On the same day he turns 74 years old, the pianist and conductor Christoph Eschenbach becomes the ’Performer of the Day’.

“My first contact with music was very important for me. It happened in the last part of the Second World War. That was when I lost my parents and grandmother in a refugee camp. I saw how my loved ones disappeared... But I ended up in the house of my adoptive mother, the one that gave me back my life. She was a singer and a pianist. At that time I was very sick, but I used to listen to her. I discovered this truly wonderful thing, music. I couldn’t speak for almost a year. My foster mother noticed that I was listening very carefully to her and she asked me if I’d like to play as well and I said yes. It was the first word I had spoken in a long time. It was something incredible for me to have this chance, this motivation to express myself. Music gave me the opportunity to express myself. This fact stands even today and that is what I ask from an orchestra, each and every one part of it to express themselves in each note they play.

The first orchestra that I ever listened to was the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler; an overwhelming experience... the clear sound of the orchestra. I remember that they had the itinerary entirely made out of Beethoven’s works: the 4^th and 5^th symphonies... these three things: clear sound, Beethoven’s impact and the personality of the conductor awed me. Once again, my adoptive mother noticed that and she asked if I found it interesting. I answered ‘yes’ and that I wanted to be a conductor even though I played the piano. She answered in a very practical way that I should learn to play one of the orchestra’s instruments. A week later I started studying the violin and I did so for the next fifteen years. Then, I gave it up because I was also studying to be a conductor and it was too much. The career as a pianist had already started and I had to choose. But I also learned many things related to the orchestra.”

Christoph Eschenbach, German pianist and conductor speaking about the important moments in his career, the ones through which he discovered the piano and the conductor’s baton. On the day he turns 74 years old, Thursday, 20^th February, 2014, Christoph Eschenbach is the ‘Performer of the Day’ on Arpeggio presented by Ana Voinescu, at 10:00.