Hugh Wolff became Principal Conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1997, after having first guest conducted them in 1993. His contract was later extended to the end of the 2005/6 season. Perhaps surprisingly, the German orchestra looked to their American conductor to school them in the Viennese classics.

The richest part of my collaboration in Frankfurt has been mutually re-exploring the bedrock Austro-German repertoire, especially Haydn and a lot of Beethoven. It’s been wonderful, first of all because the musicians themselves wanted to do it. The impetus and desire came from them – they hired me with that express purpose. They knew some of my older recordings with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra of Haydn symphonies, and liked the direction I was going in – though I’ve actually gone much farther now. I can listen to those recordings now and think, gosh, it’s not like that at all any more.

Part of this voyage of rediscovery involved an increased awareness of historical performance practice.

It would not really have been possible, or nearly as much fun, if there had not been this strong mutual desire to plunge forward. The brass players themselves came to me and said, ‘We’ve been fooling around on these old instruments, may we play them?’ After a couple of years of that I went back to the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, which I was concurrently conducting in America, and I said, you know, guys, the brass players in Germany, they’re not playing these modern instruments any more – what do you think? And they looked at me in horror – ‘No, we can’t do that.’ This flew in the face of all my expectations, all my stereotypes of adaptable Americans and traditionalist Europeans!

Frankly the one area in which American orchestras are way behind is in this flexibility of style, and the recognition that playing older music involves starting again with a whole new approach. And I have to say that when you do Haydn or Beethoven with a German orchestra, you are starting from a fundamentally more connected style, in terms of articulation, expression of small phrases. The connection is more automatic and you need less debate about it. In America you are still having to say, ‘Lift the bow here, don’t vibrate there, a little less legato...’

In Germany now, particularly among the younger players, there is a tremendous eagerness to embrace historically informed performance practice. That’s been the great richness of working there. They have a fantastic cutting-edge new music series and at the same time we’re recording Haydn and sounding more and more like an authentic ensemble using modern instruments – probably as much as any modern-instrument ensemble in the world.

I think I bring a convert’s zeal now to the proselytisation of this trend! Can it find traction in America? It really should. The flexibility possible with American ensembles – the way they are funded and the way they look to generate audience revenue – means that there’s a tremendous potential here.

So I learned from Frankfurt as much as they learned from me.