An explosion in my head
Portrait of Raphaël Pichon

As a young countertenor, Raphaël Pichon sang under such distinguished conductors as Jordi Savall, Gustav Leonhardt and Ton Koopman. He was twenty-two in 2006 when he founded his own ensemble, Pygmalion, and their performances soon drew international attention. He makes his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker this December.

Raphaël Pichon was a nine-year-old choirboy when he took part in a performance of Bach’s Saint John Passion in Versailles. It was a shock, he recalls – “like an explosion in my head”. The experience left a lasting impression. “Bach changed my life,” he explains. Recently hailed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung as “the best Bach conductor of our time”, Pichon appears twice this season – on both occasions conducting music by Bach. In October he and his specialist ensemble Pygmalion explored the various influences on the still-young Bach, while in December he makes his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker conducting the B Minor Mass, a work often viewed as its composer’s musical last will and testament.

Pichon was born in Paris in 1984, and has long felt a connection with the Philharmoniker. “My first encounter with the orchestra was an LP of Mozart’s Requiem under Karajan that I found in my parents’ collection,” he recalls. “This is the only orchestra that I’ve followed since I was a child, first on LP, then on CD and now in the Digital Concert Hall.” As a listener he has developed a more intimate relationship with this orchestra over the course of time. “Its history is a bit like a family tree; its members have changed over the generations, but it's still the same tribe.”

For the first time, Pichon finds himself sitting at the head of the Philharmoniker family table – to remain with the metaphor. “This also makes me a little anxious,” he admits, “since I feel such respect for the orchestra and for its musicians”. His programme was decided in consultation with the players as part of what could be called a family council. “We wanted to find a space where we could all feel at home. And for me this means the music of Bach. The orchestra, too, has a connection with Bach, a connection that stretches back a long time. The Berliner Philharmoniker worked with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, for example, from a very early date. He was one of the great pioneers of historically informed performance practice. As the new generation we need to keep reminding ourselves of this legacy.”

This is something that Raphaël Pichon was able to imbibe “with his mother’s milk”, he says. At that date he was still working as a countertenor and appearing on a regular basis with some of the old guard of the early music movement. Among the more abiding influences on him have been, he says, “the dramatic approach of John Eliot Gardiner, the humanist conviction of Jordi Savall, the empathy and pure joy of Ton Koopman and the aesthetic ideals of Philippe Herreweghe”. But his most important influence , he says, was Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who as a young musician had played the cello in the Wiener Symphoniker. The two men never met. “This is something I very much regret,” says Pichon, “because for Harnoncourt music, was always a matter of life and death. For him it constituted one of humankind’s most fundamental needs.”

Expertise and tradition

Bach’s Mass in B minor likewise raises existential questions about life and death. Raphaël Pichon and his early music ensemble have returned to this piece repeatedly over the last fifteen years as he tries to unravel its secrets by approaching it from different angles on the basis of the many years of experience that he and his ensemble have acquired in the course of their work together. For his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker, he approaches the Mass for the first time with modern instruments. Does he find this hard? His answer is straightforward. “This isn’t a question I ever ask myself,” he explains. “Every single player in this orchestra is 150 percent aware of the extent to which our view of this repertoire has changed. The only questions that I ask myself are these: What kind of a piece is it? And what is it trying to tell us?”

The depth of expression that Raphaël Pichon has plumbed over time is clear from the recent release of his recording of the B minor Mass with Pygmalion. It is remarkable how light, elegant and almost dance-like the conductor and his performers make this score sound. The choral sonorities are overwhelmingly beautiful, while the orchestra is notable for the subtlety of its tone colours, the whole performance borne aloft on a feeling of warmth and inwardness. It will be fascinating to see how the performance with the Berliner Philharmoniker will sound when the conductor’s expertise as an exponent of Bach’s music encounters the orchestra’s Bach tradition. Whatever the outcome, the performance will represent a new branch on an ever-growing family tree.