Interview with Barbara Hannigan

Singing and conducting at the same time

This is something that needs to be well managed during the rehearsals. When you’re speaking to a large group of musicians, it’s tiring on the voice, and of course on the energy as well. I need to keep my voice in shape during the week and keep my focus for that. I don’t do any socialising; I don’t have any other commitments except the LSO. I do a lot of visualising of the piece that I am going to sing, because sometimes I don’t have enough energy to practice it for a long period of time, but I can visualize very specific aspects of it and how I want it to go, and that can be as effective as a good practice session.

If I really believe in a piece then I want others to hear it, and my whole career has been like that.

Programming for new audiences

Every programme that I make is for an audience which is either new to classical music, or who already think they know everything about classical music and it’s all the same. I’m programming music that I really want people to hear, and I respect the audience. If I really believe in a piece then I want others to hear it, and my whole career has been like that. I developed trust and a relationship with audiences performing some pretty intense contemporary music over the course of my career. Little by little I’ve built up that trust with audiences, orchestras and presenters, so that I could say ‘this is something that I think people should hear.’

The transformative power of Claude Vivier’s music

Claude Vivier is, in my opinion, one of the great composers of any era. I remember when I first heard his music, I was 17 or 18 years old. I had just moved to Toronto and I was starting to hear his music in concerts, and I noticed something was happening to me that wasn’t happening in other pieces. I felt like I had been changed by the piece, and I never would be the same after the piece was finished. This has been constant with the music of Vivier and me. One can’t help but acknowledge that his life story is somehow present in every piece. There’s a kind of purity in the music, which is very special.

A ‘love affair’ with Joseph Haydn

People are by now aware of that love affair between me and Haydn. His orchestral music, his piano sonatas and his string quartets are just incredible. I’m quite particular about how I approach the pieces: I buy an entire set of parts for every single player. Then, with my librarian, I prepare the parts and mark every single player’s part exactly how I want. I decide the bowing, the articulation, the dynamics, the grading of the dynamics, the phrasing, everything. And from there we begin to work. If I didn’t, there would never be enough time to communicate the detail of what I want in the rehearsal time that we have!