Conductor and Cellist Jörg Zwicker: On Early Music, Mental Coaching, and Supporting Ukraine

The Claquers

3 weeks ago

In April, Kyiv hosted a powerful performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Easter Oratorio and Magnificat — an event that brought together Ukraine’s performing and listening communities around music as a source of light and hope. The performers were the Liatoshynskyi Capella, conducted by Austrian maestro Jörg Zwicker — a conductor, cellist, teacher, and renowned specialist in Baroque repertoire. Before the concert, Zwicker led public masterclasses on early music performance. His visit to Ukraine was not only a cultural highlight, but also a gesture of solidarity. We spoke with the musician on the eve of the concert.

To begin with, I’d like to say that your lecture before the masterclasses was very interesting. It would be great if you could tell us a little about it. What exactly is the difference between performing on a modern instrument and a historical one?

As I said it in the lecture, when people want to get close to early music and historically informed performance practice, for most of them, it’s about changing the instrument or changing steel strings to gut strings. But for me, that isn’t the main difference. Of course, a historical instrument sounds different and the bow helps a lot, too. But to understand this music, you have three topics you need to work on first.

It’s about understanding if it’s a rhetorical piece and what rhetoric is, with all these commas and questions, and with some stories behind what you’re doing. As we read in the treatises, one should always shape music like speech to make it interesting for the audience and you can only do this when you have a story about it in your mind.

So, rhetoric. Another thing is dance. And it’s not necessary to know how to dance a gigue, a minuet or a bourrée, but how they moved in historical dance. The heavy beat is not downwards, but upwards and forward. And if you feel this with your body, you know how to make a heavy note in an 18^th century dance, coming up again and getting some lightness. I think for string players, it’s very helpful to imagine that the bow is the dancer and the string is the dance floor.

And the third is architecture. You need to understand that you have columns and you have ornaments. And the ornaments in the 18th century were tiny, golden, brilliant, and not big and heavy. So I really like to work with modern instrumentalists on these three topics. And once you’ve mastered them while playing on a modern instrument, you should take the next step, trying out period instruments and gut strings. And of course, then a light bow supports you in what you are doing. But I know a lot of cases where a fantastic violinist simply changed to gut strings and bought a new bow, but had no understanding of this music.

You can also play historically informed on modern instruments. The use of period instruments is great because it gives a different sound, more transparency, and more possibilities, but to make and understand early music you don’t need these instruments.

Why do you think musicians get involved in historically informed performance?

I think there are different reasons for that. It depends on where you come from, what your background is, whether you grew up with this music.

I was lucky. When I started, I was fifteen, and I attended a lecture by a cellist who told me about the differences between modern steel strings and baroque gut strings. And it was so interesting for me that I started exploring it further. I had a very good teacher, the father of Ulli Engel, who showed me the first steps, and then I met Harnoncourt and started reading treatises. Well, it was the generation – the second generation, maybe — of this early music movement and at that time we wanted, we really decided to be baroque instrumentalists and specialists.

So when we started, there was nothing. There were one or two early music festivals somewhere and maybe one or two early music departments in Europe. One good thing was that we were free to do anything, to take on the challenge, to make experiments and gain experiences. On the other hand, there was nothing like IMSLP, so we had to go to libraries and write everything down, and then make copies of the manuscript scores, and cut out the instrument parts. We were like pioneers. Then we staged the first oratorios with period instruments and it was a sensation in our cities.

Today, you have much more, you have departments of early music everywhere in Europe, and festivals, too, and a lot of very good orchestras and ensembles. And it’s not anymore like you’re playing either a modern violin or a baroque violin. Now it’s more about being educated in both, given the existence of these fields.

But at our university we have this historical playing techniques course for modern violinists and cellists. And some of them come and say, ‘Aha,’ and you never see them again. But sometimes they are so interested in what’s happening there with the music. Because it’s not just forte, piano, slow, fast, make a crescendo or a decrescendo. No, we talk about how to make music, not just transfer notation, as happens in many modern orchestras.

And also, I’m really proud and happy that in this baroque scene you feel much closer to people. I don’t know why it is so, but we just have a good teaching atmosphere, a good community — we are sitting in the same boat. And the feedback I get from many people who’ve done masterclasses with us is that the atmosphere is really collegial.

Does this knowledge of early music help better understand Romantic, 20th century or even contemporary music?

Yes, absolutely! Harnoncourt once said that you can understand a musical period only if you know about the period before it, because there was a development from somewhere.

I met a conductor once, and she asked me a lot of things about the classical program and how to do this or that. Most of the questions I could answer, because I had knowledge about the earlier period. I knew what changed in the new musical era, since there was the development of the orchestra, playing techniques, and also composition, because it always works hand in hand.

To come back to the earlier question, I think this is something students like — that we ask many more questions. We’re not just reproducing the music; there are so many interesting questions about it — how to play it, and why to play it that way.

This is something Harnoncourt always taught me: it’s not the how, it’s the why you should be asking. And this way of making music is completely new for a lot of students.

How do you see the future of historically informed performance? In, let’s say, twenty or thirty years from now, do you think it will continue to develop, or will people lose interest?

Well, I think the huge dynamic we had in the ‘80s and 90s is over now. There has been a big development since then. Now we know so much about that music, especially from the 18th century — in fact, we know much less about the 19th century.

When I started playing, we played high Baroque. Then they moved to early Baroque, then Harnoncourt went to the Classical period and Gardiner followed him. The next was Roger Norrington, who took it further into the Romantic. So I think there will be many more.

I think the development of early music performance will encourage modern orchestras to start playing music from before 1750 again. Because they stopped. You wouldn’t find any modern orchestras playing music from before Mozart, since the emerging “Early music scene” had its own “specialists”, who used period instruments and were educated in historically informed performance.

On one hand I’d say it’s understandable that they stopped, because they were used to playing it in a “heavy” style with constant vibrato and so on. That way of playing was no longer adequate or accepted. But on the other hand, more and more orchestras are now inviting specialists and conductors to get informed about how to play music from the Classical and earlier periods. So I think we’ll start mixing these approaches — playing on period instruments for Classical and Romantic repertoire, while modern orchestras will return to performing Bach, Handel and the rest a lot more again. It’s all starting to come together now.

What do you think about combining early music and historically informed performance with newer forms like electronic music or more experimental styles?

Ah, this… Some forty years ago there were the Swingle Singers who started singing Bach in a jazz style. It shows that music is really universal. When it’s composed like Bach, it can sometimes really feel like jazz. We can find the same offbeats and syncopations, inégalités it’s actually very similar to playing jazz. In jazz you have the bass as the foundation and the melody while the rest is improvisation. And if you look at early Baroque music, it’s the same. I once did a project with jazz musicians, where we played 17th century music. We improvised in our style and they in a jazz style on the same music. It was a huge experience for both sides.

Then we have Rondo Veneziano, from the ‘90s – maybe you know them. They used a drum set, played a lot of Vivaldi, and so on. Well, of course, I don’t really like it, but it helps to open the field of classical music to people who normally don’t connect with it at all. And they say, “Oh, it’s nice”.

Another thing is, of course, that playing contemporary music and playing early music — with all their rules — are equally difficult. My sister was playing in the most famous contemporary orchestra in Austria, and we never could play together. But what she told me about it — how they had to define a tone and find special techniques for different purposes — it’s very similar to what we do in early music. We really have to use special techniques and skills for each note, and know, when we’re making a trill, how to do it, depending on the movement and the effect. Or how to sing a note really straight. In classical singing you have this vibration — ye-ye-ye-ye. But in early music, Renaissance music, they used straight tone. And then there’s the question of how to use timbre for an effect. They do the same in contemporary music, so that’s very interesting.

Thank you for sharing this. That’s a great insight. So, my next question is, how do you feel about the masterclasses that ended yesterday?

Well, it’s just great that so many people applied for the masterclasses. It shows that they are interested and hungry for new information. And for me, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a baroque trio sonata with two violins, or a recorder, a modern flute, or a modern singer.

I think my main job here was to give some new inputs to people educated only in the modern or romantic style of playing. The great thing was, I asked the audience several times, “Did you hear the difference?” And they could really say yes, because it was different then. And that’s the best thing that can happen. Of course, tomorrow they’ll sing or play the same old way again, but they’ve already heard it. In the next masterclass, they’ll hear it again, and again, so they’ll develop their performance.

I remember, as a student, I was at a chamber music summer course where I met Ernst Knava. He asked me what instrument I played. I said, “I’m a cellist”. “Oh, I’m a cellist, too. What piece are you playing at present?” I told him that in the autumn, I would play a Haydn concerto. “Okay, let’s do it now”, he said. I explained that I didn’t have the sheet music with me because I hadn’t started learning it yet. “But you know it, this concerto. Let’s do it”. And we learned it without the sheet music. That was a new experience that showed me that music has a lot to do with feeling and anticipation. This also helped me greatly with playing continuo.

Do you use this approach with your students?

So, we do a lot of prima vista reading. That’s very important for them. These are modern cellists — they can play the most difficult pasages, up and down, at any tempo. But if you give them a simple basso continuo line, they fall apart. If there’s an eighth-note rest and an upbeat, they’re off. They’re just not used to sight-reading. “I’ll practice it”. “No, no, we’ll play it now, prima vista”. It’s so strange — every year, the same thing.

What’s it like for you working with musicians here in Ukraine, and with Liatoshynskyi Capella in particular?

I think that right now the need to make music is stronger here than anywhere else in the world. Because of the circumstances, music has taken on much more meaning. I really understood this last year, doing a concert with Camerata. We came back to the meaning of music — why we make it — and realized its power: how it can give you strength and heal your soul. We’re so caught up in our professionalism — we want to make everything great: perfect concerts, perfect recordings. So it was such a huge experience for me, and that’s why I’m here again now, working with Liatoshynskyi Capella.

It’s a bit of a mix – some musicians are more familiar with early music, some less. But we’ve made progress during the week — and that’s the thing. They’re open to it. They tried things, sometimes we fell back a little, but they kept trying, and they were getting new experiences in this field. And the whole time, they were just looking at me with wide eyes. I really appreciate working with them — how eager they are to learn and to get better at it. It could have been that they wouldn’t be interested, wouldn’t care — like, okay, here comes someone, let’s just do what he asks. But it wasn’t like that last year, and it’s not this year either. That’s why I tried, from my side, to give them everything I could, even though I had very long working days. I’ll sleep really well on the train tomorrow.

Could you tell us your thoughts about tonight’s concert and the program you’ll be performing?

I chose this program, because Magnificat is one of the best compositions I know. It’s not that difficult, because it’s not too long. We worked through it movement by movement. I know it was primarily composed for another time of the year, not Easter, but it’s just great music that inspires playing. I could see that the choir and the orchestra really liked playing it.

And then I thought, “I’m coming for Easter, so what can we do?” The Passions are too large, and you need the Evangelist with good German and so on. So I chose the Easter Oratorio. It’s rarely done, because at Easter time, they always play the Passions. I think it was a good choice to explore more Bach’s cantatas and oratorios.

What about the program of our concert on the 15th, a few days ago?

That was very interesting because we had a rare instrument combination with oboe and viola. Normally when you come for a baroque masterclass, you have two violins or two recorders and a basso continuo. But we really had a mixture. The viola, especially, was key fo me, and I wanted to have at least one full ensemble with it. So I just started searching for music. I knew that Janitsch composed for several instruments. But I also wanted you to be involved in different combinations of solo and continuo playing. Another factor was deciding what level we could perform at, so that it wasn’t too difficult. And I think we did it very well. For me, it was the next step from what we had started in February.

You’ve said that in the world of Baroque music, you feel a closer connection to people. From the feedback I’ve heard, that’s also what musicians felt while working with you at the rehearsals and the masterclasses — that you created a particularly warm atmosphere.

I remember, when I wanted to study in the Netherlands or Flanders, I went there to meet Jaap ter Linden. He was one of the most famous baroque cellists in that area. I was at his house, and we started the lesson. He was sitting beside me, not in front of me. And I was irritated. I didn’t know what to do. He started small talk with me. I wanted to play. Then he asked me, “Would you like some tea?” I thought, okay, now he’s testing me, and if I say yes, then he’ll probably say, “No, let’s play the music”. But then he saw that I was nervous and a bit irritated, so he told me, “We are colleagues, and we are working together on what’s on the music stand, and we have different experiences”. He didn’t say he had better experience — longer, yes, but he didn’t judge it.

That lesson made a great impression on me. It had nothing to do with how to play, but it was about how you respect students and the music.

That, for me, was the key to understanding what teaching really is. We are colleagues working on the same thing, and we just have different experiences.

I can support the student, but he asks me questions that help me to reflect. I learn a lot from the students’ questions whether in masterclasses or at the university. When I meet students who studied with me twenty or even five years ago and they say, “Thank you, it was so great”, I think, “Oh no, twenty years ago I was teaching so badly! I’ve developed a lot since then, and it’s a pity they’re not studying with me now”.

I also see this openness in my colleagues — Uli, Andreas, and others. They never stop reflecting and evolving. That’s a bit different from the old-school approach, where the teacher educates, and the students simply have to follow. Well, sometimes you have to sit on the opposite side to show movements or something technical. But to work on the music, we sit side by side now.

As I understand, you’re also a mental coach for musicians. Could you tell us about your experience in this field — when and why you began exploring it?

I used to do some extreme sports, like ice climbing, paragliding, and so on. There you need mental skills — for survival. I’ve always been mentally strong, but fifteen years ago I experienced burnout. And when you’re in burnout, you have to reflect and start using that mental strength for yourself.

I’m also the type of person who, when I start something, I follow through. So, I started out with courses in mental strength and burnout prevention. And it was a new field where people weren’t talking about instruments or interpretation, so I enjoyed that very much. Then I continued my education in mental coaching — then the next one, and the next one, and eventually I got the diploma. Later I also did a diploma in biofeedback and other specializations.

There were groups of people who came to me for burnout prevention, stress reduction and similar issues. I held courses in forests or in the mountains, where we stayed in nature for several days, without phones or other distractions. And then more and more musicians started asking me about stage fright. Of course, that’s a major topic for performers. Because of my background in sports, it was interesting to see the parallels between athletes and musicians: both have to deliver their maximum at a specific point — whether it’s a competition, a championship, a concert, or an audition. They face the audience and the pressure, both from the outside and from the inside.

Currently, I mainly coach musicians and archers, since I do archery myself. It’s also a very good sport for strengthening the back and for calming down, because you need to stay focused. I never planned to become a mental coach, but it happened, and I enjoy teaching and sharing my experiences in solving mental challenges with others.

This isn’t your first time in Ukraine. You had visited before the full-scale war began. Have you noticed any psychological changes among Ukrainians — especially among Ukrainian musicians?

Yes, during the masterclasses I observed these changes more clearly when speaking privately with musicians. You realize that behind the joy and interest in music, there are a lot of problems that are now in their lives.

The main changes you can feel when you listen to what people are saying between the lines – when you understand the black humor and how normal it has become to talk about rockets or drones. It’s a completely new world.

Then you also understand better why music is so important here. Making music is always a way of learning about people. So I’ve learnt a lot from you. That brings us back to the earlier topic: what is the meaning of music? What a huge privilege it is to make music — alone or together, to travel somewhere to perform together, to appreciate what it means to have an audience and to receive their applause. Each note and every applause does something to our souls. There aren’t many jobs where you get applause for what you do. And I think I’ve felt it even more strongly here since last year.

Do you see ways to support Ukrainians dealing with psychological challenges? How do you think we could improve our mental stability? I know that a friend of yours is doing similar work in Jerusalem, helping people with such issues.

Well, I think I can’t fix the situation you’ve been living through for the past three years — that’s impossible. What I can do is try to give you a good time together while I’m here, and bring new ideas about music. In our mental coaching language, we say that questions help to feed the “monkey mind”. As long as your brain stays busy, occupied with music, interpretation and new questions, you don’t have time to focus on negative thoughts, to think about bombs and the difficulty of the situation.

So that’s what I try to do, and that’s why I really go to the edge of my energy by the end of the day. Because I see how important it is for you that someone — not necessarily me, but someone — is here, working with you, paying attention to you and your situation. It can’t truly solve the bigger problem, but maybe it can help a little — give you some hope and perspective.

Perhaps, you could share a few techniques for dealing with stage fright? Could you give some advice to musicians who don’t have the chance to take your courses?

When you visit my website, it says: If you are two or three weeks before a competition or concert, don’t call me.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re holding a musical instrument or a sports instrument — for the brain, it’s the same. You have to deliver your performance under pressure, and the brain reacts the way it does because it recognises being on stage, or in a competition or audition, as a strange and unusual situation. When you practise at home, you’re not nervous. Maybe you’re a little nervous during lessons, but then you go on stage and suddenly your brain stops working. Your fingers behave differently, your breathing changes.

So what we need to do in sports as well as in music is reduce the difference between practicing at home and performing on stage. That’s why I work a lot with musicians on how they practice. I recommend that once a week they do a run-through of their program, whatever happens, like a home concert. And then they say, “How can I? I have a tiny flat, I can’t invite people”. But that’s not the point. You can put two chairs from your kitchen, take a lamp from your desk to shine on your face, and you can get dressed for this and say: “On Wednesday evening, I’ll play my program”. Every Wednesday. Then, when you get on stage next time, your brain will have the experience of five home concerts. It’s not the same, but it’s better than nothing.

At the same time, I’m also working with recreating reality using VR technology — we’ve recorded in 360 degrees in the most famous concert halls in Austria. Students can use it, for example, when preparing for university exams or auditions for the Vienna Philharmonic. They put on VR glasses and simulate the situation.

But the main thing is to understand that stress is a reaction from your nervous system caused by your judging — not by the situation itself. This becomes clear when we observe what people in Ukraine are going through — how you manage a situation that is truly horrible. Your black humor, and the decision you have to make — do I go on living, or am I so scared I can’t move? You are, by now, mentally much stronger than you think. Three years ago, it was different, you were constantly scared and uncertain about what would happen. But now you have experience — and gaining experience is crucial for the brain.

There are certain techniques to deal with this judging system. Things happen as they do — they are what they are — but you can learn to accept them, focus on what you’re doing day by day, and then let go without judgement. You can always work through it later.

In Germany and Austria, we have a lot of literature on stress management techniques. I’m not sure if it’s the same in Ukraine. I have around 200 books on the topic.

This nervousness we feel is just a reaction of the brain. There’s a situation that requires our help — or the help of our body — so the brain releases hormones. We get more energy, adrenaline, and so on — all the things that prepare us to act — because it’s a new situation we’re not yet used to. If you play 200 concerts a year, you don’t feel nervous. But if you play 50 or 20, it’s not the same. It’s a good thing that your body gives you energy for performing.

But when there’s too much judgment, it becomes a problem: “I’m about to play at a concert — did I practice enough?”, “Oh, I feel something in my stomach… now I can’t play anymore”. That’s when we go back hundreds of thousands years in evolution. Back then, being watched by eyes meant danger. And now, suddenly, 200 pairs of eyes are looking at us. So the old part of the brain says: danger.

That’s what I always explain at the beginning of my coaching — why we experience fear and stage fright. What this reaction is, and how nature designed it to protect us, to help us survive. And then we talk about how to work with it. Mental strength doesn’t mean I don’t have stage fright. It means I have stage fright — but I can manage it.

One Ukrainian poet said that being human is a duty, not a title. You’re a great example of that and a person of great heart. You’ve done so much to support Ukrainians, and we truly appreciate it. You now come here twice a year to perform and give masterclasses. On your Facebook, you regularly post updates about Ukraine. Your profile picture shows yellow wheat and a blue sky, while your cover photo shows you playing in front of the destroyed House of Culture in Irpin. What led you to feel such a strong connection with Ukraine?

I think it all started with our concert two weeks before the invasion. When I returned home, I had made new friends — very good ones — and I had such a good time here at the beginning of February 2022. When the full-scale war began, I just felt I had to act — to support you, to help musicians who were coming to Austria. It developed its own dynamic, I didn’t think about it. We also discussed it with my family. Because when it started, it was before the holidays, so we had to decide where to go for our holiday. But I said, “Sorry, I can’t go. My friends are fleeing for their lives”.

The first year we were busy helping people get to Europe, finding flats, then furnishing them and collecting clothes. Since most of them were musicians, we tried to provide instruments and find opportunities for them to play, as well as other activities to keep their minds engaged.

We also began organizing fundraising. And the best way I could contribute was through music. That’s why we came up with the idea of performing Bach’s B Minor Mass – to raise money and donate it to an organization in Irpin. I invited some Ukrainians to play in my orchestra. It was a really huge event, broadcast live here in Ukraine, with a public viewing hosted by Vere Music Hub. It was a wonderful collaboration in many ways. For me, it’s very important to have this contact with Hanna Hadetska, Halyna Hryhorenko and Natalia Khmilevska. They’re doing such enormous work here — supporting it isn’t even a question, I simply have to.

This time, coming to Ukraine, felt like a homecoming because I have so many friends here. When I got off the train after a 30-hour journey, those lovely people were waiting for me at the station. It was such a touching moment.

My life’s changed in the past three years, and the Ukrainian cause has become its focus.

It’s easy to show solidarity when I’m in safe Europe, sitting by a swimming pool and saying, “Oh yes, poor you”. But you don’t need words; what you really need is someone actually on your side. It’s crucial to be here.

Many people have told me they were happy that I came. It’s not about me personally, it’s about the support itself. And it was important to come here and experience what it’s like to liveunder your circumstances — several alarms a day, having to stop work, being unable to get home because the metro isn’t running,feeling exhausted from the constant stream of bad news from all over the country, and facing uncertain prospects.

In our European news, we only get facts and figures: how many people were killed, what was destroyed, how many square kilometers were occupied. But behind all those numbers are real people with their personal stories and fates. For me, it truly matters to understand how people are doing, how they feel in their daily lives, what their sorrows, fears and hopes are. It also develops me as a person.

And I try to bring back home information about the real situation. That’s why, my friend from Jerusalem and I had the idea of giving concerts where we played together, and between pieces, he spoke about Jerusalem and I spoke about Ukraine. The audience was often in tears or sat with open mouths, saying, “We didn’t know. We couldn’t imagine it”.

There are a lot of foolish politicians who make crazy decisions, and there are people who vote for them. You can’t really discuss with such people. All you can do is share information, give the facts. And if they listen, maybe they’ll change their minds.

Because it’s absolutely clear: it’s the russians who attacked. They came here and tried to destroy Ukraine. But when Europeans discuss it, they say, “We need to make peace there, because it’s affecting us here in Europe”. Because fuel is a bit more expensive now. They’re just afraid for their comfort and quality of life, and it makes me angry. Some people tell me, “We are tired of this war”. Well, I was in Ukraine. The Ukrainians, they are truly tired.

No one wants peace more than the people living in Ukraine.

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