Thomas Kemp is the founder and conductor of Chamber Domaine – a musical ensemble with a mission: to explore the links between our musical past and present and to investigate issues of style as related to changing fashions in performance.
In this exclusive audio podcast Kemp enters into a fascinating debate with Edward Seckerson about Gustav Mahler and his circle. With particular reference to the Fourth Symphony and the most extraordinary of the Rückert Lieder “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” Kemp takes us back to source acting as a kind of musical detective the better to understand what it is that brings this music off the page. A violinist himself, he knows first hand what players require from a conductor and how that, in turn, best serves the composers they perform. Mahler was both, of course, composer and conductor, and Kemp’s insight into how one function impacted on the other throws up some interesting and contentious theories.
Published on The Independent website on Thursday, 16th June 2011
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