Are horrible men the price we pay for great music?
OrchestrasThe question is posed by Richard Bratby in a Spectator assessment this week of the troubling aspects of Cate Blanchett’s new movie, Tar.
… Is that just the price we pay for great music-making? (We’re talking here about artists whose behaviour, though detestable, is not actually criminal.) For sure, there’s a species of music-lover who really does get off on the idea of the maestro as fascist. They lurk in the comments sections of blogs, withering in their dismissal of any conductor who lacks grey hair and a Y chromosome. But what about the rest of us? John Wilson – a one-man proof that you can be a decent human being and still inspire some of the most breathtaking orchestral playing of this or any era – admires the recordings of the famously nasty George Szell. The ear is amoral. I can’t deny that hairs stand on end when I hear Reiner and his dazzling, terrified Chicago band slamming into the ‘Recognition Scene’ from Elektra, or that the finest modern recording of my favourite operetta is conducted by a man who has treated my friends and colleagues like excrement.
Brilliant paragraph, every word drawn from life.
Read on here.
An excellent article on these aspects of Tar was published in City Jounal two months ago. Highly recommended:
https://www.city-journal.org/review-of-tar-starring-cate-blanchett
You know, I’ve heard stories about modern pop/rap/rock no’ roll musicians that make the “autocratic conductor” stories seem like genteel behavior. But please, let’s focus (again) on white supremacist harmonic progressions/forms and supposed “privileged” behavior in art music while ignoring blatant misogyny / violence in musical content of pop music and the glamorization of base behaviors.
Yup, I’ve worked alongside some of those awful non-classical artists and entourage. And I’ve also worked alongside lovely, thoughful decent human being. In every genre/sector you’ll find examples of both, but let’s not stop stories from elsewhere in the industry stop us from examining how we respond to and address unacceptable behaviour on our own doorsteps?
Love to know the percentage of performers in the art music world you ascribe poor behavior to versus the number of performers in the pop music world demonstrating poor behavior…and “singing” or making videos about their behavior. Thoughtful decent humans on both sides, I guess?
Excellent post, Bone.
Wasn’t it Toscanini who screamed at an orchestra – I hate you for you ruin my dreams?
Always enjoyed Shostakovich’s perspective on
Toscanini in “Testimony”….
Even if none of it is true….it’s ALL true….
There’s nothing quite like this outpouring of moral outrage from individuals whose private life doesn’t bear much scrutiny either. Hypocrisy is the middle name of quite a number of Brits.
Got your big, broad brush out again, I see.
Interestingly, musicians in both Cleveland and Chicago were not being forced to stay in those orchestras… they knew what they had to deal with. The other thing to note was that there were plenty of conductors back then who didn’t have that approach and still got superb results. Nowadays, that way of treating people doesn’t go unnoticed – it’s probably happening more frequently in other fields. Some pretty tough CEOs out there.
It was the days before union mandated tenure for musicians. Workers were softly “encouraged” to stay silent about amoral behaviour for risk of losing their jobs. Nowadays the musicians of many orchestras (American mostly, European musicians unions are notoriously weak) are protected against this type of behaviour.
Based on all that I’ve read about TCO one of the reasons that the musicians stayed was that they never doubted that GS was prepared and focused on the music, not himself and the results were worth it. Why in interviews he articulated the importance of rehearsing efficiently and yet clearly over-rehearsed a superb group of musicians is unclear as is why he treated every rehearsal as a Carnegie Hall performance. Last, it has been recounted numerous times that guest conductors at the first rehearsal often felt as though they were facing 101 Szell’s.
While on tour with the Cleveland Orchestra in the late 1980s, then-Music Director Christoph von Dohnányi remarked, “We give a great concert, and George Szell gets a great review.”
IMO the greatness of TCO and George Szell, and the reason in part for CvD’s quip, is demonstrated best in live recordings. Below are 2 from 1968:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6UKBfqsS6U&t=2404s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATLomFhrWSI
The latter is the last piece from the inaugural concert at the Blossom Music Center devoted to two his favorite composers Mozart and Strauss. In an interview with John Culshaw Szell discussed the differences between live and studio performances and that in his opinion the “oneness” of a live performance invariably lent itself to superior music-making. Having listened to countless performances he led in Cleveland and abroad I think that live performance brought out the best in everyone.
Could someone share the Gardiner story? He looks like a super nice gentleman…
There are many. Some are only rumoured to be true, but one that always sticks in my mind was his firing of a musician on the spot because they would have rather saved their chops for the evening’s performance than go all out in rehearsal.
Private Eye edition No.1360 – 21 Feb 2014.
Discussed online here:
https://rec.music.classical.recordings.narkive.com/MFf4CDZl/trouble-at-lso#post1
I remember working with Carlos Kleiber on Strauss’ Elektra in the 1970’s. A player hadn’t prepared a solo. Kleiber stopped and just said : ‘ you will look at that ‘
I don’t remember him losing his temper. Always polite though very demanding and sometimes impatient.
And very very easy on the eye!!!
Did/do you not even give lectures on him in Oz?
Yes, they are. Deal with it. Today, the world is full with clever, technically perfect orchestral and conductorial robots, getting younger by the day and I will refrain from saying anything remotely ethnic, who can snap any Mahler symphony practically without rehearsal, in performances , often brilliant, always superficial and missing totally the meaning.
I miss Tennstedt, Bernstein, Reiner, Karajan, de Sabata, etc ., etc. , not to speak of the great soloists and singers. Our times are full of light weights, who beat time, smiling all the time and don’t bother anyone.
and how old were Tennstedt, Bernstein, Reiner, Karajan, de Sabata, etc ., etc. , when they first conducted?
Old enough to know, but not old enough to know better?! I give up.
Yes, please spare us from your “ethnic” interpretation. God forbid someone other than an white male autocrat conduct a Mahler symphony.
How true.
Our times are full of light weights, because that is what musicians, audiences and agencies in their quantities want. A good show, no hard unpleasant work, quick easy money.
There are a few conductors, like Vladimir Jurowski, who still have what it takes, but even they need to control their ambitions in order to create a “pleasant” atmosphere without too much unpleasant challenge for everybody. The times are as they are. Children are raised in school and at home without respect for the bigger aim, only respect for the ego and own opinion, we raise now self confident idiots.
Nobody wants Toscanini’s antics back. He was a choleric psychopath who was forgiven for his deep devotion to music bottomline. But more power to the truly musical leaders – not only the conductors – would be good, not bad.
Not sure what this has to do with the premise of the post. I played under Tennstedt and Bernstein, and never knew either one to do anything remotely abusive. Lenny had his demons, certainly, but I found him a pleasure to work for.
But by that very line on ethnicity you just did.
This is so detached from reality, it is sad and laughable at the same time.
What was the Heinrich Schiff story, reducing somebody to tears ? not heard that one
To what extent is this nasty behavior still current? Most references are to the past. The living conductors mentioned in the article are by now octogenarian. What about septuagenarians or younger?
Moreover, even among older generations there have always been conductors with a reputation for the modesty and overall most respectable human behavior. I can instantly think of Rafael Kubelik, Gunther Wand, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons.
One can add Bruno Walter, Carlo Maria Giulini, and Istvan Kertesz to your list.
Of course. Dimitri Mitropoulos probably belongs here too.
You people are un-effing-believable. is ThIS the PrICe wE pay??? NO! It’s the price you cowards tolerate! For whatever reason you lot have an entirely irrational empathy and attraction to just these sorts of petty tyrants. There’re likely scores of incredible people who could have produced tremendously captivating performances, but we’ll never know since none of you have the temerity to tell the assholes standing in the way to go pound sand. Never forget: You all indulged James Levine for decades. DECADES! and back in the day, I even heard some of you chuckle about his proclivities. You wan’na know where the problems are? Just go look in the mirror.
Yes, of course it’s all of us, just not you. Perhaps read your own comment from a neutral view, think for a second HOW you wrote it and then go look in the mirror yourself.
Take the rest of the week off!!!
“Oxbridge choirmaster”….. ooh! ouch!! ( and then he goes on to name him) . Wonderful stuff
Szell was detail oriented. Never heard stories of him getting mad and firing people like Reiner. He shouldn’t be in the horrible men category.
Szell didn’t by all accounts; but he did fire quite a few of the older players when he arrived. He famously said that he was running an orchestra, not a charity. That interview is surely on YouTube somewhere.
If you check the transcript and history he replaced players who didn’t meet his standards regardless of age. In one instance he was going to fire an older musician, a violinist whose playing had declined due to a physical issue he was unaware of, but when he was told it would cost the man his full pension he agreed to keep him on until he was fully vested. He never said he was running an orchestra not a charity but rather that given how many people in the community served TCO without compensation it was his duty to see to it that the orchestra was as good as possible and not merely a place of employment.
Have a read of John Georgiadis’s memoirs for a taste of George Szell’s behaviour in rehearsal. Deeply unpleasant.
Also read his comments where he acknowledges going to Szell’s dressing room for advice on how to be a better concertmaster and by following it he thought it made the LSO a better orchestra.
He definitely stormed off the podium at I think, a London based venue, screaming ASSASSINS!!
So? Maybe rightfully so? Because somebody murdered music?
Horrible women are the price we pay for articles like this. Misandry, along with White hatred, are the only allowable bigotries.
You need real friends
Please go make real friends.
Is a musical ear amoral?
In my humble opinion, perhaps not every.
As someone who is drawn towards music played by remarkable human beings of outmost beautiful (or should we say advanced? Noble?) inner qualities, I have reasons to believe many of us can recognize musician’s character, personality traits, core values or absence of them.
It’s often in the subtleties, but it’s there. It’s that something what can’t be faked, learned nor practised.
Past summer i’ve been to Verbier and the musician was making the light of holocaust and even non-chalantly laughed before playing the holocaust-themed piece. Amazing interpret musically of course, but i’ve almost didn’t go to that concert as there were already signs this might be not the kind of artist I could fully respect and music to fully enjoy.
IMHO, in the visual arts the values and the inner psychological landscape of the artist can be observed in more obvious ways, but in classical music they can be observed as well.
To answer your question: no, horrible women are right now the prize we pay .. women who are bad conductresses and bad musicians .. there must be good ones but .. where ?
hear hear!
(Raises hand) I’m superb and need to be fast-tracked to the best job available on account of my gender.
Dreaming of raising your hand again?
Oh!!!I met one the other day. Such talent and integrity I’ve rarely seen in a conductor and I’ve played in orchestras for 20 years. I first met her actually this year, in the hospital, as we both have cancer which is why I dont want to reveal her name here, as I’m not sure she’d want people to know about her condition. She was a protege of Kurt Masur, Jorma Panula etc, she CHOSE not to be famous( in order to develop her skills further) when she could have at the time due to the industry’s obsession with youth ( started conducting with 13, had her diploma with 20, more diplomas and masters etc) ” The orchestra must come first,” she said,” and I had to be actually good first, for them, not use them for me.” It’s not 100% the quote, but I got what she meant. She trusted me with some radio recordings of her doing Wagner, Ravel, Strauss etc, AMAZING. I asked why she wasn’t working more now, and she said it’s hard without an agent. Even though a bunch of major older( or now dead) conductors had recommended her to them , agents had told her she wasn’t pretty enough and with 40, she is considered too old( again, by agents). Still, she has worked quite a bit out there, even under the radar, even without an agent. She was joking ( we both lost our hair not entirely, but enough to… cry and laugh about) that before the pandemic a french orchestra manager who knew how good she was as he had witnessed first hand her superb debut concert with the Orchestre National de France( I heard the live radio-recording), well, he refused to invite her to his now orchestra mainly because he didn’t like her hair!!!(And, I kid you not, this woman doesn’t even hate that manager, she thinks he is one of the few ones who actually know who the good conductors are, and respects him for that alone) “Well, now, I’ll never conduct that orchestra I guess,” she said jokingly showing me her balding head, though I know it pains her being away from her element, her vocation, the only thing she devoted her life to since she was a teenager, and without her non-musician family’s support, might I add. But think about that discussion with the french manager: That was a serious orchestra manager( in her opinion), conducting a serious discussion in 2020 (not 1920) with a serious orchestra conductor of high caliber and he was adamant that she didn’t deserve a career as long as she wasn’t as pretty or young as many other conductresses, and he particularly hated her hair! I’m only saying, since you were wondering what happened to the good female conductors.
Nineties.
Soloist.
Worldwide known venue.
Worldwide known conductor.
Same verbal, and artistic -injustified- repeated attacks as happened to Mr Herseth (My respects to him!).
The only difference is that attacks protracted until after the performance, in conductor’s dressing room.
Don’t forget, it doesn’t take much to reduce musicians to tears.
When I started my musical career I thought I was a tough guy; then came the slings and arrows which upset me a lot, sometimes to tears. An understanding colleague told me that if I was going to survive in the music biz that I’d have to get a tough skin. I tried, but discovered that it wasn’t me; I wasn’t cut out for a music career. Working in another, higher-paying field, and playing music semi-pro was a good balance. No more tears.
And a healthy bank account too!
Today if a conductor treated the musicians the way Reiner and Szell and
company did they simply wouldn’t ever
be invited back to conduct no matter how
talented or famous they are ….or at least
that’s how it should be !
I’ve read about a very unpleasant, long-running opposition to a trombonist by a Romanian conductor in slightly more recent times.
Lord, please don’t get Bill stirred up.
The conductors of Szell’s and Reiner’s era who were “nice guys”, like Mitropoulos, were taken advantage of by players and management.
Carlo Maria Giulini had established himself as a world class conductor by the 1950s. I regret that I came along too late to experience him in Chicago, but if there was anybody he encountered here who didn’t utterly adore him, including musicians, staff, and even the stage crew, I am unaware of who that might be.
Yes and he had the luxury of never being responsible for overseeing a major orchestra full-time. His one foray in LA proved so dispiriting that he opted to never repeat the experience.
Many of the greatest conductors I’ve played under–Haitink, Kubilek (at least when I encountered him) and Tennstedt off the top of my head–were also the kindest. It reminds me of the apologists for the totalitarian regime in China, a variation of Mussolini getting the trains to run on time. Supposedly China’s extraordinary economic rise could not have happened but for the tyranny they were subjected to. An unprovable hypothesis of course, and recent events over there tend to make one skeptical of the efficacy of cruelty.
Mr. Raimi: You’re far too young to have played under the direction of Reiner in Chicago, but when you started your career with the CSO, there were still quite a few musicians in it that went back to the Reiner period. How did they recall him? -as a frightening tyrant?
The comparison with China is specious given that the causes of the economic success are unique to that country and as proven recently attained despite authoritarian rule not because of it. As for the issue of MDs, invariably when musicians were given free rein the results were a disaster. In your own orchestra after the tyranny of Reiner both Kubelik and Martinon were run out of town in part thanks to the behavior of the musicians including the Principal oboe and flute refusing to even acknowledge each others existence. As I recall order and quality were restored only when Solti arrived. Cruel behavior from the podium is clearly unacceptable but an insistence that there is only 1 boss among 100 is required.
The example of the NYPO after Toscanini is another example. Barbirolli, Mitropoulos, Boulez and Mehta were all subject to behavior that resulted in more than one conductor referring to the members of the NYPO as “Murderers Inc” after the mob families. After Bernstein it was generally acknowledged that it took Masur to restore both discipline and quality playing. The one striking exception to the issues with the NYSO from 1943-1970 were the regular guest appearances of George Szell when the orchestra miraculously played together and in tune with vitality appropriate to the piece.
No sane person approves of cruelty in the workplace. That said demanding the best from an organization, holding everyone, especially the CEO/MD, accountable and refusing to settle for less has proven successful in business and the arts.
As tough as Szell was, Reiner took it to whole ‘nother level. I’ve never heard any former Cleveland people describe Szell as abusive.
Today we have soy boys, that’s the difference.
The status of an orchestral musician hasn’t changed much:
The pay (UK) is derisory, the message is ‘you’re dispensable’, the feudalism is everywhere. Now the ‘managers’ are also lords, self elevated mediocrities who describe themselves as ‘Directors’ of this and that and aspire to six figure salaries and arts council jobs.
The maestro shouting might have gone, but the belittlement of the rank and file is never far away…ask that ‘decent human’ called John Wilson: to him you’re either a sycophant (that’s how he expects it) or else an unenthusiastic geriatric at the back of the second violins (he saves his most witheringly witty sarcasm for hapless string players who refuse to smile at his latest quips).
This was incredibly cathartic to read. I myself was once in an orchestra of good reputation where any concerns raised by players to the ears of admin would result in a 10 pm angry phone call from the music director. I had a colleague threatened with firing when management was made aware of their case of chronic depression. It’s not the stuff that happens on podium anymore, but rather away from it, which matters most. Seeing the number of commenters here who would have venerated the perpetrators of this behaviour makes me glad I left the industry.
Sadly, their tyrannical behavior inspired a whole generation of lesser conductors, particularly college and university conductors, who thought they were doing their musicians a favor by treating them so harshly – “real world, professional experience” don’t you know! Sadder still was the degree to which Stockholm Syndrome abounded.
The only reason conductors have to get angry anymore is if their conducting isn’t good enough to be followed clearly.
One ‘Maestro’ allegedly told an orchestra’s string section that “Tha ‘Age of Enleetenment’ auditions are down tha corridor”, apparently amongst a cesspit of demeaning pearls of shimmeringly final recitalesque wisdom. Can’t quite remember who it was although Ida Haendel’s name was mentioned a lot, in association……
How ironic for Christine Lagarde to be making pronouncements about the probity and competence of women!!!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/19/christine-lagarde-avoids-sentence-despite-guilty-verdict-in-negligence-trial