Meet Sir John Eliot Gardiner

Have you ever been to Fingal’s Cave in the Hebrides, the place that inspired Mendelssohn’s Overture?

Well, very close to it – the island of Mull and over the water, Iona. Both magical.

… Or the Czech countryside where Dvořák grew up?

Sadly I’ve not been to Nelahozeves, his home town, but I once made the road trip through magnificent country from Salzburg to Prague to conduct the Czech Philharmonic in Janáček’s Jenůfa in 2002.

Which, if any, of Elgar’s Sea Pictures is your favourite?

No. 4, ‘Where Corals Lie’. Exquisite.

Which other pieces of music – classical or not – evoke the sea for you?

Two pieces: Frank Bridge’s tone poem The Sea – unjustly neglected, and of course Debussy’s La mer – a mesmerising masterpiece.

Is there another place you’ve visited that has made you feel a particular affinity with a composer or a piece of music?

There are many examples. Perhaps most poignantly for me it’s the landscape around Berlioz’s hometown, La Côte-Saint-André in the Dauphiné in south-east France. I find his Damnation of Faust gains enormously from the insights and familiarity with the views one gets of the Préalpes – the Vercors and the Chartreuse
Mountains and the powers of nature at work, which inspired Berlioz.

Which concerts coming up in the Philharmonia’s London season are you most looking forward to?

Two in particular: Santtu’s wonderful programme on 30 March which includes three of my favourite pieces: the Brahms Academic Festival Overture, the Schumann Konzertstück for four horns and Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony. Mouthwatering.

And the programme with Stephen Hough on 4 May – magnificent pianist, polymath and lovely guy with whom I’ve just been collaborating with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Brahms’s two monumental piano concertos. He will be playing Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto.