Obituary: The elusive Seiji Ozawa was Japan’s greatest peacemaker
NewsThe late conductor, whose death was announced today, was not just the first Japanese to command the summits of western classical music. He was also an intelligent leader who used his human contacts to bring nations closer together, especially helping to heal wounds between Japan and China, the country of his birth.
Seiji was born in Japanese-occupied Manchuria in September 1935. Victory in a French conducting competition at Besancon earned him an invitation to Tanglewood to study with the sage-like Pierre Monteux. He quickly came to the attention of Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan, both of whom became mentors. Invitations flooded in.
In 1964 he became music director at Ravinia, Chicago’s summer festival. The following year he was signed by the Toronto Symphony, in 1970 by the San Francisco Symphony and in 1973 by the Boston Symphony, where he remained in charge for 29 years. His era was marred by intermittent eruptions of player dissatisfaction, but the dissidents were swiftly eased out and his tenure continued unchallenged. His limited command of English did not help.
In 1979 Ozawa was invited to China to conduct the first Beethoven ninth symphony in the country in almost two decades. Later that year, he brought the Boston Symphony on tour. He returned often to the land of his birth and buried his mother’s ashes in his childhood courtyard.
A close friend of the Sony founders Akio Morita and Norio Ohga, he solicited huge donations to the Boston Symphony, including a building at Tanglewood.
After Boston he served seven years as music director at the Vienna State Opera. He founded a summer orchestra in Japan, the Saito Kinen Orchestra, named after his teacher.
Ozawa’s podium style moderated from early Bernstein calisthenics to later Karajan impassivity. He was an advocate of a small group of contemprary composers, notably Messaien, Ligeti, Dutilleux and Takemitsu.
Boston conflicts notwithstanding, he was not a vindictive man. He could be exceptionally generous to colleagues who fell on hard times. In 2010 he was diagnosed with oesephogal cancer, which consumed his energies in later years.
photo: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
What, was the aging Karajan ever impassive? Like him or not, he was always expressive and in control, even when in deep pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVlECfjJ72Y
“Japan’s greatest peacemaker”???? As for “elusive”, what does that even mean, just because he didn’t speak English well? he certainly wasn’t elusive in Japanese, and his conducting and interpretations were hardly elusive…
The Boston Globe opted for “acclaimed” and “amazed by lithe physicality”, while the NYT settled for “captivating” and “high-spirited”. That pretty much sums him up.
It is odd that his English didn’t improve that much considering that he spent 50+ years working in the West, including 29 in Boston. I know the Japanese aren’t know for taking to the lingua franca, but you’d think he had an early start and all…
When the mood struck ( as it sometimes does here ) he expressed himself extremely well in English, especially when he’s talking about teaching conducting and the relationship between technique/ inspiration and who you are as a person all fusing together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3OiEdS5-9Y
Languages are best learned in childhood. The earlier the better. Young adults without a foundation will have an infinitely harder time to catch up. So, no, Ozawa probably didn’t have an early start.
I’m saddened by the loss of Seiji Ozawa. As a regular BSO concertgoer over the years, I had the opportunity to hear Ozawa regularly. There were many not-very-good years at the BSO, his lengthy “middle” period in Boston, in which Seiji gave mostly uninspired, forgettable concerts. The nadir was a horrific Brahms 1 in about 1989, an utterly boring and uninvolving performance where I kept looking at my watch wondering how soon it would be over (even as I could sing the entire symphony by heart).
But something happened during Seiji’s last 5 years in Boston when he knew he was finishing up his tenure, and it is this period that I will remember him for. It was as if a switch got turned on overnight, and Seiji led breathtaking concert after breathtaking concert. We kept wondering – where was this version of Seiji over the last 20+ years? But make no mistake, this was his golden era in Boston, and it was a sustained period of often great music-making. I didn’t want it to end! (But sadly, it did.)
The pinnacle of that period was an out-of-body performance of Bruckner 9. I caught the last concert in the cycle of four, and almost didn’t go because Richard Dyer (the Boston Globe critic who had a great set of ears – and a sharp pen) panned the first concert. And I don’t doubt Dyer was accurately reporting what he heard. But something happened between the first and fourth concerts (my guess is Seiji wasn’t ready for the first performance but got it together soon thereafter), and when I heard the Tuesday night performance, I heard the greatest Bruckner 9 of my life – and one of the 3 greatest concerts of anything – with a quality of playing from the BSO I almost didn’t know they were capable of. I didn’t initially understand how this could have possibly happened – as if lightning struck – but it was the most powerful, sublime, hair-raising, horrible, and unbelievably moving performance of this supreme masterpiece of masterpieces. It was years later when I found out what happened, ironically by watching a documentary on Herbert von Karajan. Seiji said that Karajan asked him shortly before his death to perform Bruckner’s 9th in his memory in Berlin after he died, and Seiji did. The Boston performance was later that year. So this performance was Seiji paying his respects to his mentor and friend, Herbert von Karajan. And what a tribute it was. Ozawa honored Karajan – and himself – with a performance that far surpassed many other wonderful live performances I’ve heard of that monumental symphony (Luisi, Abbado, Haitink, Janowski, Eschenbach, Barenboim, Zander, Nezet-Seguin, etc.).
During that last golden period, I also remember moving performances in particular of Mahler 3, Shostakovich 5, Das Lied, Turangalila, etc. Whereas for many years I had approached most Seiji concerts with indifference and resignation, during his last years I greatly anticipated the next Ozawa concert and was rarely disappointed. It was an amazing capstone to a very uneven tenure, but Seiji went out the way he should have – with this listener at least wanting more. It’s only sad Ozawa didn’t put the same effort into his work in Boston for many years preceding those last five. But those final years showed us what Ozawa was capable of doing, and by any standards, he was showing himself to be one of the world’s greatest conductors and deserving of the praise of Herbert von Karajan and others. And this is the Seiji Ozawa I will fondly remember, not that “absentee” conductor who showed up for many years but somehow still wasn’t there. We did have some great music-making in Boston during the Ozawa era at the end, and I feel lucky for one to have been able to experience it and so greatly enjoy it.
Rest in peace, Maestro. I’ll play Bruckner’s 9th in your memory today.
Now, this is a terrific balanced and generous writeup.
It is disconcerting, but more important heartwarming, to read all of these strongly fond and appreciative memories — specifically of Ozawa’s stick and his skillful ways with the non-mainstream repertory (mainstream in the predictable sense). Disconcerting because during the two decades plus or minus (1974 on), it seemed the yawns would never end, meaning the maestro would never change or grow when leading the standard fare from Haydn to Dvorak: featureless, generalized, unidiomatic, dismaying to musicians and audience alike. And then something happened, as noted above.
i wonder what accounted for this sudden lease of life which you both mention ?
Hilary, I don’t know for sure. What someone told me (third-hand, so it might not be accurate) was that Ozawa was thinking about his legacy and realized he hadn’t done his best in Boston and decided to put a lot more effort into his final years. We were certainly aware during the “middle years” that while Ozawa’s concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, and elsewhere outside Boston were often highly acclaimed, we were more regularly hearing the opposite – uninspired, uninvolved, unmemorable performances in Boston. I remember a conversation with a friend in that era and we were wondering what on earth they could be hearing from Ozawa in Europe that was receiving such acclaim given the fairly awful and boring performances we were routinely hearing in Boston. It was mystifying.
I’ll speculate: Ozawa preserved his energies for the work that mattered to him during this middle era – and it wasn’t in Boston. He never stuck around Boston any longer than he had to, and was constantly going back and forth. My guess is he focused on his work outside of Boston and didn’t really prioritize doing anything more than the bare minimum here – and it showed.
But perhaps near the end Ozawa came to the realization he had really shortchanged the BSO, and wanted to leave an artistic legacy that would be fondly remembered after he was gone. At that point he perhaps shifted his focus and put in the hard work in Boston that he had previously reserved for performances in Europe and Japan. Or maybe he had just reached an artistic maturity by that time in his life that wasn’t present earlier. Who knows for sure?
But there were plenty of Boston music lovers who had stopped listening to Seiji by the time he “got it together” in Boston and therefore missed the best of what he had to offer – which was considerable. I don’t fault anyone for that, because quite honestly I did seriously think about giving up my BSO subscription during the darkest days of Seiji circa 1992-1996. But I hung in there believing that better days were coming, and like all the others who did and who continued to listen objectively, we were rewarded with those last 5 years. They were really exceptional. And my best guess is THAT was what Europe was hearing during the barren Boston “middle years.”
The other thing that many don’t realize is the reason why Seiji stayed in Boston as long as he did – or more properly why he was not pushed out by BSO leadership in Boston long after he had worn out his welcome with the orchestra. And that’s because Seiji brought in big Japanese $$$$ to the BSO. The sponsorship money that large Japanese corporations showered on the BSO was the glue that kept Seiji in Boston for so long. And it was pretty well understood that when Seiji left, that revenue stream would disappear with him – as it did.
I’ve heard it said through the grapevine that this is the reason why the Vienna State Opera hired Seiji to be its artistic director. Certainly it wasn’t because of Ozawa’s deep and rich operatic experience – which didn’t exist. And certainly it wasn’t because there weren’t better artistic choices for who to hire. Rather, the managers of the Vienna State Opera understood that Seiji came with a dowry, and they were eager to be showered with a (new) income stream of Japanese corporate $$$$ for as long as it lasted. And that’s how it played out.
I’ve heard it said that artistically the Seiji era at the Vienna State Opera was indistinguished and not memorable (I have no first-hand knowledge so I really can’t say for sure). But the improvement in the State Opera’s finances was quite memorable. And as with Boston, when Seiji left, the Japanese corporate money dried up in Vienna as well.
Thanks to Herr Doktor for these memories of Ozawa’s Boston years, which accord largely with mine. Pure speculation but I think he (among others: Maazel, Levine, Barenboim) had positioned himself so assiduously for the Berlin Philharmonic post after Karajan died that when he didn’t get it, he may have coasted in Boston for a while. Still, during the 90s, I heard many memorable performances. As always, the large scale works/operas excited him most: Mahler’s 3rd, the Berlioz Requiem, Verdi’s Falstaff, The Rake’s Progress.
I saw what must have been his last performance in America – in 2010 he came with Saito Kinen for a few concerts at Carnegie Hall, including Britten’s War Requiem. You could tell he was ailing – they had to create an intermission for him to rest, basically. But it was an incredibly moving performance. He loved that piece.
I remember Ozawa being acclaimed primarily for 20th century music. This is often the case with many currently prominent conductors. The considerable skills required to deliver, say, a memorable performance of a Stravinsky ballet, are not adequate for well characterized and uplifting interpretations of the 18th and 19th century music.
The Telegraph is under the impression that Yo Yo Ma is Japanese. Unbelievable, especially in an article that has had years to be checked, viz the Ozawa obit. This is what you get from interns. Particularly stupid interns, since the name alone tells you he isn’t Japanese. Welcome to quality newspapers 2024.
And as ever, the BBC’s so-called ‘culture’ web page is devoid of any mention of his death. The last thing you’ll find on him is from 2012. Perhaps they can only cope with having to report one unfortunate demise a day, and that spot’s been taken up with a pop guitarist, about whom I’ve heard nothing before. A sad, accidental death admittedly, but even as his family have paid tribute to him with the following comment, that his loss will “be felt in and around the music world”, so too Ozawa’s death, and it should not go unmarked by BBC News.
Well the problem is that they all look the same.
Prominent front page obit in The New York Times Saturday edition.
As far as I know, he has never slapped anybody — so of very limited interest to the experts sharing musical opinions here.
His english was fine. He was able to express himself as well as most english speakers. Try and watch programs on him.
I remember that Bruckner 9 to which Herr Doktor referred and i agree with his assessment. I mourn Seiji. He was a wonderful human being.
These colorful backgrounders might be of interest here:
https://www.nippon.com/en/features/c03707/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/13/opinion/seiji-ozawa-boston-symphony-orchestra-legacy/