The conductor has pulled out of the Vienna Philharmonic’s Fourth Subscription Concerts on December 17 and 18, as well as the Soirée on December 21, 2022.
The substitute conductor is Alain Altinoglu.
Not that the players ever look.
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Even for those who don’t care for Barenboim as a conductor, replacing him with Altinoglu is simply insulting. His work has been considered way under standard every time he has been engaged at the Paris opera, and usually it was because they had no time to find someone else. I played under Altinoglu’s baton : disastrous conducting. How very unfortunate for Vienna audiences.
Please explain how such conductors as Altinoglu have job offers? Just because there are no conductors ready to jump in?
Ask their agents and the lobbies that support them, Claudio.
I guess you won’t play with him again after posting this in public- not that anyone reads this…..
I also played under Altinoglu quite frequently.He was really good.Actually,i enjoyed playing for him rather more than for DB.
its all about self promocion these days
I really have a hard time believing you, having had the exact opposite experience under his baton. Your loss!
Tant mieux pour vous !
I would be quite happy to give you details of his unforgettable rehearsals.
@ Stéphane von Cron: Well, please do.
Places baton case ceremoniously on podium, pulls it out like from a film starring Louis de Funès then makes a huge gesture : horrified orchestra does not play. “Why aren’t you starting? ” asks Altinoglu: “Because we don’t know what you are doing” replies first trumpet. Laughter, then another violent gesture : the basses make that horrid grinding of earth noise but we get going. After a pretty noisy overture Altinoglu explains that Donizetti badly wrote the coda of the overture and asks all 1st violins to “leave out” the dotted 16ths (the base rhythm of all Italian music for God’s sake) so he can conduct it presto. Sounds so Mickey Mouse we are scandalized and some refuse, rendering that unforgettable crunching sound at tempo…. No attention to detail, no line, no legato, just fast beating (up) of poor Donizetti. No one in the violins is having fun, and the tempos are so hysterical that French wind players can’t even get in all the notes (finale). How can anyone disrespect a composer so much? I’m sure he’s a nice person, but we suffered. I experienced his Faust and Giovanni later, also disappointing. Perhaps he has made some progress since. I sincerely hope so for music needs to be defended seriously and those who are in the system should never forget it.
Well, I played under Furtwängler, and Barenboim is no Furtwängler.
Absolutely, so where does that put Altinoglu? Aiuto!
Barenboim recently earned the Gramophone Magazine Lifetime Achievement Award. People lined up that night to say how magnificent he is. He never appealed to me but, from all accounts, he’s been a wonderful mentor.
His Aida in Salzburg was a disaster also but not that I wished Barenboim as a Verdi conductor either as his at La Scala were boredom also
poor music world as no knowledge taste and style
Addio
Sometimes I truly don’t understand how the musicians’ experience can be so different from the audience’s. I have seen Altinoglu many times, and his work at La Monnaie has elevated that theater’s musical forces to greater heights than many A list companies in a wide variety of repertoire, from Wagner and Puccini to Rimsky-Korsakov and Berg. I include Paris in this regard, which I am afraid has not really been benefitting from Dudamel’s presence. I found his work in Iolanta in Paris just marvelous and would actually go to the Paris opera more were he invited more regularly.
After what he did to Faust and Don Giovanni at Bastille? Perhaps he’s done better elsewhere but these two productions explain why he is not regularly invited.
Couldn’t they find an even more boring replacement?
Any GDR conductor
The musicians look at their music stands and the conductor looks at the musicians.
and the audience looks at the conductor
This is why conductors never skip leg day, gotta have something in the trunk for audiences to look at 😉
And those who aren’t obligated to stay look for the Exit!!!!
Not if there’s a gorgeous hunk in the orchestra!!!
and the audience looks at their phones.
Administrators are already counting on Barenboim’s cancellations and making casting calls, whether Barenboim has the good sense to retire yesterday or not. I wonder who they are planning on taking over his April cycle of the Ring at the Staatsoper. Who’s possibly available like that for a week of 4 different operas?
We all wish him the best, but I doubt his neurologist is the one telling him he can recover to be back on the podium.
Do we actually know what is the nature of DB’s illness?
A very disrespectful , unnecessary final remark. The writer is obviously not an orchestra member!
Goodness Madame, if he played under Furtwängler he can’t be anymore a member of the orchestra!
Why not? Why are conductors the only ones expected to be still working well into their 90s?
If he played under Furtwängler(good for his time but definitely not what interests me today),he might have typed his comment from six feet under
Mr Von Cron has the courage to write on his real name. Whatever he thinks about Altinoglu, there is much more difference of level between him and Altinoglu, than between Altinoglu and Barenboim and this not about business and agent.
I don’t know in which year you rehearsed with him. A friend of mine had also your feeling but it was 20 years ago. Since Altinoglu made big progress and became a very honorable conductor, especially in opera. If you look for charlatan and overrated in conductors, you can find a lot of people. But not Altinoglu.
Julien, I will take this into consideration : it was some 15 years ago.
Il me semble bien que vous soyez son agent, d’où l’usage erroné de “niveau”.
“level” is an English mistake Julien : it should read “political influence”, then it would be completely correct. For all other insinuations you’d do better as Altinoglu’s agent to ask the members of the orchestra of the Opéra de Paris who have played with me. Thank You.
I don’t understand these anti-AA comments. I’ve done a few productions with him and have always found him to be excellent and extremely personable.
“Not that the players ever look..”!! Absolutely priceless and too true.
Players look when they feel and know you are experiencing and projecting a work with every fiber in your body. They send back that energy and the result, when the balance remains, is a damned good performance!