Liverpool signs extra baton
mainAndrew Manze is to be principal guest conductor of the Phil, starting now.
The former violinist is in the thick of recording an outstanding Vaughan Williams cycle. He is also Chief Conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hanover.
photo: Chris Christodoulou/Lebrecht
press release: Liverpool Philharmonic is delighted to announce Andrew Manze, widely celebrated as one of the most stimulating and inspirational conductors of his generation, as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. His appointment, initially for three years, commences with the 2018-2019 concert season, which opens in September.
Wonderful musician, possibly underrated as a conductor.
Has he stopped performing as a violinist? Why?
I would guess it’s because he can make a lot more money as a conductor than as a Baroque violinist.
But yeah, he was a terrific violinist.
There was an interview with him in a recent edition of Gramophone magazine in which he said (IIRC) that he felt he’d reached the limit of what he could achieve as a Baroque violinist and decided there was much more variety to be had in conducting.
He recently did an amazing Vaughan Williams’ sixth symphony with LA Phil.
Unterrated as a concuctor? not by the german music critic. His first Mendelssohn-Recording (Sinfonies 1&3) got one “Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik”
(there are only ten of them – for all Genres from classic to Pop and jazz). And the following (Mendelssohn Nr4. & 5) will be one the next “Bestenliste”. What means, it is for the completely independant Jury, the best Symphony-Recording in this quarter.
Both are played by the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover.
The Vaughan Williams symphonies are a motley set, and nobody has had a command of all nine (not even Previn). It is always good to hear when someone makes a persuasive case for one of them!
@ Karen
He’s a wonderful conductor. He engages with the audience too
I wondered why Manze was conducting so much Vaughn Williams! He isn’t a “former violinist”, though. And he was conducting whilst he still played violin.
Mr Manze has been the Chef dˋOrchestre in Hanover for at least four years and in 2014 introduced the so-called „Hanover Proms“ to be played on the same night as the London Proms. The 2018/19 concert seasonˋs programme shows us a joint concert with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in early November of Brittenˋs War Requiem in memory of the end of WW I. The two orchestras will also play the requiem in Liverpool. To my mind, Mr Manze should also spend some time on learning German, as he still conducts all his interviews on the NDR in English.
He should learn German. Many Germans who come abroad to England learn English, most to an excellent level (even if they continue to throw their verbs to the end).
Andrew Manze studied with Ton Koopman, who speaks English!
There’s several words I would never have thought go together: “A. Manze” and “Vaughan Williams symphonies”. I hope that works out.
He’s very well known in the S.F. Bay Area for his work with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. I wasn’t aware that he liked doing rep. that stretches into the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Best of luck to him and Liverpool.
== Mr Manze should also spend some time on learning German, as he still conducts all his interviews in English
He did Classics at Cambridge. Surely he can learn some German ?
Call me a snob, but I feel the same way about John Eliot Gardiner. He also read Medieval Spanish and Arabic at Cambridge, and is one of the leading authorities on JS Bach, as well as being director at the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig. High time for him to learn German!
Think about it: Ton Koopman speaks English, so does Christoph Wolff, Andras Schiff, Jacques Loussier, Valentina Lisitsa, Maasaki Suzuki… Need I go on? There was a time when no Englishman (or Englishwoman) could call themselves educated without speaking French as a minimum, if not German, and also reading Latin. What happened?
That was over 200 years ago. Nowadays, the only language you really need to speak fluently is English. Sad, but true.
Can we please stop calling conductors “baton”?
Wouldn’t you be annoyed if I called music critics “keyboard”?
typewriter surely, the ivory twinklers would be called “keyboard”