Musicians of the excellent Deutschen Radio Philharmonie in Saarbrücken are excited about the young man they have chosen to be their principal clarinet.
Lyuta Kobayashi, from Stuttgart, is very young… just 19.
One to watch.
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Great! In three years he’ll be ready to be MD of the Orchestre National du Capitole!
Truly, there is nothing to worry about here. Knowing that the LSO picked their principal trombone as an 18 year old in 2014, such appointments are not uncommon in our time with such abundant musicial talent. I shall look forward to Lyuta’s sound forthcoming and it is humbling to know that age does not equate musical talent nor intuition, despite older musicians and contemporaries insisting that age equals some sort of mystical affinity to music and to art. We are entertainers, nothing more and nothing less. What we do is well within what is human. Dispel with such notions of age = better Musician please.
This is very primitive level thinking. It takes lifetimes for even the best to become master interpreters.
You are the one lacking sophistication with such an archaic mindset. Yunchan Lim won Cliburn when he was 18, and is now already considered one of the ‘greats’. Age can tend to mean more time spent at your craft, however if it was always true why is Yunchan Lim now considered to have some of the greatest interpretations of Liszt and Rachmaninoff pieces? Humor my primitive brain if you will.
Do you make any distinction re ‘exceptional,’ or is everyone guaranteed to be a Yunchan Lim?!
He is excellent, but still sounds like a student.
If you wait until after that “lifetime” to hire them you don’t get much out of them.
This is all true, soon there will be no room for older players.
Dear George, “we are entertainers, nothing more and nothing less” refers to performers of classical music? If so, yes, all performers provide “entertainment” TO SOME PEOPLE and revelation and inspiration to others. How do you define “entertainment?” What does your target segment want, expect? Don’t misunderstand me: “entertainment” is by no means bad. One finds it at the Vienna State Opera on many nights of standard repertoire when that place is running on auto-pilot.
But entertainment is not the chief reason I and many others continue to attend many performances, nor is it the reason many performers make the sacrifices to be a performing artist. Your phrase is depressing and underachieving; “nothing more and nothing less” seems to set the goal for a performer at “making do with average achievement” rather than to consistently aspire to greatness. After all, another kind of performer, a sports person, doesn’t run races to come in 3rd or win Silver.
Your comment neglects the many greats – who by definition are much more than just “entertainers,” George. Think of Patty Lupone, Ethel Merman, Katherine Hepburn, Jody Foster, Karl Böhm, Martha Argerich, Birgit Nilsson, Christa Ludwig , Sara Jakubiak, Barry Kosky and Yo Yo Ma. On a bad night, Franz Welser-Möst and Asmik Grigorian are grand (Elektra in Salzburg 2021); on a great night they inspire (Salome in Salzburg 2020). You fail to acknowledge that both age and youth have their benefits. You fail to recognize that age has its recompense in being able to add insight, experience, subtleties of coloration to youthful exuberance and energy and talent. Those who can achieve and COMBINE ALL THIS at a chronologically early stage of life (e.g., Grigorian? the young Astrid Varnay?) are blessed and deservedly placed at the pinnacle of their performance art and leave an indelible mark on our memory if we are fortunate enough to experience them – and these lucky few will give you a black eye for calling them “just entertainers.”
I don’t know why “classical music” brings out the conservatism in so many when it comes to very young performers getting choice jobs. I, for one, after a lifetime of Ricardo Muti “Verdi Requiems” would be very interested in hearing a younger person’s take on it… much as Andris Nelsons puts a new spin on much of Mahler for me – and I twitch but say… “OK, why not?”
So let’s entertain AND aspire for more, combine youth and experience. Then, once in a while, there will be a evening which every performer and audience member longs for: the one to remember.
Come on, George! I agree to a certain point, i.e., as you speak of youthful precociousness. But beyond that, what about the insight and flexible facility the accumulation of experience brings, not only in terms of challenges of playing, but enrichment that comes under various conductors?
The standard of play among young clarinetists these days is astounding, way higher than when I was a teenager. And recall that the great Riccardo Morales became principal at the MET at age 21.
The late, great Stanley Drucker, formerly of the New York Philharmonic was also just about that same age when he joined that orchestra. One difference is that he went to the E-flat clarinet seat and then worked his way to principal. Still, age does not preclude artistry. Congratulations to Mr. Kobayashi.
And don’t forget that the great Mr Drucker did stay there a rather long time!