Interview: Max Raabe's Bittersweet Melody

Enlarge image Max Raabe (© Olaf Heine) If you are in a mood to party like it's 1929, then the anachronistically dapper Max Raabe can take you there with his revival of Weimar-era cabaret and tin pan alley classics.  While the lyrics of tunes like "You are my Greta Garbo" betray a sense of irony that is surprisingly in tune with our times, Raabe's dedication to the sound and spirit of these old songs is fully in earnest.

After a triumphant performance at Carnegie Hall during the 2007 "Berlin in Lights" Festival that also resulted in the live double album "Heute Nacht oder Nie" (Tonight or Never), Raabe and his orchestra are back for their first ever US tour. We spoke to Raabe before his performance in Washington, DC about nostalgia, body language, Amy Winehouse, Berlin and more.

How is the tour going so far?

Very well. The concert halls are full – which is quite astounding, because we are traveling for the first time here. Maybe the previews in the papers were especially good.

We used to fly directly to Los Angeles or New York. We would fly in, sing, and then that was that. This time, we are doing a proper tour, and that is exciting because we are also getting to know the country. We play in cities that are not as big, and then we drive through these magnificent forested areas.

You have said that you do not like the idea of nostalgia, because it would suggest that the 1920's and 1930's were some kind of golden age when they were in fact quite difficult times. But you say that the music of the era is timeless? What makes it timeless?

First, the compositions are of very high quality. When you leave the concert, you will always remember a few of the melodies. The arrangements are also very colorful, and then there are the wonderful lyrics.

The American songs have their own qualities, but if you want a reference point for the German lyrics of the period, you could look at Cole Porter. His songs are a good example of that kind of dark humor in the lyrics.

You've been referred to as “the man with the shellac voice,” and it's clear that you pay a lot of attention to sonic detail in recreating the music of the 20's and 30's. How much of this is the result of careful study, and how much just developed organically?

I studied classical singing, so I am an opera singer. My training was to use my voice as an instrument, and I try to handle it like a cello. Just to present the tune and make sure that everyone can understand the words. But I don't want to offer my own feelings. When a song is about love or jealousy, everyone knows what that feels like; I don't have to explain what it's like to fall in love.

And that distance you keep from the emotional content of the music expresses itself in your body language as well.

I do no want to explain the world to people, or impose myself on them. If I'm singing about love I don't need to touch my heart and If I sing about heaven I don't have to look toward the sky. Everyone knows where heaven is and where the heart is, and they know the feelings that are in these songs.

Those would be distractions...

Yes, I do not think you should do too much. It is much more exciting to watch someone stand there and sing than jump around.

But your bearing often seems to be part of the character, as if that is how singers of the time behaved. But actually, there were many wild and intensely physical performers then; Cab Calloway comes to mind.

Yes, and Cab Calloway was a jazz performer and was quite wild onstage, but it is not as if performers in Germany at that time moved any differently than people do today. It is actually a normal reflex.

We started off slowly and rather quietly, though, and no one concerned themselves with how I should move on stage. I just did it myself – I stood there, and I sang.

So that part of the act is authentically Max Raabe...

Exactly. Its entirely me.

What other new elements do you bring to this old music?

It is hard to recognize what is new about our interpretations in specific points, but this music was written in the late 20's and early 30's for stage revues and early talkies that did not really reflect reality. People driving big cars and drinking champagne in the morning – it was always a world that never really existed as such. The music was written to help people leave reality for the duration of a movie, so it only reflects the reality of the time to a certain extent. You might discern the real spirit of the times in moments of bittersweet humor, but it is overall a distorted representation of the times.

What we do is really just a reflection of that reflection, our own view of the repertoire. That is perhaps what keeps it from seeming too antiquated.

You've spent your entire career in Berlin, where you moved to study at the Berlin University of the Arts in the 1980's. What was it like to live and make music in Berlin then versus now?

When I arrived in Berlin, I was coming from a very small town. There was a lot going on culturally, and that was very exciting for me. You would walk through town, and suddenly there was this wall, and then you went a little further and around the corner, and there was some club or a hotel lobby where people were playing jazz. I had my own apartment for the first time and so on.

And when the wall fell, I realized just how big the city behind it was. It felt quite empty and there were hardly any cars and it felt like the fifties, with these cobblestones and gray facades.

In the meantime the East has gotten so fashionable and modern that the West now seems old-fashioned and shabby by comparison. And it is clear to me that I only really knew a small part of the city back then.

One notices that the city is searching for itself, for where it should go. There are no isolated cliques and people still mix with one another – artists and people with a lot of money or little money. [...] The city is still curious.

Do you listen to any contemporary music?

As little as possible when I'm home, because I'm always working on music and do not need any distractions. One artist that I find astounding is Amy Winehouse. She has a fantastic voice and sings so well. Hers is a kind of pop-music that happens to be very in tune with me.

Her music also looks toward the past.

But for me its totally modern!

Interview conducted by David Brown