TÁR

You ready?

No, just... Yeah, just-just ignore the microphone.

Yeah, just-just act as if it's not there.

Sing as if it's not there.

Yeah, uh...

Okay?

- Ready for them? - Yes.

Let's go.

If you're here, then you already know

who she is, and that is one of the most important

musical figures of our time.

Lydia Tár is many things:

a piano performance graduate at the Curtis Institute,

Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard.

She got her PhD in Musicology from the University of Vienna,

specializing in the indigenous music

of the Ucayali Valley in Eastern Peru,

where she spent five years

among the Shipibo-Konibo peopl.

As a conductor, Tár began her career

with the Cleveland Orchestra,

one of the so-called "Big Five."

A string of important posts followed,

including the Philadelphia Orchestra,

the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,

the Boston Symphony Orchestra,

until she at last arrived here

at our own New York Philharmonic.

With the latter, she organized

the Highway 10 refugee concerts in Zaatari,

which were attended by over 75,000 people.

She's become particularly well-known

for commissioning contemporary work

from, among others, Jennifer Higdon, Caroline Shaw,

Julia Wolfe and Hildur Gudnadóttir.

And she's made a point of programming their works

alongside composers of the canon.

She's been quoted as saying,

"These composers are having a conversation

and it may not always be so polite."

Lydia Tár has also written music for the stage and screen.

She is in fact one of only 15 so-called EGOTs, meaning those

who have won all four major entertainment awards:

an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.

It is, as you can imagine,

an extremely short and shimmering list

that includes Richard Rodgers, Audrey Hepburn,

Andrew Lloyd Webber and, of course, Mel Brooks.

In 2010, with the support of Eliot Kaplan,

she founded the Accordion Conducting Fellowship,

which fosters entrepreneurship and performance opportunities

for female conductors, allowing them residencies

with major orchestras around the world.

In 2013, Berlin elected Tár as its principal conductor,

in succession to Andris Davis,

and she's remained there ever since.

Like her mentor, Leonard Bernstein,

Tár has a particular affinity for Mahler,

whose nine symphonies she recorded

during her Big Five stints.

However, she never managed to complete

the so-called "cycle" with a single orchestra until now.

Under her direction,

Berlin has recorded eight of the Mahler symphonies,

saving the big one, Symphony No. 5, for last.

Due to the pandemic, that performance,

which was scheduled for last year, had to be canceled.

But I'm told that next month,

she'll make a live recording of Mahler's Fifth,

which will complete the cycle

and will be issued in a box set by Deutsche Grammophon

just in time for Mahler's birthday.

As if that's not enough, her new book, Tár on Tár,

will be published by Nan Talese's imprint at Doubleday,

just in time for Christmas, a perfect stocking stuffer,

especially if you have a very large stocking.

All of us at The New Yorker welcome you.

Thank you for joining us, Maestro, today.

Thank you, Adam. Thank you.

Thank you.

Lydia, I couldn't...

I couldn't help but see you flinch just a little bit

as I was reading your bio.

Was it because I forgot some other amazing achievement?

Or do you have a slight self-consciousness

about the incredibly varied things

that you've accomplished?

Well, in today's world, "varied," it-it's a dirty word.

I mean, our era is one of specialists,

and if you're trying to do more than one thing,

it's, you know, it's often frowned upon.

Every artist gets typecast.

Oh, yes. Aggressively so.

Well, do you think there'll be a moment, though,

when the classical music community,

uh, decides not to use sexual distinctions

to differentiate artists?

I'm probably the wrong person to ask

since I don't, uh, read reviews.

- Never, really? - No.

But it is odd, I-I think, that anyone ever felt compelled

to substitute "maestro" with "maestra."

I mean, we don't call women astronauts "astronettes."

Mm-hmm. Right.

But as to the question of, uh, gender bias,

I really have nothing to complain about.

Nor, for that matter, should Marin Alsop, JoAnn Falletta,

uh, Laurence Equilbey and Nathalie Stutzmann.

I mean, there's so many incredible women

who came before us.

You know, women who did the-the real lifting.

That-that's fascinating.

Can you... Who, for instance?

Uh, okay, sure.

Uh, first and foremost, Nadia Boulanger.

I mean, that would be the, uh, happy example.

Uh, the sad one would be Antonia Brico,

who by all accounts was an incredible conductor

but was ghettoized into the nonglamorous status

of a "guest conductor"

and essentially treated as a dog act.

A dog... Uh, she never got the chance

to lead a major orchestra?

Well, yes. Yes, she did, uh, conduct

the, uh, Berlin Philharmonic, as well as the Met,

but, again, only as a guest conductor.

You know, at, I mean, at that time it was...

it was all gender spectacle.

But fortunately, times change,

and-and the Pauline conversion is...

- "Pauline..." - ...if not complete,

then it's-it's evolving nicely.

N-No less, um, having fallen off its horse.

Um, Lydia, could we talk a little bit

about, uh, translation?

'Cause I think there's still people

who think of the conductor as a kind of human metronome.

Well, yeah, that's-that's partly true.

- Yeah, but it's... - But keeping time,

it's-it's no small thing.

But I suspect there's a lot more to it than that.

Yeah, well, I-I would hope so, yes.

But time is the thing.

Time is-is the essential piece of, uh, interpretation.

You cannot start without me.

See, I start the clock.

Now, my left hand shapes, but my right hand,

the second hand, marks time and moves it forward.

However, unlike a clock, sometimes my second hand stops,

which means that time stops.

Now, the illusion is that, like you,

I'm responding to the orchestra in real time...

-Right, right. -... making the decision about the right moment

to restart the thing, or reset it,

or throw time out the window altogether.

The reality is that right from the very beginning,

I know precisely what time it is...

- Really? That's... - ...and the exact moment

that you and I will arrive at our destination together.

You know, the only real, uh, discovery for me

is in rehearsal.

It's never, never in performance.

Hard question, I know, but if you could define one thing

that Bernstein gave you, what would it be?

Kavvanah.

Yeah, it's-it's the Hebrew word

for attention to meaning or-or intent.

You know, what are the composer's priorities,

and what are yours, and how do they complement one another?

Right, kavvanah. I think that's a word that will have

a slightly different meaning for many in our audience.

Well, yes, yes, I imagine so.

Am I right in thinking that a conductor

was not always, uh, an onstage presence

- in classical music? - No, that's right.

I-I think I read someplace that it actually was

the first violin, for a long time, who was responsible.

Yes, the first violinist, whether they had any interest

or-or skill in it or not.

Wh-When did that change, and-and who changed it?

With the French composer, Jean-Baptiste Lully,

who reportedly, uh, used a, uh, rather enormous,

rather pointy staff to pound the tempi into the floor.

It's not something I imagine

the players particularly, uh, appreciated.

Uh, anyway, uh, that technique ended during a performance

when Lully accidentally

stabbed himself in the foot with the thing and died.

Yeah, of-of-of gangrene.

But anyway...

Yeah.

Anyway, but the conductor

really becomes essential as the ensembles get bigger.

And once again, we go back to Beethoven.

Now, that doesn't start with the eighth note.

It's silent, right?

So someone had to start that clock.

Someone had to, uh, plant their flag in the sand

and say, "Follow me," you know?

And when that someone was Lenny, the orchestra was led