Daniel Harding spoke to Giuseppina Manin at Corriere della Sera (article not yet online) on occasion of his concert tomorrow with Filarmonica della Scala (which will be broadcast on Rai3).
Earlier today he threw an open rehearsal at La Scala of Dvořák's 9th and Beethoven's Violin Concerto with soloist Frank Peter Zimmermann, the concert in honor of Carlo Maria Giulini's legacy.
The 37-year-old Oxford kid recalled the first time he performed in MIlan, prior to his Teatro alla Scala premiere in 2005 for the Sant'Ambrogio season opener of Mozart's Idomeneo. He was in Milan in 1998 with his Mahler Chamber Orchestra at il Piccolo Teatro doing a Peter Brook Don Giovanni. He had tried to go to a Gotterdammerung at La Scala with Muti but couldn't find a ticket.
He lives in Paris with his daugter Adele, 10 (who likes dance) and his son George, 6 (who likes music) and tries to take them everywhere, including the cinema, where they recently saw the Wim Wenders documentary on Pina Bausch.
What does he think of the European crisis affecting the fate of classical music? "There's no need to give up. It's the moment to show how much culture's really necessary, and how much it needs to be part of the life of the community. It's the time to fight and to propose new ideas with hard work."
He'll be at La Scala in 2013 to conduct a Robert Carsen version of Verdi's Falstaff, starring Ambrogio Maestri.
