NYT: Kurt Masur Dies at 88; Conductor Transformed New York Philharmonic

[Frank Forman]

I bought a MHS reissue of Mendelssohn overtures, which I thought was
pretty good, but scarcely anything since. So I lack an informed opinion
about him. I am inclined to say that he seems excellent but unimaginative.

Kurt Masur Dies at 88; Conductor Transformed New York Philharmonic
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/arts/music/kurt-masur-new-york-philharmonic-conductor-dies.html

By MARGALIT FOX

Kurt Masur, the music director emeritus of the New York
Philharmonic, who was credited with transforming the orchestra from
a sullen, lackluster ensemble into one of luminous renown, died on
Saturday in Greenwich, Conn. He was 88.

The death, from complications of Parkinson's disease, was announced
by the Philharmonic, which said it would dedicate its Saturday night
performance of Handel's "Messiah" to Mr. Masur's memory.

Mr. Masur (pronounced mah-ZOOR) was the Philharmonic's music
director from 1991 to 2002. When he took its helm, the orchestra was
roundly considered to be a world-class ensemble in name only, its
playing grown slipshod, its players fractious and discontented, its
recording contracts unrenewed.

His immediate predecessors--Pierre Boulez, with his cool, cerebral
approach and focus on contemporary works, and Zubin Mehta, seen as
purveying flash and dazzle at the expense of deep musical meaning--
were held more than partly responsible for the artistic decline that
had followed the epochal reign of Leonard Bernstein, the
Philharmonic's music director from 1958 to 1969.

The selection of Mr. Masur to lead the Philharmonic astounded nearly
everyone in classical music circles. A specialist in the music of
Central European composers--notably Beethoven, Brahms,
Mendelssohn, Mahler and Bruckner--he had built a respectable if
not scintillating career amid the musical and political repressions
of East Germany.

The longtime Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mr.
Masur was known as a faithful--some would say stolid--
interpreter who seemed to have neither immense musical charisma nor
intense interest in works outside the canonical repertory.
(Kapellmeister, literally meaning "master of the chapel," designates
a post that in German-speaking countries is roughly equivalent to
that of music director. But among musicians elsewhere, the term can
be used derisively.)

"Mr. Masur has stretched on occasion into the 20th century for a
late Romantic like Richard Strauss or a moderate modernist like
Prokofiev," the critic Donal Henahan wrote in The New York Times in
1990, after the appointment was announced. "But unless he has a few
surprising ideas up his sleeve, Leipzig-on-the-Hudson could be a
duller town than Mehtaville."

In seeking a successor to Mr. Mehta, the Philharmonic had spent a
year and a half courting the most eminent conductors of the day,
including Bernard Haitink, Sir Colin Davis and Claudio Abbado. But
the orchestra's low standing, and the reputation of its players as
temperamental, insubordinate and demoralized, had appeared to deter
many candidates. Mr. Abbado, for instance, on the brink of accepting
the Philharmonic's offer, decamped instead to the Berlin
Philharmonic, where he succeeded Herbert von Karajan.

Enter Mr. Masur, the darkest of dark horses. A shambolic, bearded
giant who stood 6-foot-3 and favored bolo ties offstage, he may have
lacked the dynamism of Bernstein and the avant-gardism of Mr.
Boulez. But what he could bring to the Philharmonic, the search
committee believed, were attributes that were even more urgently
needed: the respect of its players, before whom he had appeared as a
guest conductor; a deep knowledge of the Germanic repertory that is
the foundation stone of the Western symphonic canon; and a tasteful,
unswerving fealty to the intent of composers.

He could also bring a meticulous if somewhat dictatorial approach to
rehearsal discipline, something that New York's unruly orchestra was
widely thought to need.

"I remember when I asked one of the orchestra committee after my
appointment here, 'Why me?' " Mr. Masur, who spoke fluent if
somewhat impeachable English, told the newspaper Scotland on Sunday
in 1999. "He said, 'Because you do not fear orchestras.' "

Mr. Masur made his formal debut as the Philharmonic's music director
--in a program featuring Bruckner, John Adams and Aaron Copland--
on Sept. 11, 1991. But he had impressed the critics even before his
tenure began.

In the fall of 1990, it was announced that Mr. Masur would take over
four December performances of Mendelssohn's oratorio "Elijah," which
Bernstein, in failing health, had been scheduled to lead. (Bernstein
died on Oct. 14.)

Writing in The Times, John Rockwell reviewed Mr. Masur's "Elijah,"
which featured the Philharmonic and the Westminster Symphonic Choir.
Mr. Masur, he wrote, "propelled the music forward with bracing
authority." He added: "At the end, the hall rang with cheers that
apparently signify the onset of Mr. Masur's honeymoon with the New
York public."

An Injection of Vigor

Over the 11-year marriage that followed, Mr. Masur would bring to
the Philharmonic a restored musical vigor; new recording contracts
and regular radio exposure; a populist approach that helped expand
its graying, rarefied audience; and a determination to improve the
dubious acoustics of Avery Fisher Hall, its longtime home.

Though critics continued to tax Mr. Masur for conventional
programming, during his tenure he commissioned dozens of new works,
from the likes of Hans Werner Henze, John Corigliano, Thomas Adès,
Sofia Gubaidulina and Christopher Rouse.

He also brought to the podium the ardent conviction that
music-making was a moral act that could heal the world. It was a
belief he had put into spectacular public practice in 1989, when
Communism in East Germany began to crumble and he used his singular
renown there to avert bloodshed. Mr. Masur would put it into
practice again, memorably and movingly, in a New York ravaged by the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Kurt Masur was born on July 18, 1927, in Brieg; the town, then in
the Silesian region of Germany, is now Brzeg, Poland. His father was
an engineer, and, at his pragmatic insistence, young Kurt studied to
become an electrician.

But he also studied music, training as a pianist, organist, cellist
and percussionist. Wanting to make the field his calling, he entered
the National Music School in Breslau. But by the time he was 16, an
inoperable tendon injury in his right hand had made performing
impossible, and he chose to concentrate on conducting. (As a result
of the hand condition, Mr. Masur conducted without a baton
throughout his career.) After the war, in which he served in the
Wehrmacht, he studied conducting and composition at the Leipzig
Conservatory.

After spending more than a decade leading orchestras and opera
companies throughout the newly formed East Germany, Mr. Masur became
the music director of the Komische Oper, Berlin; he was later chief
conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic, a post he held from 1967 to
1972. In 1970, he was named Kapellmeister of the Gewandhaus, one of
Europe's most venerable orchestras. He would hold that post for 26
years.

In Leipzig, a city famed as home to Bach, Telemann, Mendelssohn,
Schumann and Wagner, Mr. Masur soon became an eminent public figure,
hailed on the street by ordinary men and women. Drawing on the
rigorous study of scores and tight control of rehearsals that were
his stock in trade, he gave the orchestra a lush, string-saturated,
dark brown sound that was ideally suited to the Romantic repertory
he favored. His recordings with the group, including the complete
Beethoven symphonies, were widely praised.

He also prevailed upon the East German leader, Erich Honecker, to
build a new concert hall: The orchestra's longtime home, the
Gewandhaus, had been destroyed in Allied bombardments. The new
Gewandhaus opened in 1981, with every detail, acoustic and
otherwise, overseen by Mr. Masur.

Though Mr. Masur was by all accounts not a member of the Communist
Party, his prowess as a conductor gained him great favor with its
leadership. He was accorded a comfortable home in Leipzig, and, in
an era when an average citizen might wait more than a decade for the
chance to buy a Trabant, the East German automobile, he drove a
Mercedes.

He was allowed to travel abroad with the Gewandhaus, which during
the 1970s and '80s was heard several times at Carnegie Hall in New
York. He was also permitted to accept guest-conducting invitations
from orchestras around the world, including the New York and Israel
Philharmonics; the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, of which he became the
principal guest conductor in 1976; the Cleveland Orchestra; and the
London Symphony.

A Musical Diplomat

The popular revolt against East German communism started in Leipzig,
taking hold there in October 1989. Mr. Masur's immersion in that
movement had begun a few months before, when he was asked to lend
his support to the city's street musicians, who were routinely
arrested for not holding official, government-issued licenses.

At considerable professional risk, he convened a meeting at the
Gewandhaus, inviting the musicians; the Stasi, the East German
secret police; and Communist Party officials--more than 600 people
in all. It was a measure of his influence that everyone came, and
that a remarkably amicable meeting ensued, with the restrictions on
street musicians eased.

Mr. Masur would deploy his diplomatic skills even more forcefully in
October. That month, pro-democracy demonstrations began in Leipzig's
Karl-Marx-Platz, which the Gewandhaus overlooked. Armed police
officers stood ready to confront them.

Once again Mr. Masur invited everyone into the Gewandhaus for talks.
He recorded a message, broadcast by radio and over loudspeakers,
urging nonviolence. Both sides heeded his words, and the day's
events helped set in motion a peaceful nationwide revolution.

Mr. Masur's work was widely seen as helping avert another Tiananmen
Square. As a result, leaders of post-Communist, pre-reunification
East Germany seriously considered nominating him for the country's
presidency. Then came the offer from the Philharmonic.

"Kurt," the English conductor Simon Rattle advised him, "don't be
under any illusions which would be more difficult!"

Mr. Masur chose the Philharmonic job, and left for New York. (He
would simultaneously retain the Gewandhaus post until 1996.)

The music directorship of any major orchestra entails a delicate
counterpoint of democracy and despotism. But as Mr. Masur and the
Philharmonic soon discovered, they were accustomed to the two in
different proportions, and it took them a few years to come to
terms.

In East Germany, conductors were enfranchised autocrats. At the
Gewandhaus, Mr. Masur supervised not only all matters musical but
also the hiring of every staff member, including the coat checkers.

United States orchestras were far more egalitarian, not to say
headstrong. By the time he arrived at the Philharmonic--comprising
107 players, each possessing the skill and quite possibly the
temperament of a world-renowned soloist--the orchestra had a
longstanding reputation for bridling at conductors' orders, for
failing to congeal sonically and for producing a sound that was
loud, bombastic and literally brassy.

At first, many players viewed Mr. Masur's relentless work ethic--
and his musical criticisms unsoftened by politesse--as a form of
tyranny.

"It is absolutely not true that I 'broke the resistance' of the
orchestra," Mr. Masur told Scotland on Sunday. "I am not a Wild West
conductor. Sure, the orchestra expected someone to give them some
pushes in certain directions, but I convinced them, that is all." He
added, "Who fears me, doesn't know me."

What was widely agreed was that the Philharmonic's sound changed for
the better almost instantly. Mr. Masur seated the players on
graduated risers, helping them to hear one another, and the audience
to hear them. He further blended the sound by moving the cellos from
the orchestra's outside edge to the inside, and the violas from
inside to outside.

He made signal hires, including Carter Brey as principal cellist and
Sheryl Staples as associate concertmaster. He imported bowings--
the directional movements of the bow arm that are to string playing
what the flow of breath is to singing--from the scores he had used
at the Gewandhaus. He also imported European engineers to wrestle
with Avery Fisher's acoustic innards, resulting, critics agreed, in
some improvement.

"No one can really conquer the Philharmonic--this is New York's
orchestra, after all--but Masur did his share of taming," American
Record Guide said in 2002. "Whatever else one thinks of Kurt Masur,
there is no question he has restored the New York Philharmonic as
one of the world's great orchestras. After the mud of the Mehta era,
the Masur sound was like a mountain stream. The difference was
startling. One could go hear the Philharmonic play a Schumann or
Brahms symphony without wincing. One could even anticipate a 'St.
Matthew Passion' or Beethoven Ninth, not only with complete
assurance but a real sense of occasion."

Among Mr. Masur's other highly praised outings were performances of
Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique" Symphony; choral works, including
Debussy's "Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien" and Arthur Honegger's
"Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher"; and Shostakovich's "Babi Yar" Symphony. He
sagely programmed that work, which commemorates the 1941 massacre by
the Nazis, with Bright Sheng's "H'un (Lacerations): In Memoriam
1966-76," a lament for victims of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

'His Finest Hour'

Mr. Masur's imperious behavior was occasionally directed toward
audiences. In a widely reported incident from the winter of 1998, he
walked off the Avery Fisher podium in the middle of a performance of
Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, vexed by concertgoers' coughing.

But what The Times called "his finest hour, and a gift to the city,"
came on Sept. 20, 2001. That night, in a nationally televised
memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Masur led the
Philharmonic in a performance of Brahms's "German Requiem."

"Kurt Masur's unabashed belief in the power of music to make big
statements and foster healing has sometimes invited kidding,"
Anthony Tommasini, reviewing the concert, wrote in The Times. "No
longer."

To his work, Mr. Masur brought such indefatigable energy that in
2002 he returned to the Philharmonic podium just nine weeks after
undergoing a kidney transplant. But even this level of commitment
did not spare him an escalating, highly public series of
altercations with the orchestra's board, and with its executive
director, Deborah Borda.

By all accounts, Mr. Masur's clashes with Ms. Borda centered less on
substantive issues than they did on a power struggle between two
strong-willed personalities. Tensions with the board seemed rooted
in its perception of Mr. Masur as hidebound, dictatorial and
perennially hostile to American music.

In 1998, the board announced that it would seek a successor to Mr.
Masur after the 2001-02 season. (Ms. Borda left the orchestra in
1999 to become managing director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.)
Mr. Masur, who was succeeded in New York by Lorin Maazel, made plain
in interviews that he had not left by choice.

Mr. Masur's other posts included the principal conductorship of the
London Philharmonic, a position he held from 2000 to 2007, and the
music directorship of the Orchestre National de France from 2002 to
2008.

Mr. Masur's first marriage ended in divorce. In 1972, he was at the
wheel when his car struck another on an East German highway; his
second wife, Irmgard, and the two occupants of the other car were
all killed. Mr. Masur was seriously injured.

No charges were filed, and the accident was not widely reported. On
Mr. Masur's appointment to the Philharmonic, some news organizations
in the West and the former East Bloc charged that East German
officials had covered it up to protect a favorite son. Mr. Masur,
who publicly accepted responsibility for the crash, denied
accusations of a cover-up, saying only that he had not been
drinking, but had been under great strain.

Mr. Masur's survivors include his third wife, the former Tomoko
Sakurai, and their son, Ken-David; his daughters, Angelika and
Carolin; his sons Michael and Matthias; and nine grandchildren.

If Mr. Masur was considered autocratic at times, he was not--at
least by the standards of his august profession--considered
egomaniacal. In interviews over the years, he strove to deflect
attention from himself and onto the art form.

"I don't want to be called a 'wonder,' " Mr. Masur told The Times in
1991. "The wonder is the music."

James R. Oestreich contributed reporting.