Daniel Harding joins worst-run symphony orchestra
mainThe Orchestre de la Suisse Romande has appointed Daniel Harding as its resident conductor.
The Geneva ensemble has a British music director Jonathan Nott. Why it needs a resident conductor, also British, is unexplained.
But so much about the OSR over the last decade – the comings and goings of managers and conductors, the decline in quality and profile – is a mystery to outside observers that we can only wonder at this latest twist. Search Slipped Disc for the entertaining twists of the OSR.
Harding is committed to two series each season for the next two years. He is also working as a pilot for Air France.
Harding has issued this comment on his agent’s website:
‘It was an unexpected pleasure to get to know the OSR during these last months. I am grateful to my friend Maria João Pires for having asked me to come and work with her and them. That was the beginning of a special friendship with the musicians of the OSR, which we will celebrate and develop over the next two years. When Steve Roger and his team proposed to me some irresistible musical and thematic ideas I was hooked immediately. I look forward to spending more time with this orchestra and enjoying their unique and gorgeous musical personality.’
Brits have long worked ‘behind enemy lines’ with foreign orchestras, so why not? That said, Nott and Harding are not talents to really set the world alight, like Herr Rattler, they are best in small doses.
Nott is an excellent conductor. I remember very impressive Mahler 2 with the Gustav-Mahler and concert version of Rheingold with the Bambergers. Harding was always disappointing.
I’d have a hard time coming up with “name conductors” more mediocre than Nott and Harding.
I know nothing of Harding, but there’s nothing “mediocre” about Nott.
I don’t know a lot about Nott, but his recorded Mahler cycle is real quite competitive.
For fans of Harding, his peripatetic career must be frustrating and odd, but for those of us who aren’t, well, I think his talents and those of this orchestra are perfectly well matched.
The OSR has always been much overrated. I had a friend who worked on recordings with Ansermet. Given the standard of the “takes” it was amazing they came up with any passable recordings.
It’s always kind of curious how two weeks of concerts for two years gets one a title. And “resident” conductor seems an odd title for someone who clearly will not be resident much. But if he likes the orchestra and they like him, more power to them.
The OSR may certainly be one of the worst managed large city orchestras in the world, but in my experience, most Swiss orchestras are very poorly managed with too much “insider dealing” and lacking a truly international perspective and far too often run by dull unimaginative Swiss dilettantes who keep everything within their narrow inner circle of friends and contacts. The Swiss prove that simply having money does not mean achieving excellence, excitement and quality.
I guess the Swiss are too busy hiding the money of Russian oligarchs and South American drug lords to efficiently run an orchestra. Perhaps if the OSR adopted a “gold swastika” as their logo the Swiss bankers might take notice.
I disagree completely. Look at Zurich if you think the Swiss cannot be good concert musicians or do not appreciate classical music. David Zinman was there for almost 20 years and achieved wonders. And Geneva is wealthy AND very international. I think Harding is smart and Geneva could be a diamond in the rough.
I’ve never been impressed with Harding, but his live Mahler 9th with the Swedish Philharmonic is one of the greatest I’ve ever heard. And a live Mahler /Cooke 10th Symphony with the New York Philharmonic from 2011, was much better than his dull studio recording with the Vienna Philharmonic.
Hello Remo! I think you mean the Swedish radio symphony orchestra of which Daniel Harding has been principal conductor since 2007.
I thought the Harmonia Mundi recording of M9 with D. Harding/Swedish Radio S.O. was really very good. It can be heard at Spotify. I actually like that Harding/V.P.O. Mahler 10 (Cooke). It’s not my favorite, but it’s well worth keeping. Dausgaard/Seattle and Ormandy/Philly are my favorites for Cooke III and Cooke I, respectively. As an f.y.i., I liked you first version (Slatkin/St. Louis) a bit more than your revised one (Lopez-Cobos/Cincinnati). The differences in performances may have plenty to do with that impression. I saw Slatkin perform the first version with the S.F. Symphony. It was great. All that seems a long time ago now.
Their quality is still VERY high test and musicians are exceptional.
Daniel Harding to orchestra ““Flight attendants, doors to arrival, crosscheck and all-call.”
But in French.
Obviously, Ansermet never should have died. Although critics used to carp about the orchestra, even when he was alive.
Because back then they probably weren’t very good.
Standards of play have risen so much in the last 50-odd years that the OSR probably far better than it was under Ansermet.
The OSR recordings on Chandos and a visit to VICTORIA Hall (there you have another British connection) do not justify any kind of OSR bashing.
While management may be poor (I cannot judge), the music making was and probably still is world-class.
Victoria Hall is great! I’ve never heard the orchestra live, but they sound very good on more recent recordings.
I like this one very much – what an orchestral gem, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRWLfS8mc3M
“Stall. Pull up. Stall. Pull up”.
Harding has ‘Lorin Maazel’ written all over him. Brilliant talent exposed to the limelight too early, has trouble getting along with orchestras, given infinite opportunities but constantly shooting them all in the foot, and often seems to hate being a conductor altogether.
Tell that to the Vienna Phil.
So maybe his aircraft will land in Munich (with Lorin Maazel and BRSO written all over).
The OSR is a wonderful ensemble. So enjoy the Ansermet recordings and the orchestra played a superb Prom in 2018.
Maybe they chose Harding to save on transport costs. In addition to conducting the orchestra in the auditorium he can also do double duty by conducting the plane when they are touring. (lol)
I don’t think OSR under, let’s say, Wolfgang Sawallisch’s baton was such a bad orchestra…