I do not remember exactly when I began to practise yoga, but it must have been some time during my university and conservatory years. However, my interest in it had started long before, born out of that which I had read about Karajan, whom I had admired for a long time. On the authority of the many biographies that I had read, I knew that good old Herbert was not only interested in Eastern philosophies, but – within the privacy of his own home – he used to practise yoga, which he had learned on his own during his youth, from a book he had found, who knows where.
For emulation – to a certain extent – and also because I am naturally curious, I started reading about this discipline somewhat superficially, in order to understand that which it implies. After all, the stereotype that one imagines when he or she thinks of yoga is always to think of a man sitting down with his legs crossed in a particular manner, his eyes closed, his hands in a strange position, doing who knows what. The more I gathered information about this discipline, the more I became not only captivated by it, but also aware of the fact that the common stereotype is quite wrong. With my great surprise, for example, I discovered that yoga is not at all – or at least not exclusively – a static discipline, but it includes a physical activity which is sometimes extremely dynamic. A large proportion of freestyle gymnastics movements – frequently taught in school or at the gym – and almost the entirety of the so-called posture gymnastics are all derived in reality from yoga.
Yoga is a rich, complete, and complex discipline, with spiritual, mental, psychological, and physical aspects. Some have even called it a science, given the vast body of knowledge which surrounds it, which in order to be learnt in depth by anyone would take more than a lifetime. It is precisely this broad wealth of depth that was somewhat daunting to me at the beginning. Indeed, one cannot possibly understand yoga until one starts to practise it. Otherwise, it would be like saying that one is able to conduct an orchestra simply because one has read Herman Scherchen’s Handbook of Conducting. I was unnerved because I immediately found myself lost in the myriad of definitions and types of yoga. What if I were to chose the wrong one? What if I had asked the wrong person? How could I choose where best to practice this discipline? In fact, just browsing the web, I had noticed that this environment is not without its fanatics and its lunatics, whom I obviously wanted to avoid.
In the end, I decided and I took this necessary step, and I must admit that I was also quite lucky in it, because I ended up finding a centre where yoga was presented as far as possible in its wholeness, in order to allow people to become acquainted with and practice its various aspects. Therefore, not only the various asana (that is, the positions), but also meditation, respiration techniques (pranayama) and the recitations of mantras, which at times becomes effectively a chant. The funny thing is that when I started to attend these sessions I discovered that in reality I had already started to practice yoga the day of my first piano lesson. In fact, if one has had a structured musical training, some aspects of yoga relating to concentration and the perception of one’s own body in relaxation are quite immediate from the beginning. To this extent, when my instructor discovered that I was a pianist – after jubilation and words of admiration! –, he began to use me as a model for the other students, not without a certain level of embarrassment on my part.
Whoever practises yoga aspires to reach a good level of physical, mental, and spiritual health. He/she places back together the various parts of his/her existence. Not by chance the word ‘yoga’ means ‘union,’ a union of body and mind. Today I can say that my approach to this discipline has significantly improved my person and, consequently, also my skills as a musician. In addition to benefitting my physical health – which at the beginning is the most tangible result – practising yoga has helped me to develop a greater inner balance and has reawakened in me a spiritual dimension, which amongst us Westerners is somewhat slumbering, as we live in a society that tends to emphasise material aspects of life. I think it might have been also this journey of mine within yoga that has prepared in me a fertile terrain to understand and gladly welcome the spiritual and transcendental vision of Celibidache’s teachings, with its continual references to the oneness of a musical piece, to the need of living out its end, which is already contained in its beginning, and to the initial assumption that a sound is not music but it can become such through a transcendental process. In this sense, therefore, as pertaining to my personal experience of life, yoga has actively contributed towards all that today makes me a musician.
Obviously, I would recommend yoga to everyone. But if one were to ask me: ‘Is it useful for a musician?’ I would answer with a resounding ‘yes.’ First of all, improving oneself as a person, gaining a deeper awareness of oneself, and strengthening one’s inner balance is helpful in everything that one does. Secondly, a musician has the need to be ‘centred,’ with his/her mind and with his/her body. A good physical control and a mindful use of one’s body are fundamental aspects. For an orchestra conductor a balanced posture is also very important, this being a necessary premise in order to free one’s body from superfluous stiffness and to freely move one’s arms. Finally, more practically, the activity of a musician often results in the development of small posture pains, which need to be corrected or counterbalanced (just try to stay with your arms up for an hour and a half and see if your back does not hurt by the end of it). Without counting the stress and the anxiety before concerts! In summary, nobody has a magic wand and there are no miracle cures or medicines, but I can say that, in all of the above aspects, a daily practise of yoga does help.