."' Pahud's fondness for France also extends to French music. It is the country's reputation for nurturing great flautists and repertoire that drew him to Paris - following in the footsteps of most of his heroes including James Galway, Jean-Pierre Rampal and Aurèle Nicolet. 'There's a big tradition of French flute playing,' he explains. 'France was the first country to adopt the modern flute in the 19th century, even though it was engineered by Germans. The tone produced by this new instrument absolutely matched the impressionist tastes of the French at that time.' Paris continued to be Pahud's home until two years after he graduated, when he was offered every flautist's dream job - principal flute at the Berlin Philharmonic. 'Yes, I was so pleased,' he remembers with a coolness that can only have been gained through time. 'I was flying to Washington DC the next day with a stop off in Paris, so I flew back to Paris and I bought a bottle of whisky at the duty free and I emptied it within the night! And the next morning I slept on the plane. I was so over-excited I just couldn't get to sleep. I was just packing my suitcase and writing notes to friends and teachers and sharing this great thing that had happened to me.' It was the beginning of a bumper year for Pahud. He went on the win the prestigious Geneva International Music Competition, get himself an agent and an exclusive recording contract with EMI, and get married - all within the next 12 months. The recording relationship has, sadly but perhaps predictably, outlasted the one with his wife. Their marriage began to suffer as Pahud concentrated more and more on his solo career, jetting off around the globe and finding it hard to make time to spend with his two sons. In a last-dash attempt to keep his family together, he left the Berlin Philharmonic in 2000 and whisked his family off to Geneva in search of some solace. 'After seven years with the orchestra it was just getting too much,' he says. 'It was becoming a very stressful life. I could not cope with all the concerts, with the recordings, with the media, and I decided to move to Geneva so we could all get another experience. But it turned out that my family was very happy and I wasn't.' During this time Pahud had begun teaching postgraduates at the Geneva Conservatoire. 'It was a very good experience but I stopped pretty quickly, after one year,' he says. 'I felt very sorry for the students because some of them had come there to study with me, but I realised I wanted to play, I wanted to perform; I didn't want to talk about it and hear other people play.' And so his heart led him back to where he felt he belonged - Berlin. In the past Pahud has described leaving the Berlin Philharmonic as 'the most emotional experience since the birth of my children'. And now, back in the German capital and playing regularly with the orchestra again, it is clear that he feels at ease and at home here. 'Yes, it was emotional,' he smiles as he remembers what he thought was his last concert with the orchestra, almost laughing at himself. 'I don't know why, it just happened. I wasn't expecting it at all, it took me by surprise. It started a couple of hours before the concert and left me only when I got back to the orchestra two years later. It's kind of like a family or a home, you know - in a way it felt wrong to be away from the orchestra.' He enjoys being based in one of the world's most interesting and historic capitals: 'Berlin is very exciting right now because it's a city on the move, and changing nearly daily since the fall of the wall. I'm not happy with all of the changes happening, but at least there is something happening and it's not sleeping like some other major cities.' And now that he is a single man in a big city, I can't resist trying to prise some kind of romantic gossip out of him - particularly amid rumours that since the split with his wife he has been, well, exploring his sexuality. 'Since then I have had a very… various experiences,' he says with a coy smile. Like all those 'dates' in Paris? 'Yes, like in Paris.' Pahud still spends his holidays with his two sons, eight-year-old Grégoire and his younger brother Tristan, who is six and a half. 'The half is very important at that age,' he laughs affectionately. 'He's just lost his first tooth, and actually the second one is about to fall out as well. They develop so fast at that age - I try to keep up the pace but I find it hard.' Both the boys came to see Pahud perform on stage for the first time this summer. 'It was a great step for them,' he says. 'And it was great to see their big smiles and the pride on their faces, and their happiness to see dad on stage. It was a great thing, and very motivating to see how well they responded.' But he has no plans to start his kids off learning a musical instrument: 'They're not really musical. For my kids, music and the flute is what keeps dad away from home and from them. So I can understand pretty well that they're not really inclined to learn a musical instrument.' Nowadays much of Pahud's time is taken up with recording. He recently extended his contract with EMI for a further six years, ensuring that he continues to be the only flautist in the world with an exclusive contract with a major label. He seems to be pretty happy with the way things are going, and talks enthusiastically about his next disc - a new version of the Vivaldi concertos with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, recorded in Australia this summer. Recording adds a welcome diversity to Pahud's schedule. 'I like to work for the mic - it brings a certain close-up on your playing,' he ponders. 'You have to take care of lots of things that you do not necessarily have to take care of when you are performing in a live concert hall. You don't have the emotional or the visual support, and you have to be exciting nevertheless. So at the same time you have to take greater care of the detail and bring a greater intensity to the music.' Other plans for the year ahead include world premieres of four new flute concertos, something he says will be 'pretty hardcore': 'I've done commissions before but so far it has mostly been chamber music,' he explains. 'These are all concertos.' He laughs slightly manically, as if this fact is dawning on him for the first time and he is just now realising after returning from his holiday how much work he has to do. And as if that wasn't enough, he will also be touring with pianists Hélène Grimaud and Yefim Bronfman, recording a disc of Brahms sonatas and continuing with recent forays into the world of jazz. His taste for this genre was awakened by a collaboration with jazz pianist Jacky Terrasson five years ago when the pair did a gig together in the historic jazz venue the Philharmonie in Cologne. There followed recordings and several other gigs, to be continued this season with a repeat of the Cologne concert. 'Getting out there on the stage without music and with a band, and just starting somewhere and ending somewhere, you don't know how long and what exactly - that's a very exciting experience and I haven't been trained for that,' Pahud admits. 'It has been very refreshing. When I did the first concert I felt like I was 13 and going on stage for the first time. I felt quite tiny, and very happy when it was over! But it was so exciting and I just went for it - I was pretty nervous but usually when I am nervous and excited I gain an intensity and I get more into the thing I'm doing. 'But I couldn't say I know what stage fright is any more,' he adds. And it is hard to imagine this cool, easygoing guy getting in a flap about anything - even with a schedule of 160 concerts ahead of him and four world premieres to learn before Christmas. 'I have always kept moving forward without thinking, "This is going to be hard," or, "This is going to be great," or whatever. I just go there and do it,' he declares. 'I never thought when I started playing the flute, "I want to be the greatest flute player in the world," or, "I want to get a job with the Berlin Philharmonic," because I think that's very ambitious and you shouldn't think like that. You should do it step by step and when you're taking a step, think about where you're going to put the next one.' And with that, he barely noticeably pays for the drinks, strides out of the lobby and heads across Potsdamer Platz to the first rehearsal of his next action-packed year.