Maazel: A Life In Music
Mark Stenroos
faults and the Mahler cycle he is conducting with the Philharmonia:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/may/23/lorin-maazel-conductor-life-music
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in
news:fa803d66-67e7-4f34...@r27g2000prr.googlegroups.com:
He should write his autobiography, if he hasn't already done so.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!!
"I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable
than left-wing social engineering. I don’t think imposing radical
change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free
society to operate. I think we need a national conversation to get
to a better Medicare system with more choices for seniors." Former
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on "Meet the Press" 15 May 2011
Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of my employers.
M forever
> Article in The Guardian wherein the maestro discusses his career, his
> faults and the Mahler cycle he is conducting with the Philharmonia:
>
Interesting interview.
Two footnotes: Lebrecht is quoted and described as a "critic and
Mahler expert". Obviously, he is neither.
Also, "in 1989 the Berlin Philharmonic unexpectedly – not least to
Maazel himself – asked Claudio Abbado to succeed Karajan as chief
conductor". Well, I think it was first and foremost to himself. I
don't think he was ever considered by the orchestra as a really
serious candidate. How right they were was demonstrated by himself the
very next day: he had called a press conference for the day after the
election, and when he didn't get the job, he used that press
conference to announce that he would sever all his ties with Berlin
and cancel his concert dates with the BP "in order to have more time
for composing". Sure. That was a really embarrassing and very douchey
performance. Good thing they hadn't considered him.
Steve de Mena
> Also, "in 1989 the Berlin Philharmonic unexpectedly – not least to
> Maazel himself – asked Claudio Abbado to succeed Karajan as chief
> conductor". Well, I think it was first and foremost to himself. I
> don't think he was ever considered by the orchestra as a really
> serious candidate. How right they were was demonstrated by himself the
> very next day: he had called a press conference for the day after the
> election, and when he didn't get the job, he used that press
> conference to announce that he would sever all his ties with Berlin
> and cancel his concert dates with the BP "in order to have more time
> for composing". Sure. That was a really embarrassing and very douchey
> performance. Good thing they hadn't considered him.
Has Maazel conducted the BPO much since 1989? I don't remember when
he made those recordings with them, the Bruckner symphonies,
Rachmaninoff, etc. (Earlier is my guess)
How many great Maazel compositions have come out of that decision of
his to spend more time composing?
Steve
pianomaven
Clearly just justifying the humiliation.
It would have been unthinkable that Maazel, an American Jew, would
ever be "elected" to lead the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,
particularly after decades under Herbert "I was a Nazi but in name
only" von Karajan. Simply unthinkable.
It was equally unthinkable that he would ever really succeed in
Vienna, for much the same reason.
TD
M forever
I don't think he did actually spend "more time composing". In any
case, he took a job with the SOBR just a few years later, in addition
to the many other commitments he already had at the time. The first
time he came back to Berlin was also with the SOBR, to play some
Brahms symphonies. When he saw that the concert wasn't entirely sold
out, he canceled the concert half an hour before it was to begin,
saying that he had "hurt his foot". Apparently he was disappointed
that all of musical Berlin hadn't turned out to celebrate him and
maybe demonstrate that they all agreed that he should have been
Karajan's successor. Obviously, a very vain and instable person.
Definitely not what the BP needed after the turmoil of the last
Karajan decade. He finally came back as a guest to the BP in the later
90s. I think all the recordings were made pre-hissy-fit. In fact, the
last two concerts he did before his little public meltdown were
Sibelius 1 and Bruckner 8, the latter was also recorded (in studio).
GT
>
> - Show quoted text -
They took one of the most boring ever conducters in Abbado. I would
rather hear Maazel anyday!
Gerard
>
> They took one of the most boring ever conducters in Abbado. I would
> rather hear Maazel anyday!
Nobody stops you.
GT
M forever
"Unthinkable" only for an idiot like you who doesn't understand any of
these things and who can only "think" in bizarre black&white clichés.
Karajan's political past had absolutely nothing to do with the choice
(or the fact that Maazel was not chosen). Such things as the
conductor's ethnic or religious background played absolutely no role
anymore in Germany in the 80s. And Karajan's past only played a role
at that time insofar as it came back once more to haunt him in the 80s
when questions about exactly how many times he had joined and why came
up in the press again.
But to suggest that that had anything to do with Maazel's "rejection"
is bizarre even by your low standards. First of all, Maazel wasn't the
only "thinkable" candidate. But he was the only one who saw himself as
already appointed, strangely enough. There was an embarrassing article
in the NYT that summer, weeks before the election, which celebrated
his career and pointed how much he would be the natural choice for the
orchestra. Most likely placed there by Maazel himself who was quoted
in the article as "having fatherly feelings for the orchestra in this
trying time" or something like that.
There were other candidates who probably had high hopes, too, but none
of them behaved in that way before and after the election.
Second, Maazel had already worked in Berlin for many years in the 60s
and 70s, even holding two position with the RSO and DOB at the same
time. So his background obviously was never a "problem".
Third, the idea that Karajan somehow "indoctrinated" the orchestra,
including the many members who had grown up and joined the orchestra
during the postwar decades in the very liberal climate in which the
Nazi past was also openly and constantly discussed, is even more
bizarre and plainly idiotic. Especially since Karajan, no matter how
much of a real Nazi or just an opportunist he may have been, wished
nothing more than that past to go away and not be mentioned anymore.
Finally, Abbado's election in many ways reflected the orchestra's wish
for changes not just in musical matters. They wanted a new approach to
everything after they had felt that things had stagnated and gotten
stale during Karajan's final period. So a candidate who was as un-
Karajan as possible was what they wanted, and that was Abbado. Maazel
was far too conventional in his music making to be a real candidate.
> It was equally unthinkable that he would ever really succeed in
> Vienna, for much the same reason.
Yes, right, and that's why Bernstein - an American Jew - was so
immensely successful in Vienna in the 70s and 80s, right? That's also
why Abbado himself didn't last much longer than Maazel either, right?
What a fucking idiot you are.
M forever
Abbado certainly was far from "a boring conductor" when he came to
Berlin. In fact, he was one of the most interesting, versatile,
musically flexible and innovatively programming conductors on the
loose, always ready to try new things and concepts, and explore new or
neglected repertoire. He was also exactly the right conductor for the
BP at the time because they wanted to develop into a new direction
from the very polished, blended and weighty sound and ensemble style
that Karajan had cultivated and groomed to perfection. But they had
done that for many years, and they felt something new and fresh had to
come. They wanted to move to a more chamber-music ensemble style in
which the enormous soloistic potential of its many highly accomplished
members could be unfolded more freely. And that's exactly what
Abbado's style of music making offered. So it was a smart and at the
time exactly the right choice.
I felt that during the later 90s, he stagnated artistically though.
Abbado used to apparently have a very precise conception of the music
at the same time as the ability to suggest rather than dictate his
ideas and form an interpretation from his concepts and the ideas
offered to him by the musicians. He was extremely good at keeping
things flowing from his part while reacting to and steering the flow
of musical contributions from the orchestra.
In later years, it seemed more and more that he just showed up and let
the orchestra play, apparently with less of a clear concept and
purpose behind his conducting, basically just presiding over these
sensitivity feasts in which the orchestra showed off how extremely
nuanced and refined they can play everything. But there wasn't that
compelling sense of coherence anymore.
Anyway, none of the other candidates in 1989 offered something
remotely as interesting as Abbado was back then. With all the Mutis,
Maazels, Mehtas, Barenboims, and all the other usual suspects, it
would just have been "carry on as usual" with highly polished virtuoso
orchestral performances, like before. But that's not what they wanted.
And they were right.
herman
>
> It would have been unthinkable that Maazel, an American Jew, would
> ever be "elected" to lead the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,
what a load of nonsense.
Mark Stenroos
From the article:
"To be honest I don't look back with great satisfaction at all the
various people I've been over the decades," he [Maazel] says. "In fact
I often shake my head in dismay at the immaturity and puerile view of
life and have the greatest compassion for young people who are going
through these same stages. But hopefully you mature and you get
smarter, in life and in music. If you sharpen your mind and become
open to new ideas you become less enclosed in the ghetto of your
fanaticisms."
The article also discusses his not getting the BPO job. I assumed the
above Maazel quote covers the "hissy fit" he had over not getting the
BPO job. Do you have any reason to believe it doesn't? That incident
was 22 years ago, after all. Sounds to me that Maazel realizes that
the BPO affair wasn't one of his finer moments.
M forever
Oh yes, you are right. I overlooked the fact that Maazel was just a
hot-headed emotional young man of 59 when that happened, and still
only 65 or at the time of the SOBR concert incident. How unfair of me!
pianomaven
An amazing acknowledgment on his part. One wonders when many people
will come to such a rational attitude towards themselves.
In any room Maazel will be the smartest person breathing.
TD
M forever
Like you ever did in your life?
"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA"
> In any room Maazel will be the smartest person breathing.
In any room with you in it everybody else will be the smartest person
breathing.
"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA"
Steve de Mena
> Anyway, none of the other candidates in 1989 offered something
> remotely as interesting as Abbado was back then. With all the Mutis,
> Maazels, Mehtas, Barenboims, and all the other usual suspects, it
> would just have been "carry on as usual" with highly polished virtuoso
> orchestral performances, like before. But that's not what they wanted.
> And they were right.
Was Levine considered? Wasn't he recording a lot with the orchestra
around this time frame?
Steve
pianomaven
Yes. And he, too, was more than a little miffed not to have been given
the post.
TD
M forever
He was, although not more than a number of other conductors, but from
what I gathered, he was not considered a "serious" candidate. Not
because he was an "American Jew" either, but for two reasons: first,
like the above, he was highly competent, reliable, a great guest
conductor, but not really principal conductor material because he was
just as conventional and that's simply not what the orchestra needed
and wanted at that pointed. They have always seen themselves as being
in a leading, trend-setting role, preserving the traditions but at the
same time reevaluating them in new ways and that is what they had done
with Karajan. Except that had stagnated during the last decade or so
of his tenure, and that's not what they wanted anymore. Abbado
promised (and delivered) a fresh new breeze, different program
conceptions, new challenges for the orchestra, including looking at he
classics in a new way suggested by the HIP movement, and none of that
was really within the scope of any of the other candidates. None of
them really set trends or really distinguished themselves in other
places in the outstanding way the BP was looking for at the time, so
they were right in their choice.
The other reason was that Levine was too closely entangled with Ronald
Wilford and CAMI. There had been a big scandal in the mid-80s when the
BP was planning to pay its first ever visit to Taiwan. The visit had
been set up by a member of the orchestra, a Berliner of Jewish
background who had survived the war with his family in exile in China
and then returned to Berlin in the 60s via Israel and Chicago. CAMI
was asked to handle the tour. Suddenly, the Taiwanese pulled out,
saying they couldn't meet the exorbitant demands. Turned out CAMI had
tacked on a number of extra demands for Karajan and themselves to the
basic terms of the tour, to the tune of, IIRC, hundreds of thousands
of dollars. They tried to milk the Taiwanese dry so the tour was
canceled. That put another very deep dent into the relationship
between Karajan and the orchestra, and significantly dimmed the
chances of those too close to CAMI. Abbado was a Wilford customer,
too, but he had made his career on his own in Milano, Vienna, and
London, and his CAMI-handled activities in North America weren't very
far-reaching (basically just the principal guest conductor in Chicago
for a few seasons). Levine, however, was a Wilford creation. And that
was not a good thing to be at that time.