Finn star: I grew up with Classical Music for Dummies
OrchestrasThe rising Finn Tarmo Peltokoski, at 24 the youngest conductor ever signed by Deutsche Grammophon, talks to BR about his formative influences:
‘I don’t really come from a musical family, but Mozart’s music was always present in our home. We had a CD – something like “Classical Music for Dummies”. It had all the hits on it, including the first movements of the Symphony in G minor. But I can’t remember it specifically. But I do remember that I saw The Magic Flute for the first time when I was about eleven. Mozart was always there somehow.’
“We had a CD”
Did he have access to youtube? It became quite common for music around 2006/2007.
And 13 years ago was iPhone 4, iPad 2. His “when I was 11” was not too long ago.
I don’t remember YouTube in 2006 / 2007 to have quite the classical music selection that it has now.
But who knows, memory is so unreliable…
He probably was like 6 years old. Do you give a youngster like that a smart phone or a computer? I would not.
Little petulant child who got lucky with the PR side of things. A bit like winning a lottery.
Dummies guide to classical music? Sounds more like the state of the industry than anything.
I don’t understand the fuss around him (and yes, I did recently see him conduct).
I understand the fuss. And,yes, i played under him…But what do we orchestra musicians know against the SD armchair conductors…
‘Classical Music for Dummies’ is a good source of basic knowledge for new concert-goers.
His CD sounds like a compilation. Some of those contain pieces played by the best, or are samplers of very good recordings. I only have one — it’s a set of opera arias, several discs — but all from top of the line productions and artists. Quite frankly, I have no wish to sit through all of la Wally or Thais.
I had a book when I was a child — one of the few childhood books I kept — called Fifty Famous Stories for Girls. It contained a few standalone stories, but it was largely excerpts from great novels, usually featuring some chapter in which a girl played a prominent role. That book set me to reading, at a very early age, books from Vanity Fair and The Mill on the Floss and Lorna Doone and John Halifax, Gentleman (which I really had to search for) to the tales of Poe, Hawthornes and many more.
Similarly, my opera compilation, though it contains arias from long-since favourite operas, has also sent me out in search of other recordings by particular artists, or full versions of operas known to me only for their most famous pieces. I’m sure the same could happen for concert music to a young,impressionable ear.
Well, this dummy, Tarmo Peltokoski, found Wagner’s Ring in Youtube when he was eleven. He read the scores, 800 pages. 2-3 years ago, he conducted the whole Ring at Bel Canto Festival in a small Finnish town, Eurajoki, now called Finnish Bayreuth. Orchestra parts were arranged for an organ, played by Ilpo Laspas. Peltokoski conducted the singers. By doing you learn. You don’t need PR.
Whoopi doo for him. Of course he needed the PR.
Lots of conductors have read and studied just like him. Many are just as precocious. But he gets chosen to do it. Why? Pure luck.
Ah, there we finally get to the sour grapes root of all of the griping in these pages.
Paavo – thanks for this info. So “His” Ring was accompanied by an organist (the real star) and TP cued like a prompt! No orchestra involved. LOL
He is the one who sat and did the transcription of the whole Ring for organ.
Great comment, Paavo, despite the thing that there 100+ conductors in the world who did the Ring and 10+ more operas and still sitting without agent counting their 10 000 euros per year.
Orchestra (DKBremen) sounded great with him in Vienna just recently – VPh sounded great as well BUT after the interval it became very clear that Nelsons had no idea what to do with them in Sibelius 2 – it was still impressive because of the orchestra’s quality and all the colours – but it was a series of “Stimmungsgemälde” without any drive – before the interval it was very different (Gauthier Capucon/Shostakovich) and just like the energy Peltokoski oversaw some evenings before. Before and after the interval.
Young Finnish conductors could pass gas and the media circus would turn their toilet rolls into newspaper headlines.
Oh … a little of the green-eyed monster there! If only you’ d been Finnish just think of the musical career you might have had … or, perhaps, not … Anyone else think executives at DG actually recognise serious talent … or was Karajan a dud too?!
I wasn’t really commenting on Tarmo, more commenting on the media’s penchant for generating promotional hype to make money.
I think the highest priority of the executives at DG (Universal Music Group) is to make as much money from selling recordings as possible. You can see how this, and general media hype, may go hand in hand. They’re not making recordings for fun, it is a business.
SC, the highest priority of executives in any corporation is to make as much money selling whatever they happen to produce.
A little too prompt a diagnosis? Any number of different motives could lie behind the remark whose provenance you supply us with.
The Finn conductors coming up are so young it makes one wonder if they also get shaving lessons before leaving the conservatory.
How extraordinarily ordinary.
I GREW UP WITH CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR DUMMIES
Hence, I’m fine with the yellow label.
He’s a great, natural musician, a fantastic pianist and people are slagging him off.
You should check his debut disc of Mozart symphonies. It’s astonishingly brilliant. Norman – a review from you?
He’s miles ahead of Makela, Viotti, Ticciato, John Wilson and all the wannabees.
We’ll see in 20 years where we are with those conductors (including the new Wunderkind).
Ticciati. It appears there are more than one of them.
You have to wonder where all the bitterness comes from.
Envy?
You do indeed, Wyllim. A lot of it is, in my opinion, reactionary. The Golden Age of classical music recordings is well and truly over, like continuous vibrato, and we are hearing new ways of doing things from conductors who do not come from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire (or indeed were born when the Habsburgs were still ruling it).
Meanwhile, people like Makela are attracting large and enthusiastic audiences, thereby helping to sustain the orchestras they conduct. But it doesn’t sound like Reiner or Szell …
Is this really necessary? This is truly ordinary, uninteresting, cheap and shallow. Any good PR agency would discourage him to give any interview, if this is really the level of his answers… But on the other hand do not expect profoundness from such a young artist. Very few musicians could give us something magical at this age, and all of them were soloists: think of Kissin, …. and actually no other name comes to me (please help). No conductor could give something truly moving, touching or deep before his (or her) fourties (maybe Cantelli could, or Fricsay). So give all these young boys (Peltokoski, Mäkelä, Rouvali and so on) time to develop, without pushing them so hard! And hope that they understand that time and life experience is a key component of being a (good) conductor.
I won’t comment on his music, as I’ve not heard him in a hall, however, it appears he has yet to reach that point in life where a razor would be a daily part of his morning regimen.
How many people read the article?
No excuses… there’s Google translate etc.
The question that the journalist asked was “when did he hear Mozart for the first time”…
So he answered the question in good faith.
What’s the problem?
His answer to that question was just too long.
Too long for your attention span, apparently. That’s why he conducts and you don’t.
However, I am still disappointed that Paavo is not doing Mozart symphonies with the Kammerphilharmonie.
So we now have two Koskis. I suppose this one’s a straight Lutheran elk.
Heard a few concerts with him “conducting”
An other overrated overadvertised student-level “conductor” with a strong PR team backing him.
He is like Gergiev, waving his arms like windmills while the orchestra is trying not to pay attention to his pointless tectonic-dancing type of conducting. The good orchestra players are to praise, not this dilettante goober
Hey LAPhil, here’s your next young star MD!