Nine Songs: Hildur Guðnadóttir

HILDUR GUÐNADÓTTIR: My mother had a ‘premonition’ that I would become a cellist while she was pregnant with me, because she was listening to Jacqueline du Pré play the Elgar cello concerto on repeat.

There’s actually a lot of listening to stuff on repeat in my family. We get really hooked on specific things for specific periods. And we’re also very dramatic. So, my mum was listening to this music, and she claims that she just knew that the child she was carrying would be called Hildur and that she would become a cellist.

I gravitated to a lot of different instruments when I was very young, but when it came to me choosing my own instrument she says that I just walked directly to the cello and that was that. But I get the feeling she might have nudged me slightly in that direction.

I actually had quite a funny relationship with the cello for a long time, because I was always doing so many different things in music when I was growing up. I was singing in choirs, singing in restaurants, playing in bands, and experimenting with electronics, as well as practising cello and playing in string ensembles and youth orchestras, and everything else that goes with that.

Music, for me, was so many different things at once. It was the way that I socialised. It was the way that I was by myself. There were so many ways of being through music, and that didn’t go super well with studying classical music where you’re asked to really focus on one instrument. You’re asked to do things properly, and in a very specific movements where there’s a right and a wrong way to play.

I’ve always had a bit of a hard time with the idea that there’s a right and a wrong way to make music. I’ve always felt it should be this free form of expression, so I did struggle for a lot of my studying years.

Then, when I stopped studying the cello and started playing it for myself, just for the sheer joy of playing, that’s when I really started to appreciate all the years I’d put into learning the classical method. Having those techniques really allowed me this freedom that I was always searching for, so it’s a realisation that happened kind of backwards.

Now, for example, if I could choose between being in a room by myself practising or going on stage and performing, I would probably choose practice. It’s the thing that I enjoy most in music today. Really, I would do nothing else if I could choose, but it was a long time coming that the cello actually felt like my calling and my best friend.

BEST FIT: It’s so interesting how the cello concerto sort of flopped when it was first premiered in the early 1900s, and now it has become iconic – almost a rite of passage for cellists. And of course, that revival is largely because of Jacqueline du Pré. What is it about Jacqueline’s vision of the piece that makes it so memorable, for you?

I think it goes back to what I was saying before, about how someone’s personality is able to shine through their playing. When you hear Jacqueline playing it, the concerto feels like it was written just for her, like she’s so totally at one with the piece. If you think about the Elgar cello concerto I don’t think you can possibly not think of Jacqueline du Pré and her performance, because it feels like they are one and the same thing, and I think that’s so beautiful.

I think her way of playing was so amazing, especially at the time she recorded the Elgar concerto. She was so free and kind of unruly in a way. She was super imperfect in the way that she played it, but there’s so much raw emotion to it. It’s kind of punk in the way that it’s perfectly imperfect, and I think that's what makes it so incredible. Imperfections are such a big part of performing live and the essence of communicating something.

I think it's going to become even more important as AI gets more advanced. The imperfections are going to be what counts. Going back to what you were saying about personality, let’s talk about the Yo-Yo Ma performance of Elgar’s cello concerto that you saw recently. Would you say that his version represents a different emotional side to the piece for you?

Yes, and I think that, besides being an incredible musician, he’s also a really wonderful person. He’s so full of joy, which means he brings a very different energy to the concerto than Jacqueline did, and I think that joy is so needed in the world right now.

I feel what comes through in his way of playing is a kind of awe of the world that’s so contagious. When he came to Iceland to play with an orchestra, I had a piece performed at the same concert, so I was able to sit in on the rehearsals. So there I was, sitting almost alone, in front of Yo-Yo Ma as he played this piece on his cello and I just cried and cried.

It such a rare thing, the connection he had to the core and the essence of music, and it felt like he was playing just for me. It was really magic.