Those musical observers who have long argued that it’s high time more American conductors held permanent positions with the top U.S. orchestras should be cheered by last week’s report in the Washington Post that Lorin Maazel is headed to the New York Philharmonic in 2002, where he would succeed Kurt Masur.
Equally encouraging, for the same reason, are rumors that the Metropolitan Opera’s artistic director, James Levine, will take over the reins at the Boston Symphony after the departure of Seiji Ozawa that same year.
American cultural institutions traditionally have labored under an inferiority complex that assumes everything foreign is necessarily superior to the homegrown product. Should the news of the Maazel appointment (which was called premature in the New York Times by a Philharmonic spokesperson) become official, it just might just be a wake-up call for these institutions, reminding them there are bright, talented, energetic Americans right here at home who could do splendid work at the leading U.S. orchestras, provided those orchestras were astute enough to engage them.
Maazel, 70, would be the first American music director at the Philharmonic since Leonard Bernstein. It would appear that his unquestionable brilliance and expertise, rather than his nationality, ultimately helped to tip the balance in his favor.
Nonetheless, his possible appointment — the latest development in a long and unusually public game of musical chairs at the leading U.S. orchestras — sends a clear message to symphony boards across the country: Buy American.
The conductor’s impressive credentials made him a recommendable option for New York at a time when few options remained for the orchestra’s board after a frustrating three-year search for Masur’s replacement.
Maazel already has served as music director of two leading American orchestras, the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra, and had tenures during the 1980s and ’90s with the Vienna State Opera and, most recently, the Bavarian Radio Symphony in Munich. He guest conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with successful results, as recently as last month.
That his name should even turn up on the Philharmonic’s short list of candidates came as a surprise to many. He was not under consideration until late November when he led the orchestra in a series of subscription concerts that drew warm notices and impressed the orchestra players — although apparently not a number of board members, who favored the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Mariss Jansons.
Jansons also was a favorite of Philharmonic executive director (and former Ravinia CEO) Zarin Mehta. But he had an unsuccessful trial run with the orchestra at a hastily arranged “audition” concert last fall, and, according to one musician, “the chemistry wasn’t there.” By an interesting twist of fate, Jansons will soon inherit the Bavarian Radio Symphony post Maazel is vacating to come to New York.
That left Mehta holding a severely depleted hand in a high-stakes poker game.
Riccardo Muti, music director of La Scala Opera, had been the early favorite to succeed Masur before he withdrew last July. Mehta then pinned the Philharmonic’s hopes on another close colleague, Christoph Eschenbach, music director of the Ravinia Festival. But Philadelphia made the German conductor, 60, an offer he couldn’t refuse. Eschenbach earlier this month agreed to become the Philadelphia Orchestra’s seventh music director, succeeding Wolfgang Sawallisch in 2003.
The Philharmonic’s presumed choice of Maazel represents an obvious but intelligent compromise in a playing field with few leading players.
True, the conductor’s age must have been seen as a drawback by those board members who had hoped to engage a younger, flashier foil to Masur. His three-year appointment would make Maazel, in effect, an interim music director, buying the orchestra and its board valuable time until that younger, flashier maestro — the new Bernstein everyone is looking for — bursts into view, somewhere in the world.
Still, Maazel’s repertory is comfortably Old World, guaranteed to appease the Philharmonic board and the conservative majority of its subscribers. Balancing that is a proven openness to new music, as reflected in the programs I heard him direct in Cleveland during his tenure there in the ’70s. While it’s unlikely he will turn the Philharmonic on its collective ear with freshly innovative programming, it’s just as unlikely he will follow as staid a course as his predecessor.
Also weighing in Maazel’s favor was the fact that he is a composer of stature (he conducted his own “Farewells,” Symphonic Movement last month with the CSO) and a skilled concert violinist. The last conducting composer to hold the top post at the Philharmonic was Bernstein.
Maazel has never been a darling of the critics, who have found his conducting calculated and superficial despite its obvious command and high technical polish. But recent appearances, in both New York and Chicago, have signaled a marked improvement in his manner. He is a much more direct, communicative and spontaneous musician today than he once was, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the notoriously picky Philharmonic players, who have been known to make life miserable for weak or inept conductors. And it was their endorsement of Maazel that finally tipped the balance in his favor.
The only leading U.S. podium that has not been contested in recent years is that of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where Daniel Barenboim seems firmly entrenched through 2006. His name turned up briefly as a possible dark-horse contender for New York. But the rumor, based chiefly on his friendship with Mehta, turned out to be nothing more than that. The CSO music director has unequivocally ruled out his being a candidate. However, the gossip mongers in London insist Mehta is merely buying time until 2006 when he could coax Barenboim to the Philharmonic.
Maazel’s appointment would leave only the Boston podium still up for grabs among the Big Five U.S. orchestras. Despite health problems that have forced him to cancel a number of recent engagements, Levine, 57, would make a splendid match for Boston. His broad repertory affinities, musical integrity and personal magnetism — well remembered by Chicago music lovers from his 22 summers as Ravinia’s music director — would go far towards repairing the demoralized BSO after nearly three decades under Seiji Ozawa.
Eschenbach, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s music director-elect (he takes over in 2003-04), was another smart choice. East Coast critics now are recognizing qualities in his conducting that Ravinia audiences have known and appreciated for years. He is a strong, dynamic, risk-taking musician of wide-ranging musical affinities, even if he is most closely identified with the Austro-German Classical and Romantic repertory. Like Barenboim, he is a pianist who took up the baton later in his career. He has distinguished himself in every area of music in which his ambitions have taken him.
With Eschenbach in Philadelphia, the Austrian Franz Welser-Moest at the Cleveland Orchestra and Barenboim in Chicago, three of the Big Five orchestras will be in the hands of European-oriented music directors by the middle of the decade. Assuming Levine lands the Boston Symphony, that puts the remaining two orchestras in American hands.
This is an encouraging change from the status quo. Among other things, it suggests that the Big Five ensembles are wising up to what symphony orchestras just below their exalted level have known for many years — that Americans not only are the best-trained conductors of any in the world but, more often than not, are superior to their European counterparts when it comes to making innovative programs and invigorating the standard repertory.
Look at the second-tier orchestras and you will see a healthy number of Americans among the music directors — Michael Tilson Thomas at the San Francisco Symphony, Leonard Slatkin at the National Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton at the Dallas Symphony, Gerard Schwarz at the Seattle Symphony, Dennis Russell Davies at the American Composers Orchestra, Marin Alsop at the Colorado Symphony, Kenneth Schermerhorn at the Nashville Symphony, Christopher Wilkins at the San Antonio Symphony. Robert Spano will soon take over the Atlanta Symphony.
From all reports, these orchestras are thriving. They are connecting with their communities in crucial ways that are more difficult to achieve with conductors who are only “American” musicians by adoption. As other podiums of other U.S. orchestras fall vacant — and both the Minnesota Orchestra and Indianapolis Symphony are looking for music directors — it behooves symphony boards to look first in their own backyards.
They might start by considering three talented Americans whose careers are primarily rooted in Europe: Kent Nagano, music director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; David Robertson, who replaced Nagano at the Orchestre National de Lyon, France; and James Conlon, artistic director of the Paris and Cologne operas. All three are skilled conductors with growing reputations. (Conlon has enjoyed a solid and successful history at Ravinia.) Any of them would be an excellent catch for a U.S. orchestra eager to put itself on the musical map.
Robertson, who will return to Symphony Center this week to lead subscription concerts with the CSO, especially bears watching. The 41-year-old California native is a Pierre Boulez protege with a strong predilection for contemporary music. He is an exciting musician, even if he isn’t yet a name-brand maestro.
Indeed, as the decade progresses, one predicts that the stock of Nagano, Robertson and Conlon will rise dramatically. They are poised to become the Tilson Thomases and Slatkins of tomorrow, if given the chance.
The question remains: Will American orchestras give them that chance?
