Sick list: Cough sweet man steps in for sinus-stricken Yannick
mainMTT gets a Carnegie date after the Canadian fails to recover from persistent winter ailments. The San Francisco conductor comes with free lozenges. Press release below:
Carnegie Hall today announced that conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has graciously agreed to step in for Yannick Nézet-Séguin, leading The Philadelphia Orchestra’s performance in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage this Friday, December 6 at 7:30 p.m.Mr. Nézet-Séguin has cancelled this appearance as well as concerts this week in Philadelphia on medical advice that he not travel for the next few weeks due to sinus-related problems. Pianist Hélène Grimaud is soloist for this performance; Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 will replace the previously-announced Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 at her request. The second half of the program, featuring Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, remains as announced.
New Yorkers are better behaved than those Chicagoans, so won’t cough and won’t need to have hard lozenges thrown at them, and the man in Row 10 won’t need to sue the millionaire maestro for injury sustained from the lozenge-projectile.
I recall Masur halting a performance of the NY Phil because of all the coughing and lecturing the audience, presumably visiting Chicagoans.
Traveling from Philadelphia to NYC is really that arduous? Even a train ride from Montreal to NYC isn’t that big a deal. It’s nice that MTT is jumping in but if you bought tickets expecting to see YNS, too bad for you. And, please, don’t hand me the line about “artists and programs are subject to change.” This issue remains a major thorn in the side of those who buy tickets.
YNS conducted a Wagner and Mahler concert in Montreal last Friday with Marie-Nicole Lemieux. His Wagner sounds great, and his Mahler was excellent as well.
However, he then cancelled a fundraiser concert on Sunday where he was to appear as pianist with Marie-Nicole Lemieux and Karina Gauvin. “Overworking” and “fatigue” were the reasons given by Christophe Huss in the newspaper.
MTT has guested in NY in the last few years too. Were there not, for quite some time, clauses in top conductors’ contracts forbidding them to guest conduct with other major Amercian orchestras while holding a music directorship of another? I don’t recall Szell guesting in Chicago or Ormandy in Boston. Esa Pekka didn’t guest around until after his LA tenure and neither did Seiji or Solti or Dohnanyi – until after… maybe I’m mistaken – it could have been just a kind of gentleman’s agreement?
Alan Gilbert took some selected guest conducting around the US even though he is with the NY Phil: Philadelphia, San Francisco, Cleveland Orchestras. I guess he keeps his options open as he knows the critics are out there judging his shaky and mediocre musical result with the standard repertoire in NY:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/arts/music/new-york-philharmonic-at-avery-fisher-hall.html?ref=music