DANIEL HARDING ANSWERS the door wearing a navy crewneck jumper and black chinos, his slight figure exaggerated by the imposing entrance of his towering brick home in Viroflay, France. His pale, boyish face, framed by a tousle of fine blond hair and plastic spectacles, further belies his eminence: for standing there in his stockinged feet is one of Europe's most important young conductors.
In the staid world of classical music, it is tempting to pick stars out of the constellations of talent. Yet, 29-year-old Harding has long outgrown, even shunned, the tired label of 'prodigy'. Sure, he made his professional debut at the age of 20, winning the Royal Philharmonic Society 'Best Debut' Award in the process. He conducted the Berlin Philharmonic just before his 21st birthday and, later that year, he became the youngest conductor at the BBC Proms. Since then, Harding has led orchestras throughout Europe, wielded his baton across the US and Canada, and recorded a series of albums for Virgin Classics. Capping it all off, France awarded him the title of Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2002, the equivalent of a knighthood.
Harding's latest high-level assignment will be to stand in for 64-year-old maestro Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, who cancelled his upcoming Hong Kong concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) because of ill health. For the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Harding will lead the LSO through two nights of large-scale orchestral classics that include Shostakovich's Symphony No.5, Stravinsky's Suite from The Firebird and three Sibelius pieces, including his Violin Concerto, which will be played by 16-year-old Japanese violin prodigy Sayaka Shoji.
Such a list of achievements and awards might go to anyone's head, but the British-born conductor is strikingly unassuming. 'It's very important that people's ideas change, and that what we think of as the established tradition is questioned ... something that's easier for younger people to approach in a fresh way. A lot of the music that we play is written by composers who were not much older than we are anyway. So, there are different ways to look at it. Also, there were always young conductors in the past, but these days, there is more media attention on them. A conductor my age 50 years ago would have been doing similar things, but maybe a lot more quietly. And that was probably a good thing for them.'
Harding has always believed it would be a good thing for him, as well. While his precocity got him noticed - both musicians and critics have for years praised his talent - he never set out to court attention. In contrast to many of today's young celebrities, Harding tiptoed around the limelight. 'You have to look at the career thing very practically,' he says. 'If somebody asks you to do something, you have to ask yourself, 'Is this something I feel comfortable with?' As long as you resist the temptation to accept anything just because it's grandiose or seems exciting, I think you're OK.'
So, Harding opted for the less glamorous route to success, plying his trade on the back roads of Europe with small orchestras in small cities. Before becoming first music director of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra last year, he conducted for the Trondheim Symphony in Norway and the Norrkoping Symphony in Sweden. He also went to Oslo, Stockholm, Dresden, Rotterdam, Frankfurt, Lyon, Rome, Aix-en-Provence and Paris. While one could interpret his choices as an attempt to shun publicity, Harding puts it down to strategy. Like the violinist who practises in his living room before hitting the stage, Harding honed his skills with lesser-known orchestras. 'I made sure that I always had a place where I could go and learn my job,' he says. 'Places where I could go and play the pieces that I didn't know and make my mistakes. That's still very important to me.'