Author: Nicole Restle
ca. 2 minutes
“For an orchestral musician this is surely one of the best jobs in the world,” says Alessandro Cappone gratefully. Since 1980 he has been a member of the first violin section. Now, after 44 years of service, he will be taking his leave from an orchestra that has always been part of his life. At a very early age, Alessandro Cappone learned what it means to be a musician of the Berliner Philharmoniker – through the rehearsals and concerts of his father Giusto Cappone, who was the orchestra’s principal viola. Despite his musical surroundings, however, Alessandro Cappone came relatively late to the violin.
As an eleven-year-old he experienced the young Pinchas Zukerman’s debut with the Berliners and was so galvanized that he decided: “I want to become a violinist, too!” After that, everything went relatively quickly for a string player. Following his training under Thomas Brandis, then concertmaster of the orchestra, he joined the Philharmonic aged only 22. A solo career – he has stated – would not have interested him. What did excite him was the opportunity to make music on the highest level in a grand collective.
Cappone played under four principal conductors, and this taught him that there are differing perspectives on music which are all valid. It also had an impact on him personally: “I learned to be patient and to respect other opinions and ideas.” He has treasured everything this position offered him over all those years: wonderful concerts and opera performances, tours that enabled him to form friendships throughout the world, teaching at the Karajan Academy, and rewarding chamber-music appearances with his orchestra colleagues, above all in the Scharoun Ensemble, which Cappone led for 20 years.
He found especially enriching the emotional exchange that occurs in collaborative music making. His work in the orchestra may be coming to an end now but not, by any means, the making of music and his musical engagement. Alessandro Cappone will continue to teach and to pick up his instrument every day. “I simply enjoy playing the violin! It’s almost like a drug. It’s such fun for me to produce and shape the sound. And I’d like to keep on doing it for as long as I can.”
