On the Berlin Philharmonic website, there’s a kind of frequently-asked-questions section. One section addresses “who decides where the sections of the orchestra sit?” “The answer is simple,” it reads, “the conductors. It’s their responsibility to ensure the best possible presentation of the music.” But theory and practice are not always the same thing. On Thursday, […]
Tag: Conductors
Posted inReview
Concerts Good, Recordings Bad
In “The Yellow Tie,” a biopic about the Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache whose premiere I attended in London on Wednesday, things start badly and get steadily worse. We begin with old Celi (John Malkovich) discussing a future engagement with a group of Japanese record executives over lunch at his French estate. To his dismay, they […]
Posted inBreaking
Bach Festival Leipzig Stands By John Eliot Gardiner
Following allegations of inappropriate behavior against the conductor John Eliot Gardiner in June, the Bach Festival Leipzig informed employees today of its decision to continue its collaboration with the conductor. Gardiner will lead a performance of Bach’s B-Minor Mass at the festival in June 2027. The widely covered incident took place on June 16 at […]
Posted inOpinion
Is Post-Piece Silence a Recession Indicator?
The motivic development winds down. The harmony modulates into the home key. The final chord rings out. The conductor’s hands are poised at shoulder height, holding the room. The audience sits in hushed silence. And sits. And sits and sits and sits and sits and sits. I’ve lost count of the times in recent years […]
Posted inBreaking
Emails Raise Questions About Conductor’s Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
“I found a great girl for your next stay in Paris,” the conductor Frédéric Chaslin wrote to Jeffrey Epstein in September 2013. Chaslin told the financier, who first pleaded guilty of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor in 2008, that the girl was a 21-year-old philosophy student who spoke three […]
Posted inInterview
How You Say The Thing
The Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi is among the most active and interesting conductors of his generation. His work is characterized by a constant curiosity and a sensitive yet revealing approach to the music, with a refreshing combination of intellect and—in the case of Gustav Mahler—explosive spontaneity. He also stands publicly in opposition to the Russian […]
Posted inInterview
“To Be a Musician Is to Desire a Piece of Music”
Last week at the Philharmonie in Berlin, the ensemble Pygmalion under conductor Raphaël Pichon performed a concert of sacred music from during and after the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). It was a brutally destructive conflict that by some estimates decimated the German population by half. And though religious tensions were among the causes for the […]
Posted inInterview
Crossing the Line
On September 11, the Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov gave an emotional speech following a concert with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall in London, decrying the carnage inflicted on Gaza and the West Bank by the Israeli government under Netanyahu and the Israel Defense Forces. “I know that many of us feel […]
Posted inOpinion
A Stale Start
Since last week, the conclusion has come to seem inescapable: By sticking with its new chief conductor François-Xavier Roth despite allegations of sexual harassment surfacing against him last year, the SWR Symphonieorchester—the renowned Stuttgart-based radio orchestra with a particularly strong contemporary-music reputation—has lost its way. Cancelling his contract following the allegations might well have led […]
Posted inBreaking
The Paternal Presence
The last time I saw Christoph von Dohnányi was at a lovely dinner at his apartment in Munich this last June. We were celebrating a positive health report his wife Barbara had just received and the mood was easy, relaxed, and convivial. The conversation with CvD covered enormous ground, as it always did—he spoke with […]