‘You’d better unpack.” I was outside my home in Berlin in my car. I had just loaded it up and strapped the kids into their seats when my manager called. It was 11 March. The day before, I had completed a tour of Germany, performing 14 concerts in 10 days. The first news about Covid-19 was starting to seep through, but the concert halls were still open and, as a violinist and music director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, I had been playing for 2,000 people every night.
At the signing sessions afterwards, the promoters had put up large signs requesting that the audience keep their distance and refrain from selfies (which they didn’t). Next up, I was due to perform at a festival on the beautiful island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea. Artists were flying in from all around the world, and I had decided to take the family along. Everything was looking fine, when suddenly the bubble burst. As my manager was calling to explain, local authorities on Rügen had announced that all events were to be cancelled with immediate effect. And then began the series of knock-on legislation and further cancellations. Soon I – like musicians around the world – was staring down the barrel of a destitute season.
My kids were probably more upset than I was, at least initially. “What about the beach, Dad? You mean we can’t swim in the sea?” A week later I was starting to grow a beard and my wife was seriously wondering when I’d go back on the road and stop driving her round the bend. We binged on Netflix and Ben & Jerry’s: my beautiful boys goggled at me with a mixture of love and increasing bewilderment as I read to them every night. “When is Dad leaving again?” they wondered – I am constantly on the road and they are used to my frequent long absences.
Online, I saw my esteemed colleagues performing from their gardens, their balconies, their kitchens. At first I was hooked. What a wonderful idea: the dissemination of music at a ghastly time in our troubled world. But I started to wonder about the sound quality. Of course, a cell phone is a cell phone. But isn’t classical music all about sound, about really listening? All my Russian fiddle teachers certainly thought so: make a beautiful sound and you’ll be OK, they told me when I was a boy. Was it possible to produce a stream from home that would sound like it was in a concert hall?
The next morning, I called Tobias Lehmann, a giant in the world of sound engineering who co-owns Berlin’s Teldex Studios. An hour later he was standing in my living room, taking measurements. “I think we can make it work,” he chirped. Next I called Wolfgang Bergmann, the head of the German section of Arte, a magnificent Franco-German television channel that lives and breathes culture as a public broadcaster. He and I had discussed many broadcasting ideas in the past. Would I be interested in a livestream? he asked. “Only if it is with top-notch sound,” I replied. “Can you start tomorrow?” he asked.
I told him he was mad, and he said yes, but that I was even madder. He sent over two creative directors who within hours built a set in my living room, brought in beautiful art nouveau lighting to match the existing decor, and worked out how to turn our idea into reality. At this point we were still allowed to move freely and the production company still had permission to film, so long as we all kept at least 1.5m apart.
We set up two unmanned cameras in addition to the cameraman in the room, thereby limiting how many people were actually in the space at a given time. Fortunately my living room is a fairly large open space which has separate rooms connecting to it. All the editing was done remotely, and the sound team we put in the basement. With a little remote instruction I was able to move the microphones around myself. I call it DIY television.
What I needed next was a brilliant pianist who was also an arranger and at the same time able to improvise. Christoph Israel, whom I’ve known for years, fitted the bill perfectly. He had just written the music for an Agatha Christie production, which had also been cancelled, so he was sitting at home like everyone else, staring at the ceiling. I assembled an enormous list of pieces, he added more, and we spent three hours playing it all through. I don’t think any of us imagined just how much repertoire we would be going through night after night, with barely any rehearsal time.
“What about some guests?” Wolfgang inquired casually after the first episode. Luckily I live in one of the world’s most musical cities. I started to call people up. They all said the same: “Nothing in the diary, of course we’ll come. Pick a day.”
Simon Rattle skipped merrily up my front steps: “Nice to finally meet you, AND play with you.” Robert Wilson was in lockdown around the corner. “May I write some text for you – you play and I’ll talk?” he offered. Director Barrie Kosky popped over to read Joseph Roth, Vladimir Jurowski and I played Schnittke, and Matthias Goerne sang Brahms. I paired Korngold’s music with Stefan Zweig and Manuel de Falla’s with Rudyard Kipling, and played jazz with Gwilym Simcock on world jazz day.
There was no script nor a producer telling me what to say or play. We just went straight in and improvised and learned as we went along. In an early show I did a live Zoom call to one of the city’s leading paediatricians – I was both concerned and interested to learn how children could be affected by the virus. But as fascinating as it was, we soon realised that people wanted less “reality”, so instead I asked people to send in videos of their own homemade music-making. We’ve had literally hundreds to date, and I try and show one every night.
I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams that such an eclectic bevy of artists would pass through my Berlin salon, nor that we would resurrect the age-old art of the house concert. That Hope@Home has attracted nearly 2 million streams is nothing short of a miracle. People are watching from all over the world – Europe, Russia, China, North America, Japan, India, South Africa, Australia, Argentina. Many have offered to make donations to charities helping freelance musicians – I made a feature of this early on and encouraged viewers to help artists affected by the current shutdown.
Until now, I had spent the vast majority of my time on the road in order to communicate with my audience, while using the internet to stay in touch with my family. Now the tables have turned: in these six weeks I’ve been spending time at home, and in the evening, I merely pop downstairs to share my music with a global audience.
As the shutdown continued, Arte extended the show three times. Now, as we approach 34 episodes, five “best ofs” and a TV special, I’ve decided, with a somewhat heavy heart, to close this lockdown chapter. It’s been a privilege and a thrill. I’ve not felt this artistically free in years, but for now, we need our living room back. So I guess I’ll work on that beard, and take my boys to the park.
• Hope@Home streams live at 5pm BST/6pm CET on Arte (and via Facebook live) and is available on demand for 90 days after broadcast. The final show on Sunday 3 May features the world premiere of Max Richter’s Quarantine Recomposed
