Meet Martin Fröst
What first made you want to learn the clarinet?
It started with the violin. But I wasn’t very good and was too interested in other things, so it faded out slowly. The piano took over until my dad came home with an LP of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields with Jack Brymer on clarinet and Sir Neville Marriner conducting. I was then nine years old. And there it was! The whispering, dancing, smiling, crying, laughing – just genius! For me, Mozart was then, and always has been since, the god who breathed life into the soul of the clarinet. He captured its sound as well as the deep timbre of the basset clarinet.
Was there a particular experience that made you want to make music your career?
I was always obsessed with music and I do not think that I made a choice. My earliest memories in my life are music, and it was always connected with big feelings: excitement, empathy, happiness, sadness, sorrow and ecstasy!
How did you and Anna Clyne work together on the creation of Weathered?
It was an idea that came from the Royal Concertgebouworkest, and I liked the idea but had never met Anna before. We had a few online meetings, and she wrote the Concerto more quickly than I have seen any other composer. In the meetings before she started, my contribution consisted of suggestions about unique techniques, like the three-step breathing technique, which relaxes your vocals chords so that you can sing with your normal voice while
playing. A technique that I invented by accident.
How does it feel performing a new piece in public for the first time, compared to playing something many people in the audience are already familiar with?
It’s different from piece to piece. With Anna’s Concerto it is always very natural and full of excitement.
Which concerts coming up in the Philharmonia’s London season catch your eye, and why?
I hope to be able to listen to Santtu conducting Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich on 27 April.
“My earliest memories in my life are music, and it was always connected with big feelings: excitement, empathy, happiness, sadness, sorrow and ecstasy!”
