Paavo Järvi
“There is a need to gather with other people for the ritual of sitting in a hall with the lights going down”
The Estonian conductor may have relished slowing down over the past few months, but he’s also itching to get back to his beloved Swiss orchestra, he tells James Naughtie
Paavo Järvi is in London, unusually immobile. For a conductor settled with three orchestras, in Zurich, Bremen and Tokyo, running his own festival at home in Estonia each summer and in demand around the world, to be forcibly marooned in one city is strange. ‘I know London so well. But, you know, I’m usually rehearsing or studying a score, preparing for a concert, ready to leave for somewhere else.’
We’re talking on the phone, and it’s one of those conversations where you realise that the tyranny of scheduling – the next
