Mariss Jansons will leave the Concertgebouw sooner than expected
mainThe Dutch media have been told that March 20 will be his last concert as principal conductor.
Mariss, 71, announced in the spring that he was stepping down from the Concertgebouw because his health could not withstand the strain of heading two orchestras (the other is Bavarian Radio in Munich).
But the early departure date puts pressure on the orch management to name a successor – hence the leaks to Slipped Disc in recent days of likely candidates.
Very sad to see him leave. Wish him all the very best.
I think the recent débacle with the Andriessen jubilee commission, resulting in a piece that obviously was not suited to a symphony orchestra and certainly not for the RCO, and which must have been quite a torture for Janssons, must have affected his health considerably as it must have done to players and audience. For the Dutch ‘new music scene’, of which Andriessen is the figure head, a symphony orchestra is not a musical medium, but an expression of the bourgeois elite who suppresses the poor proletariat – which is much more helped by Andriessen’s sixties folklore. Imagine how it must have felt to a great musician to be implicitly accused of hostile suppression of the working class.
John – interesting you should mention the Andriessen premiere which is known to have given MJ a hard time. There was a documentary about the whole thing :
http://www.filmfestival.nl/profs_en/news/news/carmen-before-the-storm/
Did you perhaps see it ?
Nothing new about this. This was known since Jansons announced his departure as chief conductor. It is simply the last concert conducted by him in the regular 2014-2015 season, which was planned long before Jansons expressed his wish to diminish his work load and to resign as chief conductor.
Slipped disc likes to gossip around what is going on in Amsterdam, but is badly informed.
Pity, because it makes me suspicious about news from other countries where I am not well informed myself.
hear hear!