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"Young musicians keep showing up on concert stages. It’s not clear they’re ready"
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gggg gggg
Dec 30, 2022, 9:28:31 PM12/30/22
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Jordan Rattenbury
Jan 23, 2023, 6:42:22 AM1/23/23
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On Saturday, 31 December 2022 at 13:28:31 UTC+11, gggg gggg wrote:
> https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/music/young-musicians-keep-showing-up-on-concert-stages-its-not-clear-theyre-ready
Followed the link to Alex Ross's article in The New Yorker.
< https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/12/26/looking-past-the-celebrity-conductor >
He appears to be a great fan of Blomstedt, which will not go down with some people here. He does admit that orchestras seem to enjoy working with Klaus Makkela, who he hopes will regard his recent Sibelius cycle as a youthful indiscretion, to be hidden away at the back of a cupboard somewhere. He has much more time for Xian Zhang ...
"... a forty-nine-year-old Chinese-born conductor who first won wide notice when she held an associate position at the Philharmonic, in the Lorin Maazel era. Diminutive but dynamic, Zhang is an immaculate podium technician who incites playing of uncommon vitality. Last season, at the L.A. Phil, she facilitated the most flat-out electrifying account of Beethoven’s Seventh I’ve ever heard. At the Newark gala, she elicited an exuberantly violent version of Ginastera’s Four Dances from “Estancia,” with members of the New Jersey Ballet performing in tandem. Zhang is also a strong proponent of contemporary scores, emphasizing those of nonwhite and female composers. Perhaps most important, she is an empathetic musician who mediates among the players more than she dictates to them".
I do get the impression that Ms Yang ticks all the right boxes: collegial, middle-aged, non-male, non-Ippolitov-Ivanov, empathetic, non-dictatorial. And it's important that she stays put:
"Although Mäkelä garners more publicity, Zhang strikes me as the likelier future of the art. We don’t need more itinerant maestros who draw big salaries in multiple cities, carrying their putative genius in their hand luggage. We need more directorships along the lines of Marin Alsop’s, at the Baltimore Symphony, or Osmo Vänskä’s, at the Minnesota Orchestra—ones in which a conductor focusses on a single city and puts down roots. This is how American orchestral culture unfolded before jet travel."
It is to be hoped that Ms Zhang does nothing of the kind, or I and many others outside America will never get a chance to hear her. If she ever wants to be recorded, she needs to go to Europe, more particularly the UK, France and Germany. But Mr Ross continues:
"George Szell, during his storied tenure with the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted up to three-quarters of its concerts in a given season. The culture of lyrical perfection that he fostered remains his monument."
I confess that I don't know what a culture of lyrical perfection is. Can anybody help? Is there still one in Cleveland?
Andrew Clarke
Canberra
> https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/music/young-musicians-keep-showing-up-on-concert-stages-its-not-clear-theyre-ready
Followed the link to Alex Ross's article in The New Yorker.
< https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/12/26/looking-past-the-celebrity-conductor >
He appears to be a great fan of Blomstedt, which will not go down with some people here. He does admit that orchestras seem to enjoy working with Klaus Makkela, who he hopes will regard his recent Sibelius cycle as a youthful indiscretion, to be hidden away at the back of a cupboard somewhere. He has much more time for Xian Zhang ...
"... a forty-nine-year-old Chinese-born conductor who first won wide notice when she held an associate position at the Philharmonic, in the Lorin Maazel era. Diminutive but dynamic, Zhang is an immaculate podium technician who incites playing of uncommon vitality. Last season, at the L.A. Phil, she facilitated the most flat-out electrifying account of Beethoven’s Seventh I’ve ever heard. At the Newark gala, she elicited an exuberantly violent version of Ginastera’s Four Dances from “Estancia,” with members of the New Jersey Ballet performing in tandem. Zhang is also a strong proponent of contemporary scores, emphasizing those of nonwhite and female composers. Perhaps most important, she is an empathetic musician who mediates among the players more than she dictates to them".
I do get the impression that Ms Yang ticks all the right boxes: collegial, middle-aged, non-male, non-Ippolitov-Ivanov, empathetic, non-dictatorial. And it's important that she stays put:
"Although Mäkelä garners more publicity, Zhang strikes me as the likelier future of the art. We don’t need more itinerant maestros who draw big salaries in multiple cities, carrying their putative genius in their hand luggage. We need more directorships along the lines of Marin Alsop’s, at the Baltimore Symphony, or Osmo Vänskä’s, at the Minnesota Orchestra—ones in which a conductor focusses on a single city and puts down roots. This is how American orchestral culture unfolded before jet travel."
It is to be hoped that Ms Zhang does nothing of the kind, or I and many others outside America will never get a chance to hear her. If she ever wants to be recorded, she needs to go to Europe, more particularly the UK, France and Germany. But Mr Ross continues:
"George Szell, during his storied tenure with the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted up to three-quarters of its concerts in a given season. The culture of lyrical perfection that he fostered remains his monument."
I confess that I don't know what a culture of lyrical perfection is. Can anybody help? Is there still one in Cleveland?
Andrew Clarke
Canberra
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