Audi 2007 Annual Report Download - page 46

44 ARTS &ARTISTS
Concert in motion
Driving is more fun with a little music – perhaps from “Yello,” the fathers of
electro-pop who achieved worldwide fame. One of their most popular tracks
is “The Race.” Dieter Meier, mastermind of the innovative musical duo,
talks about the special bond between driving and listening.
PHOTOGRAPHY Pablo Faccinetto
y mother had a fascination for sports cars, and drove
one long past her 70th birthday. She even had the clutch
pedal lengthened so she could indulge in the pleasure of
double-clutching and revving the engine up to the correct
speed, thus ensuring a smooth downshift. As a consequence,
the engine’s roar became the soundtrack to little Dieter’s
vacation as his mother drove him in her raceabout to a pen-
insula at the upper end of Lake Zurich where the family
used to spend summer weekends.
But a few years have passed since then, and today,
sporty driving, along with the coloratura roar of an engine
hitting the high C, has mostly faded into the powerful silence
of the modern power plant, which offers today’s drivers such
a wide range of driving styles. When I drive a high-perform-
ance car at low speeds, only a faint hum reminds me of the
multitude of parts moving under the hood, with the cockpit
becoming a concert hall, an acoustic space that endears me
to traffic jams downtown and lets me glide down express-
ways and country highways, lost in music, often more so than
in a concert hall, because driving and listening are such sym-
biotic partners.
Relaxed, and free from the burden of listening keenly,
I achieve that aristocratic state of attentive casualness,
enjoying the music just like the Esterházys would have done,
as Joseph Haydn accompanied them in F-sharp minor
through the twilight of a summer evening to a country house
outside Budapest. With Frédéric Chopin, I coast relaxed and
happy in autumnal Paris, starting the evening with oysters and
a glass of champagne at La Coupole, looking forward to my
trip to Biarritz, as trees, mountains and chateaus flit by to the
sounds of the Well-Tempered Clavier as played by the
great Glenn Gould. •