ANNE HAASCH

GITARRISTIN

“Das hat Klasse, geschieht formbewusst und schön!”

(FONO FORUM)

Schwarze und weiße Fotografie eines Mannes in Brille und Hemd, blickt nach rechts, im Hintergrund Bäume und Himmel.

aus: Interview Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco & Anne Haasch

What impact did studying and performing Mario’s music, and the Divan in particular, have on you?

(D. Castelnuovo-Tedesco)

First and foremost, I really enjoy listening to Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music, his musical narratives. The music is very familiar to me, and I love the challenges we have to face, because the works are not necessarily easy to play. In concerts, I have the feeling that many listeners, even those who don’t know the guitar repertoire very well, love Tedesco’s music very quickly and find it easy to access, if it is performed well. I think Tedesco knew very well how to reach people – otherwise you can’t be such a successful film composer and teacher. I suppose that is also my approach – this music is deeply human, emphatic, not at all gimmicky, yet highly virtuosic and always profound, with a good pinch of humor.

I have already mentioned that I had the good fortune to meet Walter Arlen, a close friend of Tedesco’s. It was in 2010, but I vividly remember his warm smile and great joie de vivre. Despite all the terrible things that had happened to him, he had not become bitter.  When I see pictures of Castelnuovo-Tedesco, there is always a very loving, humble, grateful and somewhat melancholy smile – both of those images touch me deeply. [Holocaust survivor] Margot Friedländer passed away recently and left behind such a fitting sentence: “Be human. Be sensible.”

Making music is deeply human, it is a basic need. Being able to make a living from it (professionally) is an absolute privilege, which for me personally is linked to the task of mediating – as a teacher, on stage between composer and audience; [my goal is] to create an aesthetic environment that enables dialog, appeals to people, challenges them, shakes them up and, of course, consoles them. Composers such as Castelnuovo-Tedesco, in works like the Divan, which are also highly political, remind me every day that we can all make small contributions to making the world a little more peaceful and empathetic.

(Anne Haasch)