The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists will soon return to Budapest, where the world-famous ensembles will be conducted by the Irishman Peter Whelan, whose path to the podium has been fairly unconventional. The former bassoonist is passionate about the music of his homeland, particularly from the period when George Frideric Handel visited Ireland and premièred his best-known work, Messiah. These interests have led to a career as a highly regarded interpreter of early music.
Peter Whelan was born in Ireland and spent his childhood in a small town near Dublin. By his own account, he harboured an incessant desire for music from a very young age and wanted to make music in every possible way. He first learned to play piano and sang in a children’s choir, but after his voice broke, he was left with only the instrument and began to miss the experience of making music with others. He told his piano teacher he wanted to learn an orchestral instrument, and asked her opinion about the oboe. Her husband was an oboist, however, and she tried to dissuade him, telling him about the finicky nature of the reed. She suggested that Whelan take up the bassoon, which she believed to be simpler. Thus began a successful career in music, which for many would have been enough in itself.
After his studies in Basel, Whelan played bassoon in several orchestras. Alongside such prestigious ensembles as the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Irish Baroque Orchestra (with which he would later deepen his relationship), he spent almost ten years with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. “It’s one of the few places I go where people still see me as a bassoonist,” he said on returning to the ensemble years later as a conductor. It was another increasingly important sideline in his career as an instrumentalist that led to the change of vocation. As he took a new interest in the music of his native land, Whelan formed the Ensemble Marsyas, with whom he regularly performed the music of Ireland, especially works from the 18th century. As the keyboardist in the ensemble, he would often conduct them from behind his instrument. “It didn’t go terribly,” he noted with a laugh in one interview.
Next, Whelan found himself increasingly attracted to opera. He was no stranger to musical theatre: at primary school, one of his teachers put on productions of musicals and the youngest children sang in the choir. The small child was fascinated by the harmonies in which the principle voices melded. “I was transfixed. It was like the gates to heaven were open and I knew this was something I had to pursue,” he later recalled. Whilst studying music, he regularly accompanied singers to make some money, but even then he probably did not think that one of his greatest professional achievements would be in opera.
© Marco Borggreve
When Whelan left the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, he closed the case of his instrument and says he has not opened it since. As he explains, being a musician is more than being wedded to a particular instrument: “It’s funny, because with all the training we have, you end up very attached to your instrument. You might feel it’s everything to you, but it’s not. You’re also a musician outside of that.” Whelan, now as a conductor, became Artistic Director of the Irish Baroque Orchestra, which in 2022 took part in the Irish National Opera and Royal Opera House’s highly successful joint production of Vivaldi’s opera, Bajazet. (It so happens that this work, which is not performed very often, also features on the programme of this year’s Bartók Spring, though with different performers.) The production landed the orchestra and its conductor the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, a prestigious British prize.
Whelan will take up the post of Music Director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra from next season. He is also an Artistic Partner with the National Symphony Orchestra Ireland and Curator for Early Music for the Norwegian Wind Ensemble. He appears in concert with a number of outstanding ensembles and is a regular guest conductor of the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, whom he will guide through Bach’s St John Passion on 3 April, in the Pesti Vigadó concert hall.
So how does the artist feel about the turn in his career? How does it feel to leave the wind section for the podium? It’s a strange situation, Whelan admits, because not long ago he was just one among the members of the orchestra keeping a sharp eye on what the conductor was doing. This experience also helps him to find a common language with the musicians: “I realize that the best leaders tend to be those who have a plan – who can enable and inspire their musicians but still leave a bit of space for give-and-take with the musicians.” But for Whelan, the possibilities of conducting are absolutely exhilarating, and he says he feels like a teenager again. And how the energies he derives from his enthusiasm fuse with the wisdom of his experience will soon become evident to the Budapest audience.
