Comment of the day: On very old conductors
Comment Of The DayFrom Fabio Luisi:
It is not a question of age, but a question of health. Maestro Blomstedt is the perfect example. I would like to remember my teacher, Milan Horvat: he was no star, but a serious, no-nonsense, knowledgeable, old-fashioned maestro. Please watch this video. In it (2006), he is 87, conducts Bruckner’s 8th Symphony by heart, and his eyes (and his hands) speak music, demanding the attention of the musicians. He could no longer walk properly, but he could still conduct – I wish many of today’s conductors, decades younger, could act with such focus, precision, and gestural effectiveness.
Fair enough. But someone of advanced age undergoing an ailment or adverse condition, physical and/or mental, ought to be taking stock of their situation. Also, no one but themselves and their handlers have granted them the privilege of lifelong tenure. In addition, to suggest that with age comes greater musical wisdom is denial and fantasy. Ample evidence exists attesting to declining musical powers that come naturally with age. It is a fact of life and nothing to be ashamed of. All of the above applies to all manner of musicians, from conductors to younameit.
Who said anything about lifelong tenure? If he/she is still on the podium, it is because they can still do the job and with the aforementioned “focus, precision and gestural effectiveness.”
At what age should one (or others) consider that you’re not up to the job?
In light of reality probably two parameters decide that, with a pinch of sarcasm:
-when you don’t sell tickets anymore
-when the musicians realise you make them worse, not better
When you’re clearly not up to it. It will be different for everyone and some will be focused and able almost to the end. Others may visibly decline much earlier.
Ironically, the more sickly frail conductors conduct into old age and produce the same results as in their youth, the more they prove that all their youthful gyrations and theatrics when they were 40 were pure bullshit.
Indeed, if we think old conductors are just as good, it proves that ALL conductors could get the job done by slumping over their stand seated in a recliner, barely raising their heads, feebly beating time behind the beat.
Except Rattle who leaves me cold with all his continued theatrics.
What “musical powers”. Music is not sports. One can improve with age in certain aspects while declining in others. This is a “fact of life”. Regardless, it is beyond me that you’d care so much about other people’s retirement. Nobody cares what you think. Certainly not the great conductors who have enjoyed all the talent, notoriety, and experiences that you never had and never will. They will always choose how they want to live their life, on their own terms, because they can. Just because you can’t, for whatever reason, no need to be bitter about it. If you have to be, then keep it to yourself.
Thanks for sharing that! I’d never heard of Horvat until about 40 years ago a recording with the ORF of Franz Schmidt’s 2nd symphony was released with him conducting. I became a Schmidt convert quickly…and apparently it rubbed off on his students. (I enjoyed the Dallas performances of Das Buch very, very much!)
Amen and hallelujah. True talent knows no age.
How perceptive and how true!
Very old conductors can STILL get their batons, UP! May God bless them!
Not much else to get up.
That is right.
Take Petrenko, young and energetic, but often cancels because by some physical ailment, which is the right thing to do; but imagine if he insisted on going to work, or management keeps encouraging him to go to work, that is the problem with Barenboim and Mehta.
Work is work, even if it’s artistic work, and if one is too sick to work, they need to stay home.
Herbert Blomstedt has always been an exceptional Bruckner conductor.
His Denon recordings of the 4th and 7th symphonies with the Staatskapelle Dresden are mesmerizing.
He is a fire grader conductor after the age of 75 and he ever was before that time. He made a huge compendium of recordings in Eastern Europe over the years, and unfortunately, they did not rise above the pedestrian or perfunctory for the most part. They failed to incandesce or excite. He was nothing more than a junior Haitink and a little brother to. Masur. Time and wisdom brought him into the major leagues. He became a major contender about the time he was in San Francisco, but not before. Some of his production there was still marginal. Now, at 98, he is a guiding light.
In Eastern Europe? You probably meant East Germany, which was Central Europe, geographically. (and also culturally)
You elide his glorious years at San Francisco, so I hardly think someone like you who only knows his recordings is qualified to discuss his musical legacy.
That is right.
Everyone thinks they are a bottle of fine wine, perfectly preserved and only gets better with age.
In reality, even with the finest of wines in the best cellars, few bottles are perfectly preserved, many have long been compromised, their corks deteriorated, uncorking it only reveals they have turned to vinegar, keeping them unopened preserves the mystique and myth that they may still be good.
A unique analogy, though unlike wines, it appears quite apparent when someone’s artistic abilities remain excellent or have begun to deteriorate. Many advanced senior citizens continue to produce amazing music. ‘Absolutely no reason, then, why they shouldn’t continue doing what they love. Better still: We all get to enjoy the results!
I never witnessed the cork of a conductor going bad.
Sally
Few conductors get better in very old age. They just become more idiosyncratic. They do less. Their beat and gestures becomes smaller. Their interpretation becomes less flexible, less responsive in live music making. It’s a shame, but true. I am writing here as a very experienced but retired professional player.
I’m with you there. But two aspects are to consider as well:
a) older conductors are usually easier to respect for orchestra musicians, because it is easier in the “Darwinistic” hierarchy of human beings, to submit to an older person, a “silver back”, than to a younger person, where social competitive aspects are more prevalent.
b) the less a conductor leads or clearly signals, the more orchestras are forced to listen to each other and self organise. That can mobilise enormous creative effects and make orchestras better in their “swarm intelligence”.
What a nonsense.
There are no rules concerning age of musicians or conductors, it entirely depends upon the person in question. There are people and also musicians, who get better with age, simply because of acquiring more experience and – if they are really talented – a deeper emotional ‘vocabulary’. Also, with conductors it may happen that they need less technical signaling and can have the greatest effect with suggestion rather than with jumping up & down etc.
Also it is quite possible that exposure to good music and being so directly involved in it, has a stimulating influence upon bodily functions, because the inner dynamics of music reflect dynamics happening within the biological sphere. It may even be the case that both music and the human physique resonate on a deep quantum level. (Recently science has discovered that human consciousness appears to work via quantum processes.)
Of course it depends upon the type of music. (I will stop here.)
It’s simple enough – if they want to do it, and if there is a paying audience, then that’s fine. Mieczysław Horszowski gave his last concert aged 99. I doubt that his technique was perfect but who else had the right to tell him that he was too old for this?
Magic in the Lisinski Palace.
Even if the orchestra is playing like demons there’s just something disconcerting about seeing an aged conductor slumped over at the wheel!
With all due respect to Mr. Luisi, what really matters here is the opinion of the musicians.
As he will no doubt remember, for example, was that during his tenure with the MET, long before Levine was fired, musicians were complaining that Levine lacked the stamina to conduct a 3+ hour opera. By the second half he couldn’t hold his hands up high enough and they’d droop down to his waste, making it hard to see his gestures. And it was especially difficult to see his hands when he conducted sitting in a chair because he could not hold them up high enough (this was before he began using a wheelchair).
All adults suffering hearing loss as they age, and with aging conductors, everyone lives in denial about this.
On the flip side, we are much faster to show musicians the door when their hearing and stamina decline.
On the other hand, musicians are also to blame for wanting nothing more than to be able to put on their resume: I played under Klemperer or Karajan or Barenboim or Mehta at their very best (read old) ….or the best of all, the top of the top, I had the privilege to play in Bernstein’s last concert right before he dropped dead it was heavenly legendary unforgettable historic, just me and Bernstein he pointed his baton straight at me as his last public gesture on the podium
So yes, musicians prefer then old and as close to death as possible for bragging rights
It is not true that all adults suffer hearing loss as they age. There are hughe differences on that point. Also, very experienced conductors may need less audio input to know what’s going on, due to experience.
Quite true, Fabio. Well said.
Have a look at Pau Casals shuffling out to conduct his cantata El Pessebre. Utterly transformed once he was in front of the orchestra, waving his arms around like a thirty-year-old. Once it was over he morphed back into the aged man he was.
Rispetto, Maestro Anton Coppola!
My only issue with very old conductors is the cliched nature of the stuff they conduct, especially Bruckner. There appears to be this unspoken assumption that you can’t conduct Bruckner properly unless you’re well into advanced old age, and preferably being measured up for your coffin. It’s almost as bad as people who think you can only sing Emilia Marty in Makropulos if you’re pushing 70 and your voice has basically gone. It’s such nonsense in both cases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFRqCHabBxg&t=10s
Merci. C’est exemplaire
Casals was wonderful .In his 80’s. We played the Brahms Haydn Variations and Beethoven 7 th at Marlboro. The ensuing LP was reviewed favourably comparing it
to Toscanini!!!
Conductors who need to be assisted on their way to the podium make the art of classical music a ghoulish performance. It’s one of the ways to shrink the audience.
Some people find it hard to say goodbye to a favourite performer. They want to see Menahim Pressler one last time, even though he’s a mere shadow of his 1965 self. They want to see ‘legends’, not real live energetic performers.