Just in: Christoph Eschenbach is music director again
OrchestrasThe German conductor is back in business.
Word just in from Poland: Christoph Eschenbach will become Artistic Director of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic on September 1, 2024, and will hold this position until the end of the 2028/2029 season.
The former Houston, Philadelphia and NSO Washington chief is 84 next month. He was born in Breslau, then part of Nazi Germany now Wroclaw in Poland.
Another conductor, Otto Klemperer, was also born in Breslau/Wrochlaw.
Please don’t place these two conductors in one league, there’s a vast difference. People actually still listen to Klemperer.
Name one Eschenbach recording with hearing?
I don´t listen to Klemperer.Dull,greyish,sleepwalking,rhytmically slack.Never understood what folks find with him.
Kurt Masur as well
His career is a miracle considering his conducting/music making. I heard him live on many occasions over the last 15 years and can safely say there’s been great consistency in an absolute lack of interpretation or any musical ideas. Bravo!
Sounds like a description of his Berlin successor.
Who is that?
Decent pianist in his day.
Eschenbach tried hard to ruin the Philadelphia Orchestra. Wonder boy is taking up where he left off.
He came here to Hong Kong last year and gave a rather nice concert, much more inventive and characterful than I expected. A lovely evening
Halleluja for Eschenbach’s appointment to this orchestra. The public in Wroclaw will be hearing and seeing many of Eschenbach usual pet’s geniuses coming to town starting from 2024-25 season: Tzimon Barto, Dimitri Maslennikov, Dan Zhu, Iskandar Widjaja, Stathis Karapanos, John Axelrod
You forgot to include Christopher Park in this list of Eschenbach’s obsession……and yeah why not to bring on the “muscle man” Tzimon Barto to hammer the beautiful piano owned by this great concert hall in Wroclaw….a Season without Tzimon Barto would be incomplete when Eschenbach rules!
Eschenbach is the living proof that failing upward is a thing. Ask any orchestra musician who has ever had the misfortune of playing under him.
(Also just to be clear, I’m not saying that Wroclaw is upward of Philly / Hamburg / NSO.. it’s just staggering that anyone thinks he needs to be hired for anything)
Definitely past it as a conductor. Saw him conduct Beethoven 8 and Mahler 1. So many wrongly cued entries and totally wrong musical ideas, that orchestral players were openly laughing onstage. He may have been good once upon a time, but no longer.
Wrocław:
the first w is said like a d
the last w like an f
the ł like a w
the c like an s
The NFM Chorus is superb.
Classy concert hall too.
No, the first w is said like a v!
Just to avoid misunderstandings, Breslau had been a German city centuries before the Nazis came to power.
I hope they have lots of extra time…They’re going to need it.
I know a lot of people like to rag on Eschenbach, and he’s not my favorite. But I’ve heard him in concert several times with different orchestras and they have all been good shows.