When you wish upon a star, as they say, you get lots of stuff. Well, the Sheliak Trio is actually named after a star, and I can tell that chatting with Matilde Michelozzi (cello), Emanuele Brilli (violin) and Sergio Costa (piano) has undoubtedly been a highly rewarding experience. That is to say that I hope this conversation could prove itself as part of the equation not only in my own eyes, but also in yours. Ready to find out something more about this Italian chamber group and their thoughts and feelings regarding music-making?
Hi guys! So, let’s get started like this: what does being classical musicians mean to you in today’s world?
First of all, let’s say that classical music in today’s world is the preserve of an elite. For us, though, our role as musicians means working as hard as possible to present music to the public in a natural way, trying to make them participate in sensations and experiences that one does not have to be an expert to grasp. We want to position ourselves as positive carriers of a human and universal message, communicated through the language of music, rather than as banal ‘performers’ of a music and culture that could be now considered dead.
Very cool! So, at what point in your lives and careers did you decide to form a trio, and for what reasons?
Sergio and Matilde met at the Conservatory in Florence, where they played together as a duo for many years, then Emanuele joined later, coming from his studies in the nearby Fiesole Music School. All three of us were trying to form a stable trio, and we got on very well right from the start. We had all recently finished our studies in Italy, and were at the beginning of a path that would lead us to perfecting our skills abroad. We believed in our common project while we were studying in Switzerland in three different cities, and we set our sights on the Master of Chamber Music. Why? We have always been passionate about chamber music; we like the human dimension of the mutual exchange of ideas, the discussion and the end result, a kind of ‘musical democracy’. And then, in a nutshell… why play alone when you can play with three people?
In fact, I see no reason not to, ah ah! In my eyes the story behind your name as a trio is absolutely romantic: the Sheliak star above your heads in Florence, the music-related name of the constellation Lyra which includes it, and the three of you finding yourselves in its light at the same time… so basically you’ve chosen Sheliak as your guiding star, haven’t you? Talking about guidance, amongst the different aspects of music-making from choosing the repertoire to rehearsing, do you feel more like a single entity or do you allow yourselves to take turns leading?
In our study and journey as a group, we always aim for a unified sound and for everyone to have the same intention, but always with respect for the three individualities. From the very beginning, we found the solution in unity of gestures and naturalness, and after developing a common identity, the repertoire choices also became the group’s. But the most interesting work was (and still is) trying to make our inevitable differences the strength of each of us and of the trio, without fear and in a way without compromise. In this sense, the Sheliak star represents our goal of unity in music, as well as an ‘unattainable’ goal, a reminder that improvement and deepening will follow us throughout our journey as artists in its entirety.
You guys have also studied music outside of Italy, residing in and visiting countries such as Germany and Switzerland; what musical differences between all these places would you define as the most evident ones?
More than the individual countries we visited, it was the international and multicultural context (especially in the case of Switzerland) that made us experience first-hand how much speech and language influence composers in the way they write music. For example, having lived in German-speaking Switzerland, our relationship with the German language gave us a myriad of insights and revelations into the ideas of some of the most famous composers in our repertoire. Another interesting aspect is that we realised how different the approach to musical interpretation is in different European and non-European countries: it was a bit like learning a language and then slowly being able to distinguish the differences of each dialect.
I must confess I’d be eager to know something more about your personal tastes as music listeners: do you feel “able” to enjoy music from a point of view other than the musician’s? Would you mind sharing with us what kind of music do you usually listen to in your spare time?
When you make a lot of music in your life, it fills and affects all your days, so your free time is likely to be characterised by different activities, such as reading or even just relaxing beyond the notes. The ‘vice’ of our profession, in our case perhaps, is that the music we enjoy listening to has no genre, but often needs content that is deep. It is often spontaneous to filter listening through those expectations linked to our ability to understand the language of music, but it is also nice, however difficult it may be at times, to free ourselves from these expectations, seeking a more relaxed and judgement-free listening experience.
Ok, perhaps this is not a piece of cake, but I have the feeling that it’s definitely worth discussing: do you think that classical music is really more “difficult” than popular music? I mean, we all know that pretty often it is said that classical music demands “comprehension” (as if other music genres were nonsense!), and that many listeners tend to “dread” attending a chamber or symphonic concert… In the light of this, I sense that something got lost in the process, do you know what I mean?
The understanding required for a chamber or symphonic concert is not necessarily greater than for other musical genres. The point, in our opinion, is that it is still not clear to most people that what we now call classical music was the popular music of the time and that, when interpreted in that key by the performer and the listener, it is capable of having a very similar effect on people today, stripping it of its aura of majesty and unattainability, which in our opinion has only had the effect of distancing the performer (and consequently the composer and the music itself) from the listener. It is certainly important to make an effort to educate young people and the general public to listen to classical music, but perhaps it is more a work of subtraction which needs to be done to bring music closer to the public.
I like this, for real. Shall we talk about contemporary music? Jordi Savall once said that every musical performance is always a contemporary happening, no matter the style, and that we should talk about “early” scores, rather than early music. This statement has been fascinating me since I first heard of it! I’m telling all this as I’ve always thought that the adjective “contemporary” should apply to the classical music of our time in general, rather than defining a music genre of its own, what do you think?
Contemporary and extemporary are two terms we like to juxtapose. Research into the music we often play tells us that the performer at the time was above all a skilled artist of musical improvisation, albeit on a basis and rules that had to be studied. Aware of this, we feel that our artistic journey takes us in the same direction: the continuous listening to each other, the interlacing of our ideas during a concert, living in the present moment by constantly creating and discovering, make each performance a unique and always different experience for us. Moreover, music is all human as well as the composers themselves, and from this point of view the when does not matter. To give an example, we increasingly find similarities between the gestures of a Schubert trio and that of a modern-day composition, because what binds them is the thread of musical movement, of the story that the piece tells.
On a similar tone, what would you ask of a contemporary piece of music as performers? Are extended techniques and constant dissonances crucial to you, or even a more “standardised” writing could deliver as notable an outcome as the former?
Every invention and extended technique has been made to expand the expressive capacity of instruments, and at the same time every technique is conveyed by a need for language, for communication. The compositions of contemporaries are certainly influenced by the sound possibilities and ‘experimentations’ that have been researched, but, as has always happened, it was the composers themselves who needed these to set their thoughts to music. The evolution of instruments influences composers who in turn influence instrumental innovations, in a virtuous circle. This does not imply, however, that these techniques are necessary in the writing of a piece. That is why we think that a good composer uses no more and no less than what he needs to make his music.
According to a substantial part of our Western tradition, composers write music for someone else to perform it, at least when they’re not performers themselves (or in particular cases such as symphonic works): that being said, what does the word “interpretation” really mean to you?
Interpretation for us involves taking responsibility for discerning the composer’s message among the notes. We research, analyse with our minds and listen with our hearts, and then try to motivate our responsibility as much as possible in conveying the musical message. But then at the end of it all there is also us as three different people with different sensitivities, and ‘us’ is an ingredient that it would be wrong, as well as perhaps useless, not to include in the final result! More generally, interpretation is a self-explanatory term: it is individual, subjective, not absolute. There is no such thing as ‘the interpretation’, there are many, some maybe more faithful to the composer’s message, others less so, but all ultimately unjudgeable. We have our own vision, but we do not want to fall into the temptation (which tends to happen in many music interpretation competitions, for example) of identifying an absolute truth.
I’d love to end this lovely chat with a question directly related to the very name of our webzine. Besides “new classical”, “modern classical music” has become the standard definition for a specific kind of intensely melodic contemporary music (often for piano or the so-called felt piano) which tends to be pretty much simple or very direct in writing: if you ever formed an opinion about it, what do you think about this genre? Do you think this style could find a spot in your repertoire?
We admit that our knowledge of this genre is not the most extensive, but we feel able to answer that, as mentioned earlier, the message communicated by the music through the composer’s means is always what we are most interested in finding, and what gives meaning to our work. We do not feel inclined to praise a musical genre per se, nor to exclude it from the outset, and we are open and ready to welcome any type of composition into our repertoire. The quality of the musical message for us exists beyond the complexity of the writing, and is the true discriminator of our choice.
Thank you guys for discussing such interesting topics with me, and for being that intensely open-minded. Wishing you the best of luck for all your future endeavours!