Born in 1982, cellist and composer Raphaël Merlin – also a conductor, composer and jazz pianist – is a fan of multidisciplinarity. In 2002, he joined the Ebony Quartet, then in its infancy, following having worked with the Quatuor Ysaÿe in Paris as well as with Gabor Takacs, Eberhard Feltz and György Kurtag. With the exceptional success at the ARD Competition in 2004 begins the rise of the quartet, which will receive many other awards. In twenty years of career, Ebène has recorded fifteen discs, including the complete quartets of Beethoven. Meeting with Raphaël Merlin, who is preparing to take over the artistic and musical direction, and the entire team of the Geneva Chamber Orchestra (OCG).
Le Temps: How does one go from chamber musician to conductor?
Raphael Merlin: Conducting has always been present in my career as a musician. I started conducting in 1998 at the Lycée Racine, then I entered the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory in the orchestra conducting class, which had just been created. The adventure with the Quatuor Ebène then began in 2002. The first years were so intense that I had to put management on hold. I started conducting once more in 2008 with one or two concerts a year. In 2014, Martin Kubich, director of the Haut Limousin Festival, asked me to bring together an orchestra of soloists. And it was from this commission that I founded the collective of chamber musicians Les Forces Majeures.
It was with this orchestra that you met the OCG in April 2022, following a bike tour…
Exactly. In 2018, we imagined a first 65 km bike tour with four concerts in a single day. We wanted to travel the territory to meet the population and build a close relationship with the public. During the covid, we were encouraged by the public authorities to reiterate this project. Traveling by bicycle was the most reliable way to avoid contamination. It then became the cornerstone of the whole, concerned with respecting soft mobility in accordance with climatic requirements. We explored rural or peri-urban settings with various formats. In April 2022, we did the orchestra’s biggest bike tour: 25 concerts in two weeks, two a day. In Geneva, something very personal happened. As I was leading Summer Pastoral of Arthur Honegger, I felt a sense of evidence. It was this kind of concert that cleans and clears the horizon: everything made sense. A few weeks later, I had the irresistible urge to apply for the position of director of the OCG.
What do twenty years of quartet practice bring to your direction?
With a hundred dates a year as we did, in addition to working daily on the great Germanic repertoire (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven), we understand the dramatic power of the sonata. The quartet repertoire is a quintessential form that prefigures the symphonic. An inexhaustible mine. Moreover, the quartet is terribly demanding musically but also humanly, because inevitably, conflicts arise. It cannot be avoided that four people who have different artistic sensibilities easily give up an idea or an inspiration. You have to know how to find common ground, argue. The quartet is an extreme apprenticeship in listening to others in every sense of the word. This also seems to me to be an essential quality for being a chef.
If the quartet represents collegiality, the orchestra is much more pyramidal in its functioning. How do you envision this difference?
Today, the place of the leader is questioned. One wonders what it is for, what is its legitimacy. We also sometimes wonder if it’s not the worst musician who ends up on the podium, because he’s the only one who won’t be heard. The first usefulness of the conductor, in my opinion, is to save everyone time: to prevent having to do 18 rehearsals to put on a symphony. Then, the chef, as in gastronomy, must be one step ahead of what the taste buds will receive. Succeed in figuring out the aesthetic choices in advance and nurture an inner auditory universe to share, federate and convince. The conductor can be either a liberator for the orchestra or a terrible obstacle. It’s a bit for better or for worse, as the saying goes.
Like love?
Obviously! Between the conductor and the orchestra, it’s like a romantic relationship: there is a very alchemical dimension. When they meet, it is sometimes almost animal; it can be like dog and cat or love at first sight.
To read: 30 years of the Geneva Chamber Orchestra in jubilant mode
What challenges would you like to take on at the OCG desk?
My first objective is to make the OCG an expert in the symphonies of Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn. The orchestra must be reinforced in its legitimacy vis-à-vis the founding repertoire, of the Mannheim school type – with 37 musicians – which is the DNA of the OCG. This encompasses the entire repertoire from the first Haydn to Schumann and Mendelssohn. Then, to use the gastronomic metaphor, if the fondue or the beef bourguignon are centuries-old dishes, which we may know by heart, that does not mean that they are good every time we taste them. It’s the same with this symphonic repertoire! My goal will be to serve it once more with love so that it is succulent. Of course, this will not prevent playing other repertoires which would have adopted this same nomenclature, such as Prokofiev with the classical symphony or Bizet and the Symphony in C nor to make incursions into the baroque, contemporary, jazz and/or current repertoires… and without limit in interdisciplinarity.
How do you envision your relationship with the public?
The OCG has a civic role which for me is equivalent to bringing the listener back to the long term, to concentration and contemplation. With social networks and the explosion of ultra-short audiovisual formats, our listening and concentration skills are being nibbled away and reduced to a trickle. I would like that with the orchestra we manage to revitalize the general listening and to slow down the impatience of our listeners. Musicians are now the last guardians of two temples: silence – because it hardly exists anymore – and long-term listening. Our mission is crucial if we don’t want hyperactivity disorders to become a social pathology. Besides, I love to see people falling asleep at concerts, I think that’s a very good sign. It means that something has come unplugged and what kept us awake is released thanks to the music. I often tell listeners: if you fall asleep that’s fine, don’t be ashamed, on the contrary! On the other hand, when I see people in cinemas scrolling on their cell phones, it depresses me…
Read also: To the roots of pianist Teo Gheorghiu, Romanian and musical
For the first concert of your first season, next September, you will be at the desk and the cello. So you’re going to conduct from the bow?
Yes, this is what is commonly called “play conduct”. I wouldn’t necessarily allow myself to do this with just any repertoire, but for the concerto by Max Bruch Kol Nidrei op.47, whom I know well, I have confidence in the fact that we will succeed with the orchestra in dividing up the initiatives. For this first concert, I wanted to present myself musically to the city and to the public with this orchestra that chose me.
In 2023-2024, the OCG is getting a makeover and making room for women
In addition to a new conductor for its next season, the Geneva orchestra is renewing its partnerships and placing the visibility of women at the center of its concerns. Not only the conductors will be there, but also the composers: Charlotte Bray, composer in residence, will present one of her pieces for the season opening concert. Later, it will be the works of Louise Farrenc and Fanny Mendelssohnn that music lovers will be able to appreciate.
Young Korean-American chef Holly Hyun Choe will be associate chef for the new season, as will Hungarian chef Gabor Takacs-Nagy. Deborah Waldman will also come to lead the OCG in March 2024. After the success of Romeo and Juliet last January, the young Lausanne chef Marc Leroy-Calatayud will be back at the pulpit to The seven deadly sins by Kurt Weill with the mezzo soprano Marina Viotti, crowned a few days ago with a Victoire de la Musique.